YMMV / Shin Megami Tensei

• Accidental Innuendo: Jack Frost's Verbal Tic of "Hee-ho!" often comes in the form of ending a sentence with "ho!" Meaning he keeps calling people whores, much to the amusement of players. It's gone on for so long that it's probably no longer accidental at this point.
• Adaptation Displacement: Shin Megami Tensei spun-off from the Megami Tensei games, which were in turn based on the Digital Devil Story series of books.
• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • In the West, the games that do get released and aren't Persona 3, 4, 5, or any of their spinoffs are under-the-radar Cult Classics at best and bashed for not being Persona at worst. Shin Megami Tensei IV was hit hard, as it was released around the time that Persona really started to skyrocket in popularity outside of Japan; see Broken Base below. As for the franchise as a whole, many Westerners are put off by the intense difficulty that borders on requiring sheer luck and excessive amounts of preparation at times. Atlus West's marketing of the HD Remaster of Nocturne appears to have been directed to avoid this trope, taking advantage of the mass amount of attention the game got at the Nintendo Online Direct to play up things about the game that were memetic in the West such as Dante from Devil May Cry being featured. It helps that Nocturne is the most iconic non Persona 3-5 entry in the series in the west, enjoying a bit of fame alongside Persona 3 before Persona 4 turned all western eyes on Modern Persona. Regardless, the hesitancy to get into older difficult games is why Atlus hasn't focused on releasing games older than Nocturne in the west on modern platforms.
  • It was thought that this trope was the reason why Atlus hesitated to release the games outside of Japan since they featured antagonistic depictions of religious figures still in worship, such as the Abrahamic God and Hindu figures. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse for instance got flack from Hindu Indians due to its depiction of Krishna.
  • Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army is controversial in parts of Asia as despite the game being set in an Alternate History of extended Taisho democracy with villains themed after Fascist Japan, the game was still set in the Imperial era which is associated with bad memories of atrocities across the Pacific. Thus, Raidou was omitted in the HD Remaster of Nocturne in said parts of Asia.
  • The Law-alignment from SMT proper is this for its belief in a World of Silence where all worships YHVH for eternity, getting tons of controversy coming from America from both believers and non believers alike who are either opposed to following YHWH or at least an antagonistic depiction of him. In Japan, it is considered a reasonable option largely because their values system promotes social harmony, cooperation and compromise, and ideas such as destabilizing said social harmony for the sake of freedom are widely considered selfish and wrong there. The issue is that despite the heavenly theme of Law, its end goals are notably socialist (Devil Survivor 2 has a Law ending outright called Egalitarianism) and utilitarian in manner due to its egalitarian collectivist mentality, albeit one brought about by any means necessary. This further makes Law controversial as while both Japan and the West feared a socialist take over, with the Totalitarian Utilitarian becoming a standard villainous archetype, Japan's existing collectivism makes Law appear to be a tempting option the same way Japan also considers Chaos tempting as it too as a history of celebrating the warrior ethos and the freedom of great men to bring about change. This bit of Values Dissonance is practically lampshaded in Strange Journey where the Law Hero is Zelenin, a Russian whose country has a history of Christian and Socialist dominance while the Chaos Hero Jiminez is American, a nation that prides individuality even if it means the strong will dominate the weak.
• Anvilicious: Quite a number of entries outright depict the Neutral Ending as the good\canon ending, and each other side has zealots on each of them. Not that there isn't truth to this, however, since the best of both worlds is the best option in a lot of real world situations, and "My way or the highway" is the though process of the farthest on either side of an issue.
• Base-Breaking Character: Lucifer's been called a heroic revolutionary, a despicable Social Darwinist, and everything in between. A common debate among fans is whether he's actually morally better than YHVH or if he's just better at selling his pitch; he is the Father of Lies, after all. It doesn't help that Tyrant demons are associated with Chaos and will likely be the ones calling the morally depraved shots given their ability to overpower most humans and demons, undermining the idea of true freedom which anti-chaos fans point on. YHVH, on the other hand, is Love to Hate at best and The Scrappy at worst, though he's more positively received in Devil Survivor.
• Broken Base: Because the series allows players a high degree of freedom with several factions to follow, differing opinions are common, and in many ways embraced, by the fanbase.
