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Franchise / Shin Megami Tensei

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What will you do? Burn a path of Chaos with the flesh of the lawful, pave a road of Order with the blood of Demons, or create your own future?
"'What’s at the end of the universe? Is there an end?' I think most people have asked this sort of question at some point in their life. Personally, I just love thinking about things like that. Even though humans are part of the universe, nobody knows why the universe exists, or how humans came into being. A philosophical approach is the only way we can reach some kind of conclusion. That’s exactly what myths are-philosophical explanations of the universe and man-and why I love myths so much. The demons in the Megaten series all appear with these questions. It’s not wrong to put everything into simple “good” and “evil”, like in other games, but what’s right and wrong can be completely different, depending on your position and perspective; it’s very ambiguous. So I say, why not let each player tackle that question of what’s right and wrong?".
—Kazuma Kaneko in an interview for The Escapist

Shin Megami Tensei (Japanese for "True Reincarnation of the Goddess", though it has been kept as an Untranslated Title in English releases), also known as MegaTen, is a long-running series of JRPG Dungeon Crawlers and spinoffs developed and published by Atlus. In Japan, it has been a direct competitor to Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy since The '80s, while in the West it only gained real popularity with Persona 3 in 2006, despite numerous localizations going all the way back to the 1990s.

Originally based on a novel series called Digital Devil Story, the games tend to involve using technology to summon and control mythological figures from nearly every culture on the planet, as well as the end of the world, deconstructions of common RPG storylines and far-out monster designs.

Thematically, the series emphasizes following one's own beliefs: plots tend to revolve around the forces of Order and Chaos battling it out for supremacy, and the player is generally given complete freedom in deciding which side is "right". If neither side takes their fancy, the player can even kick both sides' butts and declare humanity (temporarily) free of either. Depending on the game, there may be other options.

The games also tend to be Nintendo Hard. Elemental affinities, buffing, and debuffing are far more effective than in most JRPGs and can make or break battles. In an aversion of Useless Useful Spell, instant death and ailment attacks are both effective and encouraged repeatedly. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne further introduced the Press Turn battle system to the series, where hitting an enemy's elemental weakness will reward the player with more actions whereas hitting their elemental strengths will cost the player actions. Variations of Press Turn went on to be adopted in multiple later MegaTen games, such as the "One More!" system in Persona 3, 4 and 5.

Although a majority of these games were released outside Japan under the Shin Megami Tensei label from Nocturne (2003) to Devil Survivor 2 (2011), in Japan only a handful of main series titles bear that name; the rest are spin-offs unofficially known as MegaTen titles. The Persona, Devil Summoner, Digital Devil Saga, and Devil Survivor series are the best-known of these spin-offs in the West. Catherine, despite not being a series due to only being one game, is also a well-known MegaTen game. Regardless, many include references to other MegaTen games and intra-franchise character cameos.

    open/close all folders 

    List of games 

    List of animated adaptations and installments 

    List of literary works and adaptations 

    List of live-action works and adaptations 
  • Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner (1997-1998)
  • Persona 4 Visualive (2012)
    • Persona 4 Visualive the Evolution (2013)
  • Persona 4 The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena Stageplay (2014)
    • Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold Stageplay (2016)
  • Persona 3: The Weird Masquerade (2014-2017)
  • Persona 5 The Stage (2019)

An extensive article about the games in the series can be found here. There's also a comprehensive database of all the games in French here. Also has a massive character sheet, which is under construction.

For tropes exclusive to the Persona sub-series, please check this page.

Examples: This section is for universal tropes related to the series as a whole. Please place tropes related to specific games in their own article, if it exists.

