Support NeoGAF

[MLH]

AFAIK this is just the NA version, no changes, right?
So then if issues have been found are these issues also in the NA version? or are they not issues with the game code but rather the process?

This has been incredibly frustrating for me waiting over year with no news and getting info like: "there is no news". Then when it seems like whatever deals fell through (we know there is a story there!) and Atlus would just throw the NA version on the eshop, I knew that there wouldn't be much longer to wait. But there are still issues delaying this game further...

what's one more month on over a year waiting...

 

[Infernal Monkey]

That's totally inaccurate. Index Corporation no longer exists, and those copyrights are invalid. It should now read: ©ATLUS ©SEGA All rights reserved.

Time to delay it for another 6 months!

❛︵❛

 

[YianGaruga]

It never even crossed my mind that the September date could fall through until yesterday, but now I'm back to "It will be nice if it ever comes to EU at all".
They either don't care about it or are unable to handle it or both.

 

[Osahi]

ah well, what's another month in over a year

*breaks down in tears*

Seriously, somebody should shop a european flag behind the rainy window

 

[oti]

ah well, what's another month in over a year

*breaks down in tears*

Seriously, somebody should shop a european flag behind the rainy window

But it's two months. :

 

[jgminto]

I asked the Atlus PR guy on twitter for a more detailed explanation of the problems they ran into for the delay but he said he wasn't aware of the specifics.

 

[Delstius]

Too many games to play starting October, SMT pushed back to if I ever feel like it.

 

[Black Soma]

Damn it, Atlus.

 

[GhostTrick]

You won Atlus. I'm not buying it.

 

[Hugstable]

LOL Atlus just killed any chance this game had of selling whatsoever in EU today. The situation regarding this game is sad

 

[Kandrick]

You won Atlus. I'm not buying it.

At this point, i'm leaning towards not buying it. I didn't buy P4A, and probably won't buy this. This is ridiculous, but it's Atlus, they have been shitting all over Europe since ever.

 

[Rizzi]

Atlus: "Here you can finally have this game after over a year."
EU: "Oh.. Okay."
Atlus: "Lol, whoops. Another delay. Sorry."
EU: "...."
Atlus: "Hey, why do our games not sell well in the EU!?"

 

[Sadist]

*smh*

This is beyond terrible.

 

[MLH]

It's hard for me to say I won't buy this like a few of you guys. I've been waiting for this since it's first announcement. With the super quick NA localization and the publishing deal with NISA Europe if thought we wouldn't be waiting too long. Oh how wrong I was...

 

[Lernaean]

It's really hilarious that we'll be the ones to blame when the game sells like shit.
I repeat from yesterday: some of the best games ever, but the worst and most mismanaged game publisher ever.

 

[GhostTrick]

At this point, i'm leaning towards not buying it. I didn't buy P4A, and probably won't buy this. This is ridiculous, but it's Atlus, they have been shitting all over Europe since ever.

I'm not fond of boycotting and such... but it's not even boycotting. At this point I'm just not interested anymore.
This whole thing has been a joke. A big fat joke. More than a year for them to upload a poor file on eShop. Heck they took only a month to publish Conception 2 in Europe. NIS America published Soul Hackers 3 months later in physical version.

But for the 4th episode of the mainline SMT series ?
1 year and 3 months later, digital only release.
What the heck is that ? Don't worry Atlus, it's not now that you'll regret pissing on Europe.

 

[Salih]

ah well who cares? At least we get Persona Q, which i am more hyped about.

 

[artsi]

It's a tough decision. I want to support European releases by buying the game, and I want to play the game, but I don't like supporting this kind of business.

Sega please, we need Atlus Europe.

 

[Rizzi]

ah well who cares? At least we get Persona Q, which i am more hyped about.

Oh boy. Another Etrian Odyssey game.

 

[Foshy]

ah well who cares? At least we get Persona Q, which i am more hyped about.

eh

are you SURE we're getting that

 

[Lernaean]

Sega please, we need Atlus Europe.

