History VideoGame / ShinMegamiTenseiIf

The game has a cell phone prequel called ''Shin Megami Tensei: if... Hazama's Chapter'', which details Hazama's past and [[spoiler:his rise as the Emperor until it eventually splits into its own take on ''if...'''s story.]]

* BigBad: The Demon God Emperor. [[spoiler: Whose true identity is the Zoroastrian Deity Zurvan, as revealed in ''Hazama's Chapter''.]]
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Reiko's ending in particular. The school is saved and almost everyone makes it out alive, but Reiko and Hazama are never seen again after Reiko thanks Tamaki for helping to save Hazama from himself…]]

* BroughtDownToNormal: [[spoiler:Tamaki as she reached the end of Reiko's route; as while leaving Hazama's DreamWorld upon its collapse, Reiko tells her to release all the demons she's recruited thus far, and upon returning to the real world, her level also returns to 1.]]
* CanonName[=/=]DivergentCharacterEvolution: In ''if...'', you are given the option of naming your character, selecting their gender, and more or less defining their personality through gameplay. The ''Persona'' series, however, defines the Protagonist as a fairly upbeat girl named Tamaki Uchida. She retains the name and gender in ''Hazama's Chapter''.

* DealWithTheDevil: [[spoiler: Hazama is revealed to have made one with Zurvan. Though he's nothing more than Zurvan's UnwittingPawn.]]

* GasLeakCoverup: [[spoiler:In Shinji's and Akira's routes, the school is never restored and only a huge crater is left. This is officially said to been the cause of a gas leak explosion]].
* GodIsEvil: [[spoiler: Zurvan, the creator God in the Zoroastrian sect known as Zurvanism, where he created Angra Mainyu and Ahura Mazda, is the villain and TheManBehindTheMan to Hazama, all so he can take over Makai. He's also part of the Godly clan, which YHVH and his avatars from ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII'' belong to.]]

** [[spoiler:Lucifer is a key character in ''Hazama's Chapter'', where it is revealed that the Demon God Emperor Zurvan is actually an underling of his trying to usurp him using Hazama, and offers to give Tamaki an item that will free Hazama from Zurvan's control.]]

* MythologyGag: The Fiends in the original version are primarily taken from ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI''. These include Pascal, Gotou, the Law and Chaos Heroes, the protagonist, and En no Ozuno. In ''Hazama's Chapter'', only Pascal and the protagonist remain, though three Fiends from ''II'' (Matador, Alice, and the Sage of Time) are added.

* SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity: Played with in the Greed world, where there are about dozen or so chests outside the boss room: [[spoiler:opening none of them gets you a fight with an underleveled fox, taking all of them will force you to fight an overleveled god-like [[MultipleTailedBeast nine-tailed]] {{Kitsune}}, with various forms in-between.]]
* TakenForGranite: [[spoiler:Ryuuichi and Akiko. If you take the 'Wrath' path, It Gets Worse.]]

''Shin Megami Tensei: if...'' was the third GaidenGame to be spun off from the ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' franchise (the first being ''Majin Tensei'', and the second being ''VideoGame/LastBible'', which came to America as ''Revelations: The Demon Slayer''). The title refers to two things: first is the concept of the game, which is a WhatIf scenario in the SMT universe, namely "what if a school was suddenly thrown into the Demon Realm?" The title and logo are also references to the arthouse British film ''Film/{{If}}'', where the developers seem to have gotten the school concept from (although all similarities really stop there, with one possible [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer exception]]). Sadly, this game will [[NoExportForYou never be released outside of Japan]] due to this, but Aeon Genesis has announced a fan translation of this game, and in the 25th of October 2018, it finally got released!

''Shin Megami Tensei: if...'' was the third GaidenGame to be spun off from the ''ShinMegamiTensei'' franchise (the first being ''Majin Tensei'', and the second being ''VideoGame/LastBible'', which came to America as ''Revelations: The Demon Slayer''). The title refers to two things: first is the concept of the game, which is a WhatIf scenario in the SMT universe, namely "what if a school was suddenly thrown into the Demon Realm?" The title and logo are also references to the arthouse British film ''Film/{{If}}'', where the developers seem to have gotten the school concept from (although all similarities really stop there, with one possible [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer exception]]). Sadly, this game will [[NoExportForYou never be released outside of Japan]] due to this, but Aeon Genesis has announced a fan translation of this game, and in the 25th of October 2018, it finally got released!

* JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind: [[spoiler:The Final dungeon in Reiko's Path. There is also SoundtrackDissonance as the Law theme from ShinMegamiTensei 1 and 2 play while you trod through Hazama's mind.]]

''Shin Megami Tensei: if...'' was the third GaidenGame to be spun off from the ''ShinMegamiTensei'' franchise (the first being ''Majin Tensei'', and the second being ''VideoGame/LastBible'', which came to America as ''Revelations: The Demon Slayer''). The title refers to two things: first is the concept of the game, which is a WhatIf scenario in the SMT universe, namely "what if a school was suddenly thrown into the Demon Realm?" The title and logo are also references to the arthouse British film ''Film/{{If}}'', where the developers seem to have gotten the school concept from (although all similarities really stop there, with one possible [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer exception]]). Sadly, this game will [[NoExportForYou never be released outside of Japan]] due to this, but Aeon Genesis has announced a fan translation of this game is ongoing, [[http://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=smtif currently at eighty percent completion]]. [[IncrediblyLamePun If you]] can find an English patch available, sound off!

* WhereItAllBegan: If you take the three SuperNintendo-based SMT titles (SMT 1, SMT 2, and ''If'') as a kind of "trilogy" this applies after a fashion. SMT 1 begins in the dreams of the Protagonist of that game; [[spoiler:the VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon of ''If'' is the Mindscape of Hazama, using the same "dream" graphical effect from SMT 1]].

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Reiko's ending in particular. The school is saved and almost everyone makes it out alive, but Reiko and Hazama are never seen again after Reiko thanks Tamaki for helping to save Hazama from himself...]]

* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind [[spoiler: The final boss in Reiko's Path]]

* ActionGirl[=/=]AmazonBrigade: Tamaki, Reiko and Yumi are the game's most prominent female characters, and are all {{Badass}}.

* NoExportForYou: This is one of the few SNES-era SMT games still lacking a FanTranslation, to boot. Interestingly, due to the somewhat less "controversial" nature of the game's content compared to the rest of the series (that is, [[spoiler: you only fight a student who wants to ''be'' God instead of ''[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu actually fighting]]'' God]]), there were [[EpilepticTrees whispers]] that the game was considered for a Western release, but this obviously never bore fruit.
** Aeon Genesis has announced that their fan translation is "roughly halfway done", however. We may see this in English after all!

* ShoutOut: [[spoiler:Akira gets possessed by the demon Amon. [[Manga/{{Devilman}} Now where have I seen this before...]] ]]

* AlternateContinuity: Infamous for spawning [[VideoGame/{{Persona}} a continuity]] that would end up ''eclipsing'' its "mother" franchise in popularity and profitability.

[[caption-width-right:350:Right from the get-go, you know this'll be something different.]]

''Shin Megami Tensei: if...'' was the third GaidenGame to be spun off from the ''ShinMegamiTensei'' franchise (the first being ''Majin Tensei'', and the second being ''Last Bible'', which came to America as ''Revelations: The Demon Slayer''). The title refers to two things: first is the concept of the game, which is a WhatIf scenario in the SMT universe, namely "what if a school was suddenly thrown into the Demon Realm?" The title and logo are also references to the arthouse British film ''Film/{{If}}'', where the developers seem to have gotten the school concept from (although all similarities really stop there, with one possible [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer exception]]). Sadly, this game will [[NoExportForYou never be released outside of Japan]] due to this, but Aeon Genesis has announced a fan translation of this game is ongoing, [[http://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=smtif currently at eighty percent completion]]. [[IncrediblyLamePun If you]] can find an English patch available, sound off!

Mechanically, the game is built on the engine of ''ShinMegamiTenseiII'', and even recycles a large number of art and musical assets from that title. Dungeons are navigated in a first-person view; demons are negotiated with, and fused in the Cathedral of Shadows. Perhaps the biggest change mechanically is the introduction of the idea of "guardian spirits": souls of demons that will save you from death and upon entering your body, strengthen it and even give you and your compatriots magical powers.