     A-C 
  • Above the Gods: Fitting for a franchise which liberally applies All Myths Are True, there are forces which exist above gods and demons.
    • The Great Will, first mentioned in Megami Tensei II, YHVH describes himself as being a small part of an entity which controls infinite universes. It is described as a core being who is both responsible for reality being the way it is (Nocturne, V) and being reality itself (Updated Re Release for Shin Megami Tensei II). It has various manifestations acting on its behalf across Alternate Continuities, with YHVH being its most recurring one. Despite the prominent God Is Evil tendencies of its agents, it is up to interpretation if any of that reflects its intentions, because each one is a manifestation of the very forces and laws governing the world(s) they operate in (and for many worlds, that includes human perception). It is also a constant subject of Unreliable Narrators who tend to describe it with various bias, with the Law faction typically claiming to act on its behalf.
    • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse introduces the Great Reason (translated as the Axiom). It is described as both the origin of everything in IV and Apocalypse set of universes (possibly even beyond), and the collective summation of all its components and entities. It is not sentient in a way lesser beings could really understand: its known actions are responses to the collective which makes up its whole. Despite its similarities with the Great Will, limited information both in and out of universe makes it impossible to say for certain if these two are two names for the same entity or if they are distinct beings.
  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: The series has a habit of featuring Sewers big enough to house entire cities. Particular offenders include the Great Underpass of Ginza in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and the Samsara Tunnels in Digital Devil Saga.
  • Academy of Adventure: High schools in MegaTen games usually turn out to be built on a Hell Gate or a front for an Ancient Conspiracy.
  • Adaptational Heroism: The various demons change morality from one work to another to suit the story, but one who consistently gets this trope is Ishtar. In real-life Mesopotamian Mythology, she was an exceedingly unpleasant deity even in comparison to Old Testament YHVH who frequently killed people, sent natural disasters to them, or turned them into animals for fun. At one point in The Epic of Gilgamesh she threatens to raise the dead and have them eat the living, in the earliest known reference to a Zombie Apocalypse in human history. Her only totally altruistic quality was her love for her husband Tammuz (despite frequently cheating on him), whom she saved from Nergal every year to bring spring to the world. In SMT she's a helpful, nurturing mother goddess who is frequently abused by YHVH essentially just for being from a competing pantheon, and often ends up being forcibly turned into the demon Astaroth by Him.
  • Affably Evil: Most demons are happy to talk with you in the middle of a battle about their lives and interests; however, this won't stop them from tearing you limb from limb if you piss them off.
  • After-Combat Recovery: Victory Cry is a passive skill that restores the user's entire HP and MP/SP after winning a battle. Given that MP/SP is meant to be difficult to recharge without leaving the current dungeon for the nearest Trauma Inn, the skill is usually only available on late-game demons/Personas.
  • Alice Allusion: Alice, the Cute Ghost Girl who has been a Recurring Character since Shin Megami Tensei, regularly makes Shout Outs to Alice in Wonderland. The Mad Hatter, White Rabbit, Jabberwocky, Trump Soldier, and March Hare have also made appearances in the franchise.
  • Alignment-Based Endings: Many of the games have a choice between Order, Chaos or Neutral endings. What each alignment means can vary, however, and some of the games mix the formula up and go for endings that don't directly match up with these alignments.
  • All Myths Are True: All mythical creatures from various folklore and religions are real in one form or another, including God and Lucifer.
  • Alliance with an Abomination: The series has you forming contracts and summoning various supernatural beings from any and all kinds of mythologies. This ranges from weak Pixies to Satan and Lucifer. Some of the games even feature Lovecraftian monsters like Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep themselves.
  • Alternate Continuity: The franchise has multiple continuities running through its numerous games.
    • For the mainline series, SMT I and II occur in one universe, while Nocturne, Strange Journey, and IV (along with its pseudo-sequel IV: Apocalypse) each occur in their own self-contained universes, with IV and Apocalypse being Alternate Timelines to each other connected via the Expanse. V has a lot of Call-Back to Nocturne and like IV duology might be different universes in the same continuity (connected by the Amala), but there are enough Continuity Snarl to be read as its own continuity as well.
    • SMT If..., the original Devil Summoner, Soul Hackers, Persona 1 Persona 2, and Soul Hackers 2 share continuity with each other, being a split timeline of the original SMT timeline. Persona 2 has its own timeline split due to the events of Innocent Sin, resulting in Eternal Punishment: the new timeline was supposed to overwrite the previous one, but as a result of Tatsuya refusing to forget his childhood memories, his spirit persists into the new world and becomes a Paradox Person, and the two realities become parallel universes.
    • Raidou Kuzunoha acts as a prequel to both SMT I and the original Devil Summoner, existing in both continuities at once (the events of Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army likely having some effect on the timeline split).
    • Giten Megami Tensei and SMT NINE are alternate continuties of SMTI, sharing the same basic premise (a nuclear war caused by Thorman and Gotou) but incompatible with its plot and having their own lore. Similarly, SMT IMAGINE is a sequel to SMTI, but incompatible with SMTII.
    • The original Megami Tensei continuity (MT 1, MT 2 and the Digital Devil Story novels); the Majin Tensei strategy game continuity; the Dragon Quest-esque Last Bible continuity; the Pokemon-esque Devil Children/DemiKids continuity; then the Digital Devil Saga duology, Devil Survivor, and Devil Survivor 2 standalone games are all set in their own universes with little to no connection to the rest of the series. Digital Devil Saga has a few references to both Nocturne and SMT II, but the game itself is completely self-contained and is not chronologically connected to either.
  • Alternate Self:
    • Related to Alternate Continuity above, demons and gods and other entities with the same name from different continuities are existences completely independent from each other. Even incarnations of YHVH and Lucifer can vary wildly in history and personality. However, there are exceptions — there are several hints implying, and in some cases outright confirming, that certain characters are in fact moving across different continuities. Outside of those few confirmed ones, deciding exactly which ones aren't subject to this trope are basically Headscratchers.
    • This trope is also used to justify Characterization Marches On and Depending on the Writer. While most recurring demons and gods generally follow specific characterizations, that may change to fit with whatever themes to be explored in a game. This is most obvious with the demons who are involved with Order Versus Chaos conflicts: the angels of Law, the forces of Chaos, many of whom don't have as strict characterization as one might think. Gabriel for example, is a typical Knight Templar and a male angel in Shin Megami Tensei I, but after being defeated and coming Back from the Dead becomes the Only Sane Archangel and a female angel in Shin Megami Tensei II, despite being explicitly set in the same world.
  • Ambadassador: Most characters become this once they get the hang of demonic contracts and negotiation.
  • American Kirby Is Hardcore: The first SMT game to come to the US, Jack Bros. for the Virtual Boy, had realistic versions of the titular characters on the cover, rather then the cartoon ones seen in-game and on the Japanese cover.
  • An Aesop:
    • Being mindlessly extremist, especially when it means ignoring your own humanity, will almost certainly end in disaster. You cannot blindly follow someone, even your greatest hero, without thinking for yourself and questioning their actions when you don't feel comfortable with what they've done.
    • Law/Order and Chaos must exist in a careful balance, as each becomes corrupt in the absence of the other, leading to the above situation involving extremists.
  • Anti-Debuff: Dekunda, a spell that removes all debuffs currently active on the user's party. Both players and enemies can use it.
  • Anti-Grinding: The Trope Codifier for getting less EXP from a given enemy as your level gets higher. This "diminishing returns" system has become a mainstay in modern Eastern RPGs.
  • Apocalypse How: As a franchise based around The End of the World as We Know It, it's covered many different levels of the Apocalypse, including a Planetary Societal Collapse in SMT I, near Planetary Total Extinction in SMT II, Universal Physical Annihilation in one ending of Nocturne and SMT IV. Many games also add "End of the World" Special flavours to it.
  • Archangels Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel and Michael: Loyal, devout followers of YHVH; the Four Archangels tend to be Co-Dragons during the early games, with Michael serving as the Final Boss of SMT I and three out of four them being The Heavy for II. Interestingly, their roles have been reduced in the recent games, with all four of them turning out to be pieces of Satan in Shin Megami Tensei IV and Apocalypse. They also appear to serve Yaldabaoth in Persona 5.
  • Are You Sure You Want to Do That?: The franchise often asks this of you when confronting Fiends. The warnings are entirely justified.
  • Armless Biped: A number of demons, such as the reoccurring demon Take-Minakata (reportedly, Kazuma Kaneko's favorite) and Hayagriva.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: The element Almighty is rarely ever completely defended against. Certain games have Pierce skills, which turn certain attack types into this. The "Hunt" skills in Digital Devil Saga also ignore all sorts of immunities.
  • The Artifact: The SMT version of Cerberus, excepting the Soul Hackers, Digital Devil Saga and Persona 3 incarnations, looks nothing like the Greek myth it's supposedly based on, looking more like a lion-maned wolf with a segmented, serpentine tail, and often with shell-like armor. This is because the original novel, and the anime based upon it, gave him this appearance, which was then followed by the Famicom Megami Tensei games. The first Super Famicom SMT game then paid homage to this design by allowing you to fuse Pascal, the protagonist's loyal Husky, with any demon in your stock, resulting in a "Cerberus" very similar to the above. Many other games in the franchise continued in this vein, with minor differences between one another.
    • Likewise Loki, whose early appearance as a blue (or purple) scaly giant with fangs and a massive head of hair harks back to the OVA adaptation of the original novel. More recent games merely smoothed him out to purple skin instead of scales.
  • Artifact Title: Only a few games in the "Goddess Reincarnation" series actually involve a reincarnated goddess: Izanami in Megami Tensei, Sophia in Shin Megami Tensei: NINE, Isis in Shin Megami Tensei Imagine, Mem Aleph in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, maybe Eve in Shin Megami Tensei I, and Shin Megami Tensei IV has Lady Danu through Nozomi in Rebirth of the Lady, Amaterasu in Resurrection of the Koushoushin, Ishtar in Ishtar, Goddess of Harvest, and the "goddess of Tokyo" being resurrected on the Neutral path.
  • Artificial Brilliance: Something which contributes to the franchise's Nintendo Hard status. Using conventional tactics (IE attacking certain enemies' weaknesses) or certain game-breaking ones (such as reflecting everything) will cause enemies to respond in kind.
  • Artificial Human: Many characters in the Shin Megami Tensei II were genetically engineered in test tubes, and the Digital Devil Saga games feature biological "digital clones".
  • Asian Lion Dogs: The Shiisa has been a recurring monster that the party can recruit. They resemble both dogs and lions and are described as holy beings said to protect against ill-luck and evil spirits.
  • As Long as There Is Evil: Many antagonists can never be truly destroyed as long as certain negative aspects of humans remain.
    • YHVH: As long as even one person believes in the need for order and rules to be obeyed, or as long as one person believes in or desires a Supreme Being.
    • Lucifer: As long as humans long for freedom.
    • Shinado: As long as despair exists.
    • Nyarlathotep, Erebus, Izanami, Kagutsuchi, and Yaldabaoth: As long as humans are self-destructive, want to die, ignore the truth, or desire absolute order.
    • The Schwartzwelt: As long as humans carelessly abuse nature.
    • The White: As long as humans despair about being prisoners of some predetermined "fate".
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The various Chaos factions generally strive to build a world where strength leads to freedom and being in charge. Opponents of Chaos argue that this unfairly makes the weak victims.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: Most games have an "auto-battle" mode that has everyone in the party automatically use the basic "attack" command until either side achieves victory or auto-battle is canceled by the player. Rarely is this a good idea except against sufficiently weak enemies that you just want to speed through; the targets might take minimal damage and slowly whittle your party down to nothing, or worse, your attacks will get repelled and everyone will end up killing themselves. Some games let you customize auto-battle to a degree; for example, IV and IV: Apocalypse has the Auto-Pinpoint app that has party members use attacks that are confirmed to exploit enemy weaknesses, but you'll need to keep an eye on your members' MP to make sure they don't use it wastefully. Other games allow you to repeat the actions of your previous turn or battle.
  • Attack Reflector: The Reflect attribute. Tetrakarn and Makarakarn work like this for physical and magical attacks, respectively. Almighty damage, however, doesn't trigger them.
  • Audience Shift: The Demi-Kids and Persona subseries' were specifically made to appeal to a different audience than the mainline Shin Megami Tensei. While the mainline games are made for an older audience, the Demi-Kids series was effectively Atlus' take on Pokémon and was specifically made to appeal to kids. Persona meanwhile was meant to have a wider appeal and was designed to feel more familiar and relatable to the audience as opposed to the more fantastical and philosophical aspects of the mainline series.
  • Autobots, Rock Out!: Many MegaTen games since Nocturne have a Final Boss fight scored to an electric guitar rocking as hard as it can.
  • Awakening the Sleeping Giant: Every time Law and Chaos screw with Humanity, they risk a harsh lesson. In settings where Gods Need Prayer Badly, gods learn exactly why antagonizing the species available for their existence is not a good idea. In settings where it is downplayed or averted, humans find a way to strike back in a way which hurts.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Almighty spells bypass the usual Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors system, and as such will deal damage without fear of being resisted or blocked. However, they also cannot hit weaknesses. To top it all off, Almighty attacks usually cost a lot of MP, so it's more efficient to just wail on the enemy with their weaknesses or even just elements they're neutral to.
  • Badass Normal: Certain protagonists, notably Shin Megami Tensei I and II, couldn't even cast Magic, yet they end up dominating angels, demons and legends with nothing but swords and guns.
  • Baphomet: A recurring demon in the franchise, being a member of the Vile race or the Devil Arcana. Baphomet typically are early-to-mid-games demons and learn Fire, Dark, and ailments skills.
  • Barrier Change Boss: A staple of the series since Nocturne is that at least one boss in each game will be one of these. Examples in the main series include Noah in Nocturne, Jimenez, Demiurge, and Empty Mem Aleph in Strange Journey, Seraph in IV, and Inanna in Apocalypse.
  • Basilisk and Cockatrice: Both Cockatrice and Basilisk are among the many demons in the franchise. Both are separate monsters, but when it appears, the Cockatrice's in-game description often mentions that it is related to the Basilisk.
  • Beelzebub: Beelzebub is a recurring demon/persona in the series. Design-wise, he had two designs: one is an anthropomorphic fly based on the image of the demon in the Dictionnaire Infernal while another is a blue man with veins and a tigerskin. He is the powerful Tyrant demon that serves as the second-in-command of Lucifer. In the Persona series, he is usually a high-ranked or the ultimate Persona of The Devil Arcana.
  • Befriending the Enemy: A mechanic in the main games. The player character can befriend demons and make them his allies to summon. Demon's are very fickle though. What works to befriend one demon won't work the same way each time, and if they aren't loyal enough to you they won't do what you say. The games follow Grey-and-Gray Morality so while a demon's alignment might technically be considered "good"... it's really in a Knight Templar sort of way. Demons are always initially antagonistic towards you before they join you, and after you befriend a species of demon the rest of that species will go out of their way to give you gifts and avoid fights with you while telling you to "take care of their friend".
  • Big Bad:
  • Biodata: A key element of the franchise. Many games imply or outright state all matter, energy and phenomenons in the universe boil down to data-like existence, which are often compared to information or human thought in nature. This is main reason why spells, summoning, and other Reality Warper effects can be inserted into computers.
