*I would first like to state I do not own and have not played this game, and am writing this article from excerpts of information I have found to do a sort of…. history of this forgotten part of the Shin Megami Tensei series.
Released on the 5th of December 2002, Shin Megami Tensei Nine was one of the first jumps onto the current-generation gaming consoles at the time for the series. With all three major consoles at the time out (Playstation 2, XBox and Gamecube), they chose to release this game on the XBox despite what I would consider a loyal fanbase from those with Sony and Nintendo consoles. This was due to the eventually planned online mode they wanted to implement however failed to do so for one specific reason….. possibly due to the lack of popularity for the console itself, the game sold very few copies, and it neither got its online mode or ever recieved an English release, unlike almost every other game in the SMT series.
However, I was talking to a few of my friends about this series today, and whilst everyone had heard of the Persona series and most of them about the other games in the series (Digital Devil Saga, the actual game series SMT etc) none of them had actually heard about this little gem that has been lost in time. So, I thought I would give the game its moment to shine in this article!
The game is set to take place in-between the events of Shin Megami Tensei 1 and Shin Megami Tensei 2…. not that you can easily find those games anymore, but generally, the world is ravaged by demons and Tokyo is more or less destroyed, with the heroes missing. Through the use of technology, a virtual reality known as Idea Space is designed to give the impression of Tokyo during its prime years. However, “Glitches” that result in demons appearing start occuring, and in a very-matrix like way: Damage you obtain in the Idea Space occur to your real life body. Essentially, the protagonist (You) narrowly escape death and travel the world hunting down glitches.
The storyline sounds very cliche, but does have that Shin Megami feel to it and for an xbox game released almost a decade ago, doesn’t look half bad and also has the SMT charm. I shall leave the gameplay up to you to decide from the trailers, but honestly, it is a real shame this series never made it out over here, even if it were released on the PS2, however I suppose when it comes down to it….. would a decade old game sell if it were released tomorrow?
