Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux - Nintendo 3DS

I'm writing this review from the perspective of somebody who loved the original Strange Journey and wants to know what the quirks are in this new port to the 3DS:* The game is NOT in 3D. Hard to believe a game centered around 3D dungeon exploration isn't in 3D on a 3D system, but there you have it.* The game does NOT run at 60 FPS. It does NOT take advantage of any features of the "New 3DS" either.* ALL voice acting is in Japanese with no options for English. You can reduce the voice volume to get rid of voices but it isn't the same as being able to disable voice acting entirely.* The tone for moving the cursor and confirming a selection is extremely loud compared to the rest of the music and SFX. You can adjust the SFX volume too, but then all sound effects are lowered in addition to the cursor movement sound. It's pretty bad on headphones and the New 3DS speakers, but not so much through the 3DS speakers.* Atlus used a very large anti-aliased font for the main text display that is blurry and not very easy to read. It isn't as extreme as Dragon Quest VIII which uses a font that is actually unintelligible and causes eye strain, but it's much less readable than the crisp, appropriately-sized text in SMT IV: Apocalypse.* All character portraits were re-done by a different artist. They are intended to be in the style of the DS game, but clearly it's by somebody with less experience.* Despite the graphical overhaul it is easily one of the crudest looking games on the 3DS especially in comparison to any other Atlus game on the 3DS. The original game was pretty ugly, and in that sense nothing has changed here. The dungeon's "3D" engine still has severe pop-up and an inconsistent frame rate.* Shoji Meguro's awful soundtrack has not been remixed or enhanced in any way. Composed at the height of his "I can do nothing wrong" period, it's easily the worst soundtrack he's ever made. On the 3DS the samples are of much higher fidelity and less scratchy than on the DS, but in the end it's effectively a better recording of the same uninspired source material.* The game is rife with spelling and punctuation errors, now a common feature of nearly every game Atlus translates. They are trying to give Aksys a run for their money it seems.Some of these minor critiques are the responsibility of Atlus USA which has done their typical rushed translation and tweaking. Then again it's a niche title that won't be a money maker for them so you can see why they put in significantly less effort compared to games like SMT: IV and Persona. It really is a budget title and they treated it as such. I would have gladly paid more for a more polished product though.Everything you loved about the original game is still here so Strange Journey fans will feel right at home with this new port for the 3DS. I just wish it was enhanced for the 3DS instead of being much closer to a rehash of the original. Regardless, it's a wonderful game and fans of the old-school Atlus RPGs like Soul Hackers and everything before Persona 3 will have a blast.

This is a remaster oof shin megami tensei strange journey. As someone who's played the original to death let me discuss some of the changes and how it affected the user experience for me.Exploration: one of the big changes that really only make it easier for new players or those who hate Nintendo hard style restrictions.Voice acting: I think the voice actors acted very well. But it isn't for me. In the context of a multicultural special task force, it's just jarring yo hear the Hispanic character speak fluent Japanese. I actually found it distracting and it took me out of the game.New art: another distraction rather than improvement in my opinion. If this was the only art I'd ever seen and hadn't grown to love Kaneko's work, then maybe the art wouldn't be so jarring. It's just bland in most places. I prefer the npcs to be generic pixelated messes than what I could only call anime trope that try to mix Kaneko's style with a more generic style.Battle system: I like the new battle system it's easier for those who don't like how brutal the battles could be at times.Music: it's not necessarily an improvement just more songs but they don't exactly fit in my opinion.New content: Uh haven't gotten there yet.Packaging/localizing/marketing: really disappointed in this whole ordeal it really felt like Atlus USA squeezed out this game with minimal effort or care on localizing and promoting it. I've found many reworked lines that read very odd, like a quick Google translate type odd. There's also been a few new typos I've seen. No day1 dlc despite Japan getting that. No special edition or first print edition or preorder bonus. The only games I can think of from the megaten library that got that treatment weren't mainline. Even stickers or anything would be nice. There was so many Japanese deep strange journey merch that you could have done what you did in the past and include that merch as limited edition or preorder bonus stuff.I rate this five stars because it's still strange journey even if it is an augmented variation. It gives people options to play a "new era tensei" remake and it's different enough that fans could also play the old one and get a different experience unlike most Atlus remakes and maybe that was their intention.

Strange Journey is a black sheep in the megaten series, being released between III and IV in the series lifetime. I played the game then, when it was first released. Being a portable title in a somewhat niche genre, the game overcame obvious hardware limitations with a deep story and challenging gameplay. When compared to Nocturne, it's predecessor, it would be easy to say it was a dumbed down version of the megaten formula, when in truth it was simply more in line with the SMT I and II. The fairest comparison would be to Soul Hackers. World navigation is simplistic and static, depicted either by artistic backgrounds or slightly more three dimensional rendered environments. The same goes for talking to demons and repeating conversations. This game is not pretty. The graphics and environments are not what the game was designed with in mind. When compared to modern era games, it falls short in those categories. And for that reason, I don't recommend this if you haven't played many jrpgs. But if you love megaten, this is a perfect pick. The soundtrack is unique and haunting, though generally not very musical in nature. The plot is detailed and enjoyable, but presented primarily through blocks of text. There are many demons to recruit and a 8 remarkably dismal sectors to explore. Returning players will be immediately greeted with numerous quality of life updates such as saving in the field and fast forwarding in dialogue. There is a new character and a corresponding bonus area which unlocks 3 new endings. Players have more to do in subsequent playthroughs, can change difficulty any time in the mentioned, and can install as many apps at a time as you like. The game is by no means flawless, but I find myself having even more trouble putting it down than when I first played it 7 years ago.