  • Berserk Button: In games where you can negotiate with enemy demons, some demons come with possible answers for them that will instantly set off free turns for their party. For example, calling yourself a "Hee-Ho" in front of Jack Frost or Pyro Jack in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Even though most MegaTen games end with you defeating the Big Bad, you've usually been forced to sacrifice yourself or kill your friends after they suffered an Evil Makeover. Going for Law and Chaos generally goes towards the bitter side, while Neutral goes towards the middle.
  • Black Box: Analyzing the Demon Summoning Program is not an easy task due to the dozens of black boxes littered in its code, as the crew of the Red Sprite learned. Aside from Akemi Nakajima and Stephen, most of the people distributing the program are otherworldly entities (the Three Wise Men, the Anguished One, Naoya) with their own goals in mind. And even Nakajima and Stephen eventually Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: Almost every powerful entity in the series operates under this; to the point where there are basically only one that is actually good (Philemon) and one that's actually evil (Nyarlathotep) by our understanding (and even Phil has severe issues with his chosen champions). All the others have mindsets so alien that trying to call them good or evil is a waste of time, as they don't think anything like humans. Yes, even YHVH. Bear note that the alignment system isn't good-evil, law-chaos, but law-chaos, light-dark, with the latter being a vague mishmash of how selfish you are, and how positively you are seen by real religions. Note that for chaos, since its ideal is everyone having the right to be selfish, its main characters being dark is a given, whereas, for law, this depicts a failed system. This alignment system is not consistent, however.
    • This is even something of a mechanic when it comes to negotiating with demons, who sometimes can be won over with pretty "human" means by being kind, flattering, sucking up to, or outright bribing them, but other times some demons respond positively to being threatened, obviously lied to, or praising bloodshed and destruction.
    • The blue and orange morality of demons is also a plot point in Strange Journey, where the demons apparently believe they're doing captured humans a favor with their "experiments", which invariably involve killing people by removing their vital organs. According to notes, the demons are convinced they're just freeing the humans from their worldly cares and needs. This contrasts against what one faction of humans do later in the game, capturing and mutilating or killing demons, but just out of greed.
  • Blue Means Cold: All ice spells have blue motifs. Whenever someone is frozen, they turn blue. Jack Frost, an ice demon, also wears blue.
  • Boring, but Practical:
    • Life Stones. Unlike most other healing items, they always restore a fraction of HP rather than a fixed quantity, so while they're not the biggest healing items, they'll always be effective no matter the max HP of whoever you're healing. On top of that, in games involving demon negotiation, Life Stones are very common negotiation tokens, so it's never a bad idea to hoard them in case you need to bribe a demon into joining you; having one can make the difference between a demon joining you and "The demon suddenly attacked!"
    • Stat buff spells in most games, particularly Rakukaja (raises party defense), Tarunda (lowers enemy party offense), and the Suku- (hit/evasion) spells (especially in games with the Press Turn system). Get used to spamming them at the beginnings of boss fights, unless you want bosses like Matador to make you learn the hard way.
    • Dekaja just wipes away any buffs an enemy has. And yet it's one of the most important skills out there, especially against bosses who boost themselves up. While bosses may react by re-applying the buffs, a turn spent doing so is also a turn not spent attacking you.
    • The series uses Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors quite a bit. Every element, including basic physical attacks, has at least a few targets that are weak to it, resist it, nullify it, absorb it as health, or reflect it back at the attacker, and recklessly hitting an elemental immunity can sometimes result in a turn penalty. The exception to this is the Almighty element; nothing across the entire series resists Almighty damage (barring a few superbosses), and it can't be reflected by Attack Reflector spells. However, nothing is weak to Almighty damage, the skills cost a lot of resources to cast, and you can't get critical hits with most forms of Almighty attack (some games do have Almighty physical attacks). The result of all this is an element that provides unremarkable but consistent damage and effects, and is good for bypassing resistances, if you can keep up with its high cost.
    • Physical skills tend to be this in games that employ Magic Is Rare, Health Is Cheap. In most games, these skills deduct HP instead of SP to use, and it's easier to recover HP with items or healing spells than it is to recover SP since items that restore SP are scarce. This means that, against foes that don't resist physical, it becomes more efficient to use these skills plus healing items and save SP for buffs/debuffs (see above) and healing.
  • Boss Banter: Nearly all MegaTen bosses will talk to you during battle to drop new plot points, or explain their motivations, or illustrate how they're completely nuts. Starting with IV, answering certain ways will have effects on the boss, either making them stronger or weaker.
  • Boss Bonanza: The games are fond of pulling out multiple bosses in large, climactic dungeons.
  • Boss Warning Siren:
    • Later games will give you a warning if you approach a door with a boss behind it, though earlier games tend to not grant this mercy.
    • Traditionally, encounters with Fiends will be heralded by the game asking you if you "want to stay here". If you answer "yes", the game asks if you really want to stay. Say "yes" again and the battle will begin.
  • Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous: While both Law and Chaos have their good points, their representatives never have morally acceptable ways of achieving their goals, and will gladly use methods that have massive repercussions on the world, up to and including the mass murder of those who oppose them and brainwashing humanity into fitting their ideal mold. Players not fond of either side can kick both sides' asses to establish a world of balance; sometimes this is treated as the Golden Ending and others it is not so different from the other two options. In Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, Krishna points out that Law and Chaos aren't inherently bad so much as their representatives, both of which work for YHVH to create the illusion of conflict, with Lucifer set up as a straw villain to make the Law side look better.
  • Bottomless Bladder: The games rarely address everyday needs like eating, sleeping or using the bathroom while you're fighting gods and demons. Persona 3, Persona 4 and Persona 5 are notable exceptions however, with "typical day" gameplay like sleeping, eating meals with friends and taking an extra bathroom break. Those activities can even affect the characters' stats.
  • Bottomless Magazines: In games featuring firearms, you can equip yourself with different kinds of ammo, but that ammo will never run out no matter how much you use it. Shin Megami Tensei if..., Soul Hackers and Persona 5 (but not Persona 5 Royal) avert this trope, however.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: Beating the toughest enemy in a MegaTen game will often net you abilities / equipment / party members you're already too powerful to need.
  • Brain Monster: The demon Omoikane isn't evil, but is a floating brain with tentacles nevertheless.
  • Breakout Character: Of all the demons, there are three who have become popular enough with the fans to earn numerous notable appearances: Alice, Mara, and Matador.
  • Bribing Your Way to Victory: Starting with Shin Megami Tensei IV, most games have DLC that allows you to quickly grind for power and resources.
  • Brutal Bonus Level: Most MegaTen games have a Bonus Dungeon with tougher enemies than anywhere else in the game.
  • Butt-Monkey: Slimes. They're usually the by-product of failed summonings/fusions, and are generally among the first demons fought. It gets worse in the fourth game, where they're weak to physical attacks.
  • Cast from Hit Points: Physical attacks cost HP to use, except in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, Shin Megami Tensei IV, Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, Shin Megami Tensei V, Persona, and Persona 2. This is why physical attackers go hand in hand with tanks.
  • Cats Are Magic: Magical cats or cat-like creatures appear in many games.
    • The standard demon Nekomata. If a game has demons, she is in it.
    • Persona 2 provides plenty of examples. The Shikigami disguised as a cat, Katsuya's Persona, the lucky cat statue that takes all your money (a Nekomata uses it as a front) and Lieutenant-General Zula, who is a talking cat.
    • Schroendiger in Digital Devil Saga is a magical sentient cat who knows more about the world than any other character and is implied to be a future incarnation of Serph and Sera.
    • Gotou in the Raidou Kuzunoha games is the protagonist's talking cat companion and ghost of the first Kuzunoha.
    • Persona 5 brings this trope back to the series with party-member Morgana, who looks like a cartoon cat while in the Metaverse and a house cat out of it. He is a Velvet Room attendant.
  • Celestial Paragons and Archangels: The highest-ranking angels under YHVH are members of the Herald and Seraph races, like the Four Archangels, Metatron the Voice of God, Satan the Accuser and Mastema the Flatterer.
  • City of Adventure: A staple of the series! Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe, sometimes literally, but there's enough magic for everyone!
  • Changing of the Guard:
    • While the demons generally remain the same, the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games always features a new main cast with each sequel.
    • Similarly, each new numbered entry in the Persona series puts you in control of a new group of protagonists, with Spirit Advisor Igor the only constant.
  • Character Alignment: invoked This plays a huge role in the Shin Megami Tensei series. Each monster is classed on the Law-Neutral-Chaos axis and the Light-Neutral-Dark axis. The former is the important one: monsters that are Chaotic will refuse to join you if the main character is Lawful and vice-versa. The alignment of the main character is determined by the type of monsters he summons (e.g. Lawful creatures will move your alignment towards Law), by his responses to philosophical questions asked at key points of the game and by whose dirty work (The Messians or the Gaians) he carries out. The ending of the game is determined by the final alignment of the main character.
    • This works a bit differently in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. You can recruit demons of other alignments regardless of your character's alignment, but you'll have a harder time recruiting demons of the opposite alignment as yours (for instance, trying to recruit a Law-aligned demon when you're Chaos-aligned). However, the Light-Neutral-Dark axis plays a part in which demons you encounter and which you can recruit; Light-aligned demons are never encountered on the field, except through enemy searches and boss battles, and they cannot be recruited; Dark-aligned demons will refuse to talk to you at all times, regardless of your Law-Neutral-Chaos alignment, unless you have an App that lets you talk to demons during a Full Moon, and even then it's a coin flip (whether they like the answer you give them—the correct answer being different every time—and after that, whether they give you items, Macca, or—even rarer—join you).
    • Megami Tensei I & II for the Famicom feature alignments along the axis of Good-Neutral-Evil.
    • Shin Megami Tensei I features an alignment system along the axis of both Light-Neutral-Dark and Law-Neutral-Chaos. It is the earliest known videogame to have an alignment system that directly affects the direction of the storyline and which of the Multiple Endings the player is given, through the choices and actions the player makes that alter the player character's alignment. Shin Megami Tensei II uses the same kind of alignment system.
    • In Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne the previous system of alignment is discarded in favor of three specific philosophies: Shijima (which is closest to Law but without the Knight Templar tendencies), Musubi (Neutral, focusing on individuality and freedom of choice) and Yosuga (Chaos with a heavy dose of the elitism that Law was previously known for). However, Light-Neutral-Dark axis still exists in the form of Magatamas. The main character's title/family is defined by how many Magatamas of each alignment you have learned all skills from. Although it's mostly just a cosmetic change, there are three doors (one for each alignment) in the Labyrinth of Amala that will only open if you are on a specific alignment.
  • Characterization Marches On:
    • The Social Darwinist Chaos Ending from SMTI is originally seen as a valid enough choice, given the Black-and-Grey Morality of the series, but as the world, in general, becomes slightly less crapsack, it gets called out as evil far more explicitly; the supporter of its expy in Nocturne (though Reasons aren't based on alignments and actually follow God's plan) is the only person explicitly called evil in that game. In other games like Devil Survivor, it's virtually an It's a Wonderful Failure montage.
    • The original Neutral ending was a pro-human path that led to the destruction of both God and Lucifer (or their chief agents) and most of humanity in exchange for freeing the survivors from the meddling of higher powers (at least for a while). Later games, however, have softpedaled the omnicidal aspects and played up the humanist part, so "neutral" endings sometimes involve the restoration of the pre-apocalyptic state (so far as that's possible). In such cases, Chaos often adopts the omnicidal role, replacing "freedom from higher powers" with "freedom from God's order."
    • Law has bounced back and forth between meaning "a world subjugated to God's will" and a straight-up World of Silence that doesn't carry such theological implications. YHVH is now just as likely to be seen as separate from Law as he is the source of it, or else function as a Greater-Scope Villain who's above and beyond Law; only a couple of games actually present "submitting to God's will" as a valid choice. And then there's Devil Survivor, where God is doing the best He can to avoid subjugating humanity (who are not making it easy for Him).
  • Character-Magnetic Team: Many demons may approach you and outright offer to join you with no more than a few questions asked.
  • Character Portrait: More clearly seen in conversations in Persona games, but it's also featured in several other titles. Each character tends to have multiple portraits to match their mood.
  • Charged Attack: Of a sort — many games have a skill called Charge or Focus that multiplies the power of the user's next physical attack by 200% or 250%, and a similar skill called Mind Charge or Concentrate that does the same for the next magic attack. These skills are often used in conjunction with high-power, high-MP/HP attack skills to inflict massive damage with more efficient use of resources. These temporary buffs cannot be dispelled, not even with Dekunda, for the most part, so the only real defense is to guard if the game allows it or bring in party members who can resist or block the incoming attack, unless the attack pierces resistances.
  • Climax Boss: As a general rule of thumb, any boss that you fight immediately before an alignment lock or as a consequence of locking in your alignment.
  • Colon Cancer: A number of titles have more than one subtitle in their Western releases, such as the various "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner X: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. _____" installments. An instance of Atlus' newsletter even provides the page quote.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Law is blue and white; Chaos is red and black.
    • Played With in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey: strike team has red on their uniforms (except the protagonist) and science has blue. Zelenin is science, Jimenez is strike team. Take a wild guess what factions they each support in the end. Oddly enough, the protagonist wears white (but won't necessarily be law): and no one else does.
      • Which actually makes sense, because, in this particular game, white corresponds to Neutral.
      • Extending on that, they also color-code Joint Project vs. Jack's Squad: your the Joint Project use the standard gold-ish Demonicas, and Jack's Squad use black ones. See above for what black tends to support. Also played with in that the Demons of Chaos hate the Squad for the way they treated them.
  • Combat Pragmatist: It's not uncommon to come across random enemies or bosses that either gang up on you, spam completely unblockable attacks, or just won't ever encounter anywhere else. Thankfully, you can turn this around and become one yourself with items, skills, and sometimes demons that net you abilities on that level as well. Hey, demons don't play fair, so why should you?
  • Combination Attack:
    • In Digital Devil Saga, you can trigger special attacks when the right combination of characters have the right combination of skills.
    • In Persona 2 and Persona 3 you can unleash special attacks if you have the right combination of Personas among your party or in your main character's stock.
    • Persona 4 Golden, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth, and Persona 5 Royal allow the player to perform unique attacks based on which characters are currently in the party.
    • Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, but in a very different way. If you hit a weakness, all the demons of your same alignment gang up on the opponent for extra damage.
