Shin Megami Tensei / Tropes N to Z

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N-R

• Named Weapons: Very often you will have the chance to collect some legendary weaponry.
  • Persona 3 FES takes it further with Weapon Fusion. You can find "Void," "Nihil," or "Origin" weapons which you can slap a Persona on to in order to create swords or spears with very good stats and additional effects. But if you use a Persona whose weapon is well-known by itself, then whatever base weapon you use, regardless of type (knives, bows, whatever) will become this legendary weapon. For instance, fusing Odin and obtaining Gungnir, Thor and Mjolnir, Shiva and Pinaka, Cú Chulainn and Gae Bolg, Siegfried and Balmung... though there are exceptions: Lucifer is not known to wield a grail or a blade in traditional depictions, yet it results in Lucifer Grail (changed to Lucifer Blade in English), and Metatron most certainly never has a gun called Metatronius in any religious literature.
• The Needs of the Many: As odd as it sounds, the reason Law tends to kill large amounts of people in many of the games is because they want to prevent as many deaths as possible. It just so happens that the best way to do this is to create a utopia that the process of creation involves clearing out anyone who can threaten it.
• Neutrality Backlash: Neither Law nor Chaos likes it when you decide to go for Neutral. Averted somewhat in that they will often be nicer to you than if you chose the other side.
• Neutral No Longer: Very often, events will conspire to try and force you to take a side, giving alignment points. Neutrality is a luxury you can't always afford.
• New Game Plus: Most of the recent games include extra content only available on a second run. You can also carry over a varying amount of content from your previous run, such as your money, Demon/Persona Compendium, and even your experience level, although some games like Shin Megami Tensei IV give you the option of wiping most of your content for a challenge.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Happens with some regularity, though probably the most nightmarish instance comes from a single quote in the Akarana Corridor: "The Ambassador has launched the ICBMs!"
• Nintendo Hard: Even modern MegaTen games use classic RPG tropes that can make a player want to cry.
  • High Random Encounter rates.
  • Surprise attacks causing one turn kills.
  • Enemies with One-Hit Kill spells.
  • Enemy weaknesses requiring Trial-and-Error Gameplay to discover.
• Non-Elemental: Almighty. One of the reasons why it's generally impossible to defend oneself against any attacks of this attribute.
• Non-Indicative Name: The Mons in the series are generally collectively known as "demons" for convenience despite many of them being, mythologically, the precise opposite of demons (i.e angels, Gods, and sometimes even humans). English text in the Japanese versions tends to call them "devils" instead, which is even less descriptive of some of the creatures' natures. Justified, since the series use the original meaning of the word "daemon", which simply means spiritual being.
• No Points for Neutrality: Averted. Neutral is one of the three alignment factions; while Law represents YHVH and angels, and Chaos represents Lucifer and demons, Neutral generally represents Humanity, a force not inherently bound by Law's rules or Chaos's machinations. This is one of the reasons (other than Gods Need Prayer Badly) why humans are so important to both sides.
• No-Sell: In many ways. Null means this, Absorb means this plus recovery, Reflect means this plus your opponent taking damage you should suffer.
  • Many enemies will have these stacked up to truly ridiculous levels. Save up enough money, experience, fuse and grind up for the right demons/personas, and you can Elite Tweak your own — sometimes, it is possible to fuse demons or personas which no-sell everything but Almighty effects. Still, though the games permit enough skill customization so enough effort can effectively render any glaring weakness moot, the Nintendo Hard difficulty usually means that, of course, some bosses will still make your life hell unless you completely and utterly overpower them, and sometimes even that is not enough.
    • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne has the Masakados Magatama, an accessory for the Player Character which not only gives a massive bonus to all stats except Luck, it comes with immunities to No-Sell everything except for Almighty. This gets carried over to Digital Devil Saga, in which he appears as an excruciatingly difficult superboss: he still has the same immunities ^note However, it does not block Gun or Earth damage, as Nocturne doesn't have those elements. Again, "the same immunities".
    • And in Digital Devil Saga you can have the Null Attack passive skill, which has the same effect as the Masakados minus the stat boosts. Not like it's gonna help you against most of the optional bosses, as they all have some variations of Almighty moves as their main forms of attack, and the protagonist of Nocturne will actually insta-kill you before your first turn if you have any no-sell whatsoever.
    • In Persona sub-series, every game since Persona 3 has the Omnipotent Orb, an accessory which has the same effect as Null Attack. However, equipping it against the Velvet Room Attendants serving as the ultimate optional bosses will just result in them punishing you with repeated 9999 damage Megidolaons for an instant game over.
  • It's been a tradition since Nocturne to have a boss who no-sells or at least highly resists everything except Almighty, which they occasionally also resist. This boss is usually a strong optional boss, such as Lucifer in Nocturne, Masakado's Shadow in IV, YHVH and Stephen in Apocalypse. The Persona sub-series also follows the tradition: while the Velvet Room Attendants are always Barrier Change Boss, they also always have a phase where they null absolutely everything except Almighty.
    • A notable example is the final boss of Persona 3, who has an action which will completely No-Sell everything (Almighty included) you can throw at it. And since it's random, it is perfectly possible for the guy to spam it.
    • Even worse with this, however, is Beldr from Devil Survivor. Even on a New Game Plus, everything you throw at him will fail, all the time, except his lone Weaksauce Weakness, getting punched in the face with a cellphone strap. This essentially makes every single spell and every single character in your entire team useless, except for the "Devil's Fuge" attack which replaces the main character's normal attack. Good luck.
    • And Devil Survivor 2 gives us Benetnasch who No Sells EVERYTHING your main characters can do and is only attackable by your demons. Yay, fun. The Updated Re Release also adds Arcturus, who is essentially Beldr 2.0 and is only harmable by a certain character's normal attack — Yamato with Dragon Stream.
  • Fittingly, the games since Nocturne also begin to provide ways of overcoming No Sells. In Nocturne itself, it's the passive skill Pierce: it allows physical attacks to slice past defenses, hitting them full on instead of being lessened, nulled, or absorbed (not reflections, however). Devil Survivor also has this skill, though it's much easier to get.
  • IV, IV: Apocalypse, and V all add Pierce passives for elemental spells as well, and the latter two makes them even more powerful as Repel no longer stops Pierce cold. The Persona sub-series doesn't have Pierce skills, but they instead have "Element Break" spells, which completely removes the resistances of enemy party to a specific element.
  • Strange Journey, IV and Apocalypse all have humans, the Player Character included, be naturally immune to Light-elemental attacks. The immunity can be removed (often becoming a weakness) by certain armor, however.
• Nue: The Nue is a recurring Wilder Race demon that has appeared in the series since the first game. Its appearance has varied in-between installments, but they are universally seen as having a tiger-like pelt, a serpent's tale and some simian characteristics, whether it is a baboon face or a gorilla-esque posture.
• Nuke 'em:
  • Almighty, again. In the cases where it is not shown as an essence of pure light, the symbol for it is the standard Nuke symbol. This is not inaccurate.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei I, Thor's Hammer is a huge cluster of nukes. Pointed in your general direction. The Megiddo Arc in Shin Megami Tensei II also counts.
  • In the early Persona games, Nuclear was another element, separate from Almighty, albeit more powerful than Fire, Ice, Lightning. This returns in Persona 5.
• Numbered Sequels: With the Devil Summoner spin-off series being the only exception.
• Odd Organ Up Top: Though Atlus wouldn't admit it's intentional, it has several phallic examples in Mara, Ym, and, Mishaguji (who is depicted to be either snake-like or humanoid depending on the specific work). Do not spare a thought if these function as intended but the designs are justified for these demons/deities associated with either temptation, fertility, or both in their original myths. Ym is also a deity of agriculture so his head must be meant to represent root crops (yam, geddit?)... but who are we kidding?
