Atlus

A Half-dozen Ways to Save Lives

HIGH The Forensics mode is so great, it could be its own game.

LOW Trying to find the minuscule difference between five CT images.

WTF The phrase "think slowly" does NOT mean the same as "think hard."

Earlier today, I was able to attend an online conference put on by the good people at Atlus. The subject of the meeting? 3D Dot Game Heroes for PS3.

For those of you who might not be familiar, 3D Dot Game Heroes is essentially a loving homage to the original Legend of Zelda. Not Twilight Princess, not that new one with the train, or even anything on a 16-bit system…no, we’re talking old, old-school 8-bit Zelda. The original, groundbreaking stuff.

Although I've had more than my fill of talking about Mass Effect 2 since my extremely popular and well-regarded review hit Metacritic, I have to admit that I'm not quite ready to let the topic go. Getting right to the point, I've been thinking about the way homosexual relationships were removed for the most part, and what a disappointing choice that was.

I've been spending most of the last two days playing Shiren the Wanderer on the Wii and Dark Void on the Xbox 360.

After completing Brütal Legend, there were several pictures of the development team on screen as the credits rolled. The people on view all looked like nice, upstanding, hard-working citizens of the game dev community. As these snapshots appeared, I felt an intense wave of something approximating some kind of bizarre guilt because actually having faces attached to the game made Brütal Legend's failure somehow more tangible. More terrible.

With Demon's Souls nearing release, it's all things Atlus! We welcome Atlus USA's Manager of PR Aram Jabbari to the show. Localization strategies, digital distribution, aggregate sites, and much more are covered, and we take our best shot at getting you some Persona scoop! The back half of the show brings some of the most in-depth Demon's Souls discussion around. Featuring Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Mike Bracken, and Tim "Tim Spaeth" Spaeth.

Download: Right click here and select "Save Target As..."
Subscribe: iTunes | Zune | RSS
Read: Transcript

Topic and Game References:

• Atlus
• Shin Megami Tensei series
• Trauma Center series
• King's Field series
• Cubivore
• Demon's Souls Review

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

Bring your demons to Show-and-Tell

HIGH The new updates (both in terms of gameplay and aesthetics) are amazing.

LOW The difficulty level can be brutal.

WTF Japanese teenagers are surprisingly nonchalant about interacting with the supernatural.