  • Combos: The Press Turn system the series is famous for giving you extra turns to attack the enemy if you strike its Achilles' Heel. This allows you to chain surprisingly high combos in certain games (particularly in 4).
  • Composite Character: Alice has two separate Alices as a reference for her character: Lewis Carroll's version, and an obscure Scandinavian myth about a girl who died young and now kills children who misbehave so she can make them into her friends. Whether she is one or the other or both or even neither is generally left up to interpretation.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: And how! Generally shows up in two ways:
    • The Beast Eye and Dragon Eye moves, which gives all enemies extra turns, and demons you control never have the chance to learn it. A variant called Guardian's Eye finally becomes learnable in Shin Megami Tensei IV, but as the single most expensive spell in the game, at a whopping 255 MP, and on top of that, unlocking the spell requires acquiring a demon only available through beating the hardest DLC boss in the game.
    • And physical skills, which are Cast from Hit Points when you use them, but enemies can use them willy-nilly.
    • It's worth noting that these are not universal; it depends on the game. And, significantly, the computer does not cheat dice rolls, significant because almost every spell has a chance of inflicting a status effect.
  • Consummate Liar: A vital skill for any would-be demon summoners: learn to lie well, when, where and how.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Occasionally a major character in one game will show up as an Optional Boss or Optional Party Member in a later title. Alice for instance, who served as an antagonist who wanted to kill you in Shin Megami Tensei, still regularly shows up complete with a skill called "Die For Me!" in newer games.
    • A character from the Tokyo Revelation manga/OVA appears in a cameo as an older character in Giten Megami Tensei, suggesting that the two are related (and the world sadly still fell to demons).
  • Continuity Snarl: The Persona/Devil Summoner timeline is supposed to be an Alternate Continuity where the nuclear war of SMTI didn't happen. However there are several differences that cannot be accounted for as result of averting the apocalypse:
    • The biggest one is that in the Persona timeline, Philemon and Nyarlathotep are the top dogs of the supernatural world, YHWH is nowhere to be seen, and the ruler of the Expanse is Zurvan instead of Lucifer (who only appears as a recruitable demon/Persona). The only hint for this is how Lucifer mentions in Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon about how Raidou could potentially create a world free from God.
    • SMT If... shows that Stephen is responsible for creating the Demon Summoning Program in this continuity as well. However, in this continuity he didn't create the Tokyo terminals which lead to him being attacked by a demon, so it's not known under what circumstances he was left paraplegic and developed the program.
    • SMTI, SMTII, Devil Summoner, and Soul Hackers all claim that it's impossible to communicate with demons without the use of the Demon Summoning Program. This doesn't stop Raidou and all Persona characters from doing just that.
    • Raidou Kuzunoha games also has demons being Invisible to Normals, which is not the case in any other game in the same continuity. This could be seen as a gameplay excuse to have Raidou's demons out in broad daylight for investigations, but it becomes plot-relevant in King Abaddon, where Geirin discovered Nagi had potential to be a Summoner because she could see demons.
    • Persona 3, 4 and 5 have several differences in lore not only with the previous Persona games but with each other as well. See the series page for further details.
  • Contractual Boss Immunity: Bosses are immune to One-Hit Kill spells, and they also can't be recruited in-battle or bribed into going away.
  • Cool vs. Awesome: Angels versus Demons is an understatement for the series. Since All Myths Are True, think of the possibilities.
  • Council of Angels:
    • Played straight in SMT 1, where they become quite powerful allies if you're on the Law path, and attempt to stop you if you're on any other path; Seraph Michael serves as the game's final (or, on Neutral, possible final), hardest boss in that case. Also played perfectly straight in Devil Survivor, where Remiel who serves Metatron and the Big Man himself are far less assholish than franchise standard and will help you out unless you're on on the blatantly chaotic routes.
    • Notably, from SMT 2 onward, they practically become the cosmic Butt Monkeys of the franchise; in SMT 2 they're basically abandoned by God and are running Tokyo Millennium in a hilariously inept fashion and orchestrated the creation of the Messiah and crew in the first place, which blew up in their faces when Aleph caved their shit in; then, in Digital Devil Saga 2, they show up as bonus bosses; talking about the events of SMT 2, no less: except now they've reincarnated as humans in a different universe and hunger for the blood and flesh of man just like any other demon. You'd think they'd give the Big Man the finger after all that, but they are planning to do everything they did before again.
    • In IV, they are the mysterious new rulers of the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, who as the Law authorities of the game, plan to throw Tokyo into a black hole so it can never taint their shiny paradise. Eventually, they fuse with Jonathan to summon Merkabah, an embodiment of God's will.
  • Crapsack World: Shin Megami Tensei I starts out a mild version of this, and gets a lot worse. Shin Megami Tensei II has this as the default state since it follows the Neutral Path of the first game, though it can either get worse or better. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne starts out as this, which can be reversed or made even worse. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey has the potential to become this, which can be averted, although the gameplay setting is still basically this. The Persona games are set in a Crapsaccharine World setting that can be made a Crapsack World, in the first half of the second game duology this actually does happen in the ending, and despite efforts, it continues to be its own timeline though the second half averts it. Shin Megami Tensei IV has another case of Crapsaccharine World, and all endings see to it that illusion of being saccharine is broken. Devil Survivor and Devil Survivor 2 can turn into this or be averted, depending on your choices.
  • Creator Cameo: Both Cozy Okada and Kazuma Kaneko make cameo appearances in the first episode of the Devil Summoner live-action TV series.
    • Several of the games' artists appear as shopkeepers in Persona 2.
  • Creature-Breeding Mechanic: Demons can be fused with one another, or in some games simply sacrificed, to create new demons. As, after a while, the leveling requirements increase far too sharply for demons to remain useful, unlike the human characters, this is the only alternative to negotiating with more powerful creatures.
  • Creepy Child: Louis Cypher in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, Pharos in Persona 3, Alice in every game she appears in.
    "Won't you please die for me?"
  • Crossover:
    • Dante shows up in Nocturne... and promptly attempts to kick your ass. Later on, though, you can talk him into signing on with you. In the second Updated Re-release of Nocturne, Raidou Kuzunoha appears instead, for all kinds of continuity wackiness.
    • And in Shin Megami Tensei Liberation: Dx2, a slew of characters from other franchises have been added as summonable demons: Bayonetta and her friend Jeanne, Guts (both in original flavor and Berserker Armor), Griffith, the Skull Knight, Schierke, Mozgus, and Zodd, Major Motoko Kusanagi and a Tachikoma, and Meliodas, Elizabeth, and Ban. Dante returns with V and Nero.
    • Characters from Durarara!! appear in both Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE and Devil Survivor 2 (the latter of which was only included in the Japanese release).
  • Crossover Cosmology:
    • Sure, you can summon Joan of Arc, Kali, Amaterasu, and Quetzalcoatl to beat the crap out of Lucifer, Loki, a Vampire, and Ra.
    • In Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, bring an Asura into battle against a Mahakala. They'll have an interesting discussion about the fact that they're the same god, just from two different eras, then agree to fight it out to determine which is more deserving.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Typical after Nocturne, the press turn system makes almost every battle this for both sides, either you crush the enemies without even allowing them to attack you once, or they kill half your characters in a single turn.
  • Cute and Psycho: Many demons, like Pixie, Jack Frost or Alice, look extremely cute, but are also somewhat mentally unstable.
  • Cute Monster Girl: Majority of the female demons (aka the Succubi). Not all of them, though.
     D-F 
  • Dark Is Evil: Zig-Zagged: The Light-Dark alignment axis refers to a given demon's typical depiction in its originating myths, not necessarily how they actually are.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: A major offender of this trope. To counter the Crapsack World, you have the option to ally with The Dark Side in order to produce a peaceful world. Devil Survivor stands out for one of its endings running on this trope.
  • Deconstructor Fleet: A very odd case, in that they tear apart every trope related to Mons... while still being the Trope Maker.
    • One of the core deconstructions of the series is presenting the God of the Old Testament without any kind of Omniscient Morality License. The usual result is unambiguously maltheistic, though a couple of games leave that conclusion up to the player.
    • Devil Survivor also stands out, showing what would really happen in your typical Mons series when random bystanders (including children) suddenly gain the ability to command powerful demons. The answer: very bad things.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Well, not exactly "friendship", since most of the time you're making contracts with demons, not befriending them, but in most games in the series, defeating a boss demon gives you the ability to fuse them, once your level is high enough.
  • Degraded Boss: Former bosses may return as Elite Mooks. This may cost them their best moves, but occasionally they also wind up being recruitable. This is occasionally inverted, with buffed-up versions of normal enemies showing up as sub-bosses.
  • Deity of Human Origin: Or Demon of Human Origin, as "demon" is usually a term to refer to all supernatural entities. In many games, humans can transform into demons or gods through various circumstances (with certain games sometimes distinguishing gods from demons).
    • In Persona, Kandori's goal is to become one of these. He gets it, but it turns out to be nothing of worth to him.
    • In Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, the Demi-Fiend transforms into a demon due to the Magatama, parasitic entities which transform the human body into a demon while retaining the human heart. Humans can also become demons via absorbing Magatsuhi, a spiritual substance created as a byproduct from the flow of emotions and souls, which Isamu and Chiaki undergo after their Face–Heel Turn.
    • In Digital Devil Saga, the Atma virus infects human beings down to their very souls, allowing them to metaphysically transform into their "demonic" selves known as Atma Avatars, at the cost of suffering from Horror Hunger for Magnetites (which are similar to Magatsuhi mentioned above, and abundant within complex living beings like humans and demons).
    • In Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, humans can also become demons when merged with the formless essence which demons are composed of. This process can happen in a variety of different ways: a human can be physically merged with a demon; a human can be slowly exposed and filled with the essence so they can gradually adjust both body and mind into a demon; and in Redux, the essence can be refined into a mystical fruit which can transform a human into an immortal, demon-like but not quite demonic entity.
    • In Shin Megami Tensei IV and Apocalypse, it is clarified the Magnetite which exists in all things react to will and emotion, which can also trigger a demonic transformation in the right circumstances. In the latter, the protagonist also manages to be the Creator God of a new universe devoid of demons and gods (except himself) in one ending.
    • In Persona 5 Royal, Maruki almost manages to be a Deity of Human Origin by gaining the focal point of all cognitive powers in Mementos, and permitting his Persona Azathoth/Adam Kadmon to incarnate through himself. He's not finished his ascension yet, and is defeated by the Phantom Thieves before he could complete it.
    • In Shin Megami Tensei V, a god and a demon has a crucial difference. Gods were the original entities who rose from humanity, and capable of interacting with the laws of the universe which centered on the Throne of Creation as part of the Mandala system placed by the Great Will. When the One God of Law took the seat of Creator, he took out the Knowledge in all other gods, the essence which allowed gods to interact with the laws of the universe and potentially take the Throne, turning them into demons. Lucifer's act of stealing the Fruits of Knowledge and distributing them to humanity made it so demons would need to fuse with the human carrying their corresponding Knowledge to once again become a god as they originally were, which is now known as Nahobino. The central conflict of the latter half of the game is about replacing the God of Law, who was killed by Lucifer sometime before the story begins. Several characters either want to attain the same power or actually achieve it in pursuit of the Throne. Three of the game's endings see the protagonist become the world's new creator deity.
  • Deity of Mortal Creation: A recurring theme in the franchise.
    • Early games often mention how demons and gods can be brought down and transformed into different identities due to shifting beliefs, notably Shin Megami Tensei I (and II by extension). Lucifer even explains at the end of the game how he will return exactly when humans need him again. Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army in particular, which is a prequel to SMT I, has the main antagonist manipulate the Japanese army to create a god via Deus Est Machina (and a lot of questionable methods).
    • In number of continuities (notably Persona and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, the former being in the same continuity as the aforementioned Raidou Kuzunoha) it is made explicit demons and gods are born, given shape, and powered by human belief and concepts, due to humanity's supernatural ability to change reality. Apocalypse in particular has "gods" as originally shapeless natural phenomenon (like wind and lightning) which were given form and identity by human religions. As a consequence, in these continuities it's generally impossible to permanently kill a god as long as humans still practice, or are aware of, or still affected by the thoughts which birthed those gods, with many defeated gods declaring they'll be back As Long as There Is Evil.
    • This trope is also inverted for specific entities and worlds. Last Bible, Devil Children, Persona, Strange Journey, Devil Survivor 2 all state (sometimes in side materials) there are gods or precursor-like beings who preceded or even responsible for human existence. Many games such as Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne also has various characters, even enemies of God, claim God created humanity, though it is often unclear if they refer to YHVH or the Great Will.
  • Demonic Possession:
    • The Heroine in Shin Megami Tensei I is possessed by a whole lot of demons at one point, as you have to enter her psyche and clear out the ringleader (the spider Arachne) in order to save her. Naturally, you burst in on Arachne just as she's about to take full control of the girl.
    • Aradia takes over Yuko's body in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. Only, she's a goddess. A fake goddess. It's kinda complicated.
    • Nemissa possesses Hitomi in Soul Hackers, giving a makeover and Powers via Possession. Subverted in that Nemissa leaves when she realizes it's necessary and Hitomi still has pretty much control over herself. Later, Spooky is taken over by Satanael, who later decides to take on the party... by blowing his way out of the victim's body. And he doesn't make it all the way out. Near the end, Kadokura is also possessed and transformed by Manitou.
    • In Digital Devil Saga, this is what happens to people who can't control their Atma Avatars, they lose their human identity and believe they truly are the mythological figures they represent, making it a horrific combo between Type 1 and 2. The first cases were the Four Seraphs, Metatron and Meganada.
    • In Persona, Toro is possessed by his Persona. Which looks like a demonic penis, by the way. Kandori suffers a similar fate, being transformed by Nyarlathotep into a giant Buddha head.
    • In Persona 2, there is the "Possessed" status effect, in which certain demons blow themselves up to possess a party member, replacing their moveset with the demon's. Those afflicted by Joker Curse also qualify (as the curse gives them Joker as a Persona). The Updated Re Release of Eternal Punishment clarifies how a human possessed by a Persona forcefully given to them would typically transform and become a demonic incarnation of said Persona.
    • In Devil Survivor, Amane is possessed by not only Remiel, an angel, but Jezebel, a demon.
    • In Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, Elizabeth tries to use Zeus as a Persona, but she ends up being possessed instead.
    • In Persona 4: Arena Ultimax, the Malevolent Entity Hi-no-Kagutsuchi plans to possess Sho as a vessel, as gods from the collective consciousness are reliant on humanity's existence without one, so he can enact his Omnicidal Maniac goals.
  • Demon Lords and Archdevils: Most of the less than nice guys from mythology (Lucifer, Beelzebub, Surt, Loki, Mara, Arioch, etc) are classified as Maou (lit. Demon King), which is localized as Tyrant.
