The Shin Megami Tensei series has been around for two decades, with various off-shoots for multiple systems, but it is only in the last two years that I have become enamored with the role-playing franchise. In particular, Persona 3 and 4, two of the best games of the last ten years, completely won me over, and gave me a budding interest in the rest of the games that share the MegaTen name. Though it has become a critical darling since 2007, the Persona series is really just a spin-off of the main Shin Megami Tensei line, with the last of those games, Nocturne, being released in 2004. The next SMT title, DS exclusive Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, is a return to the traditional dungeon-crawling of the pre-Persona 3 days, but a sci-fi story and setting should set this apart from any other game under the SMT name. It’s hard to get a solid impression of a 40-50 hour role-playing game from a 30-minute presentation, but from what I saw today, it looks like both diehard and new MegaTen fans have something to look forward to next spring.

In Strange Journey, a mysterious void has appeared over the South Pole, and you are one of the explorers chosen to figure out what it is and to put a stop to it. Most SMT games take place in the near future, but this one seems even more futuristic, with a heavy emphasis on science fiction elements. The Persona games weren’t exactly fantasy-based—they took place in modern-day Japan—but they were more traditional, story-wise, than Strange Journey appears to be. The game is also a spiritual successor to Nocturne, which had dark themes and very challenging dungeon-crawling gameplay. In other words, from what I understood, Strange Journey will have a blend of conventional and unique gameplay elements, and it looks pretty interesting.



Because the game is coming out for the DS, my first question was whether or not it would utilize the touch screen. That was answered quickly during the web demo earlier today, with Atlus PR Guru Aram Jabbari explaining that Strange Journey was built from the ground up specifically for Nintendo’s handheld. With the map on the bottom screen and the player’s point of view on top, I watched as he used the stylus to manipulate the map, moving it around without having to move the character or go into a separate menu. This should come in handy when scanning the area for Forma, which is collected and used in crafting new weapons and armor. I imagine the touch screen has other game-specific uses as well, but it was hard to tell without seeing it in person.

Strange Journey was built on the Etrian Odyssey engine, which unfortunately doesn’t mean a whole lot to me since I never played Etrian Odyssey. An Atlus-published DS dungeon crawler that was released in May 2007, Etrian Odyssey had a first-person viewpoint and 3D environments. Though Aram stated that Strange Journey will not use Etrian Odyssey’s map creation, the exploration and battles will be first person, which is a throwback to older dungeon crawlers.

Demon interaction is very important in Strange Journey, perhaps moreso than any previous Shin Megami Tensei game. Your party will be made up of one human (that’s you) and three demons, who you can recruit with the skills of persuasion, or in some cases by defeating them in battle. Demons can be fused to make other demons, and if it’s anything like persona fusion, that alone could easily become an extremely addictive part of the game. (I don’t even want to tell you how many hours I spent trying to make Alice with Megido in Persona 3). Bosses can even be fused into party members after a boss fight, if you have the right demons to make them. Demons have same general elemental/melee strengths and weaknesses, and the magic spells used are pretty much the same as past SMT games. If you manage to fuse together an awesome, one-of-a-kind demon and want to share it with a friend, you can give him a code to use in his own game to get the same demon, which is a new feature. Many of the demons should look familiar to anyone has played a MegaTen game before, since they have appeared in past games as either demons or personas.



Demons in your compendium can be called upon to join your party or put away and replaced; in the simplest terms, it’s almost like a mature version of Pokemon. Making a well balanced party, with different spells and alignments, seems key to survival. Also, like in the first Persona, each character is equipped with a gun, giving an additional skill in addition to standard melee attacks. If you get stuck in a simple random battle, you can use what Aram referred to as “the Earthbound button”—just hit X, and your party will automatically use melee attacks until the fight is over. This isn’t recommended for harder battles, though, and would probably lead to a quick demise. Demons can work together in battle to form demon combos, dealing out more damage to enemies. Over time, your knowledge of the demons in your compendium will grow, and once the analysis is complete, you will be able to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the same types of creatures when you meet them in battle.

With a 40 to 50 hour campaign and some side quests as well, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey appears like it could be another worthy entry in the series, despite coming out on a handheld. While early 2010 may already be getting crowded with JRPGs (in fact, Strange Journey recently moved from its March 9 release date due to a case of “triskaidekaphobia”), but this game definitely offers a little something different for fans of the genre. Atlus also recently announced that like other games the publisher has released, Strange Journey will come bundled with the soundtrack at no extra cost.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey comes out on March 23, 2010, exclusively for the DS.