If you put your hopes on Sega, then i predict that soon you'll feel very much betrayed

Edit: Someone in the other thread that is locked now, to move discussion on this one, claimed that i should blame NoE for maybe not having approved the game for the region.
This ofc is completely incorrect, discussed to death yesterday.
SMTIV had been announced officially by NoE, to be released in a physical version, along with a special edition like the NA one, a year plus ago at the EU Nintendo Direct.
Furthermore the events of the last few hours prove that for once more it's Atlus' fault that the game is further delayed.
I know that the internet is the place where you can even blame WW2 on Nintendo, but if we are to have a healthy discussion we should leave NoE out of this mess. The blame falls entirely on Atlus and its parent company, Sega.
The games that NoE publishes, like PLvsPWAA tend to release very fast.

 

[Dash Kappei]

Don't care anymore, will get it 50%off or nothing, especially since it's digital only

 

[Zareka]

lmao, what? This game seriously got delayed again?

Come on guys. When you get to the point where you're worse than Zen United, you know you screwed up bad. This is just hilarious now.

 

[Majukun]

since i have nothing to play on my 3ds ATM i though i would get this game..but after what just jhappened,i don't know if i'll buy the game at all,since i'm a firm believer that we all should vote with our wallets

 

[Sadist]

It's hard for me to say I won't buy this like a few of you guys. I've been waiting for this since it's first announcement. With the super quick NA localization and the publishing deal with NISA Europe if thought we wouldn't be waiting too long. Oh how wrong I was...

Same.

Atlus appears to read NeoGAF, so hear me fellas; please, please... for the next SMT release let NIS America take care of it. Soul Hackers, Etrian Odyssey IV and Milenium Girl, Persona Q etc. are better handled.

 

[guybrushfreeman]

That's totally inaccurate. Index Corporation no longer exists, and those copyrights are invalid. It should now read: ©ATLUS ©SEGA All rights reserved.

Time to delay it for another 6 months!

It's scary that this even sounds like it could be true. The best explanation we've had before is that the publisher doesn't handle the changes so when change is needed they have to pass it off to the developer that then has to find time to bother with it out of schedule and then everything gets retested again. So yeah a simple text change really doesn't sound out of the question. (It's almost certainly not but it highlights just how crazy it is that it even sounds like it could be).

Also I want to point out when I and some others talk about not buying it it's not even a boycott thing. At some point the game is just worth less. Not releasing on time really devalues the game. I can't belive they still want US retail price for digital only after such a delay. Ugh.

 

[Eolz]

Crossposting myself from the other thread

Was planning on buying it day 1 (I prefer to support "localization" over import when it's possible), but now with a vague "late october" (probably november), where it'll have a lot more games releasing, it won't be the case.

Ready to reconsider this if they include free DLC yeah. We probably won't even have a sale before a very long time if ever, be it on 3ds or other platforms, it rarely happens for atlus games here in europe (while it's nearly every 2-3months in the US for Persona, SMT, Etrian Odyssey...).
Really the most incompetent publisher, will be glad when Sega takes over and pushes them to work differently, even if it's barely better in the end.

Seriously fuck this.
They'd have went (stayed?) with NOE, it'd have been late but with PAL5. They'd have wanted minimum effort, english-only, ghostlight, zen, nisa, ... would have been a better choice as they actually know how europe checks work.

Last minute issue? It doesn't happen just like that with quality checks, they probably could have seen this coming since some weeks.

 

[Zareka]

Also I want to point out when I and some others talk about not buying it it's not even a boycott thing. At some point the game is just worth less. Not releasing on time really devalues the game. I can't belive they still want US retail price for digital only after such a delay. Ugh.

This is why I won't be able to get it. Even at that discounted price, I need to save my pennies for other games that didn't come out almost a year and a half ago.

 

[tsab]

oh man, we can't catch break with atlus

 

[duckroll]

Same.

Atlus appears to read NeoGAF, so hear me fellas; please, please... for the next SMT release let NIS America take care of it. Soul Hackers, Etrian Odyssey IV and Milenium Girl, Persona Q etc. are better handled.

Is there a possibility that NIS simply didn't want to publish this title in particular, and hence the only option for a release at all was for Atlus to do it?

 

[liquidtmd]

Late October - "OK guys just one small delay, but its coming November 14th now. A traditionally quiet time of year in the gaming calendar so make sure you get all that cash lying around and support us otherwise itll bomb here and we'll have good reason to justify treating the EU like shi....oh"

 

[Kouriozan]

Next time, I'll just import.

