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What’s this? Yet another Shin Megami Tensei? Yup! Hot off the heels of the recently released Shin Megami Tensei games Devil Summoner 2 and Devil Survivor comes Strange Journey, which will be yet another venture to the DS for the SMT series.

Last week a new teaser site came up on the Atlus Japan website. All it showed was an image of the Earth with a large black hole where the South Pole is located (pictured above). What this teaser site’s message tried to convey was supposed to be revealed on July 24th, but thanks to someone who went through the page source, a small image file was found that gave the secret away a bit earlier than Atlus Japan originally planned. The image revealed the site to be about an upcoming Shin Megami Tensei game called Strange Journey, complete with a tentative release date of October 8th.

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Of course, Famitsu has the first details about Strange Journey, sprawled on six total pages. Let me give you a rundown on the info:

You play a nameless Japanese elite soldier who, along with various other soldiers and scientists, have been sent by the country to investigate a strange rift that has appeared over Antarctica. The people of the planet has named the other world the rift leads to as the Schwarz-verse. However, once you and your team reach the other world, you find out it’s much worse than anything anyone could have imagined. The Schwarz-verse is overrun by demons and mythical beasts who threaten to pass through the rift and destroy your home planet. The ship you’ve arrived in, the Red Sprite No. 1, serves as home base while your in the demon-infested world. Three other ships also exist; the Blue Jet No. 2, Elves No. 3, and Gigantic No. 4. Whether these are unlocked as you go along or if your original ship is just upgraded isn’t made clear.

Your exploration crew is made up of many different specialists, and three of them are revealed:

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Captain Gore – The Captain of the Schwartz-verse exploration team. On account of his exceptional skills and leadership abilities, he was appointed to be the leader of the team that determines the fate of mankind. “So long as all in this ship cooperate, investigation is not an impossibility.”

Himenez – An American who has had experience in campaigns. He’s worked his way up from the bottom and, looking forward to the rewards after this is all done and over with, he volunteered for the team. “As long as I get what I deserve, I plan on contributing what I can as long as I’m not dead.”

Selenin – A Russian scientist, she was recruited based on her knowledge related to the Schwarz-verse. “The populace is being deceived with the false information that there is a large blizzard storm, but the truth is…”

An interesting aspect of Strange Journey is that everything is seen through a first person perspective on the top screen. Your character has a device on his wrist that is similar to a Pip-Boy 3000 from Fallout 3. This device is viewed on the bottom screen, and its only confirmed functions so far is a map display, but more are expected to be present in the game. Members of the exploration team also don a special kind of suit called a Demonica Suit. The suit has many different capabilities, such as adjusting to the atmosphere more capably depending on the area you’re in, searching for hidden enemies, and a system that lets the suit improve itself. The full details aren’t known about this yet, but it almost seems like the Demonica Suit will be doing all the leveling and ability learning, as opposed to the character who’s actually wearing it. I find this to be a very intriguing feature to Strange Journey, and look forward to learning more about the Demonica Suit’s role in the game.

The rest featured in the Famitsu article are just some small tidbits, here are the highlights:

Over 300 demons are featured, more than any other SMT game to date
Demon conversations return to aid you in their recruitment
Relationships with your crew play a huge role in the story – so big that the world can either be saved or be destroyed at the end depending on how you interact with them

Something else that’s worth a mention is that Strange Journey is the beginning of yet another spin-off series of the Shin Megami Tensei games, as it isn’t part of the Persona, Digital Devil Saga or Devil Summoner spin-offs, nor is it Shin Megami Tensei IV. Strange Journey has quite a lot to live up to since it’s bearing the MegaTen name. With the absolutely stellar releases in the SMT series for the past 10+ years or so, I have no worries that Strange Journey will be able to follow suit with its predecessors and provide us with an experience we’ve come to expect from the franchise.