For 3DS I'd say just go get the Japanese version if you read Japanese without problem..
Especially if you like SMT and Etrian Odyssey...
You can use U.S issued credit cards on the JP eshop so there's no reason to buy the U.S one.
Region lock sucks, but that should not be the reason to miss those good games...
I'd really rather not spend extra money importing various hardware and software as it releases when I could be spending money in support of developers/publishers who offer me their products without question
The main thing that irks me, is that a handful of my Atlus collection is games I've imported, and was happy to import because the hardware/software allowed it, despite the fact that those games didn't officially release in Europe (for example, Devil Survivor) I went out of my way, spent extra money to buy the US version and thus giving Atlus a +1 sale because the DS was region free - same with Catherine, I'm not happy to wait months and months on end to play a game purely because of where I live, if the game is available in English then I want to be given the opportunity to import it, should I choose to. It shouldn't even be an issue when we've got such globalized technological hardware on the market.
I can appreciate that distribution is different, and may take longer across Europe, so I'd be okay with perhaps waiting a month or so between US/EU releases, but 6 months+? Not a chance, and if you see the post earlier in the thread showing the discrepancy between the two launches then you can see this is often the case, and again, in some cases we never even had a European release
at all - which is why in the past I chose not to support these smaller European publishers, I'd rather have the opportunity to spend extra money and buy directly from Atlus US and the US retailers, and I'd say the majority of the fans of Atlus games would do the same.
And now having to consider the idea that Atlus is supporting region locked hardware exclusively, and are possibly choosing to region lock software
as well, the're basically denying my custom, and it sucks/ European Atlus fan rant