If this sounds [[VideoGame/{{Persona}} just a bit familiar]], it should; many of the concepts introduced in ''if...'' would eventually be expanded upon in ''Persona 1'', and the formerly anonymous main character of ''if...'' even became a character in the early Persona games, putting Persona in the same continuity as ''if...'' and the ''Devil Summoner'' games (which detail what'd happen if people knew about demons ''before'' a certain event in SMT 1, thanks to the events of ''if...''). In other words, what started as one GaidenGame ended up dovetailing into a huge AlternateContinuity that has ''eclipsed'' the original Shin Megami Tensei games in popularity.

* FiveManBand: Although you only ever get to take one human partner with you, your options do form something like this.
** TheHero: Tamaki/The Protagonist
** TheLancer: Charlie
** TheChick: Yumi
** TheSmartGuy: Reiko
** SixthRanger: Akira (getting him to join you is... difficult)
*** TheBigGuy: Atlus ''loves'' using [[SecretCharacter these]] [[TheBigGuy three]] [[SixthRanger tropes in conjunction.]]
** TeamPet: [[MascotMook Heeho-kun]], sort of.

* PurelyAestheticGender: Averted. The female protagonist and partners have much lower HP growths from Stamina/Vitality, though this is not the case with Strength, which both male and female characters gain an equal amount of HP from. Many pieces of equipment and guardians are gendered as well.

* ShoutOut: [[spoiler:Akira gets possessed by the demon Amon. [[Mamga/{{Devilman}} Now where have I seen this before...]] ]]

** TeamPet: [[MascotMook Hoho-kun]], sort of.

* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: [[spoiler: Professor Otsuka, in increasing levels of hilarity and tragedy.]]

* GodIsEvil: [[spoiler: Zurvan, the creator God in the Zoroastrian sect known as Zurvanism where he created Angra Mainyu and Ahura Mazda, is the villain and ManBehindTheMan to Hazama, all so he can take over Makai. He's also part of the Godly clan, which YHVH and his avatars from ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiII'' belong to.]]

If this sounds [[VideoGame/{{Persona}} just a bit familiar]], it should; many of the concepts introduced in ''if...'' would eventually be expanded upon in ''Persona 1'', and the formerly anonymous main character of ''If'' even became a character in the early Persona games, putting Persona in the same continuity as ''if...'' and the ''Devil Summoner'' games (which detail what'd happen if people knew about demons ''before'' a certain event in SMT 1, thanks to the events of ''if...''). In other words, what started as one GaidenGame ended up dovetailing into a huge AlternateContinuity that has ''eclipsed'' the original Shin Megami Tensei games in popularity.

''Shin Megami Tensei: if...'' was the third GaidenGame to be spun off from the ShinMegamiTensei franchise (the first being the little-remembered ''Majin Tensei'', and the second being ''Last Bible'', which came to America as ''Revelations: The Demon Slayer''). The title refers to two things: first is the concept of the game, which is a WhatIf scenario in the SMT universe, namely "what if a school was suddenly thrown into the Demon Realm?" The title and logo are also references to the arthouse British film ''Film/{{If}}'', where the developers seem to have gotten the school concept from (although all similarities really stop there, with one possible [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer exception]]). Sadly, this game will [[NoExportForYou never be released outside of Japan]] due to this, but Aeon Genesis has announced a fan translation of this game is ongoing, [[http://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=smtif currently at eighty percent completion]]. [[IncrediblyLamePun If you]] can find an English patch available, sound off!

* AlternateContinuity: ''And how!'' Infamous for spawning [[VideoGame/{{Persona}} a continuity]] that would end up ''eclipsing'' its "mother" franchise in popularity and profitability.

* NoExportForYou: Sigh. This is one of the few SNES-era SMT games still lacking a FanTranslation, to boot. Interestingly, due to the somewhat less "controversial" nature of the game's content compared to the rest of the series (that is, [[spoiler: you only fight a student who wants to ''be'' God instead of ''[[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu actually fighting]]'' God]]), there were [[EpilepticTrees whispers]] that the game was considered for a Western release, but this obviously never bore fruit.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Reiko's ending in particular. The school is saved, most everybody makes it out alive, but Reiko and Hazama are never seen again after Reiko thanks Tamaki for helping to save Hazama from himself...]]