Shin Megami Tensei
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Shin Megami Tensei, known in Japan as simply "Megami Tensi", is a series of roleplaying videogames inspired by the sci-fi novel series Digital Devil Story written by Aya Nishitani that are described here because a) they're really good Urban Fantasy games, and b) there is an official SMT tabletop RPG in Japan, though it has yet to be translated.
The Premise
Describing the premise of the SMT series is really challenging because, similarly to Final Fantasy, the titles almost never are directly related to each other - they just use a similar basic precept.
That precept, with a little stretching, can be defined as "Post-Apocalyptic and/or Cyberpunk Urban Fantasy set to an Order vs. Chaos story where both sides suck". The precise story varies from game to game, but in general you play as a human (or a small team of humans) caught up in a cosmological struggle between the forces of Order and Chaos, each represented by an assortment of different monsters, spirits, demons and gods from real-world mythology and you have to choose whether to align yourself with one side or the other, or to try and fight your way to an independent victory. This "neutral" path is usually the best (or least worst) outcome, since SMT is even less subtle than Planescape when it comes to selling that both Order and Chaos are dangerous; an Order victory usually results in the complete erasure of free-will to instead reduce all life to an endless fawning over the ultimate power of Order, whilst a Chaos victory creates a brutal anarchy in which the only law is "Survival of the Fittest". Later games play with this concept, with III having ALL sides be Order (in fact, the most Chaos-like side features the traditionally Order-aligned angelic demons) while Lucifer is trying to destroy the world altogether from the shadows and IV showing Order's leader manipulating his nemesis and gods from other pantheons deciding to intervene.
One of the most iconic traits of the SMT games is the idea that you don't just fight against the various monsters and demons, but can actually recruit them to fight alongside you. Each different creature as its own unique strengths, weaknesses and powers. In some games, certain demons will evolve through gaining combat experience, Pokemon style, whilst in all of them, you can use a process called Fusion to sacrifice two demons and create a new demon, with some demons only being available by completely a fusion or even an entire chain of fusions.
These "core" SMT games largely never made it into the West outside of the small cult following of fans willing to acquire untranslated games and either play them that way or do the hard work of translating them. This is because the core SMT games originally launched as Nintendo titles, and since the Order faction in the games are often directly based on Christian trappings and characters... yeah, it was a bit too much religious heat for Nintendo in the 90s.
Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei
The very first two games in the SMT universe, these games have gone largely unnoticed outside of the most hardcore Megami Tensei fanboys due to a lack of translations and their divergence from the meta-story of the subsequent Shin Megami Tensei games.
Both of these games debuted on the Famicom (the Japanese version of the NES), but an updated port of the two games on one cartridge, titled Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei, was launched on the Super Famicom (Japanese Super Nintendo) in 1995.
Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei
The very first ever Megami Tensei story, debuting in 1987, this is an old-school 3d dungeon crawler game; there's no overworld, very little plot, and in general it's much more like the Western RPG games of the time. In fact, it's so very different to the SMT "style" that it's largely ignored even by most fans. About the only mechanic it has that passed on to the others is the demon recruitment and fusion system.
Plot-wise, this game's a direct sequel to the first two Digital Devil Story novels, specifically taking place after the events of Warrior of the Demon City. Players take the role of the novel's heroes Akemi Nakajima and Yumiko Shirasagi when a demon lord named Lucifer revives their fallen enemies Loki and Set before, with their aid and the help of three other powerful demons, he kidnaps and imprisons the goddess Izanami and creates a magical labyrinth to serve as a gateway between the human and demonic realms. The heroes must plunge in to the labyrinth, free Izanami, defeat the Five Tyrants and their master Lucifer, and stop the impending demonic invasion of Earth.
Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II
Whilst officially a sequel to the original DDS: Megami Tensei, this game has almost no connections two it in terms of lore. In fact, this is where the major identity of the Shin Megami Tensei games, with their post-apocalyptic Urban Fantasy Order vs. Chaos motif, was established. That said, there are some oddities - for example, unlike in other games, demon recruits in this game can't level at all, so the player will constantly need to recruit and fuse them to get superior party members.
