Shin Megami Tensei Series

Even Pixie can be a murderous asshole at times too. Remember when she tried to kill Yuzu? Or are we only talking about the main series?

pixie was only trying to avoid enslavement.

Doesn't change the fact that she was taking delight in the thought of murdering humans. Remember, we're talking about the jerkish behavior of demons, justified or not.

Arthur? I don't recall him being anything but a helpful little robot.

Arthur doesn't count as a demon. He's the Neutral Hero of Strange Journey.

I think Amaterasu might count since I don't think she's ever anything but courteous to any of the main characters she interacts with. Of course, I'm only talking about the behavior we see in the game; when we get into stuff that the gods did in their mythologies and in the games' background, the list of nice demons grows smaller and smaller...

Oh, a demon.

...Uhhh... Can't think of one for now.

Well he pretty much is a cyber demon at the end, which is why he's worried about being worshiped if they leave.

And Nemissa is a demon as well.

By the way, I hope that if YHVH is in this game, that doesn't hurt its chances of an overseas release.

Why would it?

Explicitly having God in this game and giving us a chance to beat him up probably isn't high on Atlus's to do list. Recently they've tried to skirt around using him by relying on avatars or servants that may or may not be following his orders.

edited 10th Oct '15 4:25:54 PM by Kostya

Everyone says it's the reason the iOS version of II was never localized.

That sounds silly to be honest. More likely people making stuff up because in this day and age beating up God in a video game isn't a big deal.

I mean it is in the series itself but not outside it.

Beating up a god isn't a big deal but I can't think of many mainstream games that have you fight the actual God from the Bible.

edited 10th Oct '15 7:40:48 PM by Kostya

Good thing SMT isn't mainstream enough to get that, even with IV's sales.

Now Persona on the other hand is a different story.

The Persona series seems content to stay out of the overall war between Demons and Angels, so I highly doubt any Persona game will base it's plot around YHWH anytime soon.

One of the main themes of Persona is how, quite often, mankind is its own worst enemy. Even the various gods in the series are mostly just manifestations of humanity's collective (messed-up) psych profile.

So yeah, that's not happening.

Atlus kinda has the best of both worlds- SMT's about as big as something can be and still be considered niche.

edited 10th Oct '15 8:26:52 PM by Pulse

That brings up something that's been puzzling me. Are the demons created by humanity or not? I was always really unclear on this. On the one hand you have things like YHVH, Lucier, the archangels, etc that predate humanity but then they have the whole God Needs Prayers Badly thing. If they're powered by belief then how did they exist prior to humanity?

They believed in themselves?

Near as I can tell, the implications seem to be that gods and demons existed before humanity because humanity believes they did.

YHVH Himself has at least two origin stories. He was either legitimately the Creator of the universe, presumable including all the other demons, or He was just one god amongst many who, by virtue of being the most popular among humans, grew powerful enough to unseat the rest.

The general idea is that there were things that truly existed before humanity.

Even Strange Journey and King Abaddon have intelligent sentient lifeforms that predate humanity.

And Nyx in Persona was something else that became Death. Whether it was the Star Eater from the dubious canonical book or is something else entirely.

The Star Gods oversee the universe in Desu 2and don't give a shit about humanity or have any connection to their psyche. If humanity doesn't fit in with the cosmos the Star Gods have been a part of since its beginning then erasing them forever is the logical conclusion.

And Last Bible and Devil Children blend the two. Demons/Monsters are real beings, but humans and demons emotions give rise to entities that seek to annihilate both.

Not to mention even Nocturnes TDE the demons still existed despite mankinds extinction and the universe ended, which is a far cry from the supposed nothingness of the White.

edited 10th Oct '15 8:45:43 PM by OmegaRadiance

That doesn't really contradict the White ending. The White wanted to destroy the universe entirely. Nocturne leaves Tokyo intact.

@Humanity rewrote history through their beliefs: That actually sounds a lot like Gunnerkrigg Court. I'm going with that explanation since I think it makes the most sense.

I just said TDE aka TRUE DEMON ENDING.

Edit: It doesn't actually make much sense at all, because in many of these cases the things that existed mankind doesn't know anything about.

In fact an old interview for SMTII points out mankind created the Kabbalah and the Sephiroth tree based upon seeing glimpses of Makai rather than the other way around. Demons inspired mankind into believing in Jewish mysticism.

edited 10th Oct '15 8:59:23 PM by OmegaRadiance

maybe its like virtue's last reward's interpretation of schroedingers cat

in a situation where nothing is being observed any and all possibilities are simultaeneously true, but once you open the box and begin observing, one possibility becomes true and was true since before you opened the box- thus changing the past from the future

in smt, humans opened the box and when the interpretation became "we created them", it overrided the reality and made demons even from before humanity existed a product of humanity?

I'm watching the Devil Summoner live action right now.

Edit: Arioch taking the form of a girl. He killed a guy during sex. I missed the Kaneko cameo.

edited 11th Oct '15 2:31:24 AM by OmegaRadiance