A lost Persona spin-off from back in 2006 is making a comeback, albeit without an English localization.
Earlier this week, on August 29, publisher G-Mode debuted the trailer just below, announcing that Megami Ibunroku Persona: Ikū no Tō Hen would be coming to Nintendo Switch and PC. Look, if you hadn’t heard of this game either up until now, we could hardly blame you.
Yes, they actually did make cellphone games all the way back in 2006. You couldn’t even qualify Megami Ibunroku Persona as a “smartphone” game, given that smartphones didn’t actually exist back then, and we were all typing away on physical keyboards attached to phones. What a time to be alive.
Megami Ibunroku Persona looks like it plays out as a first-person dungeon-crawler, complete with turn-based battling and the return of series mainstay Igor. It also seems to be bringing back characters from the very first Persona game for a brand-new adventure.
The major catch with Megami Ibunroku Persona’s re-release is that there isn’t a planned English localization of the game right now. It’d admittedly be a lot of work to localize an incredibly obscure and little-known Persona spin-off game, but when it does release on PC, it could be region-free, meaning anyone around the world could purchase and download it, paving the way for fan translations.
If it’s more modern Persona-related experiences you’re after, you can look forward to the tactics spin-off Persona 5 Tactica later this year on November 17, or the Persona 3 Reload remake next year on February 2, 2024, both across all modern platforms and PC.
You can also check out our new games 2023 guide for a look at some of the other JRPGs launching later this year and beyond.