Plot-wise, the story takes place 35 years after "199X", when Tokyo was both hit by a missile during a nuclear war and subsequently invaded by armies of demons. The player is a resident in one of the underground bomb shelters where most of Tokyo's survivors dwell, until he releases a demon called Pazuzu from a game called "Devil Busters". Pazuzu claims to be an agent of God, and that the player is now a messiah who must free the world from its demonic threat.
Which ultimately leads to the now-iconic Megami Tensei reveal: God is actually evil, Pazuzu is genuinely working for God and so that makes him evil too, and the demons are actually good guys (relatively speaking). So, to prevent the annihilation of all humanity, the player is going to have amass an army of demons and take down God. And yes, we do mean God as in YHVH.
Shin Megami Tensei
Originally released in 1992 for the Super Nintendo, then ported to the PC Engine Super CD-Rom and Sega CD, with updated re-releases for Playstation and Gameboy Advance in 2002.
Plot-wise, it's almost a reimagining of the plot from DDS:MTII. You start out as just an average high schooler in Tokyo on a day that seems like any other... until a portal to Hell opens up and demons invade, resulting in you trying to stop everything with the aid of the "Demon Summoning Program", a bit of software that allows you to commune with demons and potentially bind them to your services. Things promptly spiral out of control, between a Japanese general attempting to commit a demon-backed coup-d'etat and America planning to nuke Tokyo.
Long story short... you fail, and Tokyo eats a dozen nukes. But you get thrown forward 30 years, to a post-apocalyptic world where two factions are clashing in the ruins: the angel-backed Messians, who wish to establish a Thousand Year Kingdom of God, and the demon-backed Gaians, who wish to create a primal state of anarchy. So it's your job to decide whether you want to embrace Order, Chaos, or Balance... with the latter largely amounting to "kill 'em all, they're all dicks".
One mechanical similarity with DDS:MTII is that demons can't level-up, so you rely on fusion and recruitment to get better followers whilst dumping the out-leveled dead weight.
Shin Megami Tensei II
Released in 1994 for Super Nintendo, with 2002 Playstation and 2003 Gameboy Advance remakes.
A rarity amongst SMT games, this is the direct sequel to the Neutral ending of the original SMT. Set decades later, something has gone horribly wrong; the air of the world is now unbreathable except to demons, and humanity has retreated into an enclosed city caleld Tokyo Millennium, which is run by a resurgent Messian cult.
You play Hawk, an amnesiac gladiator living in the Valhalla district and competing in a fighting tournament for the right to win in the Center, the best part of the city, whose inhabitants enjoy lives of luxury. When he wins, however, you learn he is actually Aleph; prophesied savior of the human race chosen to bring about the paradise of the Thousand Year Kingdom. Aleph is promptly equipped with a Demon Summoning Program and sent out to begin clearing demons to prepare for the coming Thousand Year Kingdom, only for his beliefs in the rightness of his cause to come into question.
This was the demon fusion system first achieved a semblance of its perfected form and other plot elements, such as the idea of YHVH being the ultimate reason why Order is an Evil Faction, being cemented in the meta-canon. It's also the first game where the idea of Satan and/or Lucifer being a good guy is introduced.
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the among the first JRPG in 2 where you can kill the Definitive YHVH GOD.
Shin Megami Tensei if...
The third Shin Megami Tensei game to actually be released, debuting on the Super Famicom in 1994, If... is a spin-off game that recycles the engine (and a lot of the art) from SMTII, and revolves around the concept "what if a school full of normal kids was somehow thrown into the Demon Realm?"
Basically, this was the prototype for the Persona series, and also inspired the Devil Summoner knock-off continuity, basically resulting in both those games being canonical alternate continuities to the core SMT games.
The plot is simple: you start as an ordinary high shool student (you choose the gender and the name, but canonically they're considered to be a girl named Tamaki Uchida) who attends Karukozaka High School. Just as school is about to let out for the day, weirdness happens and all hell breaks loose... literally. The school no longer seems to be on Earth, the halls are crawling with demons and the zombie remnants of students & staff, and one weird kid called Hazama is sending taunting astral projections to you. It's up to you to gather the few other survivors, band together for defense, form alliances with the less malevolent demons, and figure out what the fuck is going on here.