 

[El Topo]

Late October - "OK guys just one small delay, but its coming November 14th now. A traditionally quiet time of year in the gaming calendar so make sure you get all that cash lying around and support us otherwise itll bomb here and we'll have good reason to justify treating the EU like shi....oh"

If they really want to rub it in they should have a sale on the US eShop for less than $19.99 when the game comes out in Europe.

 

[ShogunDarius]

Next time, I'll just import.

Except ninty are twats and region locked the system

 

[HomesIice]

Atlus: "Here you can finally have this game after over a year."
EU: "Oh.. Okay."
Atlus: "Lol, whoops. Another delay. Sorry."
EU: "...."
Atlus: "Hey, why do our games not sell well in the EU!?"

t b h

 

[archnemesis]

I can't believe how poorly this is being handled.

 

[Joey Ravn]

As a European, I can't wait to play

Spoiler

Frog Fractions 2 Presents:

The Last Shin Meguardian Tensei XV!

 

[Lernaean]

Except ninty are twats and region locked the system

I hate region locking, and i import a lot of games anyway, but no one should be forced to import anything because the publisher didn't deliver the product they promised more than a year ago.
Atlus promised a physical edition last year and then cheated us with a digital only that isn't out yet either.
Nintendo, no matter how much i hate region lock, has no blame in this mess.

 

[Starwolf_UK]

This game is cursed. I'm scared to download it, it might catch my house on fire. I'm beyond caring at this point. Apathy is easier than antipathy...

"There. It took us over a year, but we finally dumped the American ROM on the European eShop. Wait, shit, there's a huge error here! Delay it further!"

If only it was just a ROM dump. I can name one difference the EU version will have. The operations guide (FIGS, I think it also gets Dutch, Portuguese and Russian). Also as I said in the other thread:

I can understand the anger [at the delay] but I think your anger should also be directed at the NOE lot check as I suspect that is the issue here.

Why? Look at Nicalis. I assume they took their NOA lot checked approved game to NOE and got rejected for it. Other developers have also expressed frustrations at how the US and EU branches have slightly different rules for no good reason (this holds true for Sony as well btw...).

What is the lot check exactly? Pedantic shit like how to refer to in-game controls and other crap.

But hey let's be armchair publishers and make jokes as it is easier than thinking.

AFAIK this is just the NA version, no changes, right?
So then if issues have been found are these issues also in the NA version? or are they not issues with the game code but rather the process?

I can assume the title screen got changed 2013-2014 kind of thing...well and the operations guide of course.

Edit: Someone in the other thread that is locked now, to move discussion on this one, claimed that i should blame NoE for maybe not having approved the game for the region.
This ofc is completely incorrect, discussed to death yesterday.

No I didn't. I said the lot check specifically, it is totally Atlus fault if they did fail but given how it is different to the American one it is designed to make you fail. The lot check is the step a game has to go through to be released on the eShop. I also pointed out that many developers trip up on it being different to the American version for no bloody reason. Of course if Atlus fucking said what the reason was (last minute issue specific to Europe makes me think lot check though) we could have a discussion here rather than speculation.

Given how early it was announced I can only assume someone was meant to localise it (maybe NOE even) and then decided not to (I wonder if NOE looked at the US sales and thought, we can spend this time more wisely).

 

[flohen95]

Oh man... I don't even know what to think right now.

It's all pretty sad. I don't know what happened, so I can't say if the situation was unavoidable or not (by that I mean everything from it being delayed in the first place and being digital only).
The one-two punch of it being only digital and coming out more than a year after the North American release leaves me speechless. I really, really hope that Atlus can get their shit together for their future releases and, at the very least, do a timely digital only release (which they did pretty sufficiently with Conception 2), though I do hope that they realize that providing a physical version should be the way to go.

Oh well, what's happened happened. Nothing we (or they) can do now. As for the game: I'm probably going to buy it, as my current plan is to import an American copy and then buy the European eShop version on sale (so that I can have my physical copy without paying too much for it).

I really hope the guys at ATLUS learned something out of this, and try to avoid whatever caused this whole situation to arise (if that's even possible since we know next to nothing about it). Better luck next time!

