It's such a good thing that most companies aren't nearly as awesome as Atlus! Otherwise, there would be far too many awesome games to play! Thank you Atlus:

http://www.atlus.com/etrian2/

I'm not sure why Atlus gets all this love.  I guess I'll find out when I try Persona 3:  FES.

Co-sign.

There are so many great games I would've missed out on had Atlus not made it their sole priority to bring them over to this side of the Pacific.  I appreciated Atlus even more when Working Designs closed.

I do too. ^_~  Without them there would've been no Tactics Ogre port, no Thousand Arms, no Kartia, no Persona 2, and no Ogre Battle 64 in the PS1/N64/Saturn era.  I'm glad that they grew more popular in the PS2 era starting with their localization of Disgaea.

Operation Darkness is another one that looks cool, and having been a fan of Metal Saga, it's hard to ignore.  It might push me to finally join the next generation by picking up an Xbox 360.

Yay! More FOE to run away from.

Now if only they could announce Growlanser VI, I'd be a happy panda.

I *heart* Atlus

Yes, nothing says tactical RPG like werewolves, vampires, zombies, and Hitler...  I'm glad a demo is going to be available May 5th... I'll give it a shot.

http://www.atlus.com/operationdarkness/home.html

Hehe, well I must say it has potential, and at least they're trying to give you a new and exciting storyline... besides what can be more rewarding than killing Nazis and Hitler??
That being said, I would recommend trying it out first and seeing what the critics say, but hopefully it will be good. As for Etrian 2, I KNOW that's going to rock, and I bet Rondo of Swords is going to be fantastic too! Yup, love Atlus...

cheers,

-avatar!

Maybe because they're the only company (with a few exceptions) on this side of the millennium shift that has produced a RPG worth playing?

Which one for you?

Nevermind!  I saw your posts in the P3 thread.

Most of their bigger projects during the 2000s have so far stood head and shoulders over the competition, IMO. If I have to pick a favourite it would be Persona 2 - Eternal Punishment, but P3, Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2, and Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne are all great as well (even though that last one is a bit of an acquired taste - too old-school for a lot of people today). The only RPGs of the PS2 generation that I can think of that I'd place on the same level as the above mentioned are Shadow Hearts 1 & 2. But that's just me...

They brought Odin Sphere over, and that's an amazing game.

Signed.  They brought over "Skygunner" which is a good enough reason for me to love them eternally!

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Off topic - McCall, love your new avatar!!  Ikaruga FTMFW. (360, EPIC FAIL)

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Trauma Center: Under The Knife 2 for the DS is on its way.  Definitely looking forward to that.

Anyone played New Blood, by the way?  Still need to try that; it somehow got lost in my mad shuffle of games last November.

Yes, played co-op and finished about a month ago. Although I can't compare it to any of the other games, I had a lot of fun with it. Co-op is definitely the best part and I can't imagine playing some of those levels solo.

I played New Blood.  It's a competent game and the presentation is nicer than before, but I felt it was "more of the same."  The WiFi is worth it to see the mad skills of other players, as the scores for some operations is crazy.

In co-op mode, I heard there is a bug that prevents two people from working the tweezers.  For some reason, if one person has tweezers and the other person takes an action, the tweezers "drop" the item.
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It looks like Atlus is releasing a whole bunch of games starting in April.

I am eagerly awaiting Arcana Heart!

They previously announced another 360 game I just found about, a strat-RPG called Spectral Force 3:  http://www.atlus.com/spectralforce3/  The first two were never released in the US... that annoys me for some reason.  I wonder if they'll release the first two in the US if the 3rd one becomes popular.  Who would hate to have more console SRPGs?

I'm really looking forward to Etrian Odyssey II. The first one was extremely hardcore, and I loved every impossible second of it. Oh, that reminds me, wasn't there some sort of password in the first game to be used with the second?

My only problem with Atlus is that they print so few copies these games. I can't say I blame them, but it can be very difficult to find their games unless you pre-order.

What ever happened to that Gaijinworks thing?

For all the hype they're getting, somehow I've never liked the Atlus brand of RPGs enough to finish any of them. The games they've localized have variously been too high on loli, grinding and animu. Thus, for such a supposedly good RPG company, their only game that I've finished is a non-RPG, Trauma Center Second Opinion. I'm still willing to give P3 Fes a chance thanks to all the amazing praise it has received, but when games as varied as P2, SMT3, Disgaea, EO, Summon Night and Contact are misses with me, I really have to start thinking that all Atlus RPGs seem to have some common factor that I just can't stomach. Thus, the jury is still out, but there's already a possible hypothesis that I simply dislike Atlus and their games.

Forgive me for temporarily hijacking the thread, but what the heck IS this spelling of anime?  Where did it come from and is it supposed to be insulting or something?  I think the first time I ever saw it was when I made the horrible, horrible mistake of asking someone "What's 4chan?" and then clicking the link.  x_x

a safe link to click

I can't find a clear answer---so I'll take an uneducated guess with this site:  http://mightyblue.gamespite.net/category/animu/  There is a category for anime, where he talks about anime, and one for animu, where he gets nerdy about it.  This seems to be a common ground with the definitions at Urban Dictionary:  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=animu  The hell if I can figure out where it comes from.