  • Determinator: You ain't gonna last long without some serious spine.
  • Developer's Foresight: What makes the Superbosses so difficult is this. Optional Boss generally has some kind of anti-cheese feature built in so you have to fight them in a "fair" fight. Otherwise, expect them to either give unavoidable 9999 damage to you or, in some battle systems such as the Press Turn system, spam powerful (and by powerful, we mean Megidolaon is the weakest possible) Almighty moves each turn.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: As most games are Fantasy Kitchen Sinks with Dialogue Trees and negotiation systems, you'll usually have a lot of chances to taunt or insult monsters, demons and gods to their faces. Some games have it as Practical Taunt moves so you can do it on command.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Many MegaTen games end with mere humans beating supposedly omnipotent gods. Cthulhu itself also appears in SMT II, SMT if..., and Persona 2, so you can also punch out an Eldritch Abomination repeatedly!
  • Dimensional Traveller: There are notably different levels of this trope applicable across the franchise.
    • In most continuities, demons are a mass of energy and information which generally reside in Another Dimension before being summoned to the physical world through magic rituals. In other words, any demon crafty or powerful enough to force an independent manifestation in the physical world without relying on being summoned first is this trope by default. A recurring example is Lucifer, who often shows up in a human form without being prompted or summoned.
    • In certain continuities, notably Nocturne, Soul Hackers/Raidou Kuzunoha, and IV duology, demons can freely traverse between universes through the Amala Network (Nocturne), Akarana Corridor (Raidou) or Makai/Expanse (IV and Apocalypse). This also applies to any human who has learned the means to access and move across them safely.
    • The "Messiahs in the Diamond Realm" DLC and side materials of Apocalypse confirm there are a scant few individuals who transcend so far beyond dimensions and laws, they can travel between continuities and thus are the same persons across the entire franchise. Stephen implies that, while moving between a single set of connected universes is doable for demons and humans given the means note , movement between distinct continuities (universes with no intrinsic connection, differing laws and origins) is normally impossible for most beings, as Stephen mentions he had to bend "the Reason" in the natural order (translated to "immutable rules" in English) to allow the protagonists of mainline games to meet in the Diamond Realm note .
  • Disaster Dominoes: In Press Turn games, this can happen: Get ambushed by a random encounter, even one 10 levels below your party. Enemy party, with as many turns as they have members, starts spamming spells that are weak, but someone in your party is also weak to, allowing them to farm extra turns. Most or all of your party is now dead.
  • Disc-One Nuke: Exploiting random demon or skill mutations or even just knowing which demon to level up to cover certain weaknesses in many of the games' fusion and level-up systems can net you high-level skills or fairly powerful demons extremely early in a playthrough.
  • Divine Conflict: In the main series, the protagonists get involved in conflicts between either gods and demons, or they versus the human race. This is usually due to Humans Are Bastards, Jerkass Gods, God Is Evil, and less commonly Gaia's Vengeance.
  • Dolled-Up Installment: Minor example in the US releases: the Persona / Devil Survivor / Digital Devil Saga / Devil Summoner / etc games, while technically not part of the Shin Megami Tensei series proper, were all released overseas under that title anyway starting in 2004, presumably because the series needs whatever name recognition it can get on this side of the pond. However, after Atlus made enough of a name for itself, the practice was completely starting with Catherine, Persona 4: Arena, and Persona 4: Golden in 2012.
  • Doppelgänger: A Dark-Chaos Demon that can be fused in Devil Summoner and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. It appears as a shadowy, grinning version of The Protagonist. The Kageboushi in Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon fills a similar roll, though he cannot be recruited.
  • Doppelgänger Spin:
    • Used in both Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne (where you can use the shadow cast by a full moon to suss out the real one and Digital Devil Saga (which you can suss out the real one with the help of your Waif Prophet).
    • In Persona 2, you can do this by attempting to run. The camera will then FOCUS ON THE REAL ONE as she taunts you. Oops...
  • Double-Edged Buff:
    • Several games have the skill "Taunt", which can lower the enemies' defense but in return increases their attack.
    • The Sleep ailment more often than not restores the HP and SP of those afflicted by it.
  • Double Entendre: Mara lives to make subtle and not-so-subtle dick jokes. Even his stats are a double entendre in some games (Persona 3 Mara, for example, belongs to the Tower arcana, is weak to ice, and has the strongest pierce-type attack in the game.)
  • Double Unlock: Defeating certain bosses grants you the privilege of fusing them, if you can find the specific component demons that make them up. It's possible for a player to beat a given game without ever fusing a boss demon, due to the extra deliberate effort required to get the demons needed.
  • Dragon-in-Chief: YHVH loves having these. God might be the (at least nominal) leader of the forces of Law, but he generally only shows up in person on very few occasions.
    • Megami Tensei II: Satan/Mr. Suzuki.
    • Shin Megami Tensei: Michael.
    • Shin Megami Tensei II: Satan/Zayin again. Michael thinks he's remained this, but not this time.
    • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne: Kagutsuchi for the main game, Metatron for the Labyrinth of Amala.
    • Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey: The Three Wise Men. Maybe.
    • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Either Gabriel, who later becomes a part of Merkabah, or Mastema, though if it is the latter, then YHVH is actually good this time around, and Gabriel is the Big Bad for Law. In Blasted Tokyo, it's Pluto, followed by the Ancient of Days after the former's defeat.
    • Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse: Merkabah gets the role until it's revealed that both Merkabah and Lucifer, through their fused form Satan, are both this until the fusion.
  • Dragons Are Divine: The main SMT games and numerous spinoffs count draconic deities among its number, including Otohime and Huang Long. In IV, you are offered a side quest where you can directly say a dragon is divine for Chaos points.
  • Dueling Messiahs: You are always free to choose which faction you wish to support.
  • Dungeon Crawler: The early games are classic examples of dungeon crawlers from the first-person perspective. Later games have elements that would be used in the third-person perspective.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • In the SNES games, you need to pay Macca just to summon your demons from your COMP, and they continuously use up Magnetite in order to survive outside of the COMP. This was dropped in later games, where you can summon your demons without any charge and keep them out as long as their HP doesn't hit 0.
    • Older games in the series are in first person perspective. This was dropped during the PSX era, but started making a resurgence in some recent games.
    • Some of the earlier localizations in the series, namely those of Persona and Last Bible, were given the title "Revelations" ("Revelations: Persona" and "Revelations: The Demon Slayer" respectively), perhaps suggesting that this was originally intended to be the localized Market-Based Title for the franchise as a whole. This was eventually dropped in favor of simply using "Shin Megami Tensei".
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: The good endings with no alien effects on humanity and life itself are generally presented as the hardest to get. In many ways this is nominal only, since while they may involve additional bosses, they are not generally much harder. Obviously this also depends on whether you really interpret them as the best endings.
  • Earth/Wind Juxtaposition:
    • Digital Devil Saga: Argilla naturally resists Earth attacks while she is weak to Wind attacks (called Force in-game). Likewise, Gale resists Force but is weak to Earth. This pattern also holds true for many, many enemies; if something resembles a bird, there's a good chance it resists Force and is weak to Earth.
    • Persona 2: The above pattern holds true in this game as well, as Personas with Earth-element attacks and resistances tend to be weak to Wind-element and vice-versa. Interestingly, Ulala's first Persona Callisto is Earth-element, while her Ultimate Persona Astraea is Wind-element; and their resistances switch accordingly.
  • Eat the Summoner: Usually, this trope is not a concern... but there have been a handful of cases that highlight that Evil Is Not a Toy. Summoners unable to defeat the demons they summon were killed in Devil Survivor and Harada's idiotic attempt to create an altar to supply him with demon servants ended in his death in Shin Megami Tensei II.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Demons as a whole. Though the franchise uses it as an umbrella term for all supernatural entities, it is emphasized ever since the earliest works and games that demons are supernatural because they are violations to reality as humans comprehend it. As a whole, demons (and indeed, other supernatural entities not classified as one) in the franchise come in 3 different categories, each hitting points of this trope in different ways:
    • Entities created as a side effect of humankind's ability to change and warp reality. This is the most prominent type of demon category in the series: these demons are usually lifeforms composed of Magnetite (sometimes called Aether), the substance which permeates reality itself and exist in all of its phenomenons, which are normally undetectable to normal lifeforms but react to their psyche: will, thought, perception, instinct, emotion. What these demons have in common is how they are given identity and form by humans as living clusters of Magnetites, which are supposed to be formless as part of the fabric of reality, though the specifics vary note . In other words, they are literally sentient droplets of reality itself, to varying degrees of power and scale, with the capacity to twist and warp natural phenomenons in accordance to their natures and how much aspect of reality they embody. Thus, as long as humans continue to exist and shape reality in such a way which permits the existence of demons, they will never be truly gone; conversely, if humans are gone, then they would also go poof.
    • Similar yet distinct from the above is the reverse: naturally formed living phenomenons. In some games humans don't seem to shape the essence of reality into demons (at least not actively), yet the processes which give rise to demons still happen anyway note . These demons are a fair bit different from the above type in a number of ways. While they have similar traits and can harness power from humans, they are closer to being true lifeforms: though the genesis of these demons could be affected or catalyzed by humans, their continued existence are not. Thus, these demons are very prone to Kill All Humans. On the other hand, individual demons of this type can be killed and won't come back naturally — though new demons of similar natures might still spawn. It is also possible for demons of the above category to become this one. In Persona, demons and gods who possess and incarnate within a human would not disappear even if humans are no more to create cognition; Hi-no-Kagutsuchi tries to do exactly that. IV and Apocalypse also have the Divine Powers planning to use human souls to essentially become an axiom in reality, while Vishnu-Flynn and Satan use Fusion Dance with powerful humans to wield Observation to their advantage.
    • Distinguished from the above two: entities who are neither humans who can affect the essence of reality, nor demons who are formed from said essence, but warp reality nonetheless. A lot less prominent category, entities of this type are usually aliens (Raidou Kuzunoha Vs. The Lone Marebito, Devil Survivor 2, Catherine: Full Body) or primordial cosmic entities (Last Bible, Devil Children, Persona 3, Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker). Some games seem to imply certain incarnations of YHVH are also this type of being (particularly those stated to have created humans, like Nocturne and Strange Journey), assuming it is indeed YHVH and not the Great Will (which exists as Powers That Be on a You Cannot Grasp the True Form levels, even for the most powerful entities in the franchise).
  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Played straight and averted. Usually, basic elemental types (i.e., ones that specialize in only one element) usually have a weakness to the opposing element (ice vs. fire, electricity vs. wind, light vs. dark). However, at higher levels, demons usually have a variety of weaknesses and strengths (ex. Black Frost, despite being a Jack Frost, has strengths against both ice AND fire). This results in bosses having a bit of trial-and-error as you have to test out each type to see what works and what doesn't.
    • Some games (Devil Survivor in particular) outright show you how the enemies are affected by every element, usually as if to say "This is my hand, try and beat it." And every game shows you how your own demons' element tables, which are the same for every demon of that type.
  • Elemental Tiers: Sometimes there are the 'Element' race. They always have Erthys as the weakest, then Aeros, then Aquans, and Flaemis with the highest level. Sometimes they are followed by Paracelsus' elementals, but the element order stays the same, with Gnome as the weakest, followed by Syplh, Undine, and Salamander. Not that their levels matter much, since they're usually fusion fodder.
  • Element No. 5: Almighty. It's an unavoidable, ultimate element that ignores defensive measures. Final bosses, late-game allies, bonus bosses, and the like all use this. Violating rules with bonus bosses results in the game giving you 9999 damage or a nonstop barrage of attacks with this element.
  • Elite Tweak: No demon is perfect. But every demon can be perfected. Ditto for Persona.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: If the world hasn't already ended before the game started, then it's about to. Nocturne starts off with everyone being destroyed. There are only five humans left alive (not including yourself!) after the first 30 minutes of the game.
  • "End of the World" Special: Power and how you choose to use it is one of the big themes of the series. Up to and including what kind of world you wish to create After the End.
  • Enemy Within: See Demonic Possession above. In worlds where Deity of Mortal Creation applies, you can technically consider every demon and god as this trope for humanity.
  • Energy Economy: Macca is usually understood as edible to demons, and justifies why it is necessary to summon them from the Compendium.
  • Every Man Has His Price: Mostly. Most demons will very willingly sell themselves with some crafty negotiation. Some races, though, will never see this as an option. In some situations such as IV this is averted with Law demons (i.e. angels) who are so dedicated to their cause you cannot recruit them, though they may join you when on the verge of death.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: Everything. This is no joke: when your very intrusive thoughts could manifest somehow and kill you, you know everything else will.
  • Eviler than Thou: All five "main" Shin Megami Tensei games have everyone trying to one-up each other.
  • Evil Is Easy: More often than not, it's the reason people side with the Law and Chaos factions. On one hand, the angels are backed by The Almighty, thus their will is God's Will, and God's Will is absolute regardless of how deplorable it may seem. If they believe humanity needs to follow one single God to prosper for the sake of humanity's peace and happiness at the cost of their free will, so be it. On the other, those that claim to be providing leaders might not have the strength to provide what they promised, and if they do, there's no guarantee that you'll receive it. Sometimes, the only way to get what you want and need is by force. After all, the strong consuming the weak is the natural order of the world, so why go against it? By following either of these philosophies, you'll be able to skip certain bosses or even get them to join you on the spot. Just don't expect your friends to follow them as well.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Learn the lesson or suffer. It's perfectly possible to gain immense power at little or no effort. On the other hand, the price makes it an iffy choice at best.
  • Evil Makeover: Word of advice: don't get too attached to anyone.
  • The Evils of Free Will: Standard Law justification for their side of things.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Order Versus Chaos. Messians versus Gaians. YHVH versus Lucifer. The big question is who, if any, will you side with? Whether they are evil, or merely reflect the reality of a dark grey universe, is up to you however.
  • Expy: The Djinn enemy is a carbon copy of a certain wacky blue guy.
  • Extra Turn: A staple of the series beginning with Nocturne:
    • Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga, IV, IV: Apocalypse and V use the Press Turn system, where each side gets a number of turns equal to the number of members in the party, maybe more depending on the player completing a New Game Plus sidequest or the party in question consisting of a boss who gets two or more turns for themselves. Exploiting an enemy's weakness or scoring a Critical Hit will turn an existing "full-turn" icon, if any, into a "half-turn" instead of using up any turns, though if only half-turns remain then one will be used up.

