Shin Megami Tensei IV Announced for 3DS

After years of remakes, ports, and a single, excellent foray into the HD generation of consoles, Atlus has announced a brand new entry in the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series, the first true sequel since 2003′s Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Initially, 2007′s Nintendo DS entry, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey started out as the fourth game in the series, however that changed early on since the game didn’t really match the tone of the other games. The last few years has seen almost nothing but remakes of the Persona games, and with an all but confirmed Persona 5 on the horizon, it’s kind of a relief to see an original entry in the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series.

Shin Megami Tensei is an RPG series built around the idea of dungeon crawling and summoning demons, typically in a post-apocalyptic interpretation of Tokyo. The series started in 1987 with Megami Tensei on the Famicom, and has gone on to contain over 50 titles, including popular spinoffs like the Persona series. While never reaching the sales of a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest game, the series is very popular in Japan, and since 2003, America has gotten nearly every game in some form or another.

The big point of concern for a lot of fans right now is that the game is for 3DS instead of the PS3. I don’t personally mind this, and would rather Atlus be able to keep making games and do it on smaller hardware than go broke and have to shut down like many other third party studios over the last few years. I’m actually very curious to see if the game is going to be a first person RPG using something similar to the Etrian Odyssey 4 engine, or if the game is going to take the third person approach and take more from Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne.

Right now there’s just a teaser site with some windy sounds and a pair of art pieces. No word as to when it will be released (or localized). Hopefully more appears over the next few days.

Shin Megami Tensei IV Teaser Site (JP)

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Brandon

Brandon Dickerson is our resident music man and local video game cynic. He dabbles in many other fields and loves to expand his horizons on the things he loves. While focusing primarily on games and music, he's never afraid to get his hands dirty with just about anything geeky. Follow him on twitter @minusworlds

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