Old SMT related magazine article scans.

[Kakizaki]

I am kind of bored and have been meaning to do this for a while. This is a scan of a Devil Summoner Saturn article from a spring of '96 issue of Gamefan. It is kind of depressing as this was a preview for the U.S. version of DS. Obviously that never happened. If people are interested, I will keep going through my old mags. I have quite a few SMT related articles for stuff that did and didn't happen. Sorry, the scan isn't the greatest. I'm not willing to sacrifice my Gamefan issues for this type of stuff. I'll assume since these are very old articles, it is cool to post it.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/devilsummoner.jpg

Edit - The article is by Casey Loe. He still writes gaming related stuff. His articles / reviews / etc show up in Play, and I believe he had an EO II preview in Nintendo Power.

[Kakizaki]

Another Devil Summoner Saturn blurb. This one is from a RPG's coming soon to the U.S. preview in an April of '96 issue of Game Players.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/devilsummoner2.jpg

This one is a little harder to read. If anyone is interested, I can provide a direct link.

[DamnedToBeFree]

DAY ONE!

oh wait... :(

[Kakizaki]

Persona preview from the December of 1996 issue of Gamefan. I used to read this article over and over.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/Personapt1.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/Personapt2.jpg

Again, written by Casey Loe.

[unknown]

I used to read Gamefan when I was in middle school, I wish I stumbled upon this article and found out about SMT sooner ;_;

[Kakizaki]

^ I started reading it when I started college. The import coverage sucked me in. I also seemed to to agree with them more times than not on reviews as well. I miss that magazine.

[Sseklebeast]

It's funny you posted these scans because I recently looked through all of my old Gamefan's,EGMs and other mags to see if I could find any articles on the older SMT games. I did find that GameFan Devil Summoner article ( I think they were saying we should look forward to seeing an English localization 'soon' :P ) interesting and I found a Revelations : Persona article in some old EGM ( or was it EGM2 ? ).

[Kakizaki]

^I also have some Soul Hackers stuff out of GF.

[Sseklebeast]

Now that you mention it, I remember seeing Soul Hackers in GF as well. I seemed to have lost the GF with Guardian Heroes on the cover which I believe had an article on Policenauts in it. It's not SMT related but also another game I've always wanted to play. :\

[Hamel]

Why didn't Atlus import >:

[slayn]

I'm ok with Atlus stopping work on the Saturn game, but damnation, why didn't they give us the PSP Soul Hackers?

[Kakizaki]

I'm ok with Atlus stopping work on the Saturn game


:frown:

[slayn]

I'm ok with Atlus stopping work on the Saturn game


:frown:

No Saturn here.

[Kakizaki]

Forgot about this one. Since people seem pretty interested in talking about Soul Hackers recently:


http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/SoulHackers.jpg

[DamageCity]

Nostalgiac

great stuff

[DevilRy]

Wow :o I remember GameFan...

They were like famous for that: writing articles for games that never saw NA shores.

[Olethros]

Damn Kaki. You're a lot better at taking care of your old magazines than I am. Even when I intended to save them, they always ended up getting ripped/stained/burned, etc. :o

[Kakizaki]

^I'm pretty anal about some stuff. :/ I love my old GameFans.

[EvilHero]

Damn Kaki... You're making me want to pull out my copy of DS and give it another go.

3rd times a charm, hopefully. :(

[Kakizaki]

^I think about that a least a few times a month. ;)


I found some more articles I will scan soon.

[SickleCellAnemia]

I'm pretty anal

I knew it. :D

[Kakizaki]

Waka, waka, waka. ;P

[Crabman]

I have some stuff on P1/P2/Nocturne/DDS1 from this magazine called GMR. I'll scan them later.

[cj iwakura]

Wow, great articles.


Did Atlus USA release any games on the Saturn? Why would they give up on Devil Summoner? It's not like Sega were as anal as SCEA.

[Kakizaki]

^I believe they released Lunacy, High Velocity Mountain Racing Challenge, and Virtual Hydlide for the Saturn in the U.S.

I have some stuff on P1/P2/Nocturne/DDS1 from this magazine called GMR. I'll scan them later.