• Oddly Named Sequel: Though usually they explain what it's all about.
• Olympus Mons: Several extremely powerful demons are able to be recruited or fused throughout the series, including top members of the Norse, Egyptian, Japanese pantheons and Outer Gods. And then there's the case of recruiting the Olympians themselves.
• Once an Episode:
  • The main series has each numbered game has Beelzebub as a Superboss.
  • With the exception of Shin Megami Tensei II and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, the mainline games also like to have you fight former allies at the end of the games, mostly because they've fallen so far, they've turned into monsters. Both figuratively and literally.
  • Persona has its own examples in its page.
• One Game for the Price of Two:
  • The Devil Children (Demi Kids for the two that came to the US) games. Also, Digital Devil Saga comes in two parts. Same with Persona 2.
  • Persona 2 initially averted this (somewhat) in the U.S. in that the only one that originally came westside was the second one, Eternal Punishment. While Innocent Sin has now been released in the U.S. via the PSP port, Atlus still has yet to announce Eternal Punishment's PSP port for U.S. release. So the trope is both straight and averted, since you need two systems that are of different generations to play both games. And that's only if you can find Eternal Punishment.^note As of 25 Feb. 2013, Eternal Punishment is available as a "PS One Classic" through Play Station Network, compatible with the PSP.
• One-Hit KO:
  • Light and Darkness spells. They come in two orders each, one more likely to connect than the other. It is possible to find variations of them all that are capable of hitting all enemy targets, setting up for a Total Party Kill on either side.
  • Downplayed in IV: Apocalypse, where Light and Dark skills now do damage like other elemental spells, with only their instant-kill properties triggering if the user casts one of these spells while under Smirk status. In fact, some bosses have Light or Dark as a weakness; they just won't die instantly even if the spell they're weak to is Smirk-cast.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei V, Light and Dark spells follow the same general rule as IV Apocalypse, where they deal damage, but as smirk isn't a feature, they can instead only instant kill on weakness strikes. Additionally, a proper third tier (severe level) was added to these spells: Hamabarion and Mudobarion.
  • The Persona games (except 3 and 4) give the Bless/Light and Curse/Dark elements both normal damage spells and instant-kill spells.
• One-Man Army: The franchise has several instances of this trope, both played straight and deconstructed:
  • In Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, the Demi-Fiend kills absolutely everyone and everything, without any allies other than a handful of demons he recruits.
  • Lupa and Varin in Digital Devil Saga can - and have - taken down each other's tribes by themselves.
    Lupa: I will buy you some time.
    Cielo: Against all dose guys!? Now I know you crazy!
    Lupa: You do not understand. I was the leader of my tribe. You are the ones in danger.
    Gale: What do you mean?
    Lupa: The Wolves fell to Varin alone.
  • Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey has the protagonist doing the work of an entire military squad. While it is routinely mentionied that there are other soldiers out on the field, they often turn out to be Red Shirts while you make most of the big breakthroughs, like defeating every end-of-sector boss.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, the Omnicidal Neutral ending turns Nanashi into exactly that. By the end he is the only one left alive.
  • Persona: Reiji Kido (Chris in the Revelations localization) begins the game by storming SEBEC headquarters by himself. He spends the first part of the game fighting by himself the same enemies that give your four-or-five man band so much trouble, and you find him no worse for the wear. What happens to him depends on what choices you make; if you follow the Guide Dang It! steps to recruit him, he's still in tip-top shape when he joins the party, but if you don't recruit him, you'll find him again a few dungeons later collapsed on the floor because it got too much for him to handle (or he ran out of medicine).
  • Persona 2: Eternal Punishment:
    • Tatsuya Suou spends two thirds of the game wrecking the Tenchu army (including their mechs, at least two Bosses and a gigantic military vessel) all by himself. The whole thing is further elaborated in his scenario in the PSP remake, where the player finds out exactly what he's been fighting. Lampshaded by the main cast several times:
      Baofu: He has way more experience than you guys, and some guts... Heck, we'd be in his way.
    • Baofu himself killed 25 mafia hitmen prior to the events of the game, and halfway through he successfully storms their main headquarters all by himself. Right up until he runs to the Mini-Mecha, that is.
    • Deconstructed by Katsuya, who attempts to do this against the Corrupt Cops, up until he comes face to face with the special units. The party reaches him in time to help him, but after the fight he admits that this was reckless of him and he wouldn't have been able to win by himself.
• One-Steve Limit: Generally, you cannot have more than one of any given demon in your team. In certain games like Devil Survivor series this only applies to certain demons, generally unique individuals over species e.g. Thor and Odin.
• Optional Boss: Most of the games have at least one insanely difficult optional boss. The most notable is Beelzebub, who appears in all four numbered games as one of the strongest bosses, and the entire Fiend race, who generally put up a much greater fight than another enemy or boss in the area.
• Order Is Not Good: This franchise is one of the main users of the trope, to the point it makes people think the Law side may even be worse than Chaos because suppressing freedom and the genocides are usually done for the sole purpose of satisfying a tyrant.
• Order Versus Chaos: A Central Theme to the main games, recurring still in spin-offs. Law tends to be well-meaning but very Knight Templar about the whole thing. Chaos strongly emphasises freedom but in the form of a brutal Might Makes Right anarchy. Neutrality focuses on self-empowerment and the potential of humanity, as opposed to reliance on a greater force for guidance.
  • Of course, Neutrality isn't completely good. The fact that most of the time the Neutral Ending brings back the world as it used to be doesn't help either.
  • The classic Chaos has more or less split into two belief systems in later games. As mentioned under Characterization Marches On, the Social Darwinist aspects are seen as more or less outright evil, while the Rage Against the Heavens aspect is usually shown in a more antiheroic light.
• Original Generation: There are a handful of demons not directly taken from mythology. The most prominent examples are the Jack Frost variants, Black Frost, Raiho, Frost Ace and Demonee-Ho. Other examples include Hell Biker (based on the Hells Angels) and the titular Soulless Army of Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army (which reappear in the sequel).
• Organ Drops: In Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, this is an excellent way to grind for macca. Shin Megami Tensei IV has certain demons drop edible meats, though the trope is very much lessened from Strange Journey. Persona 3 has certain items you can take from Shadows remains.
• Orochi: Usually a major boss in games where he appears, and possible to fuse after defeat. They refer to him by the full mythological version of his name "Yamata-No-Orochi".
• Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: Many of the top level demons of the sides will be this, often having genitals of a sex they are never referred to as, among other sexual ambiguity, such as changing sex in the process of transformation.
• Our Demons Are Different: True to the original definition of the word 'daemon', the definition is as broad as possible: basically, legendary monsters, mythical deities, and even certain historical humans of all kinds — good, evil, whatever — they're all called demons here, even the angels and the God they serve.
• Our Hippocamps Are Different: Kelpies have been depicted as hippocamps in a few games, notably Last Bible III and Last Bible Special. The former is a heraldic interpretation, while the latter is close to the Classical creature, looping tail included. The Last Bible versions of the kelpie are preceded by the one in Shin Megami Tensei if..., which looks like the interpretation of the hippocamp from Saint Seiya: four-legged but with a finned tail. The last instance of a hippocamp-like kelpie in the series is in DemiKids, where if allied it gets the name Mermount.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: Where can we even start with this one?
• Pawprint Stamping: One of the summonable personas in-game is a little black cat named Neko Shogun. It dresses as a samurai, and its outfit includes a red flag with a black pawprint on it.
• Percent-Based Values: Multiple:
  • From the very first game, Life Stones recover 30% of the user's total health.
  • In most games, physical skills require a percentage of HP as their cost. This can be a double-edged sword; on the one hand, the more your health increases the more the cost increases. On the other hand, you can use extremely powerful skills right from the beginning of the game (on New Game Plus).