Shin Megami Tensei NINE
The fourth SMT game released, debuting on Xbox in 2002, SMT NINE is set in the "time gap" between the pre-apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic sections of the original Shin Megami Tensei.
In the wake of the apocalypse, people are trying to rebuild. For some reason, one of the projects being undertaken is the Idea Space; a digital recreation of a pre-nuking Tokyo. Unfortunately, Idea Space is suffering from a phenomena called "Noise"; glitches in the system that manifest as cybernetic demons that run wild, and which can kill anybody hooked up to the system. You play as a survivor named... well, whatever you like, but canonically Kei Azuma. After surviving an attack by a literal cyber-demon in Idea Space's Shibuya, you get recruited to join the Debuggers, an elite order of glitch hunters battling the Noise.
Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
The actual third game in the Shin Megami Tensei continuity, Nocturne debuted on the Playstation 2 in 2003. This was the first SMT game to get an official Western release, so it's the one that most people would be familiar with.
You start off as an ordinary high school student in Tokyo, 20XX. You and a pair of your friends have come to the local hospital to visit a sick teacher, only to find the place mysteriously deserted. Somehow, you wind up ordered to go alone into the spooky basement to check things out, where you meet a bizarre man who nearly kills you with a shadowy demon before, somehow, your teacher stops him. She takes you up to the roof of the hospital, and compels you to watch "The Conception" - the annihilation of the old world and its regression into an embryonic state, from which a new world will ultimately be created.
Needless to say, the sight of the universe being wiped out is too much for you and you faint. In your vulnerable state, a creepy little kid drops a goddamned monster maggot thing into your fucking eye and informs you that it will turn you into a demon, then buggers off. Waking up as a half-human, half-demon, henceforth known as the Demi-Fiend, you set off into the Vortex World - Tokyo, which has now been folded in on itself into an sphere wrapped around a strange pulsing not-sun called "Kagutsuichi", littered with deserts, ruins and vasts fields of darkness. Gathering a band of submissive demons to your will, you find yourself caught between the two factions battling for control of the future form of the world. On one side is the Assembly of Nihilo, who wish to create a world of complete stillness and peace, devoid of emotion. Opposing them is the Mantra, a powerful gang who believe in ruling by strength, passion and fear.
The player must choose if they side with either, or strike out to make their own path.
This was the first game to introduce demons gaining levels in the same manner as the player, and also the first game to introduce the idea of demons evolving through level-up, ala Pokemon, rather than just being only fusion fodder.
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey
Released in 2009 on the Nintendo DS in Japan, with an American port in 2010. An updated re-release with quality-of-life augments called Strange Journey Redux (or Strange Journey Deep in Japan) was launched on the 3DS in 2017/2018.
In the year 20XX, a strange zone of pure blackness has appeared at the South Pole and begun expanding outwards, swallowing everything in its wake. You are one of a team of elite soldiers & scientists outfitted with the new experimental "DEMONICA" Power Armor and sent in to investigate this mysterious "Schwarzewelt", only to be cut off by the legions of demons crawling around inside of it. Thankfully, your DEMONICA updates itself with a software program that allows you to communicate with the demons and recruit them to your side, allowing you to press on in an effort to find out what the hell is going on.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
The fourth main series entry in the SMT, released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013. It's the first "duology" title for the SMT line, with two games where one is a direct sequel to other, and this connection is indicated by their sharing the same numeral with different suffixes, something last seen way back in Persona 2.
The original SMT4 abandons the post-apocalyptic and cyberpunk elements of the previous SMT games for a more fantasy angle... at least, that's how it seems at the start of the game.
You are born into the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, one of the commoners of the Casualry caste, who serve the elite Luxurors. However, you escape this fate by being chosen to undertake the Gauntlet Rite; success results in your being granted the title of Samurai, an elite warrior charged with protecting Mikado from the demons of the subterranean netherrealm of Naraku.
Naturally, things aren't that simple...