      Some bosses can use skills that turn an existing full turn into multiple half-turns, such as Dragon Eye, Beast Eye, and Psycho Rage, none of which can ever be obtained by the player. IV does allow the player to get Guardian's Eye, but it requires beating the ultimate DLC boss and Guardian's Eye costs a whopping 255 MP to cast!
    • Devil Survivor and its sequel allow either party during a skirmish to obtain up to one extra turn per member also through weaknesses and crits, but can also gain extra turns simply by nullifying (or better) opponents' attacks. During the Extra Turn phase, parties cannot gain Extra Turns again, except in Devil Survivor 2 where the Omega race of demons allows parties to obtain "Double Extra" turns.
    • Persona 3 and onward allow an attacker to gain "1 More" turn through weakness exploits and crits. Doing either knocks down the target, and simply hitting a knocked-down target will not cause another 1 More; the attacker needs to keep hitting standing opponents to gain more turns.
  • The Extremist Was Right: Depending on your interpretation of events. If you consider Law, Chaos, or Neutral correct, this will be a staple for a large amount of the plots.
  • The Fair Folk: Many demons have their designs based on these, as well as their personalities. Shin Megami Tensei games like to remind you every so often that you are definitely not dealing with human beings.
  • Fairy Sexy: Pixie, Titania, Hua Po, Sylph.
  • Fallen Angel: Many. Lucifer, the entire Ars Goetia, Grigori, Mithras and others are this to a greater or lesser degree. Kazfiel is unique in that he still is Law and part of the Herald/Divine races while Samael switches between Law and Chaos since his true alignment is a mystery.
  • False Utopia: A very real risk. There is no such thing as a free lunch in this franchise.
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink: More notably explored in Shin Megami Tensei I and Shin Megami Tensei II, with the various factions and alliances everyone pulls in the road to ultimate power, though Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is also a very good example with the Mothers and the demon lords.
  • Fate Worse than Death: These are not happy games. The suffering is not restricted to the bad guys, or bad endings. Neither is pain expected to end with mere death.
  • Fighting Your Friend: Unfortunately, with the fate of the world in the line, ideological and philosophical differences will destroy the tightest friendships.
  • Final Boss: The main series is well known for its multiple routes having different Final Bosses. Just to list numbered ones:
    • Shin Megami Tensei I: Asura on Law, Michael on Chaos. On Neutral, you get to choose who to fight first and second.
    • Shin Megami Tensei II: YHVH. In a grand subversion of preceding and succeeding formula, all routes, no matter what you do, have you fight him.
    • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne: Kagutsuchi, with the game using No Final Boss for You on one route and True Final Boss (Lucifer) on another.
    • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Kenji and the Yamato Perpetual Reactor on Non Standard Game Over, Merkabah on Chaos, and Lucifer on Law and Neutral.
    • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse: Merkabah on Chaos, Lucifer on Law, and YHVH on the other routes.
    • Shin Megami Tensei V: Lucifer in all endings, though he gets powered up on the secret fourth ending.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Even the greatest warriors and demons came from somewhere. When Gods Need Prayer Badly is in effect, this applies to gods too, up to and including YHVH himself.
  • Full-Circle Revolution: A series staple. Shin Megami Tensei II and Shin Megami Tensei IV in particular emphasize how it really doesn't matter whether you choose Law, Chaos, or Neutral; eventually, a new guy who longs for whatever it is you gave up will turn up, dethrone you or wait until you are gone, then kick back everything you made back into nothing. It's pretty much the reason Order Versus Chaos can never end.
  • Functional Magic: Comes in various flavors, depending on each game's mechanics and the demon involved.
  • Fusion Dance: Demons/Personas as a rule either level exceedingly slowly or simply do not have the necessary gumption to last for long given the brutal form of Sorting Algorithm of Evil the games tend to favor. So the series has, as noted above, a fusion system in which two or more participant demons are merged into a single one, allowing the resulting demon to inherit better stats and moves they would not have otherwise learned from their "parents". Most of the time, these take place in specialized places (the Cathedral of Shadows (a classic mainstay of the series), the Gouma-Den, or the Velvet Room). However, there are a number of occasions in which a Demon Fusion Program has been used with compatible portable technology to fuse demons in the field (with the Demonica battlesuit, as a cellphone app, and with the COMP).
    • Persona games before 3 have a Fusion System based on collecting base Persona cards from random battles and using those to create stronger Personas. Of note, too; both demons in the main series and Personas occasionally demonstrate an interest borne out of curiosity or powerlust in fusion. The imagery used in Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE suggests the fused demons are outright killed in fusion, but in other media, it looks more like they unravel and the pieces fuse together.
    • Mitama Fusions are used solely to power up a demon by increasing its stats or to impart specific moves to it, and do not change the demon.
    • Elemental Fusions move a demon up or down the ranks of its race. Stronger Elements can move a demon up to two ranks above.
    • Sacrificial Fusions in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne involve two demons and a sacrifice. The resulting demons inherit even better stats than if fused normally and can receive moves from all three participants. There are also some demons that can only be created this way.
    • Special Fusions in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey always involve three or more demons. The recipes are fixed and cannot accept similar substitutes.
    • Triangle, Cross, Pentacle and Hexagram Spread Fusions are also present in the latter Persona games. Persona 4 even has an example of Dodecagon Fusion.
    • Aside from inter-demon fusion, the trope can also be applied in certain games when demons can be fused into various forms of weaponry, such as the first two games of the main franchise. Persona 3 has the Weapon Fusion system, in which new armaments can be created by fusing Personas into Nihil weapons. Both Raidou games feature demon forging, though only the first involves actually fusing the demon with the blade.
    • Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey explores this trope's dark, dark places: the Evil Counterpart of the Investigation Project, Jack's Squad, never got the transmission to get the series signature fusion program or demon summoning program. So they just made do with what they had: instead of keeping their demons in their Demonicas, they just locked and trussed them in cells, and for fusion, they tore them to pieces and started checking what clicked with what. It's little surprise their results mostly involve Body Horror abominations.
  • Fusion Dissonance: Every game that has fusion mechanics usually have resultant demons that don't resemble their components except for some inherited skills. You can fuse a goddess, The Devil, and a dragon then end up with a penis monster among other possibilities. Seriously.
     G-I 
  • Gag Penis:
    • Used frequently in many of the demons. Witness the Mara◊, Pendragon◊, Mishaguji, Ym◊, and of all things, Cthulhu◊.
    • Then there is Incubus◊, who seems to find every woman and female demon in the game sexy. It's his job, after all.
  • Gaiden Game: Shin Megami Tensei if... and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey for the main series. Devil Survivor and the original Persona also started as gaiden games under the Megami Ibunroku / Alternate Tales of the Goddess moniker, before developing into full fledged spinoff series of their own.
  • Game-Over Man: Several games, such as Megami Tensei II, Shin Megami Tensei I, and Shin Megami Tensei IV have Charon, the ferryman to the afterlife, greeting you upon death. In some games, he will offer to bring you back to life if you have the Macca or Play Coins to pay his offer.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Numerous cases across the franchise, but the most persistent example is how the gameplay elements of player characters, party members and demons don't necessarily represent their abilities or traits in the story itself. An obvious example would be how demons tend to have strict caps on how many skills they can carry in gameplay, whereas in the story they have a myriad number of abilities far beyond what its gameplay statistics suggest, such as being lifeforms made out of energy and information (in most continuities), or abilities reflecting their mythical roots (i.e Nebiros being an expert necromancer).
  • Gateless Ghetto: Each game has a different justification for it. Police blockades, magical barriers, the city being the last place standing or simply not having any reason to leave have all been used in different capacities.
  • Global Currency: Macca in most of them, usually games not set in modern-day Japan.
  • Global Currency Exception: Gemstones. Special traders pop every now and then and sell rare items in exchange for gems you may be given as gifts or as battle spoils, and there is no way to just pay regular money for it. Persona 3 has the antique shop owner, who offers Persona-boosting items and Social Links-related paraphernalia, and Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne has the Gem Trader, who sells a wide selection of items and even stat-boosting demons. Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon has Case Files requesting gems, and they can be used in fusion to power up the resulting demon. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse has Saint Germain's shop, which sells some of the most overpowered consumables in the game - if you're willing and able to pay him with your precious gemstones.
  • God:
  • God and Satan Are Both Jerks:
  • God Is Evil: To the point YHVH's form in Shin Megami Tensei II used to be that trope's page image. Note that YHVH is considered so corrupt in some games, even his loyal followers tend to want to get rid of him, seeing him as a detriment to a peaceful world. The creators have stated God is not the ultimate source of evil, but him being this trope is a sign of a greater error going in the fabric of reality. Still, with him showing up as the Final Boss in more than one game, one can't help but think the impression is being reinforced. That said, this trope is subject to Depending on the Writer across the games: see his character page for more in-depth details.
  • Gods Need Prayer Badly: A main staple, to justify Deity of Mortal Creation being so prevalent in the games.
    • In at least Shin Megami Tensei I continuity (II, Devil Summoner, Soul Hackers, Raidou Kuzunoha and Persona — all of which are either in the same timeline or Alternate Timelines), IV and Apocalypse continuity, and perhaps more: demons, angels, monsters, and spirits only exist because people remember and believe in them. Oddly, at least in II, if the supernatural creatures believe hard enough, they create duplicates of other supernatural entities: with the Archangels believing in a False YHVH.
    • This has some interesting bearing in the game. In general, the more people in Real Life that believe in a particular god/demon/angel/etc., the stronger they are in any given game. God, Lucifer, and the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel are obvious examples, but Shiva and Vishnu, both primary gods in Hindu (which remains one of the oldest active religions in the world) are also among the strongest. Exceptions do exist, like Metatron (less than one-quarter of one percent of the world's population are Jewish) being among the strongest.
    • This trope is typically averted in spinoff series (Last Bible, Devil Children, Devil Survivor 2) where demons and gods have distinct origins than in main series. Strange Journey downplays this as gods and demons instead emerge from "the will of the Earth", and thus don't require humans to exist (though they can still benefit from human worship), and averts it entirely with an incarnation of God who predates humankind. Persona 3 averts this with Nyx, a Cosmic Entity predating complex life on Earth.
  • Golden Mean Fallacy: A constant staple of the games tends to be that while Law and Chaos are based on real philosophies, they tend to get strawmanned into oblivion. And while Neutral endings hint at the various flaws that remain from trying to forge a middle path, such as the God-vs-Lucifer conflict only being temporarily stopped, this tends to get shown in-game only indirectly, whereas the flaws of Law and Chaos are placed front and center. And it will often have a strangely light grey tone relative to the dark grey tones of Law and Chaos.
  • The Goomba: The lowest level members of the Fairy and Jirae races tend to be the first recruitable demons encountered in the mainline games, with the exception of the IV duology. These two tend to be Pixie and Knocker, but II uses High Pixie for the former and Nocturne uses Kodama for the latter.
  • Grandfather Clause: The games are based around the idea that you are the only person who ultimately decide what is right and wrong. To convey this, there is almost always a Silent Protagonist as the MC. Where this trope comes in is the fact that even in games where they are fully voiced only the MC is silent. The adaptations are the only ones to avert this, since it would be extremely awkward to watch an action anime where only grunts are given and no conversation elsewhere.
  • Great White Feline: Byakko/Bai Hu is a demon and Persona in the series, based on the White Tiger of the West from the Chinese Constellations.
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: One of the biggest draws of the franchise is its incredibly grey conflict. All three alignments - Law, Neutral and Chaos - all have their positive and negative representatives, alongside their good and bad aspects. Law and Chaos at its worst tend to be very forceful in regards to their ideology, but they consistently raise good points in regards to their ideals, especially when you consider the normally-optimistic Neutral endings to prolong the conflict until either Law or Chaos wins. There are very few exception to this rule, notably Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse since that game takes place in a unique universe where Law and Chaos are puppets of YHVH - and even then, it also definitively proves Neutral can be just as extreme as Law and Chaos. At the end of the day, the game encourages you to choose the path you agree with the most, above all else.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Varies by continuity, but in general many problems within each game can be chalked up to YHVH — or rather, agents of the Great Will in general. They are often the ones responsible for any given world being the way they are, including the conflict between Law and Chaos plaguing everything. This is especially so in Nocturne and in Apocalypse.
  • Guardian Entity: Many, but one of the most prominent one is Masakado for various incarnatons of Tokyo across the series.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • If you want to get certain skills on certain demons, you WILL need to consult several fusion charts and skill charts (doing it the old-fashioned way of chart-making is practically a Self-Imposed Challenge).
    • Getting the best ending of any given game by yourself is a Self-Imposed Challenge. Well, unless said game does not have Multiple Endings, which is a rarity.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: There a fair number of examples across the games, with varying levels of nature, practicality, and risks.
  • Harder Than Hard: Maniac mode in the modern games. It's the subtitle of the Updated Re-release of Nocturne.
  • Happiness in Slavery: No. You can order demons whatever you want, but they will hate you if you cross certain lines. Loyalty in Soul Hackers works alongside the same lines; demons have an affinity for certain attacks; allowing them to use it will increase their loyalty, telling them to use moves they hate will reduce it. The National Defense Divinities loathe both the Ashura-Kai and the Ring of Gaea, and are overjoyed at their own destruction, so the damn fools won't get to use them anymore as their mooks.
  • Headless Horseman: Appear irregularly as a headless knight sans horse. A noteworthy example is a female Dullahan that shows up as a mid boss in Shin Megami Tensei IV during a Challenger Quest.
  • Healer Signs On Early: Expect one of your first party members, be it human, demon, or otherwise, to have some healing capacity. Pixie is a common example between many games.
  • Healing Boss: The more Nintendo Hard games tend to have bosses who use healing.
    • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne:
      • Mara is a puzzle boss who can cast Diarahan (which fully restores a single target's HP) whenever he pleases. It's not really much of a puzzle though: if you made it this far into the game you know what the answer is. Because it's the same way you beat every boss in this game: buff your offense and debuff his defense to the degree that you can kill him before he has a chance to use it.
      • Daisoujou has the ability to steal life and mana from the party through its Meditation spell.
      • Clotho of the Moirae sisters is able to cast Dia, Diarama and Mediarama on herself and her sisters.