• Pinball Spin-Off: Oddly enough, as a cell phone game only released in Japan.
• Point of No Return: Annoyingly done in the first few games; more modern games tend to be more forgiving.
• Post-Modern Magik: Ancient summoning rituals and spells? Who needs 'em when you can program them into a handy app for your cell?
• The Power of Friendship: Especially prevalent in the later Persona games, and present to some degree in Apocalypse
• Powers as Programs: Fused demons or Personas inherit at least some of the skills the "parent" demons had. Learning to exploit this can lead to Disc One Nukes and Game Breakers. This is also a vital part in fusing for its ability to impart priceless immunities and strengths to new demons. Devil Survivor games amp this by literally allowing you to slap any powers you want on anyone, only restricting you with the spell's stat point requirement.
• Power-Upgrading Deformation: Whenever you choose to blend demon and human in any way, expect this to be a likely result, with only a few exceptions.
• Pun: These might be gritty games, but lame jokes persist nonetheless. The most recurring one being Ja-aku Frost (Woolseyed but Lost in Translation as Black Frost), the Superpowered Evil Side of resident Mascot Mook Jack Frost. "Ja-aku" (邪悪) means "evil" and also a transliteration of Jack.
• Practical Taunt: Most of the games have a "Taunt" spell, which increases enemy attack power while significantly lowering their defense.
• Pragmatic Pansexuality: Practically a requirement. To successfully recruit demons, you have to resort in anything and everything, and that includes seducing them. Keep in mind that most of them are beast-like or creepy, or both.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: A lot.
  • In Digital Devil Saga, you can fight the Demi-Fiend. Possibly the hardest Superboss in the history of Japanese RPG.
  • Devil Survivor 2 has an appearance from Black Frost from the first Devil Survivor. To drive home the fact that it's not just any Black Frost, you get this exchange:
    Black Frost: The messenger of love and justice is here! Time for some magical punishment! ★
    MC: *choosing the first dialogue option* Frosty!
    Black Frost: ... Ho? What're you saying, ho? You've got me confused with somebody else!
  • The PlayStation port of Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers includes a battle against the protagonist from the very first Devil Summoner game. The enhanced 3DS port also includes Raidou Kuzunoha the XIV, Raido Kuzunoha the XIV, and the freaking Soulless God from the PlayStation 2 Devil Summoner games.
  • All but two of the playable characters in the original Persona make at least a brief appearance in Persona 2, and several party members from both games show up in the "Who's Who" TV show in Persona 3.
  • The Fighting Game Sequel for Persona 4, Persona 4: Arena, features Aigis, Akihiko, and Mitsuru from Persona 3 as a few of the combatants. Its direct sequel, Persona 4: Arena Ultimax adds Yukari, Junpei, and Ken as well.
  • The female protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei if... appears in the first two Persona games as "Tamaki Uchida". Additionally, Kyouji Kuzunoha from the original Devil Summoner is implied to be the one possessing Daisuke Todoroki in Persona 2.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, all of the previous mainline games protagonists show up as Guest Party Member in the Messiahs of the Diamond Realm DLC.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei V, Demi-Fiend is the ultimate DLC boss. The DLC is even named "Return of the True Demon".
• Principles Zealot: When taking into account that Law endings are identified as creating utopias that last indefinitely into the future, Neutral is often interpreted as this by them. Due to being unwilling to kill people to get there, even though doing so would result in less suffering in the long run.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Frequent. Lucifer is usually the one who spearheads this movement, but not always; it depends on the game. In Nocturne the Demi-fiend is now the one who leads it, if the True Demon ending is canon. In Apocalypse, it happens twice over where you face Satan, who was in control of YHVH's armies, only for him to turn and aid you in doing it to YHVH himself.
• Raijū: Raijus appear frequently as beast-like creatures made of lightning.
• Rainbow Speak: Chronologically, Persona 2 was the first game in this franchise to use Rainbow Speak, only using it for rumors. All subsequent games after that use variations of it, even Updated Re Release of older games where they were not strictly necessary.
• Rare Candy: Incenses. They come for all stats, though, befitting the Nintendo Hard nature of the games, they are quite rare.
  • In both Persona 2 games, you can get All Incenses from Fenrirs, which increase all stats.
  • In Nocturne you can save-scum them by getting nine Lucky Tickets at the shop by buying stuff at 1000 macca intervals, save, and then buy at a tenth interval at the store. The owner will give you three boxes to choose from; sometimes they may have an incense inside, depending if you open it on a certain Kagutsuchi phase. You can also get Incenses from golden chests, also depending on Kagutsuchi phase.
• Really 700 Years Old: The first hint that certain human characters isn't quite human after all is this. For one example: how hasn't Stephen aged in Shin Megami Tensei II, set decades after the previous game?
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Extremely common, seeing as this series is about choosing and enforcing a path you believe in, expect the ones who don't agree with you to belittle you. Same goes for everyone.
• Recurring Element: To an utterly absurd degree. Part of what makes the franchise so expansive (and often confusing) is that there are a huge amount of recurring elements from game to game, and they aren't always consistent, with some elements being changed slightly or significantly between works, or some being more prominent than others in specific games, while only a few remain the same.
  • Elements which remain consistent include:
    • The vast majority of the Demon Compendium is generally transplanted wholesale between games, but the only demons who appear in all games, and always with the exact same appearance, are Atlus mascots Jack Frost and its close relatives.
    • The Demon Summoning Program, the concept of inserting the ritual to summon demons into technology to shorten the process, is the very basis of the franchise itself. It appears in not just all the mainline SMT games barring Nocturne, but also in Megami Tensei and Megami Tensei II, both Majin Tensei games, the first two Devil Summoner games, and both Devil Survivor and Devil Survivor 2.
    • The Sanskrit and Japanese-based spell naming convention as well as the tiered scale system: Agi, Bufu, Zio (weak), Agilao, Bufula, Zionga (medium), and Agidyne, Bufudyne, Ziodyne (heavy) for the three indispensable elementals; Hama and Mudo for Expel and Curse (or Light and Dark) One Hit Kills; Raku/Taru/Suku-nda/kaja for buffs and debuffs; and the prefix "Ma" for multi-target vs. single-target spells (Mazionga, Masukukaja, etc.).
    • Demon (or Persona) fusion to improve your forces has been the core and purpose of every single game in the franchise since the very first one. Related to this, certain fusion recipes always remain the same among games, such as Shiva being a result of fusing Rangda and Barong.
  • Meanwhile, elements which are subject to changes include:
    • Demon origin and physiology. In most games, demons are lifeforms made out of Magnetite or Aether (sometimes called Magatsuhi in specific games), a normally unobservable substance within all things which react to human thoughts and gather in human bodies. How much humans influence the nature of demons vary: sometimes demons are entirely sustained by human thought, other times humans merely influenced demons but is not strictly needed for continued existence. Other games like Last Bible and Devil Children forego this concept entirely, with demons being depicted as supernatural entities independent from humanity.
    • Makai or Demon World is a plane of existence comprising of data or information and Magnetite where demons reside, a form of Another Dimension linked to the physical world. The nature of this "information plane" often vary between continuities, which result in different phenomena occurring across the games; for example, in Strange Journey, the information realm was formed as a result of development of sentient life on Earth, whereas in Devil Survivor 2, the information plane exists prior to and governs the physical universe. In most games Makai is usually implied or stated to be linked to a single universe (notably as late as Shin Megami Tensei V), whereas in IV and Apocalypse, Makai is also a form of Void Between the Worlds which connect universes born from splits in timeline. Perhaps not coincidentally, some games localise Makai with names other than Demon World, as the Makai depicted in those continuities are too distinct from the norm despite the shared Japanese name.
