Amidst news of Persona 5, one of the earlier titles in the Megami Tensei franchise is finally playable in English.
Or, rather, two.
Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei, an enhanced Super Nintendo compilation of the first two Megami Tensei games, has recently been translated by The Romhacking Aerie. (Their only previous work is a translation of GBA RPG Oriental Blue.) This marks the first time that both of the original Megami Tensei titles have been playable in English.
Based on the novel Digital Devil Story, the original Megami Tensei is a classic dungeon crawler in which our two protagonists (including a reincarnation of the goddess Izanami) fight to expel the demon threat. Megami Tensei 2 features a very similar storyline, although it plays more closely to a traditional Japanese RPG than it does a dungeon crawler.
An Issue of Translation
Surprisingly, for all the popularity the franchise has received in the West for the past decade or so, not many Shin Megami Tensei games have seen a fan translation. Outside this game, the only entries I know that have fan translations are the first two Shin Megami Tensei games for the Super Nintendo, the original PlayStation version of Innocent Sin, and a small Game Boy spin-off called Last Bible 2. It certainly isn’t because fan translators haven’t been trying.
Aeon Genesis, one of the more prominent fan translation groups, has been working on translating several of Megami Tensei games, such as the Fire Emblem-esque Majin Tensei titles, Shin Megami Tensei If… (whose school day setting served as the original inspiration for the Persona franchise), and even the original Megami Tensei. This is to say nothing of other groups’ numerous attempts at translating Devil Summoner for the Playstation/Saturn. That said, this latest translation is better than nothing. Who knows what other translations await us in the near future?
Image source: The Video Game Preservation Dump.
