General Information
- There are only five Shin Megami Tensei games that allow the player to begin and end the game as a girl. They are Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, Shin Megami Tensei if..., Shin Megami Tensei NINE, Devil Children Red Book and the PSP remake of Persona 3. Note that only in the first example being female mandatory. In original Devil Children Red Book being female also mandatory, but Updated Re Release merged Red and Black books into one, thus making Mirai only an option.
- However, Persona and Persona 2 assumes that protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei if... was female.
- There are also Aigis, who has an additional chapter in Persona 3 FES and Pixie, who can be unlocked as playable character in Jack Bros.
- One can also create a female avatar in Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE.
- Curious about why Cerberus's design has only one head? This design choice is a tradition that remained from the original novel's depiction.
- Cash-Cow Franchise: The Persona spinoffs, more specifically Persona 3, Persona 4, and Persona 5 have become some of Atlus' most popular properties. They got so popular they even started to drop the "Shin Megami Tensei" label.
- Completely Different Title: Attempted early on. When the Shin Megami Tensei games were beginning to be localized to the United States starting with the first Persona, Atlus USA attempted to call the series Revelations. Only two games were released under the Revelations name and was officially dropped with the release of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, and the series officially adopted the Shin Megami Tensei moniker starting with Demi Kids: Light Version and Dark Version.
- Franchise Killer: More like Subseries Killer, but Ronde for the Sega Saturn ended up completely killing off the Majin Tensei subseries.
- Franchise Ownership Acquisition: A unique example of his happening to a series in its infancy when it is largely obscure. The 1987 game Megami Tensei was made on license from author Aya Nishitani based on his Digital Devil Story'' series of novels. In 1992, Atlus outright bought the intellectual property itself from Nishitani in order to gain ownership of the franchise, of which has become one of its most prominent and profitable.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: A large portion of the franchise's mobile entries were released for older Japanese smartphones or services that have since been discontinued, making them difficult or even outright impossible to acquire these days. G-Mode has started re-releasing them on Nintendo Switch and Steam as part of their G-Mode Archives+ series, but they're Japan-only and there are still quite a few missing.
- No Export for You: A good fraction of the games, especially ones before The Fifth Generation of Console Video Games. This has changed in The New '10s for North Americans —Persona 4: Arena was released in North America only two weeks after its Japanese release, Shin Megami Tensei IV got its NA release two months after Japan's, when many prior localizations would take at least eight months, and Shin Megami Tensei V even got a simultaneous note worldwide release, a first for any SMT game, or even Atlus games as a whole. However, Europe still sadly gets the short end of the stick.
- Portmanteau: The skill Luster Candy might sound a bit out there in English, but its kana in Japanese is "Rasuta", a combination of Rakukaja, Sukukaja, and Tarukaja. This being the skill that raises all stats, it makes a lot of sense.
- Recursive Adaptation: Aya Nishitani, the author of the original Digital Devil Story novel upon which the first game in the series was based on, would later write a manga inspired by the game series, titled "Shin Megami Tensei - El Salem".
- Sequel First: Jack Bros., an obscure Virtual Boy Gauntlet clone spinoff, was the first game in the series to come to the US with many of the games.
- One of the items obtainable from vending machines is called "Cielo Mist", a drink made in Jamaica. This is a reference to the character Cielo from Digital Devil Saga, who spoke with a Jamaican accent.
