The wait is over! Atlus finally shared the first big trailer for Persona 5, which debuted after the Persona Super Live concert. You can watch the new trailer below.
Tag Archives: Atlus
Sega and Atlus Anime On Sale At Right Stuf
Online anime shop Right Stuf is having their annual “12+ Days of Savings” holiday sale and a bunch of Sega and Atlus related titles are included. The sale will end on December 28th. Below is a handy table to help you keep track of the Sega and Atlus merchandise.
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Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Fan Edition Announced for Europe
Although Sega Europe was already confirmed to be handling the publishing of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, it’s now been revealed that there will be a special edition of the game called Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Fan edition. Unfortunately, like the Persona Q limited edition, this Persona 4 Ultimax Fan edition will also be a retailer exclusive. The special edition can only be ordered from Rice Digital, and contains a T-Shirt (of which the design will be determined through a community vote) and the first set of Tarot cards (the second set is included in NISA’s Persona Q Wild Cards edition).
Atlus Taking Over Persona 4 Dancing All Night Development
During the Tokyo Game Show we learned that Persona 4 Dancing All Night had been moved to a 2015 release date instead of being released this fall, already pointing at potential problems with the development of the game. Neogaf user duckroll now pointed out an article on the official Persona website revealing that the core development of the game has in fact been moved to the Persona team at Atlus. Kazuhisa Wada, director of Persona 4 Arena, will now be the new Producer & Director for Persona 4 Dancing All Night, while original developer Dingo will now only be assisting development. This move was apparently done to increase the quality of the game.
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax European Release Date Confirmed for November, Gets New Story Trailer
We reported earlier that Sega Europe would be publishing Persona 4 Arena Ultimax in Europe, and now we’ve learned that the release date will be set in November (this time without region-locking!). Sega Europe’s COO Jurgen Post had this to say in an official press release:
“We’re delighted to be able to bring Persona 4 Arena Ultimax to Europe for all the fans of the series over here,” said Jurgen Post, president and COO for Sega Europe. “It represents a great new addition to Sega’s portfolio of tournament calibre fighting games.”
Also worth noting is that the game is receiving both a physical and a digital release in Europe, which is a departure from titles like Shin Megami Tensei IV receiving a digital-only release.
Sega and Atlus’s Tokyo Game Show 2014 Lineup Announced
We now have confirmation about Sega and Atlus’s lineup at Tokyo Game Show 2014, and which titles will be playable. This article will cover games that are not under the banner of Segalization’s localization requests and will simply present the entirety of Sega and Atlus’s offerings.
Please be aware that Sega and Atlus will also be holding stage events and broadcast streams throughout the weekend of Tokyo Game Show, which you can find near the end of the article! Italicized games are titles that currently have localizations planned for them, for reader convenience, but keep in mind that localization status is still a tentative thing. Here is a list of what can be expected:
Playable from Sega:
- Phantasy Star Nova (Vita)
- Puyo Puyo Tetris (PS4, One)
- Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax (Vita, PS3)
- Hero Bank 2 (3DS)
- Sonic Toon: Rise of Lyric (Wii U, known as Sonic Boom in the West instead of Sonic Toon)
- Sonic Toon: Shattered Crystal (3DS, known as Sonic Boom in the West instead of Sonic Toon)
Promotional Trailers from Sega:
- Phantasy Star Online 2 (PC, Vita)
- Phantasy Star Nova (Vita)
- Yakuza Zero (PS3, PS4)
- Shining Resonance (PS3)
- Puyo Puyo Tetris (PS3, Wii U, 3DS, Vita, PS4, One)
- Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax (Vita, PS3)
- Hero Bank 2 (3DS)
- Sonic Toon: Rise of Lyric (Wii U, known as Sonic Boom in the West instead of Sonic Toon)
- Sonic Toon: Shattered Crystal (3DS, known as Sonic Boom in the West instead of Sonic Toon)
- The World End Eclipse (PC, Vita, iOS, Android)
Promotional Trailers from Atlus:
- Etrian Odyssey II Untold: The Knight of Fafnir
Stage Events from Sega and Atlus, scheduled according to Japan Standard Time:
- Phantasy Star Nova presentation (9/18, 12pm)
- Yakuza Zero presentation (9/18, 1pm)
- Hatsune Miku Project new title presentation (9/18, 3pm) (update: this was Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai Deluxe, an expansion of Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai 2)
- Phantasy Star Online 2 presentation (9/19, 3:30pm)
- Phantasy Star Nova live demo playthrough (9/20, 2pm, different from recently released Battle Demo)
- Atlus presentation (9/20, 2:30pm)
- Shining Resonance live gameplay presentation (9/21, 3pm)
To speak for myself, the lineup that Sega is presenting is especially strong this year. A sizable portion of their prominent active franchises in Japan are being represented with Phantasy Star, Yakuza, Shining, and Hatsune Miku. We are also seeing a push for Sonic Boom in Japan too. Besides the representation for major IP’s, newer franchises such as Hero Bank and The World End Eclipse are being promoted. In addition, Puyo Puyo Tetris and Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax should have broad appeal: the former for its accessibility and crossover novelty and the latter for being a crossover fighter featuring popular characters. The real wildcard here is Atlus and their presentation on the 20th. Hopefully they will have more to offer regarding Persona 5 and Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem! I am also excited to finally see what Shining Resonance looks like in action.
Kudos to this Gematsu article and this NeoGAF thread, and additional thanks to the topic creator of the NeoGAF thread for translated descriptions and scheduling of stage events. Kudos also to the PSUBlog for the entry linked in the description on the Phantasy Star Nova live demo presentation.
Update, 9/18/2014: Edited to reflect that there is very likely no additional Hatsune Miku game announcement besides Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai Deluxe.
Phantasy Star Nova Playable at Sony Booth during Tokyo Game Show 2014, Atlus Speculation?
Sony’s lineup of their booth’s playable games for Tokyo Game Show 2014 was recently revealed. Continuing from its recent demo opportunities, Phantasy Star Nova for the Playstation Vita will be available for attendants to check out. Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax, a fighting game developed by Sega and featuring various Sega shoutouts in the form of stages and a Virtua Fighter character team, will also be available for demoing. Though previously only available in arcades, it is being ported to Playstation 3 and the Vita.
It is possible that other Sega games will be present in some form, even if not playable. Yakuza Zero was given a trailer at the SCEJ TGS Press Conference, and with the release of the Shining Resonance opening movie, perhaps the Sega booth (they do have one this year) could put those videos on repeat for attendees. It is curious that Sony is still featuring demo-able PS3 games on their booth (Kingdom Hearts 2.5 and Tales of Zestiria) and yet a Shining Resonance demo is not present. Shining Resonance releases in December, and with no media of the game in motion currently available this would have been a great opportunity to show it off. With the announcement of Puyo Puyo Tetris on PS4 and Xbox One, it is also strange not to see the game available for either version.
On the Atlus front, we can speculate about some of their titles though they have not come forward with a lineup like Konami or Arc System Works have done. The first trailer for Persona 5 premiered at the same SCEJ TGS Press Conference that showed off the Yakuza Zero trailer. That trailer’s premiere is a big move for one of Atlus’s premiere franchises. Personally, I think considering the pace of the information we have received on the game so far it might be too much to ask to see more preview content of the game at the conference, but there’s no harm in hoping. Etrian Odyssey II Untold: Knight of Fafnir is also steadily receiving promotion. Updates on Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem are sorely overdue; while eager fans have been assured that the project is not cancelled, not being substantively updated since the game’s announcement at E3 2013 does nothing good for this unique crossover’s momentum. Perhaps Persona 4 Arena Ultimax may show up, but Arc System Works did not confirm the game’s presence. And Persona 4: Dancing All Night is due for release in Japan during the Fall of this year, so it could not hurt to show off that game either.
