Japan Import: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers ported to 3DS

Japanese 3DS owners have good reason to be excited, as a new RPG is headed their way. On August 30, 2012, Atlus will release a slightly updated port of Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers on the handheld. It’s basically the same game, only this version will have a new opening animation, full voice acting and greatly reduced loading times.

Devil Summoner: Soul Hacker was originally released on the Sega Saturn in 1997, then ported to the Playstation two years later. Players help a hacker named Keiji, who’s a member of a hacking group called Spookies. They all reside in Amami City, a test town to see what would happen if computers control absolutely everything. It even has an entire virtual town attached to it, called Paradigm X. Spookies is investigating and hacking into Paradigm X because they feel something isn’t right, especially with the Argon company that manages Amami’s computer network. While hacking into the system with the COMP one day, a demon called Nemissa is released and ends up sharing the body of the Keiji’s friend Hitomi. This action also gets Spookies involves with something dark happening around Amami.

As with all Shin Megami Tensei games, Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers is an RPG. You can build relationships with your acquired demons, fuse them and acquire more through conversations. Battles are turned based and first person, so you don’t actually see all your characters fighting on screen. If you’re familiar with and enjoy the series, you’ll be pleased with it.

Now all we have to do is hope Atlus decides Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers is worth bringing to North America. Cross your fingers! It would mark the first appearance of this game outside of Japan if the company does. It is pretty good about releasing the Shin Megami Tensei games overseas, so maybe we’ll get lucky.

Especially since we can’t import it. Because, you know, Nintendo decided to region-lock the 3DS. By the way Nintendo, thanks again for doing that and severely limiting everyone’s game libraries!

Read [Famitsu (Japanese)]