Totally unexpected - Devil Summoner

[passby]

I'm secretly counting the 'next release' of various development teams relative to next gen releases.

For e.g. the 'Silent Hill' team has been quiet for too - they must be preparing a next-gen title.

Atlus' 'Shin Megami' team has also been quiet since their last 'Digital Devil Saga' release, so I've been expecting them to debut a next-gen game as well. I was mistaken, and surprised when they announced their new current-gen project - a new 'Devil Summoner'

Get the impressive screens here

 

[oi]

Is there a set release date? Nocturne was pretty sweet, and I'll hopefully get Digital Devil Saga in the mail next week.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Wait, what?

Have I been missing something?

The Megaten series and the Digital Devil Series are completely different, aren't they? Perhaps they're done by the same team? I often fail to read credits... yeah, I'm a jerk, but last I recall they're completely seperate.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

Wait, what?

Have I been missing something?

The Megaten series and the Digital Devil Series are completely different, aren't they? Perhaps they're done by the same team? I often fail to read credits... yeah, I'm a jerk, but last I recall they're completely seperate.

DDS is a spinoff of SMT. In the US, they even called it Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga. It uses a lot of the same character models for the demons.

Anyway, the new Devil Summoner game looks very cool. I just hope it eliminates some of the flaws of its predecessors. I own Persona 1 & 2 and Shin Megami Tensei, and they all have an insane number of SLOW random battles. SMT sped the battles up a little bit, but they still occur far too often. To be honest. . . I spent about an hour leveling up in SMT, then I got into a random battle and some enemy used an instant death spell on my main character. I got an instant GAME OVER. I shut my PS2 off and never played it since.

 

[passby]

That's the 'Megami' series for you. A dungeon crawler in every sense of the word - lots of dungeons, lots of fighting, lots of leveling up. So it's not really a flaw - it was intentional, and most who play RPGs long enough know it. Certainly that made many people unhappy. My first taste was Digital Devil Saga, and I eventually resorted to cheat codes to deactivate all random battles.

The usual symptoms are here. It looks very, very interesting, You think you want it, but you're afraid that it'll be a hardcore dungeon crawl again...

Maybe there's hope. From what I gather from gamefaqs importers, DDS1 had faster combat. Then DDS2 accelerated level-up rates significantly so fewer-to-no random encounter gameovers.

As for release date, I won't be surprised if it sees 2006.

 

[oi]

Hehe, I enjoyed the fighting in Nocturne alot at first, but it got pretty tedious after a while to say the least. When I got to level 50ish I just said 'screw it' and stopped doing stuff and just leveled to 67 in Yoyogi Park (I could get Kali at 67). And after that I just escaped/used that spell that lowers encounters through the rest of the game.

It's just that the small amounts of story you get, combined with the awesome presentation, just forces you to play through it all, no matter how tedious the combat gets, hehe. If they just added some more story parts and lessened the combat 'a bit', it would get alot better, even though I think it's pretty awesome as it is already.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

The usual symptoms are here. It looks very, very interesting, You think you want it, but you're afraid that it'll be a hardcore dungeon crawl again....

Hehe you hit the nail on the head perfectly. I was absolutely floored by the SMT trailer. It had a totally fresh, bizarre art style, environments that looked like something I really wanted to explore, Dante jumping off of a skyscraper, and some creepy, adrenaline-pumping music. I even showed it to a couple of my non-gamer friends and they said the same thing: "Holy crap! I want to play that!" Unfortunately, SMT turned out to be a dungeon crawler that was just as tedious and flawed as its predecessors.

If Atlus could create a story-driven SMT game that was open-ended, had quick random battles, and had dungeons that weren't just a bunch of rectangular hallways with the same texture map painted on them, they could potentially have the best RPG this generation (not like there's much competition).

It seems like Persona 1 & 2 and SMT had all the ingredients for a hit RPG except one thing: fun. The gameplay in those games felt more like torture that you had to go through to earn the next bit of plot or character development. Heck, they have dungeons where you walk into a big room and the floor is covered with trap doors that make you drop to the level below. The only way through is by trial and error, so you have to keep trying over and over again, fighting 1000 s-l-o-w random battles on your way back up each time you fall down. Who the hell thought this was fun?

