The world of video games has changed since the mid-1990s. Back then an adult-oriented, anime-inflected role-playing game like Shin Megami Tensei had no chance of getting a release in the west. Offshoots like the original Persona made it over in highly-edited forms, but more obscure spin-offs like Shin Megami Tensei: Soul Hackers for Sega Saturn had no chance whatsoever. Not so in the world of 2012!
Atlus is bringing the Nintendo 3DS remake of Soul Hackers to the US next year. The company made an announcement on Twitter along with an English trailer for the game.
That Atlus is localizing the game for 3DS is a testament to how popular the Shin Megami Tensei games have become in the US thanks to Persona 3, Persona 4: The Golden, and Persona 4: Arena. It’s consistently brought out the series over the past few years, including releases like Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor for Nintendo DS, but this is the first remake of an older title to make the trip to our shores.
Soul Hackers is also a strange game for today’s world. The game is a story about jumping into a fictional MMO called Paradigm X to save people’s souls trapped therein. Back when the game was made in 1997, actual people hadn’t started dying from overplaying MMOs. If nothing else, it will make for some fascinating cultural perspective.
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