Last week, Cyberpunk 2077 was $5 at Best Buy. Amazon was giving away games like Elden Ring as part of a buy two, get one free discount. And PlayStation’s spring sale, running all month, is offering some solid deals on a ton of games. But the actual best low-key video game sale of the season has secretly been on the 3DS where Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, and a bunch of other JRPGs are cheaper than ever.
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Up through April 17, Atlus and Sega are running steep discounts off their digital wares on Nintendo’s last-gen handheld before its eShop stops accepting credit card payments on May 23 (you’ll still be able to download stuff you’ve already bought). This includes the vibrant dungeon-crawling series Etrian Odyssey, and Shin Megami Tensei’s lesser known tactics spin-off, Devil Survivor. You can, for example, currently download Etrian Odyssey V, Devil Survivor 2, and Persona Q for a grand total of just $25.
These games all range from decent to great, and since they’re normally $20 to $30, getting them for just a few bucks each feels like the sweet spot for the type of thing you might excitedly try and then never have the time to get back to. Why bother filling up your gas tank when you could sit at home and vibe out to hundreds of hours of demonic nonsense instead? Especially since most of these games will probably never get ports or remasters.
Here is the list:
Shin Megami Tensei IV – $8Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse – $9Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux – $10Devil Survivor: Overclocked – $8Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker – $8Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers – $8Etrian Odyssey Nexus – $10Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth – $9Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan – $8Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight – $8Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl – $8Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth $8Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth – $10Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology – $10Stella Glow – $87th Dragon III Code: VFD – $9
If you’ve already played some of these games, this is the perfect chance to round out your collection. If you’re not sure where to begin, Nexus is the Etrian Odyssey dungeon grind at its most deep and refined, while Devil Survivor 2 is similarly improved over its predecessor, though I personally prefer the overall story and tone of the first game better. Persona Q, meanwhile, combines casts from different Persona games with Etrian’s dungeon exploration. Some people prefer the first one, though Q2 is flashier and includes characters from Persona 5. You also can’t go wrong with Radiant Historia, which is Chrono Trigger-lite with some novel twists on time travel storytelling and turn-based combat.
I’ve personally taken this opportunity to finally pick up Strange Journey Redux, a remake of the 2009 DS game that brings a space horror energy to the demon-filled JRPG series in the vein of John Carpenter’s The Thing. I’m also finally going to play 7th Dragon III Code: VFD, whose art has been taunting me for years. With the weather warming up it’s the perfect time to sink my world-weary eyes into 40-plus hour gaming commitments I’ll likely spend the next five years nibbling away at.
It’s also not a bad time to catch up on series like Etrian Odyssey and Devil Summoner. Following its initial tease back in 2018, a new entry in the dungeon crawler could get revealed any day now. And Atlus revealed Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers 2 last month, coming to every platform (except Switch) later this year on August 26. In the meantime, it’s 2022 and I’m about to put my 2DS XL through its paces all over again.
Correction: 4/12/22, 10:25 p.m. ET: Fixed the shutdown date for the 3DS eShop.
