Nintendo LA Wii Event: Chat with Atlus

Hanging out at the Hard Rock Café were Nich Margos (editor) and Mike Meeker (editor and QA lead) from Atlus. They were casually finishing their dinner when we swung by to talk with them about Trauma Center: Second Opinion. First thing we had to ask is if anything was different from the Japanese version. Nich told us, “not too much. Derek Styles is in an American branch.” Mike elaborated, “in the Japanese game it says Japan, but now the setting is in California.” Atlus usually keeps the games intact with minor localization changes so this isn’t a surprise. Names are changed and in the case of Trauma Center they are also puns. Nich explained, “Dr. Nozomi Weaver (the new doctor) is a pun for Wii.” Did anyone else pick up on that? Also Derek’s name is a pun too, Derek Styles (the main character in the first game) has “DS” for his initials and Stiles is for “stylus”. Clever Atlus, very clever. So what does Dr. Weazer do differently from Derek? She also has a healing touch, a super powerful ability that can be used when you draw a star with your Wii remote. “Her healing touch boosts the patients health way up.” Mike said. It’s different from Derek’s healing touch where everything slows down, instead Wezer’s touch increases the health of a patient after each successful action. It saves players from scrambling to reach for the syringe to boost a patient’s vitals.

Since Nich was wearing a Shin Megami Tensei shirt we asked him about Devil Summoner PSP. Is it ever coming out? “No and it’s not because of SCEA, but it’s not coming out sorry.” What about Shin Megami Tensei Imagine, the MMORPG game developed by Cave? It doesn’t seem likely. We discussed the logistics of the game, how it requires a huge team to localize and plenty of people on tech support. Sorry Shin Megami Tensei fans, but who knows maybe Atlus will have a SMT game for the Wii.