Anyone who claims that Japanese RPGs are dead obviously doesn’t have a 3DS, as the genre is alive and well on Nintendo’s latest handheld. Nintendo is even offering a special deal for players who pick up two of this year’s best RPG’s: the company will soon run a promotion where anyone who’s registered both Fire Emblem: Awakening and the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei IV with Club Nintendo will automatically get $30 of e-Shop credit added to their account.
If you watched Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei IV unboxing video, you probably heard Atlus’ PR rep strongly recommend that everybody register their game with Club Nintendo, and apparently this is the reason why.
Details about the offer are rather vague (as is the case with most Nintendo promotions,) but apparently the deal is good on both physical and digital copies of the game. It seems like users who registered Fire Emblem: Awakening back in February will still qualify for the deal as well.
Fire Emblem: Awakening was released in the US last February to rave reviews and strong sales: according to Nintendo, it’s the fastest selling title in the franchise’s 23 year long history, which is good news, considering that Nintendo was considering shelving the franchise after declining sales during the Wii/DS generation.
Shin Megami Tensei IV is the long awaited fourth entry in the “main” Shin Megami Tensei series (games like Persona series, Digital Devil Saga, and Devil Summoner are all pseudo spin-offs that feature similar themes and gameplay mechanics.) Like Fire Emblem, SMT4 was released in Japan to loads of critical acclaim and has also managed to become the fastest selling title in the franchise, surpassing the record set by the PS2 version of Persona 4 in 2008. Atlus’ American branch will release the game in the US on July 16th.
While Nintendo has run multiple promotions like this in Japan and Europe before, this is the first time that Nintendo of America has offered a deal this generous in the US. If you own a 3DS, you’ll probably want to get these two (great) games anyway, so Nintendo’s offer is a pretty good one. At the very least, it’s a better reward than most of the crap that the American version of Club Nintendo usually gives out.
It’s probably not a coincidence that the promotion requires you to buy both FE:A and SMT4, as Nintendo and Atlus are teaming up to create the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem for the Wii U, so both companies probably want as many players as possible to be familiar with the original series’ before they release the crossover.
Source: Tiny Cartridge
