• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Atlus announces Deep Strange Journey for 3DS

I always said I'd like to see an updated Strange Journey (a top favorite) with voice acting and what-not, but if it happened I thought it might happen post-3DS. So I let it process a bit after seeing this news when it broke. Still enthused if it gets localized. And tempted to revisit the original.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
Didn't the Persona 2 remasters on PSP too? These examples are fine because there was an effort to make them look like the originals... In DSJ not so much.
 

asagami_

Banned
Didn't the Persona 2 remasters on PSP too? These examples are fine because there was an effort to make them look like the originals... In DSJ not so much.

Persona 2 IS PSP looks HORRIBLE (not the character portrait for dialogues, but other art in the menus). EP PSP is better in everything, in fact.
 
This is interesting... Soul Hackers apparently had redone art too.

(Endgame spoilers for Soul Hackers)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8HOeJ7XkAA91Fq.jpg
It really is disappointing (and surprising) how this particular game flubs the redone art compared to Persona 2 and Soul Hackers. Especially since SJ has long been an underrated favorite of mine. Lazy porting does the game no favors, even if I am still likely to pick it up myself (because it's still SJ)
 

tomasdk

Member
If this gets localized I'm there Day 1. Just today I loaded up my last save to help a friend who can't kill the last boss, so I told him what I had and just looking at the logs in the game and how much I still miss at the end of the game, my clear save is 110 hours so I took my sweet time and still missing so much. I should play it again, I really should.
I hope the save anywhere feature won't break the game, so far that is my only concern.
 
It really is disappointing (and surprising) how this particular game flubs the redone art compared to Persona 2 and Soul Hackers. Especially since SJ has long been an underrated favorite of mine. Lazy porting does the game no favors, even if I am still likely to pick it up myself (because it's still SJ)

Yeah, Doi did a much better job for the P2 PSP and Soul Hackers artworks and are much closer to Kaneko's original designs than these here are. Don't know what happened.
 
In both P2 and Soul Hackers he could follow Soejima's lead on how to adapt the art, but here he's flying solo. He had to specifically adapt Kaneko's artwork in such a way that he could also do emoting portraits. Adding to that, many of the characters are explicitly not-ethnically Japanese, and drawing people of distinct racial backgrounds is maybe not exactly his strong point. It looks like maybe he did the cutscenes like in SMT4?

That being said, and I know I'm judging this based on a small photo from a scan, Zoe's crewmember art is pretty dire. I realize they can't make the crewmembers as flashy or memorable as the main characters, but sheesh, she looks less interesting and memorable than generic NPC characters from Devil Survivor.
 

Do we know if it's a hard save or a suspend point that deletes itself after a load? Can't recall if SJ already had that or not.

If it's a hard save that's disappointing. Coming from someone who was not experienced with a dungeon-based RPG before Strange Journey the desperate hunt for save/restore points added so much to making the Schwarzwelt feel as oppressive as the characters treated it; being able to save anywhere could have ruined that feeling in a big way.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
Uuh.

I wish they'd be more clear about those gameplay improvements instead of it just being PR talk. I'm expecting normal difficulty to be easier than the original and hard mimicking the original difficulty, or something like that.

Also that NPC portrait... I'd be hard pressed to tell you it's from a SMT game if I didn't already know... Oh well, with modern Atlus you take what you can.
 
I think I will hold out for the potential of a Switch port. This is a nice idea but I can already play the DS version I have on the 3DS. I don't feel like I need this.
 

spiritfox

Member
New character Alex and new demons like Amon have are illustrated by Masayuki Doi. Other characters have also have newly added facial expressions and such thanks to the Atlus Design Team, and the main story is fully voiced.

So Doi is not responsible for the abominations that are the redrawn character art then.
 

Hylian7

Member
Do we know if it's a hard save or a suspend point that deletes itself after a load? Can't recall if SJ already had that or not.

If it's a hard save that's disappointing. Coming from someone who was not experienced with a dungeon-based RPG before Strange Journey the desperate hunt for save/restore points added so much to making the Schwarzwelt feel as oppressive as the characters treated it; being able to save anywhere could have ruined that feeling in a big way.

If it's a suspend/temp save point just because it's the 3DS, I'm okay with that. On the DS I would just close the system (and will do the same with the 3DS, but if I wanted to check something in another game then I have the option of the suspend point).

I get the point for many portable games using save anywhere, but I felt SJ's was fairly forgiving with save terminals in the original, and didn't really need save anywhere.

If it is a hard save anywhere, then that's really disappointing it's not optional rather than just enforced on everyone.
 

Setsu00

Member
Persona 2 IS PSP looks HORRIBLE (not the character portrait for dialogues, but other art in the menus). EP PSP is better in everything, in fact.

It's subjective, but Kaneko's artstyle clashes with the ingame portraits so I'm pretty happy that Soejima redrew them.
 
Not the same. That would be like in Fire Emblem, if Casual Mode was saying "X character died, would you like them back?" when a character died.

Not really? You're complaining that an optional feature should be optional. Like, literally, just save when you get to a healing terminal, problem solved.

It's subjective, but Kaneko's artstyle clashes with the ingame portraits so I'm pretty happy that Soejima redrew them.

