Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux – Official Q&A

A few weeks ago, Atlus USA had fans come up with questions to ask to the development team of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, on Nintendo 3DS. And yesterday, the company finally shared the official Q&A on their official website, with the answers from the following people:

• Eiji Ishida (Director)
• Tatsuya Watanabe (World Setting Investigator / Level Designer)
• Masayuki Doi (Alex’s Character Designer / New Demon Deisgner)

Here’s the questions answered in this Q&A:

• Strange Journey’s setting stands out among fantasy JRPGs and even other SMT games. Why go for a military setting in the Antarctic?
• What made you have a game where the main characters are adults in their 30s instead of the usual “teenagers save the world” trope that SMT goes for?
• What difficulties did you face when adding new story concepts to this latest version?
• When developing this title, how did you decide on what new content to include? How much new content were you able to put in before your team decided any additional content should be saved for a new game? Or rather, was there any content that you felt didn’t fit the theme of Strange Journey, so you cut it?
• What inspired the new character, Alex?
• Strange Journey was a great installment with an original story with an excellent sci-fi setting. Will you guys ever make a future title with the same sort of atmosphere? Maybe a story that takes place in space?
• What was the coolest scrapped idea you guys had for SJR?
• What were you looking forward to most when revisiting Strange Journey for this remake?
• How did you guys come up with the idea for Strange Journey?
• Shin Megami Tensei games are challenging. What do you recommend for those of us transitioning from the Persona series?
• I’m a huge fan of the Persona series. One of the big reasons for that is how interacting with certain characters can affect gameplay. Is there a similar system in this game?
• Will it be fun for newcomers to the Shin Megami Tensei series? This will possibly be my first one.
• Since religious imagery and symbolism play a huge part of your games, do you have a favorite myth, lore, or culture/religion that’s not your own that you find particularly fascinating or inspiring?
• Would you like to make another military-themed Shin Megami Tensei game?
• Which alignment do the devs choose when getting to play the games after finishing development?
• What is the criteria that the developers use to select demons to put in the compendium? The diversity of the deities and demons present in the games are one of the best SMT characteristics that make the games unique.
• What is the timeline of all Shin Megami Tensei games? Do the events of all the Shin Megami Tensei games occur in the same universe or dimension?
• Are there plans for a default female main character, or at least the option of a female MC for future titles?
• Any plans expand the moral options to the game beside the classic chaos/neutral/law? Perhaps it could include something like we have seen in the Witcher, Mass Effect or Fallout New Vegas, to name a few.
• What is the team’s writing and planning process like? How do you choose which demons might take a bigger role in the narrative of a single entry in the games?
• How do you research your information for demon designs what sources do you look at to find stories from mythology from around the world and how do you incorporate that into the final design?
• What inspires you guys to keep writing the stories you create? And how do you come up with settings and area designs?
• How do you come up with these unique character designs in each game?
• At any point, were there plans to have a Shin Megami Tensei game take place completely in the Western world (with the exception of SJR) or worldwide?
• Does fan input from surveys contribute to any of the recent projects and/or ideas?
• How have modern games, developed by ATLUS or otherwise, influenced the direction of the Shin Megami Tensei series, which is over 20 years old at this point?

Found a question that piqued your interest? Was your question selected? Do you simply want to learn more about Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux and its development, and/or the Shin Megami Tensei series as a whole? Then click here to check out the answer to all the questions listed above!

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux (3DS) comes out on May 15th in North America, and May 18th in Europe and North America.

Source: Atlus