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Which is why I NEVER play a megaten game without a gameguide. It's just not worth the frustration. Also, gameguides tend to actually make things quite a bit easier with respect to megaten... not alway true for other games, since it sometimes just feels like one long "duh".

Also, from what I've heard Avatar Tuner 2 should do a good job of keeping people happy "supposedly" the encounter rate has been toned down while the story has been toned up. Though we hear this almost all the time with respect to Megaten.

Also, somewhat off topic... especially considering we're supposed to be talking about summoner... but didn't the spell avatar wrong?? It should be "abata-" but in the game its "abataru"... avatal tuner?? Random tought, sorry.

 

[StarShoe]

No offence, but if you guys thought SMT:Nocturne was tedious and flawed, then you guy are just incompetent gamers. The encounter rate is about the same as the FF games, the game has an automap and there is a bucket load of save points.

 

[oi]

And no offence, but if you didn't think the battles got tedious after a while, you just have to be a masochist. Although for Nocturne I think the only thing you'd need a guide for is some of the bosses, since it's fairly straight forward other than that (of course if you want all the specal fusions it becomes a different matter). But it's just extremely annoying when you have a party set up for physical combat and then you meet a boss that's immune to physical, or the ones using death/expel in general.

 

[passby]

Title is Devil Summoner Kuzuha Raidou - the Kanji threw me off there. Official statement is that this is still a 'working title'.

... but didn't the spell avatar wrong?? It should be "abata-" but in the game its "abataru"... avatal tuner??

The katagana is OK. If you look carefully there is no 'v' pronounciation in the language. Several katagana characters have more than one pronounciation. The 'ru' at the end in this case is silent/slight, and helps the native Japanese reader pronounce it better.

The official site has an interview with the producer and director. Many interesting points.

- Producer/Art director Kazuma was thinking that news he reads about his country is so depressing nowadays. So this game will be more upbeat and 'genki'. He hopes the players will feel cheerful playing it! Hard to imagine for a 'Megaten' title. I'm certainly curious to see how it will turn out.

- Protagonist Kuzuha Raidou is a rookie detective and from the 14th generation of a family of 'Devil Summoners'. The interview seems to indicate that he will be against the demons that prey on humans, sort of like an exorcist/ghostbuster. I suppose this will help to contribute to the 'feel-good' effect Kaneko hopes to acheive.

- He also mentioned that since the protagonist is a rookie detective, there are adventure game elements. Combat will also have action game elements. This title will 'really feel different'.

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

spent about an hour leveling up in SMT, then I got into a random battle and some enemy used an instant death spell on my main character. I got an instant GAME OVER. I shut my PS2 off and never played it since.

Your missing out man. Nocturne was easily my fav RPG this gen. Did the battles in nocturne get tedious after awhile? Yes. Is it not the same with like every RPG ever? No. Seriously I have yet to play an rpg where I at some point I didn't get pissed at the random battles. The story in this game was sooooo amazing though that it hardly mattered.

Although for Nocturne I think the only thing you'd need a guide for is some of the bosses, since it's fairly straight forward other than that (of course if you want all the special fusions it becomes a different matter). But it's just extremely annoying when you have a party set up for physical combat and then you meet a boss that's immune to physical, or the ones using death/expel in general.

Yet another quality I loved about nocturne. I play tons and tons of rpgs and almost all are insanely easy by the end. I can't tell u how many final bosses I've one hit KOed.. nocturne however was totally different in that regard. The final boss was totally insane. I died three times attempting that battle before I just lvled to 99 and got the final magatama (sp?) that added +40 to all ur stats. (I'm not talking about the 'normal' end boss though I'm talking about the huge demon guy with 66k hp and insane def). The Sound track was amazing, the story was amazing, the art was amazing. I couldn't care less about game play given it's other strengths to tell u the truth. if your looking for a deeper gamming experience this is the game for you. If you looking for quick and painless entertainment play CSS.

 

[oi]

Haha, yeah, Lucifer is what I call a REAL boss.