Kaneko's art was never actually used ingame in either P2 title (except, I guess maybe he drew the cards?). The fusion spell cut ins were really weird looking, especially Eikichi's.
 

Taruranto

Member
Didn't the Persona 2 remasters on PSP too? These examples are fine because there was an effort to make them look like the originals... In DSJ not so much.

The in game-portrays weren't done by Kaneko anyway, so it wasn't much of a difference.
 

gngf123

Member
There's an option on whether or not to use it on the menu, it's the Save option, and you can choose not to use it.

Completely irrelevant. It's there. It's part of the game design now.

The hunt for terminals really helped create the atmosphere of the Schwarzwelt being this tense, dangerous place. It was a survival. Knowing that if I wanted I could just save and be safe... Completely ruins that.

Unless it's fixed into a difficulty setting or something that is only available at the start. Then it's different.


And it had to be just when I picked up a copy of the original didn't it

Never regret getting the original copy of a game where the remake makes major changes. The original is great.
 

asagami_

Banned
It's subjective, but Kaneko's artstyle clashes with the ingame portraits so I'm pretty happy that Soejima redrew them.

This is a redraw right? I'm cool with this.

p2innocentsin_screenshots_16_1.jpg


But the new art is... bland. I don't know if it's Soejima work, but I really dislike this.

p2innocentsin_screenshots_22.jpg
 
Do we know if it's a hard save or a suspend point that deletes itself after a load? Can't recall if SJ already had that or not.

If it's a hard save that's disappointing. Coming from someone who was not experienced with a dungeon-based RPG before Strange Journey the desperate hunt for save/restore points added so much to making the Schwarzwelt feel as oppressive as the characters treated it; being able to save anywhere could have ruined that feeling in a big way.

yea, sounds like a downgrade all around. if it's normal suspend i don't mind.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
I know it may not make sense for some, but having the option to do something in a game makes it hard not to ignore it altogether, especially when you're in a situation where you could need it.

It it's a hard save then I'll only use it when I absolutely need to, but that won't change that it's there, and I'll never feel the tension of being in the middle of a maze with low health and MP, because I'll know I technically won't be in any real danger.

It's like in SMT4 Apocalypse, I rarely abused save everywhere, but it was still there + no penalty for dying, so I never really feared any bosses in the game.

SJ was king in atmosphere and an option like this trivializes big part of it.
 

Hylian7

Member
I know it may not make sense for some, but having the option to do something in a game makes it hard not to ignore it altogether, especially when you're in a situation where you could need it.

It it's a hard save then I'll only use it when I absolutely need to, but that won't change that it's there, and I'll never feel the tension of being in the middle of a maze with low health and MP, because I'll know I technically won't be in any real danger.

It's like in SMT4 Apocalypse, I rarely abused save everywhere, but it was still there + no penalty for dying, so I never really feared any bosses in the game.

SJ was king in atmosphere and an option like this trivializes big part of it.

Yeah, that's my feelings on the subject.

I think a happy middle ground is something like "Make a choice to enable it or not at the start of the game, and you can't change this later." Fire Emblem took that approach and I think that was for the best.
 

Setsu00

Member
Kaneko's art was never actually used ingame in either P2 title (except, I guess maybe he drew the cards?). The fusion spell cut ins were really weird looking, especially Eikichi's.

Well, yeah, but the fusion cut ins weren't drawn by Soejima either. He did the portrait art for the original characters (including their menu art) as well as the girl from the Climax Theatre. All other art (like the characters from the additional side stories) was done by someone else.

This is a redraw right? I'm cool with this.

But the new art is... bland. I don't know if it's Soejima work, but I really dislike this.

This was done by Soejima, yes. Again, it's completely subjective, but I vastly prefer Soejima's art here.

I think it's time to bust out this meme again.

I honestly have a hard time telling the difference between Soejima and Doi in a general context.

Soejima's art is generally a bit softer than Doi's, which is rather noticeable if you look at the way Doi drew Maya's hair here. Doi's art also tends to have a sharper look due to his preference for detailed shading.
 

GeekyDad

Member
Don't know if it has been posted but there's a ton of new screenshots here :
http://www.4gamer.net/games/368/G036809/20170329083/
And here : http://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/201704060005/

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but from the one screenshot, at least, it looks like they upped the resolution on the dungeon graphics. Doesn't seem as pixelated as the original. That's cool.

Really look forward to learning about the new story elements. At first -- because of the presentation of the news -- it seemed like maybe there would be an additional protagonist (with the female character) that would play out through new story content. But from those screenshots, seems like she's just a new NPC.

Either way, I'm still excited for the game. I love the original, and Atlus did some fun things with the 3DS versions of the Devil Survivor games, so I'm confident this will have enough new stuff to make playing through it again quite satisfying.
 

Nachos

Member
Yeah, that's my feelings on the subject.

I think a happy middle ground is something like "Make a choice to enable it or not at the start of the game, and you can't change this later." Fire Emblem took that approach and I think that was for the best.
I'm always for giving people more options, especially for portable games (closing it doesn't work when your battery's low). But by extension, letting people change the difficulty and how saves are handled at the base, at the very least, would accommodate new players and be better for the people who still want that oppression.

The discussion's pretty similar to how the old guard received the Floor Jump feature in the Etrian Untold games, actually.
 
Top Bottom