    • Characterizations of major figures like YHVH, Lucifer, and many others often change Depending on the Writer to suit whatever themes to be explored in any particular game, and in fact it's not until Nocturne that demons begin to adopt a general characterization for each and every demon. Even then, that will change if a game's story demands it; for example, Apocalypse makes use of an interpretation of Vishnu as supreme god in Hindu, rather than a part of Trimurti with Brahma and Shiva like he usually is depicted. Likewise, alignments and factions of demons often fluctuate in many aspects from game to game.
    • The collective consciousness is often implied if not outright stated to exist in many games as the origin of gods, demons, and the information plane where they reside. However, how exactly it came into being and how much influence it has on the physical universe it was formed in vary between continuities. In games such as Persona and Apocalypse, the collective unconscious can subvert reality itself; in contrast for games such as Nocturne, it is stated to exist but incapable of influencing reality to a significant degree, to the point only the idea of Personas and Shadows exist as minor demons.
    • Given the franchise runs on Alternate Continuity and The Multiverse, how the principles of Kabbalah can be applied to understanding the world also vary across the games. What is considered Ein Sof (the ultimate underlying origin so far removed from all of creation to the point it can be considered non-existent from the perspective of the created), or the 10 Sefirot (the structure of how the divine creative energy is expressed to form and sustain creation) in one world might not necessarily apply to another, even if both are within the same continuity; there is no single interpretation applicable to all of them.
    • The cycle of death and reincarnation is implied to be present in many games, but its nature and rules might change from game to game. In some games, it applies to individual human souls and demons. In others, it applies to entire universes. Whether or not the cycle exists as a fundamental process of reality in and of itself, or simply artificially set in place by powerful beings also vary; in certain games, the cycle of transmigration is considered so intrinsic to reality, escaping it turns you into a godlike being who can transcend dimensions, with entities as powerful as YHVH even forced to go the extra mile if he wants to kill souls of problematic individuals permanently.
• Recurring Extra: Numerous examples: from Original Generation demons like Jack Frost and his relatives or Alice, to background characters like the master of the Cathedral of Shadows, the owner of Rag's Shop, Charon, and to an extent, Stephen.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Chaos and law tend to be this for red and blue respectively. They even have the appropriate color pallets.
  • Meta example: To contrast Devil Survivor's demonic red palette, Devil Survivor 2 uses angelic blue. Even the storylines are slightly different from each other, but their Golden Endings are on opposite sides.
• Reforged into a Minion: Almost every boss and miniboss can be subject to this. Once you've killed them once, you have the right to summon them at an adequate level.
• Refusing Paradise: It is possible to reject Law's paradise in lieu of working towards creating one.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Machines that develop human thoughts and feelings are often featured in MegaTen games. This includes Aigis and Labrys in the Persona series, Rasputin from the Devil Summoner games, and the Innocents in IMAGINE.
• Roc Birds: Roc (sometimes Rukh) is frequently a demon in the series and its spinoffs. It is usually a member of the Avian or Flight race, and is usually portrayed as a giant bird with a rocky skin texture to emphasize its size, making it look like a flying mountain.
• Romantic Fusion:
  • You can have Hindu god Shiva and his wife Parvati as Mons in your party. In many games, fusing both of them will result in the demon Ardha, who is basically Shiva and Parvati combined together. This is also usually the only way to get Ardha in your party.
  • Near the end of Digital Devil Saga, Serph and Sera died but their souls fused, forming the intersex Seraph. Futhermore, his/her Atma Avatar is Ardha.
• Route Boss: Long story short: If you're Law-aligned, you kill all the Chaotic leaders. If you're Chaos-aligned, you kill all the lawful leaders. If you're Neutral, you kill everyone.
• Rule of Symbolism: If a demon looks extremely weird, chances are that oddity is actually an obscure reference to its mythical origins.
• Running Gag:
  • Belphegor and toilets. It started in Persona 2 where Belphegor (along with cosplay girl Ixquic and a bunch of mooks) were all hiding in a bathroom stall, and the poor demon hasn't escaped toilet seats since. He is ALWAYS depicted sitting on a toilet seat.
  • The Jack demons Leaning On or outright Breaking the Fourth Wall to lampshade their mascot status. Or the protagonist's protagonist status. Or the fact that you're playing a video game. Hell, sometimes their mere existence is treated as a gag.
  • Pixie inexplicably knowing the Megido spells. It started with Persona 2 Eternal Punishment (where Megido replaced the Media spell of the Innocent Sin version), but it truly became famous with the Super Pixie in Nocturne and all her subsequent appearances.

S-T

• The Sacred Darkness: The Lady race features Black Maria, who is based off an interpretation of the Virgin Mary with black skin, and is stated to be a holy mother of the dark. Likewise, the demon Alciel, the "Black Sun", or "King of Gehenna" has added commentary in the Compendium saying darkness is a part of rebirth.
• Sacrificial Revival Spell: In some entries in the series, the Recarmdra spell will revive all fallen party members at the cost of killing the caster.
• Sadly Mythcharacterized: Some demon designs tend to be more symbolic. Instead of reflecting what the mythological character physically appeared as in their myths, the demon designs incorporates aspects of the myths themselves into them. While often showing their work, the results are still at odds with usual physical depictions:
  • Cerberus is a Double Subversion. They are depicted as some sort of lion-wolf with only one head, instead of the three headed canine, in all but three games, due to their portrayal in the original Digital Devil Story novels and anime from which the video games took off. But the version with one head is actually the original portrayal. Later portrayals emphasized multiple heads, while varying on the actual number. The idea that they has 3 heads specifically did not sink in until the Renaissance. Therefore, while the 3 headed version is iconic, the one headed version is more accurate but thus unusual.
  • Shin Megami Tensei IV and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse featured several unusual demon and boss designs. Of note is Lucifer. In IV he looks like a bald man with white skin (actually being a leather bodysuit) and a red outfit. In Apocalypse, he resembles a man with very dark grey skin dressed in shining gold and residing on a golden sun throne. His wings are actually the twelve rays of light from his sun throne. He also lacks the empathy for Humanity and most of his ability to manipulate people. The duology's incarnation is actually a part of Satan. In previous games and Judaic tradition, the two were considered separate beings, and in Christian tradition, Lucifer is believed to have taken the identity of Satan after his fall.
  • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse also has Odin, who is depicted as a Gold and Blue Ultraman-like humanoid without the beard (although MegaTen's other incarnations of Odin usually don't have facial hair to begin with, and would still fall under Amazing Technicolor Population with his purple skin).
  • Some of the angels also play with the trope. While several of them go for the Winged Humanoid depiction, and others subvert it by using Talmudic depictions, Metatron and his twin Sandalphon are depicted as more machine than man. Symbolic of YHVH's desires for absolute control over humanity. Shin Megami Tensei IV extends the mechanical aspect to the four Archangels, but goes for a more eldritch aesthetic, with faces not on their heads but on other parts of the body. All of them angelic demons are usually fanatical followers of YHVH and his ideology.
• The Sandman: A recurring demon in the series and its spin-offs. His flavour text usually identifies him as a faerie from German folklore who puts humans to sleep with his magic sand and sits on the eyelids of anyone who resists.
• Satan: Different forms of the Devil regularly show up over the series:
  • Lucifer works in direct opposition to God, typically as leader of Chaos factions in the Order Versus Chaos games, and as two different Personas in Persona games (Lucifer his Fallen Angel self, and Helel from before his fall from grace).
  • The entirely separate Satan takes after his Old Testament (more specifically Book of Job) depiction, who serves as God's Dragon in Order Versus Chaos games, and as a Judgement-class Persona in Persona games.