  • Arguments inevitably debate over the alignments as a whole (likely an Intended Audience Reaction), but Law stands out, in particular. Either it's a Lawful Neutral faction that, despite its flaws, means well for humanity, and its collectivist beliefs in the face of soul-corrupting demons is a Necessary Evil... or it's a brutal, tyrannical, fascist nightmare demanding humanity's mindless submission to YHVH, and you should feel bad if you side with it. So yeah... support Yoshio/Yuji, Zayin, Zelenin and Jonathan at your own risk.
    • The release of Strange Journey Redux and Devil Survivor 2 on the other hand has finally put chaos into this position. One of the primary arguments against chaos is that true freedom is impossible if it's based on Might Makes Right, as the strong will inevitably oppress the weak. Social Darwinism being a core element of fascism (while Devil Survivor 2 and Strange Journey Redux show law in practice resembling Communism more) with the Tyrant race being associated with chaos doesn't help too. Walter's adamant desire to enforce Might Makes Right (Despite being lower class himself), as well as Yamato's world governed by self interest in Devil Survivor 2, now gets chaos heroes branded as hypocrites only concerned with their own freedom, whilst being free to oppress others. However, the new chaos ending in Redux shows that chaos is capable of advocating for a world of infinite possibility where humans, Gods and demons can coexist and choose not get in each other's way. Also, fans of chaos scoff at the idea of hypocrisy, as Lucifer, Walter and other chaos heroes always concede defeat if you beat them as per their ideologies.
  • The Persona sub-series. Many of its fans are unaware of the main series, and some of the few that do bash the games for not being more like Persona, much to the ire of the main series fans. There are some people that even love the games but still hate the fact that they've vastly overshadowed the other sub-franchises in popularity. An excellent way to start a fight is to discuss the topic of whether or not said popularity has influenced other branches of the franchise, most commonly Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and the Devil Survivor duology, and whether this is a bad thing or not. This only got worse with the HD Remaster of Nocturne which was seen as both low effort and low budget by a lot of people, creating the impression that Atlus just threw it out to have something to show for the main series while the Persona series gets continued attention.
  • The way fusion is handled in Devil Survivor, Devil Survivor 2, Persona 4 Golden, and Shin Megami Tensei IV. Some complain that part of the fun of fusion is unpredictable RNG result and that being able to choose exactly which skills to pass on to the fusion result makes for a boring and excessively forgiving gameplay experience. Others see it as a great Anti-Frustration Feature and point out that in practice, random skill inheritance boils down to tediously rerolling fusions over and over just to get the skills the player wants. As one of the main complaints for the Nocturne HD remaster was not using the newer fusion system, it appears the old RNG love is falling out of favor, and fans were happy when it was later updated.
  • Demon negotiation. While many love the extra choices it provides in battle and find it a fun and unique way of gaining new party members, there's another faction that dislikes it for how much of a Luck-Based Mission it can be, especially when it comes to Demons demanding items or money. (Horror stories of players dumping most of their inventory on a Demon only for it to run away are common)
  • Whether the newer games are getting too easy or are great for introducing new players to the franchise.
  • Whether or not the quality of the games in the series Atlus has put out ever since Cozy Okada left^note His last game with the company was Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. are up to snuff to the series standard or if the series is able to handle itself even without him. The seemingly shrinking involvement of Kazuma Kaneko^note He did the first draft for Shin Megami Tensei IV along with other misc. things and had no involvement at all with Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse. has only added more fuel to the discussion.
  • The general quality of the localizations done by Atlus USA in recent years has become something of a topic of discussion. This has been primarily a result of numerous Dub Induced Plotline Changes, poor text formatting or outright untranslated text being left in the English versions. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and Persona 5 are commonly used as examples of this.
  • The character designs ends up having two prongs to its discussions.
    • Whether demon designs should stick to the original myths as closely as possible like those by Kaneko, or be allowed to take some creative liberties like those by Doi or the guest artists is fiercely debated.
    • The debates on who is the series better artist or character designer in general has also divided the fandom. Is it Kaneko with his unique style and obscure and occult influences from both the Eastern and Western world, or is his style boring and uncanny? Is it Doi with his more liberal style with a focus on the cool factor influenced primarily by anime, Toku and Japanese pop culture in general, or is his style messy, inconsistent in quality and generic? Is it Soejima with his exaggerated style based in youth culture, or is it gaudy and trying too hard? There is just a lot of opinions on this topic amongst the fans.
  • The franchise moving from PlayStation home consoles to Nintendo handhelds (Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS) after the PlayStation 2 era. This frustrated many PlayStation 3 owners which predicted the console getting new titles. Not only PS3 didn't get any new SMT game outside of re-releases of PS2 games but only got Persona 5 at the very end of the generation, which was released for the more popular PlayStation 4 too. Nintendo fans, especially handheld owners, loved it considering the low third party support outside of Atlus, Square-Enix and Capcom trio.
  • Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE. Many fans were expecting something like Devil Survivor or more ultimately Majin Tensei, considering Fire Emblem is a turn-based strategy game, or at least a SMT game with FE elements. And second, for looking more a "Persona" game rather than a SMT or FE game. While some fans consider it a good title despite not resembling SMT at all, other think this was another average Moe game and a wasted opportunity to make a crossover of two acclaimed franchises.
• Common Knowledge:
  • The idea that the mainline Shin Megami Tensei series is this dead serious and grim dark series is a surprisingly enduring perception of the series. While more serious than most JRPG series out there, it is not afraid to use the occasional rather quirky humor and levity when the situation calls for it.
  • Mainline games have no story. It is quite the common idea that mainline games in the series have little to no plot or character writing. This however is simply a result of people thinking Nocturne is the base mold of the series with its minimalist plot when in fact it is the outlier. In fact, even the older games were known to be unusually plot heavy for their time, in stark contrast to the common perception.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Crack Pairing: Mara and Arioch, due to the former being a giant penis demon and the latter having what's basically a huge vagina with teeth.
• Creator Worship:
  • The series' creator and first director, Kouji "Cozy" Okada, and its iconic artist, Kazuma Kaneko, get this. Some fans even feel that later games following Okada's departure from Atlus and Kaneko reducing his involvement simply aren't the same.
  • And in a slightly lesser but still notable extent, scenario writers Tadashi Satomi and Shogo Isogai are similarly held in high regard, being responsible for many of the series commonly held best narratives.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Many things, but Mara stands out. A Gag Penis in a golden chariot is one thing. However, the games have made a habit of spewing out puns whenever Mara's around. And then there are the times where Mara's stats contain puns...
• Cult Classic: Outside of Japan, the non-Persona games tend to be this, and even Persona 1 and 2 still appear to be this in the west. They may not have the explosive worldwide popularity of the Hashino-era Persona games and their spin-offs, but they still have their share of dedicated fans.
  • The video games starring the lovable series mascot Jack Frost also act as a "cult classic within a cult classic" given that his first game Jack Bros is on the hard to get Virtual Boy while his Metroidvania game, Shin Megami Tensei Synchronicity Prologue, released as a jokey promotion for Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux was only released for a short while in Japan in Japanese only, requiring his fans to Keep Circulating the Tapes with an English fan translation. Consensus on both games, however, is that Jack Bros. is pretty great in spite of being on the Virtual Boy while Synchronicity Prologue is far better than any joke game has any right to be, with quite a few stating they were now more interested in an expansion of the Metroidvania as opposed to the Strange Journey remake it was promoting.
• Draco in Leather Pants: A lot of players advocate for Chaos as the good ideology. Let's review: in nearly all mainline games save for II and Nocturne, Chaos' objective is to bring about either a Social Darwinist hell where the strong brutalize the weak, or Multiversal Metaphysical Annihilation. While Law's responsible for some undisputedly nasty things, that doesn't mean that Chaos isn't equally nightmarish. This could even fall into Intended Audience Reaction and Shown Their Work as one of the main things taught about the devil in an Abrahamic context is that he will adopt every charismatic Dark Is Not Evil trick in the book to hide his nefarious intentions while the forces of God fall into Good is Not Nice and Good Is Not Soft, even if "good" here is a stretch.
• Drinking Game: here. This being a Nintendo Hard franchise, prepare to drink a lot.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Black Frost. He's an excellent early/mid-game demon/Persona, and, in Devil Survivor, is a party leader in some routes.
  • Mara has never had a major story role, yet is one of the most popular demons alongside the Frost family due to his infamous Gag Penis appearance and all of the Double Entendres he makes in his dialogue. In the official demon popularity poll ran by Atlus in Japan for Strange Journey's remake, Mara came in first, surpassing other fan-favorites like Jack Frost, Alice and Pixie.
  • Matador, as a result of Nocturne's rerelease, went from an average Fiend to one of the most infamous bosses in any Atlus game. There's a VERY good reason he's the picture of Atlus's That One Boss page.
  • In the Japanese fandom, Alice and Muu Shuwuu appears to have quite the following as well.
  • The Celtic demon Cu Chulainn ranks among the series most popular demons despite of the fact that he never has had any sort of mayor role in any game.