2016 saw the release of the sequel, Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse. Set in 2038, 25 years after an apocalyptic war between gods and men ruined the world, you play a 15-year-old "Hunter" named Nanashi, who lives in the ruins of Tokyo. In the last days of the war, the city was covered by a massive stone barrier, and has devoloved into a sunless shadow land where humans kill each other for what little remains and both angels and demons rule as the apex predators.
As the game starts, Nanashi is killed by a demon, only to be revived by a fallen deity named Dagda, who demands in return that Nanashi become his "Godslayer" - a living weapon with which to defeat the forces of Lucifer, Merkabah, and Krishna's Old Gods before they annihilate what's left of humanity.
Shin Megami Tensei V
The fifth mainline entry, released in 2021 for the Nintendo Switch. The first 3D home console mainline game since Nocturne.
The main character is an incredibly androgynous teenage boy who gets sucked into a post-apocalyptic parallel universe version of Tokyo called Da'at, where he is forced to fuse with a demon to survive, becoming a Nahobino.
The Persona Subseries
The more popular offshoot of Shin Megami Tensi, due to being Playstation based and thus not having to fear Nintendo's censors, the Persona games are a more Science Fantasy take on the core SMT premise, rooting themselves in a mixture of the Tarot and Jungian psychology. Basically, rather than being "real", the various monsters and deities are emanations of humanity's collective psyche that have taken up their own identities within the collective subconsciousness. The repeating plot generally centers around humanity's collective maladjustments are causing an impending psychic catastrophe, which a small bunch of plucky heroes (aka Highschool students) need to prevent.
Monsters in the Persona series are divided into two primary categories; Shadows are the embodiments of humanity's collective malice, selfishness, evil and negative thoughts, and these make up the enemies you have to beat up throughout the games. In contrast, Personas are psychological avatars, constructs of humanity's positive thoughts, and these take the forms of the classical mythological monsters seen in the SMT games. Personas are grouped into categories based on the Major Arcana of the Tarot system, rather than the overarching racial families of the SMT games.
In Persona games, people only normally have a single Persona they can call upon to battle against Shadows. However, the player-controlled characters have the ability to amass legions of Personas and switch between them freely, a trait referred to as "The Wild Card" and which may be connected to their personal Arcana being The Fool. Personas do not evolve via level-up, unlike their demon counterparts, but can still be fused together to create new Personas.
Persona 1
Launching on the Playstation, Persona 1 - known as "Megami Ibunroku: Persona: Be Your True Mind" in Japan, "Revelations: Persona" in America, and "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona" in its improved PSP re-release - was an attempt to create a simpler, more mass-appealing spin on the SMT franchise. Ironically, it's a very different beast to the style of the later games, and still quite close mechanically to SMT.
Plot? You're an ordinary high school student who is dared by your friends at a party to play a ritual-like playground game called "persona". Suddenly, you all get struck by lightning and black out, only to have a strange collective dream about a golden butterfly.
Although you do not appear to have any serious injuries, you are sent to the hospital for a check-up. While there, you decide to visit Maki Sonomura, a bedridden classmate who has been in intensive care for a year. Yet your visit is cut short when Maki is suddenly rushed into the emergency room and the hospital undergoes a weird transformation into a demon-filled labyrinth. Fortunately, you and your friends have gained a supernatural power to help defend against the demonic hordes, rescue Maki and find a way out of this maze: the mysterious inner-power of "Persona". It ultimately turns out that this whole mess is connected to a shadowy corporationg researching a means to merge consciousness with reality.
It did introduce the phrase "I am thou... thou art I", which became the catchphrase of the whole series.
Persona 2
Releasing in 1999 and 2000, Persona 2 is unusual in that not only is a direct sequel to the original Persona 1, but it comes in two games that tell a single intertwined story.
Innocent Sin revolves around Japanese high school student Tatsuya Suou. In comparison, Eternal Punishment revolves around journalist Maya Amano. Both versions involve the protagonist and a small group of friends investigating a rumor that, if you dial your own cellphone number, a mysterious man named "Joker" will appear and either grant you a wish (Innocent Sin) or kill whoever you wish (Eternal Punishment). When the protagonist does so, however, Joker manifests and attacks them, declaring they have committed a crime against him. As the Joker Curse runs out of control and rumors start replacing reality, the protagonists must find an answer to why this weird shit is happening.
