The Shin Megami Tensei franchise has been one of my favorites of all time once I got a hold of all of the PS2 titles. If you have not played any of the SMT games, the easiest series to get in to is the Persona series. It is a very straight forward off the wall type of series that seamlessly blends two completely different genres in to one; the RPG and Dating simulator genres. This is their most popular series, but most fans of the franchise prefer Shin Megami tensei Nocturne, which the easiest way to describe it is an adult version of pokemon. This is a little too generalized, but it has very similar mechanics, since the only way to get allies is to recruit demons by negotiating with them and what not.
Their latest re-release of Persona 3 was a PSP version, which was of course titled Persona 3 Portable. There have been 3 releases of this game now, and each one added more and more content, and changed some mechanics to the game which make them different in their own way. There was one specific change for Persona 3 Portable which makes it more preferable to play for people who have beaten it before, and that is being able to play as a female.In this rendition there were many changes, mostly with the social links and what not but there is one Easter egg that makes me wonder what is going to happen to this universe (although this is only in the female storyline, and on top of that there it is not canon). There is a mysterious man whose identity was revealed back in August; his name was Vincent... This character did not play a large role in P3P at all, but he is the protagonist in Atlus' newly announced title; Catherine.
This has caused much speculation to the gaming community as to what significance this interaction between Vincent and the female protagonist of P3P. Is Catherine an alternate universe of the Persona series? Is Catherine even part of the Shin Megami Tensei universe AT ALL?
I highly doubt it will, but it would be extremely neat to see a cameo of the female protagonist, much like Yukiko's cameo in P3P. Catherine though, is not a RPG which is weird in it self. It is supposedly a survival horror game and touches upon some risque themes. The themes evident throughout the trailers are dreams, lust, sex, and even death. Death is a very common theme throughout their games though, so it is not really new. Even through these short clips, this game looks extremely creepy and in my opinion one of the greatest games I have seen in a while. I have to admit I am extremely biased to Atlus, so my views are skewed. So in other words, this has to be one of my most anticipated console games of the year. The release date has been announced, and its coming out in February 17th 2011 in Japan, and I have a feeling I must import it.
Below are the two Catherine Trailers that have been released
About two months ago they were bought out by Index Holdings, which owns Mad House studios (Paranoia Agent, and they have worked on previous Studio Ghibli productions) a movie studio, and a few other businesses. The Atlus CEO has said this event will only strengthen the company, and Atlus sent out an e-mail to all the "Atlus Faithfuls" stating that there is nothing to be worried about.
I was very skeptical about this whole thing, making me think they will lose precious creative freedom. After analyzing the entire situation, the only thing that they may lose is publishing freedom. Atlus would not be the same if their developing team were constricted in any way, since they are known for doing off the wall kind of things. This is only be a speculation, and it has not been long since it happened, so we will have to wait to see.
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