• Satan Is Good: Zigzagged. Lucifer is one of the franchise's most recurring characters and has been subject to Depending on the Writer more than any other character, while Satan is less recurring but has likewise gone through Characterization Marches On from his earliest appearances. See Lucifer and Satan's folders in their respective pages for details.
• Save-Game Limits: You typically can only save at set points, such as Terminals. Shin Megami Tensei IV breaks tradition by letting you save anywhere.
• Save Scumming: Considering that IV has no defense stat and as such enemies can and will rapidly eat you for breakfast, you'll be thankful you can.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: A number of the protagonists are high school students and occasionally get caught up in events while still in their school uniforms.
• Schmuck Bait: Atlus likes to bait you into taking silly risks. A notable example is before the Daisoujou fight in Nocturne. The boss uses powerful light and dark type (One-Hit Kill) attacks, but directly before the fight, the player has access to a magatama that boosts strength by 10, while making the player weak to light and dark attacks. With a stat cap of 40, naturally it seems like a good idea, but then you're promptly punished.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One possible response you can get from a demon when you do something for them or answer one of their questions is that the demon becomes angry and leaves. Irritating if you were trying to get something from the demon or get them to join you, but much better than eliciting a free round for their party.
• Secret A.I. Moves: One of the most notable comes in Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga in the form of two moves (Beast Eye and Dragon Eye) that gives the enemy free actions for a puny mana cost. For the most part, only bosses have it, and you can't learn it. Shin Megami Tensei IV lets you FINALLY learn a special version called Guardian's Eye...but it requires a demon only obtainable from the last and most difficult DLC boss battle, can only be inherited through an extremely limited form of fusion, and costs an absurd 255 MP.
• Seeking Ultimate Strength: The Chaos alignment in all games can be summarized as Might Makes Right. The motives of faction leaders typically involve To Create a Playground for Evil, but Chaos-aligned heroes (Dahn, Jimenez, Walter, Nikaido, Keita) seek to become ever stronger specifically so they would never feel oppression or threat.
• Self-Destructive Charge: Some enemies, if pushed, will try to invoke Taking You with Me through a massive explosion, sometimes even hurting their own allies in the process.
• Sequel Number Snarl: There is a notable difference between the mainline series and the numbered series. While the numbered series only includes Shin Megami Tensei I, Shin Megami Tensei II, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Shin Megami Tensei IV, and Shin Megami Tensei V, the mainline series also includes Shin Megami Tensei if..., Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse. The Famicom games and NINE are occasionally added to the mainline list, but are less consistent than the others.
• Sex Sells: Aeria started advertising the MMORPG with this using demons. To be fair, a few of the demons are attractive, but others...
• Shout-Out: The games reference to a huge amount of other creators' work and general culture from around the world.
  • Carl Jung: His psychological research is a major thematic influence for the franchise, particularly in the Persona series.
  • Megami Tensei II has a chainsaw-wielding maniac called Friday. A Palette Swap of the same monster is named Redrum. Other enemies (which also appear in Giten Megami Tensei) are named Highway Star and Interipelli
  • SMT II features monsters based on Audrey, Betelgeuse, Chris the Car, and several H. P. Lovecraft gods. There's also a fighter named Thomas the Tank. Another enemy is called Terminator. While he's not a robot, he wields the same weapons as the T-800 (an AR-18 and a SPAS-12).
  • Devil Summoner features a brainless zombie called Scarecrow. The Aerophant demon is based on a obscure book of doctored photos called Fauna, in addition to the obvious Dumbo reference with the feather on its nose.
  • Persona 1 has a demon named Carrie.
  • The Cosmo Zombie from Soul Hackers is based on the famous "Alien Autopsy" video, as well as the TheXFiles episode that referenced it.
  • Persona 2 has even more references to Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, particularly in Tatsuya's scenario.
• Shown Their Work: The Demonic Compendium for every single game in the series, including spinoffs, contains an accurate overview of each demon's background and origin, and the sources pulled from are diverse to say the least. If you don't have a degree in mythological studies, playing through a bunch of the games and reading the entire Compendium for each would give you one hell of a head start.
  • Additionally, many of the demon designs (at least those by Kazuma Kaneko) are profusely illustrated and almost always have tiny details that reveal a lot about the demons. For instance, examining Incubus' artwork reveals a small bolt chained to his ankle. Succubus, on the other hand, has a similar chain, with a matching nut...
• Signature Move: Many. Notable in that they are only very rarely passable to other monsters / Personas through fusion inheritance, limiting you to using that specific demon if you really want to use the move.
  • Alice has the destructive "Die For Me!" attack: the deadliest Curse/Mudo-type One-Hit Kill move.
  • The equivalent Hama move ("Die For Me!" counts as Mudo) is "Samsara", traditionally possessed by Daisoujou.
  • Metatron has Fire of Sinai, a rain of Almighty-type holy fire.
  • Beelzebub has Death Flies, a swarm of, again, Almighty-type monstrous black flies that either fully devour you in one go or leave you half-eaten with very little hope to survive.
  • Huang Long has Celestial Ray. Huge Almighty damage and random Status Effects.
  • Surt, the fire giant from Norse Mythology has his signature Fire spell Ragnarok. Sometimes, Loki, Thor and Odin join in the fun with Niflheim, Thunder Reign and Panta Rhei.
  • Mara and "Maralagidyne". Oh, yuck.
  • From Persona 2, we have everyone and their dog. The entry for this trope in that page has thirty two names in it.
  • Persona 5 has at least one for every boss, but special mention goes to the protagonist's Sinful Shell.
  • Every Fiend has a signature move in Nocturne: Matador has Red Capote and Andalucia, Daisojou has Preach and Meditation, Hell Biker has Hell Exhaust and Hell Burner, White Rider has God's Bow, Red Rider has Terrorblade, Black Rider has Soul Divide, Pale Rider has Pestilence, the Harlot has Beast Roar and Trumpeter has Evil Melody and Holy Melody. Others examples are Skadi (Earthquake), Amaterasu (Godly Light), Dante (his entire moveset), Pazuzu (Wet Wind) Kurama Tengu (Starlight), Mada (Intoxicate), Valkyrie (Soul Recruit), Mithra (Death Pact) and Dionysius (Wine Party). Each of the Conception gods has at least one: Ahriman has Hell's Call and Apocalypse, Noah has Domination and Baal Avatar has Bael's Bane.
  • In Apocalypse, the Fiends all get a renamed Meditation and at least one of their skills from Nocturne in addition to new ones for David and the DLC Fiend: Haunting Rhapsody for David, Andalusia for Matador, God's Bow for White Rider, Blade of Terror for Red Rider, Soul Divide for Black Rider, Pestilence for Pale Rider, Evil Melody for Trumpeter, Death Lust and Babylon Goblet for Mother Harlot, and Zenki's Axe, Goki's Water Wall, and Peacock's Incantation for En no Ozuno.
  • On a different angle, many of the Demi-fiend exclusive attacks can be seen like this. Highlights include Freikugel, Magma Axis, Gaea Rage, and Deadly Fury.
  • Many bosses have signature moves that are pretty relevant to the mythology behind them. Harihara has Chaturbuja, Vaikunta and Three Worlds (changed to Reincarnate in English), Brahman has Brahma Sutra and Izanami has Thousand Curses. For the Law and Chaos heroes, Jimenez and Zelenin have Left Hand and Right Hand respectively. Belial has Sodom's Fire/Fire of Gomorrah, and Nebiros has Necromancy, while Lilith has Temptation.
  • The Digital Devil Saga bosses have some of these. For instance, Hayagriva has Fire Storm and Skewer, Camazotz has the Guard ability and later on, Zotzilaha Bane, Usas has Seraph Lore, Rahu has Dragon Quake and Dragon Thrash, Cerberus has Pyriphlegethon, Varin Omega has Hunger Wave.