If you're wondering how the two games are connected... Innocent Sin is the "original" Persona 2, whilst Eternal Punishment takes place after time is looped/reset at the end of Innocent Sin.
This is where the iconic social mechanics of Persona first began development, although it wouldn't be until the next game that they hit their iconic form.
Persona 3
The first Persona game to hit the Playstation 2 in 2006-7-8 (depending on your region).
Once again, you're an ordinary high school student, recently moved to Tatsumi Port Island to attend Gekkoukan High School. However, here, you learn of a dark secret: every night, at the stroke of midnight, the world is engulfed in a mysterious phenomena. During this "hidden" hour of the day, time stands still and most humans are locked inside of coffin-like objects, easy prey for prowling monsters called Shadows; those who are slain by these beasts become mindless zombies, victims of the mysterious "Apathy Syndrome" currently plaguing the city.
You, however, are one of those who do not freeze during the Dark Hour. You also have the power to summon a monstrous guardian, a Persona. This gets you recruited into the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, a secret society of Persona-wielding students dedicated to fighting the Shadows. Along the way, you will discover the cause behind the mysterious Dark Hour.
This was the game that cemented the gameplay mechanics that define the Persona series. Time now passes, dividing each day into nighttime hours, in which you enter the dungeon to grind your combat experience, and daytime hours, which are spent grinding ability scores, completing miniquests, and most importantly: working on Social Links. These are series of conversations between your protagonist and various NPCs which result in the steady progressing of a bond, which in turn affects what Personas you can hope to wield and fuse, as well as ultimately determining your ending.
Persona 4
Released in 2008-9 for Playstation 2.
You're a ordinary high school student whose parents have to go and work abroad for a year, and so you're being sent to the rural town of Inaba to stay with your uncle, the local police chief. But things aren't so quiet in Inaba; there's stories of a mysterious "Midnight Channel", and they seem to be connected to strange, inexplicable deaths. A mystery that the player will have to solve.
Persona 5
Released in 2016/17 for Playstation 3 and 4.
You're an ordinary high school student (did you really need to be told that at this point?) who has been falsely convicted of assault and sentenced to a year-long probation in Tokyo. This is more dangerous than it sounds; it is the year 20XX, and a mysterious plague of catatonic episodes and psychotic breakdowns is sweeping Tokyo. If that wasn't bad enough, public confidence in the government and justice system is falling, and this only emboldens the corrupt.
Then you discover you have the ability to enter the Metaverse; a parallel dimension where cognition becomes reality, and real-world locations are twisted by the thoughts of humans. Within this world, the most corrupt humans have subconsciously created mental fortresses called "Palaces" where their innermost vices and desires are allowed to run rampant. However, by stealing the "Treasure" at the heart of a "Palace", you can erase the twisted desire that gave rise to it. Thus, you gather a brave team of fellow Metaverse-spelunkers and start plotting to strike back against the depraved elite as the Phantom Thieves.
Other spin-offs
The Megaten franchise is very old and has a lot of various spinoffs and subseries.
- Digital Devil Saga: A duology of games taking place in a post-apocalyptic world where instead of summoning demons people transform into them. Based mostly around a Hindu mythology motif instead of the standard Judeo-Christian.
- Devil Survivor: Pair of strategic RPGs. Devil Survivor 1 is generally higher regarded than 2.
- Devil Summoner: Series of games taking place in an alternate timeline where the apocalypse in SMT 1 never happened with more of an urban fantasy approach. Has a subseries in itself in the Raido Kuzunoha series, which is about a demon-summoning detective in 1920s Japan.
- Devil Children: Kid-friendly spinoff because ATLUS apparently wanted that Pokemon money.
- Jack Bros: Spinoff game focused around the demon characters Jack Frost, Jack O'Lantern and Jack the Ripper. Generally regarded as the best game on the Virtual Boy, so good that it has its own tier on the Megaten game tier list.