GMR do retrospectives on P1 and P2? They didn't exist when those titles were originally released.

[Crabman]

They did do retrospectives on P1 and P2, but I can't find those magazines right now :(

Anyways, the scans:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/guyanesenerdalisticboi/DDS.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/guyanesenerdalisticboi/DDS001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/guyanesenerdalisticboi/Nocturne.jpg

This magazine got me interested in these games. P3 made me go looking for them again (and getting them this time!)

Enjoy!

[jeffx]

I used to get that magazine for free, in fact this might have been the last issue I got.

[Inzaghi]

These aren't magazine scans, but here's a couple articles that, uhh, someone wrote before he worked for Atlus USA.

Interview with Kazuma Kaneko (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3134745) (covers character designs from several Megaten games)
Interview with Shoji Meguro (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3133377) (MP3 links are busted now)

[dragonlife29]

These aren't magazine scans, but here's a couple articles that, uhh, someone wrote before he worked for Atlus USA.

Interview with Kazuma Kaneko (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3134745) (covers character designs from several Megaten games)
Interview with Shoji Meguro (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3133377) (MP3 links are busted now)Oh, cool! I had read the one with Meguro, but had never seen the Kaneko one--good stuff! Thanks.

It kinda sucks that the text goes out of the border for me, though =(

[Dave3]

Some interesting scans guys. I found the first Devil Summoner one especially interesting. Thanks for posting that

[Kakizaki]

Some Maken X stuff (Some people tend to get bent out of shape when you mention Maken X in relation to SMT. I'm not one of those people):

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/MakenX5.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/MakenX3.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/MakenX4.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/MakenX.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/MakenX2.jpg

Note that these are all from Gamer's Republic. Halverson must have had a big boner for Maken X.

[Kakizaki]

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/PersonaEP.jpg

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j232/kakizaki33/PersonaEP2.jpg

[xeno]

Wow, thanks for finding those, I gotta save those or something and look through them every so often...I too wish I got into the SMT franchise earlier...

Though I am not surprised that Atlus never ported the Devil Summoner games, though I kinda wish they did port them...well...Before "Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha VS the Soulless army"

But there are other things I wish they would have done more...

EDIT: also, sorry, but you posted the "makenX3" picture twice, it seems.

[Foryth]

These aren't magazine scans, but here's a couple articles that, uhh, someone wrote before he worked for Atlus USA.

Interview with Kazuma Kaneko (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3134745) (covers character designs from several Megaten games)
Interview with Shoji Meguro (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3133377) (MP3 links are busted now)

lol, someone. :P

Anyway, the Kaneko one was pretty interesting, especialy for someone who dreamt of being a character designer as a kid.

[raum215]

This Kazuma Kaneko article makes me wish the series would get back to being cyber-occult in nature.

[Kakizaki]

EDIT: also, sorry, but you posted the "makenX3" picture twice, it seems.

You were right. Fixed. ;)

[Inzaghi]

This Kazuma Kaneko article makes me wish the series would get back to being cyber-occult in nature.

Have you read much about Devil Survivor? It makes heavy use of summoning demons with computers, and the Internet is a big part of the storyline.

[triverse]

Kakizaki, and everyone else into Gamefan, just wanted to say hello to a fellow Gamefan, um, fan. Love the scans you put up (reminded me of some great games there).

Not sure on how to ad a picture here on the forum (probably a membership benefit) but here is an ad scan from that issue of Gamefan (in the name of the file) for Space Griffn VF-9, an early Atlus release for the PSOne.
I have more scans and such available if anyone is interested.

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8062/gamefanv03i12december19qv6.jpg

[Kakizaki]

^I certainly miss that magazine.

[Kenji]

Throughout the series, he has appeared as a child, and old man, a gentleman, an angel and a demon. This is to show that he is omnipotent. I believe there will be a time when he will reveal his true form, a combination of all his other forms, to the player.
Word of God?

I guess it's no surprise that Lucifer's been screwing with us the entire franchise. :P I want to say "hope this shows up in SMT4," but whatever situation would force Lucifer to reveal his true power (i.e. confronting God) would probably end the SMT series...