Loli is a reference to what?  List of lists?  Short for 'lolita'?  I think it is the latter.   "Grinding" is a gameplay issue, which is my complaint for Disgaea and such games that require way too many fruitless hours, from what I know of the term.  That being said, I sympathize, perhaps even agree with, Sami's last sentence.  Here's hoping P3Fes helps me see the light? 

I shouldn't laugh at this, but I sure did!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB9lhfJeu2U&NR=1

Just picked up Under The Knife 2.  Played the first five operations, and I breezed through them in no time flat.  Even on the Normal difficulty setting, TC vets should have absolutely no problems jumping into the gameplay; it's pretty much exactly the same as it is in the first Under The Knife.  There are a couple Wii-centric features carried over from Second Opinion, such as the defibrillator and bone mending surgeries (which they've necessitated with stylus functionality), but other than that, it feels like you're going through familiar motions in this early stage.

Which isn't to say I'm not having a blast; Trauma Center is still one of the best DS titles that utilizes the touchscreen to its fullest, and compared to the Wii versions, controls are simply better in terms of accuracy.  I gave those five operations a try on the Easy difficulty level as well, and it's probably safe to say that Easy will insure greater accessibility to newbies and..... scrubs who weren't cut out for the first game alike.  >;)  Operations are more streamlined too, as your assistant voices every command whenever a tool change is necessary. (For those who prefer the extra challenge or just can't bear to hear Angie say, "Use the Ultrasound!" for the umpteenth time, the voices can be turned off.)

The story is interesting so far; it's neat seeing what Mr. Stiles has been up to, who's pretty much top dog in the medical profession right now - and even playing mentor to the new kid.  The warring country setting is a backdrop that can provide some potentially excellent drama.  But it's the music score that I'm really digging.  Manubu Namiki keeps that peppy TC jazz flavor intact, while sprinkling some awesome, near shmup-style trance/techno elements here and there.  Namiki downplays the sense of urgency by a few notches, but the music is certainly more stylistically enjoyable to listen to overall.

I played the demo on the Nintendo Channel, and I liked it.  It's addicting and easy to pick up, and unlike many of the PS3 demos I've been playing lately, they actually bother to tell you how to play in this demo.  Fancy that!

Really?  He did the second one?  I thought they'd put in Shoji Meguro because... it's Atlus... .   Nice.

Same here, getting DS demos through Wii's Nintendo Channel is great.

I would enjoy playing 1 of these titles, but as Angie mentioned the gameplay is probably too repetative to warrant getting EVERY entry in the series. 

The DS version played very quick, and the stylus play was very natural and is probably a better instrument than the wiimote when racing against the clock.

As for the music, only the 3rd game (New Blood) has a soundtrack release though, right?  http://vgmdb.net/db/albums.php?id=6490
If Manabu did the 2nd, then I'm gonna have to find a rip or something since there's no cd...

Having finally cracked open Etrian Odyssey though, Atlus has me occupied (and getting hooked) on that game at the moment.

If you were to choose one, I'd say go with Under The Knife 2.  Aside from the more stylus-based precise gameplay, it seems to encompass all of the good traits from the first UTK, while making several rectifications as well.  Need a brush-up on the plots from the first games?  Hit up the Wikipedia entries.

Yep.  Was a bit surprised that they got Basiscape for the job, but I think Namiki's injected some much-needed new life to the music.  He's done wonders with UTK2's music.

Ah, yes, in my opinion it's the BEST RPG from Japan in years!
It's a nod to classic US RPGs such as Wizardry (well, that's Canadian actually), Might and Magic, Bard's Tale, etc... and it's beautiful! Are you playing the first one or second? I've yet to entirely complete the first game, but I heard once you do there's a special code that can be used with the second game! What an Easter egg

cheers,

-avatar!

The first one, and it seems that you can't rush through this at all...
I'm gonna have to do a lot of leveling up as I've just met the first couple F.O.E.s and they smashed my ass.

I found that you don't have to do that much random leveling up. Basically, just by exploring new areas AND NOT running away from battles, you level up accordingly, so you don't ever feel like you just have to mess-around leveling up. Of course, before a boss fight you might want to do that anyway, but you know it's really about the skills!

ALSO: Atlus just announced Luminous Arc 2 for the DS! Plus, every copy of the game will include the soundtrack on CD! I'm beginning to wonder, how is Atlus producing all these great games at such a pace? Talk about productive! I'm certainly not complaining

cheers,

-avatar!

Atlus was the first company I thought of when Nintendo started hammering on the whole "cheaper development is better than HD" thing.  I'll bet they're making a killing on localizing DS and Wii games that aren't huge budget graphics fests.  Even their 360 games don't seem like they'd be that money intensive to work on. 

And even though I don't have much interest in the large majority of the things they bring over, I'm really happy that they're around and doing what they do.  Keep 'em comin'!

I opened it up on Sunday myself, thanks to a flight to Miami.  When I got back home, I ordered the second one.  Good stuff.

Watch out for those Stalkers on Level 3!