• Simplified Spellcasting: Sure, really, you could actually use the lengthy, difficult and tedious ritual to summon demons and bind them into your service and/or use magic... but really, once you have the whole thing into a handy smartphone app, why bother?
• Sinister Stingrays: Forneus, which is designed to resemble a manta ray. The artist states this is because manta rays on occasion are referred to as "devil fish".
• Slain in Their Sleep: Some games have Sleep status, in which the victim is unable to act for a random number of turns. Some of those games also have a skill, usually named Eternal Rest, which delivers One-Hit Kill to any sleeping targets.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Mostly set on the further ends of Cynical. God is usually an evil bastard, everyone sane is trying to use you to further their personal goals (which you will inevitably fall for, whether you like it or not) and everything else is trying to kill you. The more idealistic settings (like Persona games) are usually A World Half Full, however. The series has gradually gotten more and more idealistic as time has gone by; in newer games, you really can Earn Your Happy Ending if you don't lose hope. Even before that, most of the endings which continue to the sequels the relatively uplifting (by the franchise's standards) neutrality endings.
• Soaperizing: Persona 3 and its sequel games Persona 4 and Persona 5, while still RPGs, add Dating Sim elements. These games are INSANELY popular, and Persona 3 was the mainstream English market introduction to the Shin Megami Tensei franchise.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Averted as far as genre goes. Whereas most RPG's use orchestral and symphonic music for their soundtracks, MegaTen uses rock and more modern sounds for its. Turns out to work pretty well considering MegaTen is usually in a modern setting or, at its worst, Cyberpunk.
• Spell Levels: The series uses a basic form of suffixes and prefixes, but early games do not have an in-game manual for these. Learning to use them correctly is critical.
  • The main attack spells in the series are a slew of elements, commonly Ice (Bufu), Fire (Agi), Electricity (Zio) and, depending on the game, either Wind (Garu) or Force (Zan). There's also Psychological (Psy), Nuclear (Frei), Earth (Magna/Tera), Gravity (Gry) and Water (Aqua). These basic elements have three tiers, basic (no suffix), medium (a variety of suffixes), and powerful (-dyne). V adds in a fourth tier with a suffix (-barion). Most of these can also have the Ma- prefix, which denotes that it hits the entire enemy party. Depending on the game's mechanics and the enemies at hand, this may or may not be desirable.
  • The basic One-Hit Kill spells, Hama (Light/Expel) and Mudo (Darkness/Death) can also have the Ma- prefix, with or without the -on suffix, which denotes a better chance of hitting the enemy. There is a third tier, but they're generally exclusive to certain demons and thus do not follow the naming convention (Samsara or Judgment Light for Light, Die for Me! for Darkness). V introduces third tier spells for those elements (-barion), but those inflict damage in addition to having a chance of instantly killing enemies weak to those elements.
  • The basic healing spell, Dia, comes with two possible suffixes: -rama, more heal, and -rahan, full heal. The Ma- prefix comes back as Me-.
  • The basic buff and debuff spells are only suffixes and prefixes: Taru- is physical attacks, Maka- is magical attacks, Raku- is defense, Sama- is magical defense, Suku- is speed, and De- removes stat changes. -kaja stands for buffs, -unda or -nda are debuffs. Depending on the mechanics of the game, they may or may not affect the entire party. If the latter is true, however, they also make use of the Ma- prefix.
  • The basic Almighty attack is Megido, and it comes with two suffixes: -la (run for your life) and -laon (prepare for complete obliteration). Still, there are even deadlier Almighty spells, such as Black Viper, Morning Star, and Jihad/Antichthon. However, the only one that retains the naming convention, the most obscenely overpowered of them all, is Lucifer's exclusive Megidoladyne.
  • -karn are one-time Reflect moves, Tetra- being any physical, and Makara- being any magical excluding Almighty and Status Effects. Whether used as an item or as a move, it may affect only the user or the entire party depending on the game's mechanics. Both the demons with the move and the items are few and far between, and very expensive all around.
  • Recarm is the basic revival skill, and Samarecarm revives at full life. Recarmdora / Recarmdra / Recarmloss variably fully heals all allies, revives all fallen allies, or heals and clears ailments, at the cost of either killing the caster or invoking HP to One.
  • Beyond this, there are a number of special attacks with other names. Still, those are the basics.
  • As an addendum, the names of the moves have mythological context. For general spell names origins: "Agi" and "Bufu" comes from Sanskrit "Agni" and "bRhattuhinazarkara", the latter roughly means "great clumps of ice". "Zio" comes from Norse god Tyr, who had the nickname "Tivisco". "Garu" is a shortening of Hindu/Buddhist Garuda. "Hama" and "Mudo" come from Japanese (or, in the case of the latter, Spanish as well), and are rooted in Shinto exorcism. "Magna", "Tera", and "Aqua" come from Latin "magma", "terra", and "aqua". "Frei" comes from German folklore of the "Freischütz", a "freeshooter" who has a contract with the devil. "Dia" is Greek for "song". "Recarm" is a corruption of "reincarnation". "Megido" is from Biblical "Megiddo" (as in the root of "armageddon"). As you might guess, there are even more origins after this.
• Spiritual Successor: There's a Konami-made smartphone game in Japan called Dragon Collection that's immensely popular. Its stable of monster cards is, shall we say suspiciously similar to the Shin Megami Tensei cast, and the old Devil Children spinoffs in particular.
• Status Effects: Almost all standard effects are present across numerous games.
• Status Infliction Attack: There are normal spells or physical attacks capable of inflicting Status Effects, and chains of these are possible, leading to easy Game Breakers. There's too many individual examples to count, but in general:
  • In most games, any Ice attack has a chance of freezing the enemy. And attacking a frozen enemy is an automatic Critical Hit and Extra Turn.
  • Ditto for Electricity attacks, which has a chance to shock, which sometimes also guarantees crits.
  • In fewer games, Fire attacks can inflict burn status.
  • Then there are more specific attacks which do this as part of the description. For example, the infamous Terror Fortune from Persona 2, on top of its massive damage, can inflict every status effect in the game.
• The Stoic: Law characters are often depicted as this. Sometimes to a fault, showing up acting robotic, or occasionally being actual robots.
• Stopped Numbering Sequels: Zigzagged. The mainline series switches between numbered sequels and Oddly Named Sequel (If..., NINE, IMAGINE, Strange Journey).
• Story Branch Favoritism: The games makes it a point that only you can decide which path is right, and there are no wrong answers, particularly when it comes to picking between Law, Neutral, or Chaos. However, many games make no attempt to hide the fact that it wants you to go certain routes, usually Neutral: Law often leads to a theocratic dictatorship where the Messians / angels / God / whatever hold all the cards, Chaos often leads to an anarchy of total freedom where the only rule is strength (i.e. "if you happen to be weak, you were not meant for this world"), while Neutral has the message of "look, order and freedom are important, and the angels and demons are both hungry for power so let's tear both down and create a fairly reasonable society". The games sometimes do warn neutrality is only a temporary relief from the Law-Chaos conflict in the grand scheme of things, but even then Neutral is still often presented as the most morally reasonable path. Finally, Neutral tends to be the most complete in terms of content, with more bosses (naturally, since you made enemies of both Law and Chaos, whereas Neutral representatives don't really hold any malice towards you if you side with either of those two), sidequests, items (Masakado items are often Neutral-only and the resident Infinity +1 Sword), and lore. However, it is important to note this isn't always the case, with some games (notably Nocturne) encouraging or offering most content in other alignments.
• Story Branching: A number of Shin Megami Tensei games have branching paths where you choose between Law, Chaos, or Neutral allegiance. Some, like Nocturne and the Devil Survivor series, have more choices beyond these classic three paths.