[Hamel]

Throughout the series, he has appeared as a child, and old man, a gentleman, an angel and a demon. This is to show that he is omnipotent. I believe there will be a time when he will reveal his true form, a combination of all his other forms, to the player.
Word of God?

I guess it's no surprise that Lucifer's been screwing with us the entire franchise. :P I want to say "hope this shows up in SMT4," but whatever situation would force Lucifer to reveal his true power (i.e. confronting God) would probably end the SMT series...

So I hope it will be reveld in SMT10 or so

[Ark]

Why didn't Atlus import >:

I think Sony was just as bad as Nintendo back then when it came to game content. Of course games like MGS and GTA broke that barrier.

[Ark]

Throughout the series, he has appeared as a child, and old man, a gentleman, an angel and a demon. This is to show that he is omnipotent. I believe there will be a time when he will reveal his true form, a combination of all his other forms, to the player.
Word of God?

I guess it's no surprise that Lucifer's been screwing with us the entire franchise. :P I want to say "hope this shows up in SMT4," but whatever situation would force Lucifer to reveal his true power (i.e. confronting God) would probably end the SMT series...

It wont. Since they are both immortal, and God won't kill, it would be an eternal struggle between the two. There's MUCH to be had in story just based on this small face.

Personally I'd rather see a SMT interpretation of Dante's Inferno thrown into the mix...

[Asema]

Kakizaki, and everyone else into Gamefan, just wanted to say hello to a fellow Gamefan, um, fan. Love the scans you put up (reminded me of some great games there).

Not sure on how to ad a picture here on the forum (probably a membership benefit) but here is an ad scan from that issue of Gamefan (in the name of the file) for Space Griffn VF-9, an early Atlus release for the PSOne.
I have more scans and such available if anyone is interested.

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8062/gamefanv03i12december19qv6.jpg
It's quite a bit like Soul Hackers. It is much more similar to typical Shin Megami Tensei entries than to Persona (perhaps exempting the human characters' appearance).

[Emilio Morales]

Let me contribute to the cause:

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/2569/persona1.jpg

http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/9743/persona2.jpg

[Inzaghi]

EGM back then was something else. "Guido [...] knows what he's doing is evil, but he doesn't really care--after all, he is evil." That and the debug code all over the screenshots...

[Kakizaki]

Yeah, I'm curious. What issue number was that? I had a subscription to EGM back when Persona was released, and I don't remember this article.

[Emilio Morales]

^Magazine #90

[jeffx]

Emilio, any way you can get us high res scans? So we can actually read those?

[Kakizaki]

^Magazine #90

Thank you. ;)

[Emilio Morales]

^You're Welcome! :D

Emilio, any way you can get us high res scans? So we can actually read those?

I scan those at 300dpi but it looks like imageshack screw the resolution >_< if you want I can send the scans to your mail

[triverse]

Just to let everyone here know, issue 90 of EGM is available on Retromags.com at the link below:

http://www.retromags.com/forums/downloads.html&req=download&code=confirm_download&id=483

It is a RAW release (I am downloading it now to edit it into a proper release) but is fully viewable.
If you don't want to use Comic Book Reader, you can simply rename the CBZ/CBR file to either Zip or Rar (depending on the last letter of the file extension) and then extract the pics.

Hope that helps.

I will post the pages in question if anyone wants them without having to download the whole release.

Edit:
Here are links to the pages all cleaned up and ready for viewing. The trick with Imageshack is not to set them to be resized at all.

http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/9393/electronicgamingmonthly.jpg
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/9393/electronicgamingmonthly.jpg

[chluophobi]

Holy nostalgia bomb, nice finds guys. I can't wait to read up on these, though curse the damn image sites for shrinking the sizes. I really miss GameFan, it pissed me off because when I was a 10 a guy came by my house selling deals on magazine subscriptions in a contest for his school. I was suppose to get a year of GameFan (or was it Pro?), instead I got 3 of the most awesome years of FHM. (For Him Magazine)

[Pibbman]

Persona 2 wasn't developed by Atlus, and was only published by them?