    • During the fight with the Angel trio, Uriel and Raphael both have the single-target full-health Diarahan spell.
      • The Trumpeter's Holy Melody restores the target to full HP. It will always aim it at the character with the lowest percentage of HP, so the fight can become a Puzzle Boss where you want to avoid it casting on itself and force it to cast it on one of your party instead.
      • Baal Avatar is able to summon minions who will happily heal her fully if you inflict a certain amount of damage on her without killing her outright.
      • Lucifer in the Maniax Chronicles Edition starts with well over 60,000 HP. On hard mode, he will cast Diarahan when he gets below 20,000, fully restoring his HP. On normal mode though, he will only cast Diarama, which at this point in the game is tantamount to wasting a turn. You should be dealing the amount of damage he just healed many times over with one attack.
    • Digital Devil Saga: The superboss of the first game (Demi-Fiend) will have one of his demons cast Mediarahan to fully heal their entire party the first time he gets below half HP. And since all of them are immune to status effects, you can't prevent it. The second game's superboss (Satan) will also use Diarahan when his HP gets close to death, to punish you hard if you can't finish him off.
    • Shin Megami Tensei V: The DLC superboss Demi-fiend will cast Mediarahan when he gets below half HP, fully healing his entire party. You can skip him doing this if you manage to inflict the charm status on him before putting him beneath that threshold, though.
  • Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Most of the protagonists in the series are nameless until you name them. However, there are many notable instances of playing with this trope. For instance, Tatsuya and Flynn have default names that can be changed, while Maya and Serph are stuck with those. Shin Megami Tensei II names the protagonist "Hawk" and doesn't let you change his name until certain plot points are revealed, and lets you use default names for every main character, which actually shifts your alignment towards Law.
  • Hell on Earth: Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga 2, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey.
  • Heroic Mime: The main protagonists are almost always one of these. Which made Persona 2 quite entertaining considering that the protagonists of Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment only have dialogue in the game they're not starring in.
    • Some games work skillfully around this. In Digital Devil Saga, Serph is a Heroic Mime because he's based on the understanding Sera had on the real Serph. That is to say, she knew nothing about the real Serph. In Persona 3 and 4, the protagonists' arcanas are The Fool. One aspect of The Fool is chaos and creativity; in short, this means they are free to choose any personality they want.
  • Hobbes Was Right: The neutral path essentially states this in the ending.
  • Holy Hand Grenade: "Hama" type spells; typically One-Hit Kill type spells.
  • Hotter and Sexier: Giten Megami Tensei is a bit of an odd duck in the series in that it's a mid-90s PC exclusive and as such has has more freedom to show rather risque imagery. It has explicit sexual content, very intense gore, and some highly unsettling combinations thereof. Particularly infamous is the scene where Yuuka, semi-nude, is very graphically dismembered, decapitated and devoured by demons note .
  • Horsemen of the Apocalypse: The Biblical four (White Rider, Red Rider, Black Rider, and Pale Rider) are a fixture throughout the series along with a couple other figures from the Book of Revelation, serving as Superbosses and potentially allied demons, if you can beat them. They're often hard to find and always hard to beat. Strangely for an apocalyptic series, they tend to never be directly involved in the plots, instead showing up as optional side bosses.
  • The Horseshoe Effect: Law and Chaos aren't as different as they'd like to think. Especially where their methods are concerned.
  • Humanity on Trial: Persona 2, Persona 4, Devil Survivor, and Devil Survivor 2. Sometimes we deserve to be tried.
  • Human Resources: Magnetite/Magatsuhi/Red is an incredibly useful substance for dealing with demons, as it tastes great to them, even better than human flesh. However, no matter how you call it, it's actually refined from human brains/souls. Certain protagonists like Raidou mostly generate and use his own to offer to his demonic contracts, but other uses have demons either farming it from humans/humanoid facsimiles, or humans using captured POWs, captured civilians/slaves and children to use their conditioned neurological tissue to harvest it. In the last case, they also used an enslaved demon to help produce them better. Said demon being none other than a Magatsuhi from Japanese lore.
  • Humans Are Flawed: A very important aspect of the Order Versus Chaos conflict. After all, both sides are only trying to help... each in their own way. Even when humans choose a balance they will likely crave the extremism of Law or Chaos eventually, resetting the conflict to begin anew.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: While the demons are Obviously Evil, sometimes humans commit horrible atrocities that even the most bloodthirsty of demons get squicked out by. Two examples include Captain Jack from Strange Journey, who dabbles in experimenting on unwilling demons en masse as well as kidnapping a human and trying to fuse them with a demon, and Tayama the Ashura-kai ringleader in Shin Megami Tensei IV, who has his henchmen kidnap Tokyo dwellers (especially critics of the Ashura-kai) and extract neurotransmitters from them to make demon-quelling Red Pills.
  • Hu Mons:
  • Hurricane of Puns: Everything about Mara. Mara is a demon from Buddhism that used various temptations on the Buddha to prevent him from achieving enlightenment. However, mara is also a slang term for "penis" in Japanese, which is fitting because it is generally shaped like one. It's common for Mara's attacks to have the Pierce trait, or the fire attribute, and the demon being weak to ice cold. In the Persona games its arcana will inevitably be Tower. And in Shin Megami Tensei IV, Apocalypse, and V, most of the dialogue surrounding it will involve penis puns. His base skill set in V includes Hell Thrust, Toxic Spray and Slumber Vortex.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Law's standard justification for several genocides. Note that when not committing genocide, Law points tend to be awarded by saving lives and helping people, and they tend to speak out against harms or selfishness. They simply think that at certain times you can help far more people in long term by killing selectively chosen ones.
  • I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: But you will wind up going there anyway. Even if it's the stuff of your darkest nightmares.
  • Incapable of Disobeying: As a general rule, demons that were contracted, summoned, or fused through the Demon Summoning Program are incapable of disobeying their summoner.
    • The original Devil Summoner and Soul Hackers are an exception; demons will rarely follow your orders if told to do something they don't want to do.
  • Incredibly Lame 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.
  • Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Though some games at least have the decency to at least put some color variations.
  • Infallible Babble: In all the games, talking to the random NPCs scattered around will reveal quite a bit about the plot and future events of each game, usually long before the game actually brings them up. In some occasions, talking with everyone is the only way to progress.
  • Infernal Paradise: Utopia has that name for a reason.
  • Inherent in the System: Try as you might, whatever you do is, at best, creating sandcastles, because there will always be people who disagree with whatever ending you pick and who will overthrow whatever order (or chaos) you create, and even restoring the old, un-destroyed world doesn't protect it from destruction in the future. The only other option anyone's come up with is destroying everything.
  • Infinity +1 Sword: Many ultimate Game-Breaker abilities and equipment require a lot of work to get. Examples from [1] are in their own page.
    • Shin Megami Tensei II: Hinokagutsuchi, the best sword in the game, obtainable through fusion only. Requires a total of sixty-seven demons and several fusable swords to walk through each step. As the sword can also be fused with various demons to produce the best gun and the best armor for Hiroko, you need EIGHT of them for a full equipment list.
    • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
    • Digital Devil Saga: Amala Ring: beat one of the hardest Superbosses in RPG history.
    • Digital Devil Saga 2: Magatama Ammo: complete a series of Pop Quiz Random Encounters, then beat a boss in the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
    • Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey: The best swords and guns for each alignment (though Neutral doesn't have its own specific gun) are obtained from alignment-exclusive EX Missions. Redux does this one better by having even stronger equipment be found from its own superbosses in its unique Bonus Dungeon.
    • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Masakado's Shadow, obtained by beating the boss of the final DLC quest. He boasts, among other things, "Curse Thy Enemy", which inflicts Almighty damage to all enemies and counts as a weakness, and "Guardian's Eye", a 255-MP (!!) spell which grants three blinking Press Turns.
    • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse: The Fiends of Twisted Tokyo drop incredibly powerful weaponry and accessories... if you're lucky.
    • Shin Megami Tensei V:
      • Shiva and his absurdly strong skills can be yours to use if you manage to defeat him... but he's a level 96 Superboss when you can beat the game at around level 85.
      • The Demi-Fiend's Essence (from his own DLC) is earned by beating him, giving the Nahobino immunity to everything except Almighty, or access several unique absurdly strong skills. He's also the toughest fight in the game.
  • Instakill Mook: The series has several spells - and thus Mooks - of this type.
    • Hama, Mudo and their variants. Any mook can have them as soon as you start the game, and yes, they are very effective. Hama is usually owned by Divine (read "Angel") type enemies, while Mudo belongs to ghosts, hell-themed demons, etc. However, Hama gets Nerfed in a few games.
    • Any enemy that can deal the "Stone" [Status Effects status ailment]]. If anyone inflicted with it is hit by a physical, Earth or Force attack, they die.
    • Many - usually late-game - enemies have the following pattern: a skill that inflicts a status effect, and a second skill that kills anyone who has it.
  • Intercontinuity Crossover: A few games have overtly featured characters from a different continuity in a major role.
  • Interface Spoiler: Many across the franchise, but one stands out. If you encounter what appears to be the final dungeon or what appears to be the final boss, go look through some possible fusions, especially special fusions. If you see resultant demons can still have tens of levels higher than you, what you think is the final challenge most likely isn't. Rarely does a game in this series end with you and your demons/Personas below level 70-80.
  • It Is Beyond Saving: You will be presented arguments to convince you any given faction is responsible for this. Who you believe, of course, is your business and no one else's.
  • It's All Upstairs From Here: In almost every single game you'll end up ascending a tall tower, or at least a very long multi-floor dungeon.
  • It's the Only Way to Be Sure: The Law faction, more often than not, decides to nuke the hell out of those that disagree with it. Shin Megami Tensei I is particularly famous for this.
     J-M 
  • Jesus Taboo: For its use of nearly every mythological character, Jesus is almost never mentioned or relevant. Admittedly YHVH and his dragon lean closer to the view Judaism has on the two (except for the "evil" bit) and Judaism doesn't have the same conception of Messiah, though they employ Catholic arch-angels.
    • Aleph from Shin Megami Tensei II was made to be the expy of Jesus, and they even made sure he had a virgin mother.
    • Lyrics in Nocturne's boss theme mention a sacrificing of the son of God.
    • The closest the series gets to Jesus is in Persona 3, the Persona Messiah, who is a representation of the Messianic Archetype as a whole.
    • The demon Agony represents a long-haired, visibly wounded man bound by barbed wire to a large wooden cross. However, comprehensively, it only appeared in the first Devil Summoner game, which has never been translated or even gotten out of Japan.
  • Karma Meter: The mainline Shin Megami Tensei games have an alignment stat that changes based on the decisions you make, and determines which path the story will take near the end. They are modified or removed entirely for spin-offs.
  • Kick Them While They Are Down: The mechanics of each game tend to give out various bonuses for hitting enemy weaknesses or landing Critical Hits, such as Extra Press Turns or a free Almighty attack.
  • Kill the Ones You Love: Many games with alignment routes have you killing off friends who don't align with you.
  • Knight Templar: Pretty much everyone aligned with Law, Remiel and Amane from Devil Survivor being some of the few exceptions. Sometimes it gets so bad that the Law ending doesn't even involve siding directly with the force of Law in game proper.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo:
    • Jack Frost in other series. In Shin Megami Tensei II, "Mr. Thriller" aka Michael Jackson can be met dancing in a disco and talking about how much he loves toys and children. You can also fight and recruit Captain Ersatz versions of Beetlejuice (Betelgeuse) and Christine (Chris The Car).
    • In the first 2 Shin Megami Tensei games, you're given the Demon Summoning Program by a wheelchair-bound man with glasses and gray hair. He calls himself "Stephen". Any resemblance to a famous scientist is surely coincidental.
    • In many games, the Jinn looks a lot like Genie from Disney's version of Aladdin.
  • The Legions of Hell: Due to the Law faction's tendency to keep other demons away from the real world, Chaos factions generally lie in wait for their chance to rise again. Almost every game depicts them successfully doing so.
  • Light Is Good: Zig-Zagged: The Light-Dark alignment axis refers to a given demon's typical depiction in its originating myths, not necessarily how they actually are.
  • Lighter and Softer: As mainline Shin Megami Tensei is pretty dark, it's not too hard for its spin-offs to achieve this trope.
    • The Devil Children series, where the demons, gods and spirits are redesigned as more kid-friendly cute versions. For instance, Scylla goes from a dog-headed sea monster to a cute little girl walking a bunch of puppies.
    • The Devil Summoner series overall has the look and feel of a Saturday Morning Cartoon where cool and suave protagonists manage to thwart the plans of equally charismatic villains with (usually) no major betrayals and the world saved at the end of the day. While, obviously, the content is darker than said cartoons, the characters such as Nemissa and Raidou Kuzunoha are not out of place in a Shonen Manga or western comic book, with the former humorously failing at being the '90s Anti-Hero prevalent at her time, while Raidou tends to maintain his sense of justice. Driving the point are the openings of Soul Hackers and Raidou Kuzunoha which would fit right in with shows on something like Toonami and let you know you're in for a Denser and Wackier, action-packed and lighter SMT adventure this time around.
    • The Persona series, as you're usually Saving the World with The Power of Friendship, instead of watching your friends turn on you after the world's already been destroyed. Certain games, however, do avert this.
    • Devil Survivor has multiple good endings and focuses on the more positive aspects of the series' theme of choice. It's like facing a Shin Megami Tensei situation with Persona protagonists. It's still fairly grim though, especially when compared to Devil Survivor 2, which in itself is a Lighter and Softer successor to the first game.
    • Jack Bros, the Virtual Boy Spin-Off, is probably the lightest and softest of the bunch, as it focuses on Pyro Jack, Jack Frost and Jack Skeleton trying to return to the fairy world before time runs out.
  • Limited Move Arsenal: Most MegaTen games give your party members a limited number of skill slots, and force them to permanently forget old skills to make room for new ones. Digital Devil Saga and humans in Devil Survivor do have the option to re-equip old abilities from a skill pool though.
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Inverted in most SMT games since the PlayStation 2 era. Magic is far more useful at lower levels than physical attacks, as it can be used to exploit enemies' elemental weaknesses. However, higher-level physical skills that give you Armor Piercing Attacks, more Critical Hits and Counter-Attack abilities can make a late game physical build much deadlier than a magic one, especially once you begin encountering tougher enemies with few or no elemental weaknesses.
  • Living Structure Monster: In Strange Journey and Shin Megami Tensei IV the demon Orcus◊ appears as a brick gateway to Hell (if you look closely, a plaque reading "GO TO HELL" is attached to it) with part of a horned head visible at the top.
  • Lost in Translation: To the point it might be impossible to list all of the examples without its own page.
    • Many, many concepts in the original Japanese language don't or can't be conveyed after translation, which potentially results in misconceptions:
      • 宇宙 is commonly translated as "the universe", which is accurate in most cases but misleading in a few notable cases: the entity known as 宇宙の大いなる意志 (localized as "great will of the universe") exists as Powers That Be in multiple universes and across different continuities; it would have been more appropriately translated as "cosmos".
      • 龍脈 is commonly translated as "Dragon Stream" which is again generally accurate, but can't convey the original Taoist conception that it is tied to the flow of life energy in Earth itself, and that it is possible for said life energy to flow out of their ordinary paths like a ruptured blood vessel. In fact, its literal translation "Dragon Veins" would be more accurate in most cases, as it connects to related concepts (龍穴 or Dragon Wounds, which is instead translated as "Leyline Fount") more easily.
    • Interestingly, this trope is also inverted in one case. In Japanese, Makai or 魔界 (lit. Demon World) is always used to refer to an Alternate Dimension where demons are born, no matter the game. This is despite the fact they aren't connected, and might have significant differences from game to game. For example, Makai of Shin Megami Tensei I can be safely entered by a human (though requires special means), whereas Makai of Devil Survivor instantly kills any human who enters it. Similarly, in most games Makai is explicitly linked to the physical world of a single universe, whereas in Shin Megami Tensei IV, Makai is also the space between universes. Notably, the non-Japanese releases make an effort to correct this, in that games with a Makai being fairly distinct from the norm have specific names rather than simply "Makai" or "Demon World": Devil Summoner calls it "Alien Dimension", Shin Megami Tensei IV calls it "Expanse", Shin Megami Tensei V calls it "Netherworld" or "Da'at". In short, instead of losing meaning upon translation, they instead gain proper distinctions.
    • There are also a number of regular Puns which don't make it through translation:
      • "Luster Candy" is the ultimate buff skill in some games. In Japanese, this is a play on the three individual buffs — Rakukaja (defense), Sukukaja (accuracy/evasion), and Tarukaja (attack) — but the joke falls apart with a direct translation.
      • In Japanese, allied demons have been historically referred to as 仲魔, which is a made-up pun based on the word 仲間, meaning "ally". Both words are pronounced the same ("nakama"), but the former replaces one of the kanji with the kanji for "demon". English translations generally refer to them simply as "demon partners" or even just "demons", foregoing the pun.
  • Louis Cypher: Shows up in all the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games, and Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon. Loki takes the schtick and runs with it in Devil Survivor. Satan has his own example with Zayin.
  • Lunacy: The waxing and waning of the moon is a key gameplay feature in every game. The fuller the moon is, the more damage your attacks do, the more likely an accident is to occur during fusion, and the crazier the monsters act. During a full moon, they're practically drunk off those moonbeams, which makes for entertaining conversation. There are also some abilities that are more or less effective depending on the phase of the moon. Certain games have their own quirks:
    • Persona 3 has important storyline events (the attack of the Greater Shadows) occur during a full moon.
    • There's a period of time in Shin Megami Tensei I where the main character would take damage during a full moon. This is because of his psychic link to the Heroine, whose reincarnated self is currently undergoing torture from a demon that has invaded her mind. The full moon makes him feel her pain. This is solved by rescuing her.
    • In Digital Devil Saga, there's a 50% chance during every new moon- excuse us, MIN Solar Noise that your characters will be cured of any ailments that they are suffering from. Also, the selling price of Cells is at its highest during MAX Solar Noise. In the sequel, Digital Devil Saga 2, there is a chance during 7/8 or MAX Solar Noise- sorry, Solar Data that you will enter battle in Berserk Form.
    • You can guarantee that you get the best items from Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne's Mystical Chests by opening them during a full Kagutsuchi phase. The drop rate of Gems is also highest at this point. The moon does not appear in Nocturne because, along with the rest of the world, it has been destroyed. What the game tracks, instead, is the brightening and darkening of Kagutsuchi. Hence, Nocturne is one of the few games with a good reason for why the "moon"'s phase changes every few steps you take, as opposed to taking days to change phase.
    • One Sub App in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey lets you speak to demons during the Full Moon (something otherwise impossible). Because they're drunk on the moonlight, they don't really know what they're saying, and will ask bizarre questions. You have a 50/50 chance of impressing them or pissing them off; impressing them can earn you rewards up to and including instantly recruiting them: this is the only way to recruit Dark demons.
  • Mad Scientist: Stephen, Dr. Harada and Dr. Victor all qualify.
  • Mad Scientist Laboratory: Every single incarnation of the Gouma-Den.
  • Magically-Binding Contract: A staple in the franchise. Generally, when a demon decides to join a summoner as an ally during negotiations, a contract between the demon and the summoner is formed that can usually be broken upon the summoner's death. Note that the contract is binding on the fact that a contracted demon is Incapable of Disobeying the summoner. Demons summoned though fusion are also placed under a similar contract.
  • Magically Inept Fighter: Every game has at least one, but the protagonists of the first two SMT games deserve mention because they can't use any form of Magic.
  • The Magic Comes Back: Many games in the franchise has this in some capacity. Explained in Shin Megami Tensei I by Mother Echidna as a result of the demons returning from the banishment imposed by YHVH. They're not leaving again without a fight.
  • Magic from Technology: The premise of the original Digital Devil Story was that computer code could replicate a summoning ritual, and the concept has been core to the series ever since. Demon summoners throughout the franchise usually carry around a device — arm-mounted COMPs in the original games, pistol-mounted GUMPs in the Devil Summoner subseries, Nintendo DS-shaped COMPs in Devil Survivor, the Demonica in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and a cellphone application in Devil Survivor 2 and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse— that runs the Demon Summoning Program and allows the user to summon and control their Mons. And in certain games like Devil Survivor and the aforementioned IV duology, it outright gives the user access to magic spells of their own.
  • Magic Is Rare, Health Is Cheap: As an extension of this, there are skills that cast from MP and those that Cast from Hit Points. The latter can put you in danger, but are more economical since HP is easier to recover than PP. Some games downplay this by having Chakra Drops Randomly Drop from even low-level demons, so you'll always have a steady supply, although HP restoration will always be more available.
  • Makara: Makaras are fish with the head and hind legs of a deer. They're usually classified as dragons, but on occasion are grouped with snakes. Its alignment is Light-Chaos and it usually makes use of ice-related moves.
  • Market-Based Title: In the West, from Nocturne to around Persona 4 Arena, the games were all branded under the Shin Megami Tensei label. In Japan, though every game is considered a MegaTen title, they aren't marketed as such.
  • Mark of the Beast: Tatsuya's brand and Kandori's black eyeballs in Persona 2, the Demi-Fiend's tattoos in Nocturne, everyone who uses Atma Avatar in Digital Devil Saga, Nanashi's own tattoos Apocalypse.
  • Mascot Mook: Jack Frost. He's even the official mascot of Atlus itself, making this a literal example of the trope.
  • Master of None: Demons/Personas with perfectly balanced stats are fairly common and are typically not a good thing, as they tend to be weak at both physical and magic attacks; it's often better to have a collection of demons who specialize in either.
  • Mechanical Lifeforms: The hardiest and most powerful Angels tend to be shown as entirely robotic. Being obsessive creatures of Law, this makes it a case of Fridge Brilliance.
  • Mercy Rewarded: In some games, if you have almost wiped out an enemy team, with only one enemy remaining, he can throw in the towel and beg for mercy. Grant it, and he can either leave with no more fuss, demonstrate his thanks with some trinket or cash, decide you're cool enough to sign up with, or invoke I Surrender, Suckers and go for a last stab.
  • Merging Machine: The Cathedral of Shadows/The Velvet Room/The Gomou-Den.
  • Merging Mistake: It is possible for a fusion to end in a "fusion accident". While the specific results vary, it usually results in you getting a completely different demon than what it really should have been. In some cases, you can only get access to certain demons through a fusion accident like Zealot demons or Fool Personas in Persona.
  • Metal Slime: Very often.
    • The Fiends in Shin Megami Tensei I.
    • Alice in the first Persona.
    • The Omoikane in Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2.
    • The Kudan in Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army. Kageboushi in the sequel.
    • The Golden Shadows in Personas 3 and 4.
    • Mitamas in Shin Megami Tensei V serve the same purpose as they did in IV (Each drop useful items depending on which one of the four you're facing: Saki Mitama drops sellable items, Nigi Mitama gives you Glory, Ara Mitama gives you demon exp items and Kusi Mitama gives you Nahobino exp items) but unlike IV, appear in the game proper as rare encounters as opposed to only appearing in DLC exclusive areas specifically sold to make the game easier. They block every element except for one random element and resist Almighty just to make sure you can't cheese them without playing on their terms.
  • Metaphorically True: What most villains believe and try to achieve in this series aren't inherently wrong. Generally however, they twist it into radical variations which obviously bring nothing but suffering to others.
  • Mons: This series is the Trope Maker, as Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei was the first video game to involve the player taming monsters and using them for combat. Nearly every game serves as a Darker and Edgier occult Deconstruction of Mons, even though the franchise predates Trope Codifier Pokémon by ten years. This also makes Mons itself an Unbuilt Trope.
  • Monster Compendium: The Demonic Compendium is a very important part in almost every game since Nocturne, allowing you not only to view the stats of all the demons you've ever registered in it, but also serves as a repository of information, with tons of lore for each demon (all of it perfectly valid and backed by a lot of literature in the artbooks) and the ability to resummon those you've fused away for a fee. The Persona Compendium from Persona 3 and beyond serves the same purpose.
  • Monster Lord: The Maoh, or the translated Tyrant, demon race.
  • Mouth of Sauron: Metatron for YHVH, Beelzebub for Lucifer. Igor and Kandori Takahisa fill the role to a degree for Philemon and Nyarlathotep.
  • Multi Boobage: Mostly played for demon designs invoking Fan Disservice, like Satan, Diana, or Tiamat.
  • Multiple Endings: Many of the games change the ending based on factors such as your alignment or other choices you made in the plot.
  • The Multiverse: Initially mentioned sparsely over the course of the franchise, before eventually becoming a series staple.
    • One of the earliest titles in the franchise, Megami Tensei II has the Final Boss claim it is but one part of a greater entity which controls countless universes. Likewise, Last Bible has the True Final Boss mention the same, and further elaborates many worlds are being born and destroyed out there unrelated to its own will. Devil Children similarly has different incarnations of Hoshigami creating different universes.
    • Nocturne finally explores the concept: the Updated Re-release goes in detail to explain the game's world is just one universe out of billions of others in a vast river known as the Amala. These other universes may or may not be the previous games or even subsequent games, including sub-series of the franchise; given there are a number of hints and references which imply connections across different continuities (such as events of II being referenced in Digital Devil Saga) it naturally leads to lots of Fanon about just how the different universes fit together.
    • However, as prior games like Last Bible and Devil Children explicitly have distinct continuities with multiple universes each, this suggests Amala is simply another continuity with its set of universes and not Shin Megami Tensei franchise as a whole. Later games (such as Shin Megami Tensei IV and subsequently Apocalypse) reinforce this, more or less confirming the franchise consists of multiple groups of multiverses, generally distinguished by different forms of Place Beyond Time or Void Between the Worlds binding the universes together (Nocturne has Amala, Soul Hackers/Raidou Kuzunoha has Akarana Corridor, IV duology has the Expanse); or different supreme entities governing reality (Devil Children has the Hoshigami, Digital Devil Saga has Brahman, Devil Survivor 2 has Canopus).
  • My Rules Are Not Your Rules: No matter which game it is: if an enemy uses physical attacks which normally would cost it HP, he won't have to pay the price.
    • Not true in the Devil Survivor series, since enemy stats are displayed "face-up" to the player.
    • Also not true in IMAGINE, where only demons with a specific feature null HP costs (some of which, such as Hecatoncheires, can be used by players). Most, if not all, bosses have this feature, though. This also turns some boss-like enemies such as Hell Biker (from the 39th floor of the Denshi Kairo special dungeon) rather funny to fight when it starts spending more HP than the player is actually causing him.
    • Nor is it true in the Devil Children games, where you will see their HP Bars actually drop when they use HP Costing attacks, and occasionally they will actually suicide with it.
    • The only way to deny enemy demons the ability to abuse this is getting their HP lower than the cost of the attack: even though they don't pay the cost, they still have to have enough to pay it for it to work.
  • Mythology Gag: Cerberus is usually portrayed in the series with one head because that's how he was described in the original Digital Devil Story novel. Boomerangs back to accuracy in Digital Devil Saga, doubling as a series in-joke.
     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.
  • 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 .
      • 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:
  • 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 
  • 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.
  • 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?
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Raiju: 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 reliant on human thought, other times humans merely influenced them but is not strictly needed for their genesis. Other games like Last Bible and Devil Children, forego this concept entirely, with demons being races of supernatural beings who exist alongside with, and independent of, 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 attached to a single universe (notably as late asShin 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, Makai is typically localized with different names across different continuities, as they generally are distinct from each other despite sharing a name (in Japanese) and a number of similarities.
      • 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 some games such as Nocturne, it is stated to exist but have nowhere near the same level of influence on reality as in other games such as Persona and Apocalypse, to the point Personas and Shadows only 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 universe 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 are implied to be present in many games even when they are not playing a huge role. But the form and nature of it 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 they are an inescapable law of reality in and of itself, or simply set in place by powerful beings and thus breakable also vary — in certain games, the cycle of transmigration is considered such a fundamental rule that breaking free of 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 settings where Gods Need Prayer Badly). Even those which don't 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 [2], 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.
Before you stand the paths of Law, Chaos, and every path in-between. Where will you head?

 
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The God you worship is dead

After being stuck in a forever war between the forces of Order and Chaos for countless eons, Lucifer appears before the forces of Law and proclaims that the war is over - He has killed the God of Law and finally supplanted him.

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Wham Line

Alternative Title(s): Megami Tensei

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The God you worship is dead

After being stuck in a forever war between the forces of Order and Chaos for countless eons, Lucifer appears before the forces of Law and proclaims that the war is over - He has killed the God of Law and finally supplanted him.

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