 

[TangorFopper]

I'm really disappointed.

I was looking forward to buy the game even if it was only DD and not being translated to my native language (Italian).

The delay is just ridiculous and just shows that Atlus is not caring about the EU market (and fans) at all.

 

[ShogunDarius]

I hate region locking, and i import a lot of games anyway, but no one should be forced to import anything because the publisher didn't deliver the product they promised more than a year ago.
Atlus promised a physical edition last year and then cheated us with a digital only that isn't out yet either.
Nintendo, no matter how much i hate region lock, has no blame in this mess.

While true, the amount of anger over this would not have even been the same if importing the game wasn't an issue

 

[Percy]

One last kick in the balls before finally putting us out of our misery, eh? I'm half tempted to just wait for the next sale before getting it now tbh.

Nintendo, no matter how much i hate region lock, has no blame in this mess.

Well, they are the ones that decided to implement a region lock on their handheld when none of it's predecessors needed one. So they're always going to have at least a small amount of blame to bear in situations like this.

 

[KemoSabe]

I was even willing to buy it digital although i hate digital games especially via nintendos eshop.
But now i have to reconsider...

And thanks Nintendo for your Region lock.
A real blessing for the gamers...

 

[Lernaean]

Given how early it was announced I can only assume someone was meant to localise it (maybe NOE even) and then decided not to (I wonder if NOE looked at the US sales and thought, we can spend this time more wisely).

Nah, they have published games that were expected to sell less.
I am certain that NoE was never to publish it. It was always either Atlus or a third party.
And even if it's lot check, then sorry, but Atlus shouldn't have left it for the last moment.
When they announced that the game is finally coming this September on the e-shop, they should have already finished with all these.

 

[Chakabah]

Wow, I almost got beaten to death by GAF.
I was about to post: Don't all European users have a US account anyway? Why bother releasing it in Europe after all these years?

My mind was still on the PS+ thread, and forgot about region locked =/.

Well, another few months won't kill you guys anyway.
But man, I feel bad for the UK people though.
Translating English back to English must be hard...then again, English is the 2nd language for most if not all of EU.

If only it was translated in English (UK, as in spelling differences and all that) but no, it's the same exact file from NA we're getting. A year after. At this point, it wouldn't even surprise me we're getting some trouble like Devil Survivor Overclocked and we need to wait a whole month more to get a silly patch. They are capable of that.

What I would like to see is a post-mortem with details of the full year+ lag we've got. And what the heck happened with the French translation. A website called Le Figaro (Here, well in French obviously) told in an interview with the director of Nintendo France that they were working in a French translation. The interview was done in May so they dropped quite recently for... whatever reasons?

 

[Lernaean]

While true, the amount of anger over this would not have even been the same if importing the game wasn't an issue

And i agree, it wouldn't have been the same. As i said i hate region lock too, but the issue here is that the publisher is incompetent, not that the system has region lock.
We are not talking about a game that was never to be released in Europe, so we can say 'damn RL, if it wasn't for it i'd import', we are talking about a game that would be released in the region but the publisher fucked up.

 

[mrsmr2]

Sadly, this doesn't affect me.

I'd decided to vote with my feet when they announced it was digital only.

 

[ZeroX03]

Oh boy. Another Etrian Odyssey game.

I know, it's pretty fucking cool. I'm excited.

Same.

Atlus appears to read NeoGAF, so hear me fellas; please, please... for the next SMT release let NIS America take care of it. Soul Hackers, Etrian Odyssey IV and Milenium Girl, Persona Q etc. are better handled.

I'd rather NISA not do it either, personally, not a huge fan of massively gouging consumers. And the whole GaymerX thing.

Spoiler

And they release titles late in Australia & New Zealand, so they're not really timely across all PAL regions.

 

[Semajer]

What the hell did Europe do to Atlus?!

Didn't you hear? We collectively ran over Atlus' dog and kicked their mother down the stairs.

This whole thing is fucking stupid. This has been one of my most anticipated releases since it was announced for release, and this turd of a scenario keeps getting smellier. At this point Atlus may as well delay it to next year and do a physical release with all the DLC included. At least then they'll win back a couple of the people that (understandably) aren't going to buy it.