History VideoGame / ShinMegamiTenseiI

** However, you never see Lucifer's true form in this game.

* AdamAndEvePlot: [[spoiler:By the end, there's only a handful of humans and demons left alive in Tokyo, and most of them are in the Cathedral. The Protagonist and the Heroine are thus left with the fate of Earth in their hands.]]

* AllThereInTheManual: [[http://dijeh.tumblr.com/post/100462781573/theres-a-really-nice-qa-section-in-a-shin-megami The official fanbook explains questions fans might have had when playing the game]]:

It's a fairly average day for you in Tokyo, aside from the [[DreamingOfThingsToCome vaguely prophetic dream]] you had the night before. The dog needs to be walked, your mother wants you to run down to the cafe and pick up some coffee, and you received an email claiming that a portal to Hell has been opened and that demons are invading the world.

The first game in the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' JRPG series, and SpiritualSuccessor to ''Megami Tensei''. It was released in Japan in 1992 for the [[Creator/{{Nintendo}} Super Nintendo]] and later released for the PC Engine Super CD-Rom and Sega CD. Remakes for the Playstation and Gameboy Advance came out in 2002, which was eventually ported to {{iOS}} in 2012[[note]]Though it no longer works with the current operating system, and Atlus has shown no interest in updating it[[/note]]. It later got a direct sequel in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII''.

The game [[NoExportForYou never got a release in the West]], but a group called Aeon Genesis has released a translation patch for the SNES ROM; a second patch by a modder called Orden was released, fixing some of the bugs in the Aeon Genesis patch and making some translation changes to get the script more in line with the official translations. [[AvertedTrope However]], Atlus has [[http://atlus.com/smti/ recently announced]] that the iOS port is finally being translated and released in the West. The English version was made available on the iOS app store on March 18, 2014. Although technically, the Japanese version was available worldwide on the iOS app store for a while until it was apparently region locked, [[{{Irony}} with the description reading that the game would never get an English translation]].

The first game in the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' JRPG series, and SpiritualSuccessor to ''Megami Tensei''. It was released in Japan in 1992 for the [[Creator/{{Nintendo}} Super Nintendo]] and later released for the PC Engine Super CD-Rom and Sega CD. Remakes for the Playstation and Gameboy Advance came out in 2002, which was eventually ported to {{iOS}} in 2012. It later got a direct sequel in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII''.

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:Your mother is killed and eaten by a demon. Tokyo is ruined in a nuclear strike from the USA, starting a catastrophic war that leaves the rest of the world in a similar state. You kill lots and lots of demons, and do the same to quite a few humans too. In the Neutral Path, you kill all your friends. You kill their demonic or godly leaders. Then, there's a ''second'' apocalypse where a great tectonic movement causes gargantuan amounts of water to flow into Tokyo, plunging pretty much the entire post-apocalyptic Japan underwater, killing pretty much everyone you haven't yet killed yourself. The only habitable area within the '''entire city''' is a small island holding a large 'cathedral' tower where the final confrontations take place. TakeAThirdOption by killing both bosses and there will be only three characters and a handful of nondescript demons and humans left alive ''in all of Japan'' at the end of the game. ]]

* OmnicidalNeutral: [[spoiler: The Neutral path often consists of killing ''both'' the Law and Chaos leaders, including your own friends.]]

* CrucifiedHeroShot: Our first glimpse of the Law Hero.

* InstrumentOfMurder: Implied. The three strongest 'sword' weapons are a violin, a trumpet, and a bell.

* MetalSlime: The three Fiends (David, Pale Rider, and Daisoujou). Each one only has a 1/256 chance of appearing in certain areas and each one drops one of three ultimate weapons...with a drop rate of 1/256. Happy hunting!
* MoneySpider: Justified. Demons are fascinated with human culture and carry around yen coins like trinkets. [[spoiler:AfterTheEnd, all the currency changes to demon money anyway, so it still makes sense]].

The first game in the ''ShinMegamiTensei'' JRPG series, and SpiritualSuccessor to ''Megami Tensei''. It was released in Japan in 1992 for the [[Creator/{{Nintendo}} Super Nintendo]] and later released for the PC Engine Super CD-Rom and Sega CD. Remakes for the Playstation and Gameboy Advance came out in 2002, which was eventually ported to {{iOS}} in 2012. It later got a direct sequel in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII''.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: Neither the Law or Chaos sides are very nice, and [[spoiler: rejecting both [[OmnicidalNeutral leaves a lot of bodies lying on the floor.]]]] Borders on EvilVersusEvil; there really is no "good" choice here.

* HellOnEarth: Tokyo AfterTheEnd. It's barren and decaying at the seems, with survivors mostly being situated underground.

* [[spoiler:TheGreatFlood: Happens near the end of the game.]]

* CuttingOffTheBranches - The canonical ending is [[spoiler: the Neutral path]], which sets up ''ShinMegamiTenseiII''.

* FromBadToWorse: This could probably sum up the game as a whole. You start the game just as demons have been summoned into the world and a coup has forced martial law to be put in effect in Tokyo, eventually climaxing with [[spoiler:the nuking of Tokyo]]. After that chaos your thrust into an Apocalyptic wasteland that also happens to now be the war ground for the battle between the forces of Law and Chaos. Eventually you have to decide whether to follow one of the armies, or take a Neutral stance and [[spoiler:kill everyone]]. It's a pretty lose-lose situation all throughout.

* GuideDangIt: So you get rare items from certain locations during certain phases of the moon. Good luck finding out what phase is the right one, by the way.
%% * HellOnEarth

** The old main found in the prison who can fuse the Angel Ring for you was a former Imperial Japanese soldier who was executed for war crimes but was resurrected by the Cathedral of Shadows, which he is also a member of.

* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: Plenty of people at the beginning of the game are labelled as crazy or hallucinating when they ramble on about [[ConspiracyTheory demons appearing in the streets, the government kidnapping and experimenting on people, and the world coming to an end]]. That doesn't even ''begin'' to cover what happens AfterTheEnd.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_smt_i_cover.png]]

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/smt_i_6809.jpg]]

-->-- Opening narration from the Sega CD version

* FusionDance: The Cathedral of Shadows, making its first appearance in its current incarnation, [[note]]In ''Megami Tensei'', the Minister was not present[[/note]] performs these between two or three of your demons. The Chaos Hero and Pascal also do it, with the former becoming a cross between a Samurai and Spider-Man, and the latter becoming Cerberus.

** Not to mention the [[GagPenis dreaded]] [[FreudWasRight Mara]].

** It's not just at the beginning of the game. If you're willing to sift between the [[CassandraTruths Cassandra Truths]] and the people who actually ''are'' crazy, you can learn some important plot points far earlier than you normally do. Some things you can learn early: [[spoiler:Everyone in Roppongi is a zombie, the Basilica is the Millennium Kingdom, and Thorman isn't human]].