Atlus, on Friday, announced two (three, really) titles for Nintendo handhelds. The first is Contact on DS, from Grasshopper Manufacture. For whatever reason, Atlus is not presently playing this up, but this is GM's first original title after Killer 7, under Suda51 (they do a lot of contract work for other people - like Samurai Champloo and Shining Soul II). They have an English page at GM now, incidentally.

Anyway, Contact is an RPG-ish game, in which you and this doctor person land on a mysterious planet, and you have to go search for items in order to rebuild the ship. But the interesting thing to me is that you and the professor are very pixelly, and you've landed on a prerendered 2D planet. Most times, the professor's actions will go on in one screen, while you forage for things on the other. Interesting concepts abound, with hunting, fishing, battles, and the like.

The other game announced is Super Robot Taisen. The reason no Super Robot game has come to the US is the crippling license issues of having so many robots from so many companies in one game. This would be hell for a US company. But this is SRT Original Generation, meaning the robots are familiar, but not the exact licenses. Think of it as a legal Taiwanese knockoff. The gameplay and battles of the series remain intact, which is the main reason to play this, though rumor has it the character (text) limit imposed by the Japanese cart may not be easy to get around. Just like the Super Famicom days!

[Oh, one thing a lot of people haven't picked up on yet is that they're bringing both SRT: OG 1 AND 2, both for GBA. There's more good stuff coming from Atlus on the GBA front, we hear, so keep your eyes open.]