RF Generation Message Board

While diging around a few places I happened to find something I figured a few may take interest in.  An online MMORPG of Shin Megami Tensei. 

http://www.megatenonline.com/

So far the game looks to be marginaly fun.  The biggest problems I've encounterd aside from the language intensive aspects is creating an account.  Basicly without a great understanding of Japanese it can prove difficult.  The game is free to play but does not accept the more free e-mail accounts such as Yahoo and Hotmail.  The problem with creating a charcter is that you need to be able to type the kanji/kana needed for your charcters name.  Users of XP can do it (posibly vista, I dont know) should be able to without any problems.

As far as the gameplay goes it's a rather simple game that can be played with the mouse and keyboard for hotkey use.  The menu system while in japanese, is easy to understand.  The camera angle does take some adjusting to but can be altered without any issues.

The download for the game is 669MB with a 4MB download once instalation is completed.  It takes up alot of space but from what I can see it's definitly worth it, if only for it being a free online game of SMT.  Well, if any decide to play it keep an eye out for a Fuyukaze.

SMT has grown a bit in popuarity here in the states, so I don't think an American version of this is impossible. As a matter of fact, I'd like to see it even though I'm not a SMT fanatic.

It's popular enough to warrent an online game but the problem is it's currently "free".  Free as in no money.  Simple sounding but think of how popular it is here.  Atleast, think how popular Atlus is as a whole.  Sure, we've managed to get a number of games from the SMT series.  We got the Personal series, Digital Devil Saga, Noctorne, the GBC games, and a couple others.  Problem is, we missed out on the vast majority of stuff that's been coming out and only recently have we got anything at all.  During the Famicom days we got how many?  None.  During the Super Famicom days, same thing.  We didnt get any that were for the Mega Drive, Saturn, or any other system.  SMT is incredably huge in Japan.  It's managed to find a release for nearly every system released there so it shouldnt come off as to much a surprise that they would have an online game where as we dont.  I'd like it if we had one if not an english language patch for the currently existing one, but I do not ever see it being released here.  Ever.  Not in my wildest dreams or my most vivid fantasies.

What we have now atleast is playable and somewhat fun.  I still think it's not a game for everyone but I think people should give it a chance to atleast wet their teeth on an import game for free.  At the worst they spend 2 hours downloading a game and playing one they cant understand let alone play well.  At best they find a game that sparks their interests and gives them the interest to put their money where their mouth is and start checking other imports out.

Well I better brush up on my Japanese then lol.