- Pronouns
- he/him
I was thinking about Shin Megami Tensei lately, with Vengeance coming out. I’ve been reading some previews this week and a disappointing number of them are just comparing it to Persona over and over.
On one hand I get it: they share a lot of the same monster designs. Also Persona is wildly more popular and is an easy point of reference for those who haven’t played SMT before. That all makes sense.
But on the other hand, as an SMT fan, I do feel like this is like writing a preview for the next mainline Pokemon games where you compare it to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. You’re comparing it to a spinoff, which feels a little… I dunno, it doesn’t feel good to me.
So it got me thinking: I wonder if SMT having a long, hard to spell/pronounce (for people not familiar with Japanese phonetics) franchise name keeps some folks away from it? Would it have more mainstream appeal if they had localized the name into something a little less esoteric for western audiences?
On one hand I get it: they share a lot of the same monster designs. Also Persona is wildly more popular and is an easy point of reference for those who haven’t played SMT before. That all makes sense.
But on the other hand, as an SMT fan, I do feel like this is like writing a preview for the next mainline Pokemon games where you compare it to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. You’re comparing it to a spinoff, which feels a little… I dunno, it doesn’t feel good to me.
So it got me thinking: I wonder if SMT having a long, hard to spell/pronounce (for people not familiar with Japanese phonetics) franchise name keeps some folks away from it? Would it have more mainstream appeal if they had localized the name into something a little less esoteric for western audiences?