• Stripperiffic: Many female demons are outright Ms. Fanservice, and many male demons are guilty of providing Fanservice this way too.
• Summon Magic: Arguably how COMPs function in Shin Megami Tensei I, the Personas in the Persona series, Naomi's spells in Soul Hackers, the Demon Summoning Program in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, the Nicaea app in Devil Survivor 2...
• Summoning Artifact: Technology is often treated in this capacity in the games, though certain games add in the need to acquire certain ritualistic items to summon certain demons.
• Summoning Ritual: Shown occasionally. Mekata's ruined ritual in Shin Megami Tensei II, Mara's summoning in Nocturne and the Seraph summoning in Strange Journey are some examples. Taken into a broader context, the summoning and fusion technology is this ever since the first Digital Devil Story, as you are tributing lesser demons in exchange for a more powerful one turning up to serve you. When viewed like this, it's little surprise hexagrams (traditional summoning emblems) have been used as the franchise brand logos.
• Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Again, Red, Magatsuhi, Magnetite. All of them are largely the same. Digital Devil Saga put its own spin on this concerning Magnetite and mentions all things have the substance in them, and that living creatures eat each other to obtain Magnetite and survive. Humans and Demons require the most Magnetite to survive, so they have to eat far more, which is why Demons eat other demons/humans since they have the most Magnetite.
• Superpower Meltdown: One of the many reasons for which human/demon fusions are considered to be temporary Emergency Transformations at best.
• Super Wrist-Gadget: COMPs in the series often feature some sort of wrist-mounted device. In earlier games, this takes the form of wrist-mounted keyboards connected to back-mounted computers with head-mounted displays. Later games feature more ergonomic designs, but are still arm-mounted: in Shin Megami Tensei IV, for instance, the COMP resembles a gauntlet, with functions similar to a smartphone and even the ability to let the wearer cast magic learned from demons.
• Taken for Granite: A recurring ailment, and a continuous source of Nightmare Fuel in Digital Devil Saga, where the vast majority of Humanity is now a huge statuary.
• Talking the Monster to Death: The standard method of recruitment in MegaTen games, though bribery, flattery and sometimes even dancing can play a part.
• Tautological Templar: All three sides (Law, Neutral and Chaos) want to help, want only the best for Mankind. Generally only Neutral more or less realizes it may not be, and may not need to be, perfect.
• Teleportation Misfire: The series proper began with a teleportation experiment gone wrong, in which a demon was accidentally dragged to the mortal realm.
• Thematic Series: Devil Survivor. The two games are in separate continuities, and 2 has no real connection to the main SMT mythos at all, but they share themes of fighting for survival in a Lovecraft Lite universe, as well as questions of how other beings react to humanity attaining the power to summon demons. This can be applied to most games in the franchise as direct story sequels are rare, even between games which explicitly share continuity.
• Theme Naming: The above-mentioned Spell Levels.
• There Are No Therapists: One of the main reasons of why The Power of Friendship is so necessary in certain games. Finally averted in Persona 5 Royal with Takuto Maruki.
• There Can Be Only One: You decide the fate of the world. But other people are still not gonna let you steal "their" thunder, without a fight.
• Threads of Fate: The Moirae are all depicted with a single thread; appropriately enough Clotho holds the spool, Lachesis looks like she's measuring it and Atropos holds the scissors.
• Timed Mission: Two of the three Towers in Persona 's Snow Queen Quest. The Priestess full moon shadow in Persona 3. The final DLC battle against Masakado in IV. The last part of Okumura's Palace in Persona 5.
• Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe:
  • All of the mainline games (save ''Strange Journey) must be set in some kind of Tokyo, which is where the battle between God and Lucifer's forces will be fought. Many spinoffs do so, as well.
  • Exaggerated in Nocturne, where due to the Conception reducing the entire universe into a singularity, embryonic state, Tokyo is warped into the literal universe as the Vortex World.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: This is pretty much the main staple of Law's ideology across the entire series. While their final outcome goal is not to have a totalitarian society, but merely a peaceful one where no one suffers greatly because they are kept ignorant of their suffering, they can and will restrict freedom at any time they think it has benefits towards reaching this goal. Often cutting to the chase by mass genocide and brainwashing people into acting how they want them to.
• Transhuman Treachery: The vast amount of demon-human hybrids created by Fusion Dance present in the series are so blinded by their new powers they start allowing their ego and fanaticism to taint their judgment very quickly. There is very little if any mental deterioration, they just get drunk on power and proceed to jump off the slippery slope. After a while, their best answer to any problem is to blast the hell out of it.
• Trauma Inn: Present in most games. But incredibly likely to make you bleed Macca (or Yen, depending on the game) at an accelerated pace, in any form.
• Trope Maker: The first game series with recruitable monsters.
• True Companions:
  • This trope is a major plot point and gameplay element in Persona games. Making friends gives you actual power.
  • The Devil Survivor games also have a great focus on the bonds between people. Trying to save as many people as you can unlocks as many endings as possible. Bonus points to Atsuro from the first game, who will accompany the MC no matter what he chooses, even if it goes completely against his own philosophy.
• Ultimate Blacksmith: Certain fusion masters (the Master for Cathedral of Shadows, Dr. Victor) have a good claim to the title due to the sheer quality of the weaponry they provide.
• Unbuilt Trope: Often referred to as a Darker and Edgier Pokémon, but in reality it's more like Pokémon is a Lighter and Softer MegaTen.
• The Unfettered: Many antagonists are usually extreme degrees of this trope, whether they are humans or demons.

U-Y

• Unicorn: Appears as a recruitable demon/Persona.
• Updated Re-release: The Devil Survivor games get remade for the 3DS, with full voice acting, and in the case of Devil Survivor 2 : Record Breaker, more animated cutscenes. Other games given this treatment include Soul Hackers, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, and all of the main Persona games.
• Urban Ruins: Shin Megami Tensei uses this trope often. Most of the time it happens because the city is going through Hell on Earth, and in the mainline games, it's Tokyo.
  • Devil Survivor and its sequel actually take place almost entirely in Tokyo which has been given this treatment through Hell on Earth.
• Useless Useful Spell: Generally averted. Buffs and debuffs are invaluable for surviving boss attacks, ailments are effective in disabling otherwise deadly random encounters (along with some minor bosses!) and instant-kill moves can exploit weaknesses and take a lot of bite out of deadly enemies (barring Contractual Boss Immunity). That said, it's not foolproof, and some skills will fall into this trope. How it happens varies depending on game.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: The standard assumption of the Law alignment.
• Verbal Tic: A number of demons exhibit distinct speech characteristics: some are intelligent and eloquent, others are thuggish and direct, some SPEAK IN ALL CAPS and some in ToRGo sPEeCh. And then there's the ver-hee recognizable speech pattern of Jack Frost and his fell-ho Jacks and Frosts, hee-ho!
• Verbal Judo: A key part of demon negotiation.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: It would be easier to list games which doesn't use this trope.
• Vicious Cycle: Oh, yes. The rise and fall of gods being the main staple, especially in games where Gods Need Prayer Badly. Even those which don't entirely run on it still have fun things like the Conception or the Schwartzwelt.
• Visual Pun: Many of the demons and monsters in this series have designs in this manner, the most infamous one is Mara.
• Virtual Sidekick:
  • Devil Survivor 2: Tico, the face of the website Nicaea, is an AI that acts as an assistant to the user of the website - including the player characters. The users can pick Tico's gender, with the two versions having completely different personalities, and they offer tutorials for how to summon demons, inform you of who is going to die today and how, and can call you out on your more questionable decisions.
