7/15/2013

The devil is in the details...


The Shin Megami Tensai series may be one of the most prolific game series around. It's got several spin-offs all with tons of their own titles (most notable being the Persona series) and like many long-standing Japanese role-playing game franchises, it's been pretty unwilling to change it's core mechanics over the years, for better or worse. People may knock Final Fantasy but at least it's willing to try to be different nearly every time out. Series like this, Persona, Etrian Odyssey Dragon Warrior and of course Pokemon evolve so slowly over time it might be a couple generations before you notice any significant changes.

The main hook of the  Shin Megami series is that it's a far more intricate version of Pokemon, only with demons. You negotiate with these demons to get them on your side and can fuse demons to make them more powerful. It's a pretty addicting mechanic. But admittedly the series is also known for being super difficult and not horribly inviting to new people. Add to that an unusually high $50 price tag and it's kind of a hard sell. Though admittedly it's good timing. I just finished Project X Zone and while I'm still playing plenty of Animal Crossing, that's a game built for playing no more than an hour or so a day. Add to that it's still about a month until Mario & Luigi Dream Team hits so it's incredibly good filler material if nothing else.

And that's it for today, and possibly as far as game releases go it for the month as there are no really noteworthy releases til August but look forward to another Gamer Cinema on my next post, most likely on Wednesday.

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