 

[Shark Sandwich]

spent about an hour leveling up in SMT, then I got into a random battle and some enemy used an instant death spell on my main character. I got an instant GAME OVER. I shut my PS2 off and never played it since.

Your missing out man. Nocturne was easily my fav RPG this gen. Did the battles in nocturne get tedious after awhile? Yes. Is it not the same with like every RPG ever? No. Seriously I have yet to play an rpg where I at some point I didn't get pissed at the random battles. The story in this game was sooooo amazing though that it hardly mattered.

I'm going to give SMT another shot. For me, it was just like the Persona games: lots of fresh original ideas, but a few inexplicable design choices that lessened my enjoyment considerably. I managed to have a lot of fun with those games regardless, so hopefully I will be able to do the same with SMT.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Ummm... I think you missed my point passby...

I'd say about 99% of the time words that make use of "er" "ar" 'ir" "or" are engrished into kata as "a-". In Avatar tuner "avatar" is spelled "abata-ru". Normally, in Kata when a word ends in "ru" it's an "l", such as "hospital" becomes "hosupitaru". So what comes to minds is the were trying to turn "avatar" into "avatal"... not a word as far as I know, but that never stopped Engrish before. Nitpicking to the extreme, but peaked my curiousity.

 

[one]

Ummm... I think you missed my point passby...

I'd say about 99% of the time words that make use of "er" "ar" 'ir" "or" are engrished into kata as "a-". In Avatar tuner "avatar" is spelled "abata-ru". Normally, in Kata when a word ends in "ru" it's an "l", such as "hospital" becomes "hosupitaru". So what comes to minds is the were trying to turn "avatar" into "avatal"... not a word as far as I know, but that never stopped Engrish before. Nitpicking to the extreme, but peaked my curiousity.

The word "avatar" originally came from Hindu/Sanscrit, so I guess it's pronounced like "abata-ru" in this use in the game though I'm not really sure about the actual Sanscrit pronunciation. For example, karma is spelled "karuma" in Japanese katakana instead of English-oriented "ka-ma". Anyway "Megami Tensei" (Goddess Metempsychosis) refers to Vishnu goddess in the Hindu myth who has 10 avatars. OTOH, "abata-" is pretty much about a personal icon in online communities aka avatar.

IIRC the avatar in Ultima was also translated as "abata-ru".

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Praise be! That was an excellent explanation. Makes me want to browse up on my mid-asia mythologies. Very nice catch one and very much appreciated.

Another question though... Metempsychosis == reincarnation?

Or am I wrong about tensei == buddhist reincarnation (soul transmigration and so on -- bah, I'm sure you know what I mean)

 

[passby]

Unnecessary complication, me thinks.

Re: the 'ar' issue:
If it ended with 'ar', it will be 'a' - ala 'Grandia'. The 'ru' as we are aware of, diffrentiates this for the Japanese speaker - ala 'Final Fantasy'. I concede this deduction of mine is not academic, but rather via observations of usages I encounter.

Re: the 'ba' issue:
Take a glance at some Japanese articles. You'll see a lot of katagana for sounds that the native language does not have. 'Virgin company', 'software version', 'Advent Children', 'Windows XP', etc. etc. Examples are all over the place. The Japanese speakers know that it is a substitution, and will automatically pronounce it correctly.

 

[one]

Re: the 'ar' issue:
If it ended with 'ar', it will be 'a' - ala 'Grandia'. The 'ru' as we are aware of, diffrentiates this for the Japanese speaker - ala 'Final Fantasy'. I concede this deduction of mine is not academic, but rather via observations of usages I encounter.

I think Glandia is just Glandia, like Galcia or galeria in a Latin/Hispanic language flavor...

Japanese pronunciation/spelling can't distinguish "ar" from "er"/"r" at the end of a word, and "tuner" in Avatar Tuner is not spelled "chu-na-ru", it's "chu-na-" ("chu-na" is also used BTW). Though I thought the creaters of the game might be so sticky about details (often seen in 'cult' series) they took its original Sanscrit pronuciation (or French may pronounce it like "avata-ru") for its graveness value, another possibility is simply they didn't bother to check an English dictionary and just followed the suit of Ultima "abata-ru" which can be a mistranslation/Engrish itself, who knows/cares