As mentioned in my Should YOU Play Shin Megami Tensei? article we were promised Shin Megami Tensei news on October 23rd and oh boy, did Atlus deliver.
There had been a lot of uncertainty on whether the Shin Megami Tensei title for the Nintendo Switch would be a new title or just a HD remake of an existing one and yesterday those thoughts were put to rest with the teaser trailer reveal yesterday – the new home console title will be the next mainline Shin Megami Tensei, namely Shin Megami Tensei V. Goodbye shoddy 3DS graphics, hello beautiful Switch quality!
It seems the setting will be modern day Tokyo, which is pretty much a stable of the series (albeit replacing modern with postmodern most of the time). Considering how beautiful the Shibuya of Persona 5 was, I am really looking forward to exploring more HD Tokyo through the capable craftsmanship of Atlus’ teams. I mean, the small glimpse of Shinagawa is already looking really good and really alike to the actual Shinagawa station.
It looks like some bleak stuff will be going down in this rendition of Tokyo, judging by the massacre of demons we are privy to in the trailer. Perhaps we will get to see the destruction of modern society as it is taking place when humanity, demons and whatever else forces collide? In any case, it feels exciting to think that there is something more at stake here than just human suffering with even the demons seemingly having drawn the short end of the stick.
Another thing of note is that the trailer features a young man AND a young woman. Could this be hinting that you will get to choose the gender of your protagonist when you start the game?
It’s not completely unheard of in a Shin Megami Tensei game, as you could do exactly that in Shin Megami Tensei if…, which came out in 1994.
(Fun fact: if the female protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei if… looks familiar to you, she also appeared in Persona and both Persona II games as an NPC called Tamaki Uchida.)
Also, while people generally really loved Persona 5, one of the biggest gripes that they had with it was the lack of a female protagonist. Hashino tried to explain it (not very well), so perhaps due to the backlash Shin Megami Tensei decided to take the first step to appease the fans in this regard. Japanese games have made quite a comeback in the past year after years and years of losing momentum and one of the main reasons for it is probably how the developers have taken the time to listen to their fans.
Sadly, we do not still have any concrete information on the release date of the the title, the only thing we have to go by is that the fact that it is being developed on an existing engine, Unreal Engine, cuts down quite a bit on the development time. Here’s to hoping that more information will keep trickling in now that the initial reveal has been made.
Busy Potatoes 