I never heard of r&d1 before. That's surprising because I thought Atlus was the only one that developed SMT and it's spinoffs.

[chluophobi]

Persona 2 wasn't developed by Atlus, and was only published by them?

I never heard of r&d1 before. That's surprising because I thought Atlus was the only one that developed SMT and it's spinoffs.

What is this... I don't even.

[Pibbman]

Well there is a r&d1 from my research just a bit ago, but that is Nintendo's development studio. I can't see them making a game for a playstation platform, unless Atlus somehow convinced Nintendo otherwise?

[chluophobi]

It's like THE main group that created SMT III, the game (engine rather) responsible for your supah supah kawaii Persona gaems. :3

[Inzaghi]

Well there is a r&d1 from my research just a bit ago, but that is Nintendo's development studio. I can't see them making a game for a playstation platform, unless Atlus somehow convinced Nintendo otherwise?

R&D1 just stands for "Research & Development 1." It's a common term for production teams, which is why Nintendo has one as well, but all the SMT games were developed in-house by Atlus.

[Pibbman]

I remember seeing it during the load screen for Persona 2, I just figured it was the name of the engine it used, sorta like Havok or Unreal3D screen for some games. Didn't think it was a developer because it's a somewhat unusual name.

[Kenji]

I'm guessing, then, that you haven't played anything outside of the Persona series? The first time I ran into R&D1 was in SMTIII, then DDS, then finally P2 (if you had played Nocturne or DDS, you'd be able to do process of elimination on the "game engine" theory). Then again, I'm quite familiar with the term "R&D," so I never even blinked at it. It's just the frontline game development division of Atlus.

Criware, on the other hand, is a game engine. I guess that's the source of your confusion.

[Pibbman]

I'm guessing, then, that you haven't played anything outside of the Persona series? The first time I ran into R&D1 was in SMTIII, then DDS, then finally P2 (if you had played Nocturne or DDS, you'd be able to do process of elimination on the "game engine" theory). Then again, I'm quite familiar with the term "R&D," so I never even blinked at it. It's just the frontline game development division of Atlus.

Criware, on the other hand, is a game engine. I guess that's the source of your confusion.

No I've played SMT outside of the Persona series as well. Honestly I never pay attention to the logos anyways when the game loads up, I'm too busy pressing start as fast as I can to skip it all, so I can start playing. :P

I only noticed it now from that scan kaki had of Persona 2, even then I find it somewhat strange that it says r&d1, when it's considered part of Atlus. Why not just put Atlus there too?

[Inzaghi]

I only noticed it now from that scan kaki had of Persona 2, even then I find it somewhat strange that it says r&d1, when it's considered part of Atlus. Why not just put Atlus there too?

Because it's an internal development group with a specific name; i.e., not the Growlanser or, I dunno, Groove on Fight team. Other companies do this too, I should note. Intelligent Systems is a named internal design team at Nintendo, and Sega used to be famous for having tons of them: AM2, Overworks, Smilebit, Hitmaker (not NISA's Hitmaker, the other one), United Game Artists, etc.

[Kakizaki]

Pibbman, I know you bristled in the past when I suggested this, but read this:

http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/megaten/megaten.htm

R&D 1 is mentioned a few times.

[unknown]

I'm not sure if this has been posted before:

http://community.livejournal.com/sumarucity/104744.html

2008 Interview with Kazuma Kaneko in a European magazine. Pretty interesting stuff, I never knew that Kaneko's most favorite SMT girl was Rei Reiho and that he's worked on Transformers, and other animation stuff before.

[Crabman]

^Interesting article, although Soejima's art is everywhere in a Kaneko interview :( I think I saw the main character from Maken X though.

Which reminds me...I bought Maken X at an anime convention I went to but my Dreamcast refuses to read the disc :very_sad:

[unknown]

Yeah the guy who put in the art for the interview didn't know what he was doing.

[nbinney]

I'm kinda glad the Sega ended the Saturn lifecycle early. If Devil Summoner DID make it to the US, it probably would have been a crazy collector's item nowadays like Panzer Dragoon Saga.