By Jeremy Azevedo

The latest installment of the popular Shin Megami Tensei series is on it’s way to the states! Like it’s predecessors, it involves making pacts with demons to combat a plague of otherworldly monsters from another dimension.

Unlike its predecessors, it takes place not in a Japanese prep school or a fantasy setting, nor even a steam punk utopia. Instead, it takes place in space (sort of).

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is, stylistically, kind of a cross between Persona and Dead Space. You play as an elite space explorer tasked with investigating a disturbance at the planet’s South Pole. It soon becomes apparent that this disturbance is actually a black hole that opens into a universe of demons. Some of the demons can be negotiated with, while others have a bad attitude for which the only cure is a hail of bullets. This is where you come in.

Strange Journey plays like a first-person dungeon crawler, which, as many of you know, the Nintendo DS was practically made for. All the action takes place on the top screen, while the bottom screen is reserved for maps and stats. While many DS RPGs have been using really shitty, bubble headed 3D graphics that look like a bad PS1 game for some reason, SMT: Strange Journey instead opts to stick with traditional, hand-drawn 2D sprites. A wise decision.

Check out some of the pics here:

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey for Nintendo DS is currently scheduled for release in Spring 2010.