Credit to this NeoGAF thread and this Gematsu article for the notification.
Shin Megami Tensei IV European Release Delayed, Late October Release Planned
Shin Megami Tensei IV’s European release is delayed once again, confirms AtlusUSA PR Manager John L Hardin via a TwitLonger post. The contents of the post are below:
After some unscheduled changes to the SMTIV mobile website raised some eyebrows, a lot of you asked for more details, so I’ll be upfront. We encountered a few last-minute issues specific to the EU version, and we have to fix them. Given the current timelines for production, it looks like SMTIV won’t be out in EU until late October.
No one likes delays. Our fans in Europe have been waiting for SMTIV for a *very* long time, and it pains us to have to move the release date back even further. I have talked to a few of you on Twitter, I’ve seen the angry posts on Reddit, NeoGAF, Facebook, etc., and wanted to be as direct as I could. We truly feel awful having to say “wait a little longer” for a game you’ve been so zealously patient for, but there is no other recourse. We’re doing everything we can to get the game out in Europe as fast as we can, so please bear with us.
Shin Megami Tensei IV is receiving an English-only digital release in Europe, and the game was released in July 2013 for North America. Personally, I feel it has to be appreciated that a representative of the company is reaching out and notifying fans of the situation with the game’s delayed release, but at the same time the large difference in release dates and the unknown reason for the delays are puzzling. The circumstances are so abnormal and stressing for fans that it perhaps merits some clarification. A release such as this could lend itself to reinforcing the trend of poor commercial reception for Atlus titles in Europe, and thus limited Atlus presence.
Perhaps it would be preferable if Sega could take on a more active role in the future…
Sega of Europe to publish Persona 4 Arena Ultimax for EU, Sega also Publishing for Australia
This NeoGAF topic uncovered the PEGI classification for Persona 4 Arena Ultimax in Europe. It shows that Sega of Europe will be publishing the game in Europe. Zen United had been handling publishing of a few Atlus games in the past, including Rune Factory 4 and the first iteration of Persona 4 Arena. However, in May it was confirmed via Siliconera that Atlus had taken over distribution rights from Zen United for Persona 4 Arena in Europe, following the game being pulled from PSN in the region.
Worth noting is the fact that only a Playstation 3 listing shows up in the PEGI database as of now, while a multiplatform (Xbox 360 and Playstation 3) release is scheduled for Australia and North America. Ultimax is already out in Japan.
It is suggested in the above-mentioned NeoGAF thread mentions that that Germany-based media distribution and marketing company Koch Media could be distributing Persona 4 Arena Ultimax in Europe. Sega of Europe and Koch Media have overseen European distribution of some Sega games since the 2012 restructuring of Sega of Europe that saw the closing of several Sega offices, initially announced here. With Atlus now a part of Sega, they can now benefit from Sega’s resource network which includes their partnership with Koch Media in Europe.
The fact that Sega is publishing a title that is an IP of newly-acquired Atlus comes across as one of the most notable public displays of Sega and Atlus working together, and it recalls the earlier suggestion made by Atlus once Sega acquired them that Atlus could benefit from Sega’s “circulation network” and large company size.
On a related note, it seems that Sega will also be publishing Persona 4 Arena Ultimax in Australia, as well.
Persona 5 Planned for Release on PS3 and PS4, First Trailer Revealed
At Sony’s pre-TGS press conference today, Atlus announced that Persona will be released on both PS3 and PS4. They also revealed the first trailer, featuring a new character (which we can assume is the protagonist) arriving at the iconic Shibuya Crossing.
Siliconera has a translation of the recent blog post from Director Katsura Hashino. Among other things, he noted that the game is opposite to the previous one in the sense that it “will depict the lives of youths living in a setting of a big city”. He also apologized for not being able to show more of the game, and looked back at everything that they’ve been working on in recent years. Persona 5 is currently scheduled for release in 2015. You can watch the trailer below:
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