  • Persona 5 Strikers:
    • EMMA is an application that's initially presented as a more effective form of Siri and nearly everyone in Japan has it. Not only can it perform internet searches as asked and has highly advanced speech recognition software, but it can actually give the optimal option for any given situation. In fact, some people treat is as the sidekick of their lives and leave all decisions on it. Originally, the only unusual trait it has is that it can access Jails in the Metaverse via keywords. However, as the game progresses, it's revealed that EMMA is more than just an app; it's a self-aware AI and that its purpose to essentially remove free will and emotions from the massses by making all their decisions for them, per its creator's orders.
    • Sophia is a rather unusual case in that while in the Metaverse, she has a (meta)physical presence and serves as a party member along with the rest of the Phantom Thieves. In the real world, since she has no robotic body, she inhabits Joker's smartphone and can perform any task that EMMA can. Sophia at first cannot understand emotions, but she wishes to learn, and the Phantom Thieves are more than happy to help her along the way. Eventually she awakens to a Persona.
  • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Every mystical gauntlet - an artifact that every candidate must activate to become samurai - comes with an AI named Burroughs, whose main job is Mission Control. Subverted when she's eventually revealed to be the goddess of Tokyo.
• Was Once a Man: Certain demons used to be human:
  • Spirits are the restless souls of the dead.
  • Undead are zombies, corpses animated through either magic, being possessed by a disembodied demon, or simply because the soul refuses to leave.
  • Haunts are humans who reincarnated as demons after dying (according to Devil Summoner, this is the result of spending too much time in Hell). Pretas, ghouls, liches, and vampires are examples of Haunts.
  • Several Raptors and Femmes are stated to be former humans, although this could be simply their mythological background rather than their true origin.
  • Madmen and certain members of the Foul race, are living humans possessed by demons.
  • Therians, such as werewolves, are possessed humans who transform back and forth (most likely according to the phases of the moon since that's what powers demons).
  • Demonoids are artificial demons created by mutating and modifying humans or animals. These last 3 examples share the particularity of being immune to Hama spells, indicating that they are still biological beings rather than true demons.
  • Several Fiends are stated to be former humans in ways similar to Undead and Haunts, and their Japanese name translates to "Demon Human". However, Giten Megami Tensei is the only game that depicts all of its Fiends as transformed humans, other games just specify them as demons of death and misfortune as well.
  • Aleister Crowley turns into a demon called Mega Therion when you meet him in SMTII, although the transformation method is obscure. He also shows up as a more human-looking demon in Persona 1, along with other famous wizards in the Magician arcanum (Cornelius Agrippa, Faust, Grigori Rasputin, and Wilbur Whateley). Rasputin being a demon is also a bit of a [1], since the first Raidou Kuzunoha game which takes place in the same continuity depicts him as a cyborg from a future Alternate Timeline.
  • In a more benevolent way, Heroes and Generals are historical figures who became guardian spirits after death, Taira no Masakado being the most notable as the guardian deity of Tokyo.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: A frustratingly high number of these games will give you a game over if your main character gets knocked out, regardless of whether this should make sense in all of them or not. Mudo and Hama spells are particularly devastating in that respect as some of the games give the player almost no recourse against them early on.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Everyone, really. Sadly, it's not easy to change the world and even harder to make sure everyone gets what they want. Given the diametrically opposite beliefs warring in the series and the depths they're willing to plumb, most of the time, your only option is to do what you believe is best for everyone. Of course... so will everybody else.
• Weird Currency: Macca in most games, as it's revealed in Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, despite looking like slightly odd coins stamped in a metal similar to bronze, it's actually a form of Pure Energy edible to demons. Lucifer's subordinate Lucifuge Rofocale is apparently in charge of the minting process.
• Weird Moon:
  • In most games that feature moon phases, the moon goes through sixteen different phases, and advances through each phase every few steps you take.
  • Persona 3 plays the moon phases more realistically, using actual moon phase data for 2009 and 2010 rather than the traditional mechanic of going through the entire cycle in a matter of a few minutes. However, it has its own oddities: the Moon is where Eldritch Abomination Nyx resides in.
  • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse brings back the system of having moon phase advance with the story, but due to using eighths for the moon phases, it takes a mere nine days to reach full moon instead of two weeks. Then it turns into the red "Misoka Moon" for the endgame, which is also a requirement for the Cosmic Egg to hatch a new universe.
• The Weird Sisters: The Fates - Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos - are separate demons that can be recruited. In some games, the three can be fused together in a special process to produce Norn, which is depicted as three goddesses united around a clock.
• We Used to Be Friends: As a general rule of thumb, most games have a group of friends that falls apart after the alignment lock and ends up fighting each other to the death. Persona games tend to avert this, but not always — Big Bad Friend is also a possibility.
• Wind Is Green: The name of the element is Force, but it's typically represented by a green tornado icon and the animations for Force skills will tend to have a green tint to them.
• With Us or Against Us: Most of the time, you will be forced against Law or Chaos factions if you choose their opposite, or both if you go Neutral. Given almost all of these games literally have the fate of the world hinging on choices made, it's logical that they are not going to change their minds without some damn convincing gab.
• What If?: Literally embodied in a game called Shin Megami Tensei If. Beyond that, Devil Summoner series is also based around a What If? which ties into the aforementioned game, as the branching point which leads to either the Devil Summoner/Persona continuity or the first Shin Megami Tensei game. If presents a what-if question, and Devil Summoner is the answer to it. On top of all this, Raidou Kuzunoha exist as prequels to Devil Summoner, which provide a historical What If? scenario, hinging, at least in part, on the Taisho period lasting longer than it did in our world.
• What the Hell, Player?: Demons will often call you "the real demon" when you toss them into a fusion.
• World of Badass: Most games offer you only three options. You start as a Badass. You become a Badass. You die. Choose.
• World of Ham: Every demon tries to out-ham each other. One could almost say power levels in this universe directly correlate to the demon's hamminess.
• World of Jerkass: Pretty much every game has its share of assholes.
• World of Silence: Law gets accused of wanting this by Chaos in almost every game, though the accuracy varies. For example, in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne Hikawa (who caused the world to get so screwed up and become the Vortex World in the first place) refers to his reason openly as this, though in practice it is not as extreme as it sounds. In Persona 4 this is the kind of world Izanami thinks the apathetic humans want.
• Yet Another Stupid Death: Many a gamer have been humbled after moments of hubris. Common ways of dying: getting back attacked and having your weaknesses exploited endlessly, getting hit by a Hama or Mudo spell, using the wrong skill at a crucial moment because you weren't paying enough attention, being able to always counter with a physical attack for ludicrous damage and then being glanced by a lowly demon that repels physical attacks.
• Yin-Yang Bomb:
  • The entire point of Devil Children: Book of Light and Book of Dark for the GBA.
  • Daisoujou in Nocturne loves using Mahamaon/Mamudoon for instant game overs if you don't have some kind of protection. He also already starts with both Mahamaon and Mamudoon when you fuse him.
  • Persona 3 FES gives us Messiah, an explicit reference to, well, Jesus. Thanks to the personas required for the fusion and the inheritance rules, Messiah will inherit Die For Me!, which will actually be his most useful skill, despite an inherent weakness to darkness. Thanatos, the top Death-arcana persona, is weak to light but learns Mahamaon — presumably so the player can later have Messiah inherit it, but most delete it... and many plot twists later, the irony is delicious.
  • Naoto Shirogane has a Persona which uses both Hama and Mudo skills.
• Youkai: Some of the demons in the series come from here.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: Certain demons must be defeated for the right of summoning them as minions. In Devil Survivor, you gain several stat points when destroying the Bel demons, as you are essentially consuming the demon and adding its powers to your own. It's also a key Junkyard rule in Digital Devil Saga, and its breakdown in favor of The Power of Friendship and simple ambition is a major plot point.

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