The Most Obscure of the Big Three JRPG Series

Final Fantasy, everyone has heard of.

Dragon Quest, well, at least most gamers know of Dragon Warrior, even if they don't know of the roots of the series. And Dragon Quest 8 (or DQ VIII) was highly anticipated as the first English-language release of the series to carry the Quest rather than the change to Warrior.

However, Megaten, as on of the Big Three Japanese Role-Playing Game series of all time, and still ongoing now ( SMT: P4 in English in December this year, P3 and P3:FES selling well over the last year, in fact, I'm play SMT:P3 and a friend of mine is playing Persona 3: FES, the upgraded expanded release which was hot on its heels), is relatively obscure.

Perhaps the emphasis on symbolism and psychology should give an hint as to why: clearly, its creators live in a world of "high art", and are unconcerned by meager things such as, say, making money by making the games available to as many people, and accessible to many peoples, as possible. In fact, "megaten" is a name coined by their fans: without that, you'd hardly even realize that there is a whole, sprawling series of titles.

I just this night found out that the Persona series, known to true megatenist as the "Megami Ibunroku series", apparently (which lit. translated means Another Goddess, I think), has another entry besides Mgami Ibunroku Persona (aka P1, or Persona 1, or just Persona... but don't confuse it with P2:IS, P2:EP, or P3, or P3:FES... or the upcoming P4). I'll just quote from the source, it's message # 100 on the Tsumi fantranslation blog:

Still… Even if Persona is fully translated, the Megami Ibunroku series will still not be complete without “Ikuu no Touhen”. (I doubt it will ever will be translated, considering that that this Persona 1 “Gaiden” was only released on cell phones in ‘06.) In case you don’t know about Ikuu no Touhen, it’s a Persona 1 gaiden about the Deva System throwing the old team into a weird tower ruled by the Queen of the Night… You can see some photos here:

http://www.famitsu.com/k_tai/news/2006/12/19/607,1166501029,64690,0,0.html

- Tom (translator for Tsumi)

Well, anyhow, I wanted to write more but I'm sorta tired and feel inspired to do something else anyhow, so, for now, that's just more info for your otaku / budding megatenist out there.