- DX2: A mobile Gacha game, since they apparently also wanted gacha money.
The Mons Element: How to Recruit
Recruiting demons in Shin Megami Tensei is a Byzantine process that is something of a meme for just how bonkers it can be. It already depends a lot on random luck, so that right there is a strike against it.
To try and recruit, firstly, you have to strike up a conversation with a demon. Generally, only your protagonist can do this, but some demons can learn skills that allow them to talk as well, at the cost of giving up a precious attack/defense skill slot. Further complicating things, some demons are harder to converse with than others, and the game doesn't tell you this - for example, in SMTIII, you generally can't initiate communications with the Foul or Haunt type demons such as Slime or Ghost unless you already have a Foul or Haunt demon with Kinspeak.
Once you're successfully talking, the demon will demand random stuff from you, typically money or relatively common items, but sometimes demanding you let them sap some of your health. You have no way of predicting what items they'll demand, or how many payments they'll take; if you agree to give them something but don't have it, they'll generally get angry and break off communication, whilst refusing to pay something might do the same, or it might make them agree to ask for something else instead - too many refusals, though, and they'll eventually get angry and stop talking to you. Once you've paid them enough, they might either ask you a question - get it right and they'll join, get it wrong and they'll give you an item and leave, and there's no way to predict what the right answer is - agree to join, leave but give you something back, or just run off with all you've paid them!
There's also a chance that a demon might initiate conversation with you spontaneously. If you have a free spot in your party, they might offer to join you. Most likely, they'll ask to trade, asking for a single payment and giving you a payment in return. Due to the fact that this payment is randomly generated as everything from the conversation system is, this can lead to them asking for an item and then giving it straight back to you.
Finally, if you beat up a demon, it may offer to pay you with money, healing, or a random "useful" fact if you agree to spare its life.
The Persona subseries mostly moved away from this in its most successful installments, replacing it with reflexes-based minigames in 3 and 4, and a fun risk-reward cardgame in 4 Golden. Unfortunately, 5 brought it back, and while it lacks the infuriating random elements and sheer overdesigned complexity from the mainline series, it still involved a very-obtuse conversation based minigame.
Notable Demons
There are a lot of different monsters that have shown up across the course of the MegaTen universe, and the precise list tends to vary from game to game. Still, a few stand out above the rest as partner demons or Persona.
Pixie: Often the first demon you'll recruit, at least in the SMT games, Pixie is generally depicted as a small, cute elf girl with dragonfly wings and a mischievous nature. Armed with basic Zio (electricity) attack spells and healing but with no real weaknesses, it's a surprisingly reliable beginner demon. In SMT3: Nocturne, Pixie will evolve into High Pixie at level 10 and then into Queen Mab at level 56, both of which build upon Pixie's basic strengths - but the most famous trick is that if you keep the Pixie who is your very first recruited demon all the way until you reach the 5th Kalpa dungeon, you can transform her into a "Super Pixie", which is an 80th level Pixie with powerful Electric and Almighty attack spells and two of the best healing spells.
Jack Frost: Based on the European winter spirit, Jack Frost is the unofficial mascot of the SMT multiverse, and is generally depicted as a goofy, friendly little spirit that resembles a humanoid snowman.
Black Frost: Created basically because of a pun in Japanese, Black Frost is an evil counterpart to Jack Frost with way better stats, a black and red color scheme, and the ability to use both fire and ice attacks.
Mara: Generally remembered as the demon most likely to get banned by the censors. See, Mara is an evil spirit in Buddhism who basically embodies worldly desires and physical pleasures. So, apparently borrowing from Sri Lanka's depiction of him, Atlus depicts Mara in their games as a giant green penis with tentacles who may or may not be riding a golden chariot. His faithful steed Girimekhala, a cyclopean elephant or elephant man, shows up in a lot of games too, but is less memorable than his boss.
Gallery
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SMT Demon negotiations in a nutshell.
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the among the first JRPG in 2 where you can kill the Definitive YHVH GOD.
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it was not until 4 Apocalypse were you get another go at this asshole
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