  • Mothman tends to be a fairly popular demon, usually for often being a solid mid-game demon and its Ugly Cute design.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • Calling the enemies outside of Persona 3, 4, and 5 "Shadows" instead of "Demons" is this. Even worse is calling them "Personas" in a non-Persona game.
  • Saying that the franchise is a clone of Pokémon. Megami Tensei actually did the "collecting enemy monsters to fight for you" thing first.
  • Calling mainline Shin Megami Tensei titles or non-Persona spinoffs "Persona" is a great way to get called out for your ignorance. This comes from the fact that the Persona games are extremely popular while the rest of the series is, relatively, very niche (although that seems to be changing in more recent times). Going online for less than two minutes will tell you that the Persona series is a spin-off of Shin Megami Tensei and not the other way around.
• Fandom Heresy:
  • This is how fans view the individual alignments: "Chaos = total freedom (never mind its drawbacks), Neutral = a balance between freedom and a sense of order, Law = horrible iron-fist theocratic dictatorship with no redeeming qualities and you should feel bad if you side with it." The merits of Chaos and Neutrality can be debated, but supporting Law will get you mocked.
  • Criticizing Kaneko's art as a whole^note Criticizing individual designs is generally seen as fine as even he had his occasional stinkers. or saying that the likes of Doi, Soejima or, heaven forbid, the guest artists for SMT IV are superior is seen as a surefire way to bring the fans rage down upon you.
• Fandom Rivalry: With its own spinoff! A lot of mainline Megaten fans resent Persona, particularly Persona 4 and Persona 5 for being the More Popular Spin-Off. In turn, many fans of the later Persona games deride the mainline games for being too archaic, if they acknowledge the existence of the mainline games at all. Some mainline fans accuse Persona and its popularity for the post IV games having Lighter and Softer and Younger and Hipper writing and character designs.
  • A certain segment of the Megaten fanbase who are interested in the mythology aspects hate the Fate Series for taking way too many creative liberties with the mythological characters, some even blaming Fate and its popularity for the drastic change in demon design philosophy and increased deviance from characterization in the post IV games.
• Fan Nickname: Andross for Omoikane.
• First Installment Wins: On two occasions:
  • While the original two games certainly haven't aged well in terms of gameplay, the plot and tone of the games are generally well respected among fans. While all of the later games would have at least a vocal minority dislike the plot, the only common debate concerning these two is which one is better, and opinions that either plot is bad are very rare.
  • Nocturne, the first mainline game to get localized, is beloved among Western fans and generally held up as one of the best games in the franchise.
• Friendly Fandoms: There's a good amount of fandom overlap with Fire Emblem for their tough as nails, yet satisfying gameplay and simple yet dark stories:
  • Devil Survivor is also popular with Fire Emblem fans due to playing like the grid-based strategy Fire Emblem games.
  • This was helped further after the announcement of the crossover between the two series. And even after the back-draft that resulted from the full reveal of the crossover game, the friendliness between the fanbases endured, perhaps even stronger than ever.
  • 2019 then introduced Fire Emblem: Three Houses which many SMT and Fire Emblem fans acted as a better crossover between the franchises than the official Tokyo Mirage Sessions. This was due to the titular three houses having a route that corresponds to the Law, Neutral and Chaos paths of SMT, the darker and philosophy heavy storyline, the time management and school life elements contributing to relationship values which appealed to Persona fans, and said Persona fans noting that the main colors of Persona 3, 4, and 5 corresponded in terms of story elements with their matching House. ^ExplanationThe Blue Lions and thematically Blue Persona 3 focus on facing past grudges with a moody protagonist, The Golden Deer and thematically Yellow Persona 4 are about discovering the truth behind the scenes with a more extroverted protagonist, and finally, the red Black Eagles and thematically red Persona 5 are about challenging the status quo with a charismatic protagonist that has an alter ego.
• Fridge Horror: It's been explained that God is not the source of all evil in the series, and that something in the Universe is causing God to be Evil. Okay, um, what could be so evil that it makes God (y'know, the guy who made everything) evil?
  • Even worse. According to Christianity, God's very nature is love itself. What in the name of everything holy could possibly have corrupted love incarnate?
    • Maybe too many people hating and killing in their name? Worse: believing that they do good and what they feel is love? This world runs on Gods Need Prayer Badly. -> Humans Are Bastards.
    • However, this could also be a reflection of exactly what's wrong with him creating Knight Templar Angels as well. As SMT II makes it clear that the Archangels' own psychotic belief can give rise to a fake YHVH. If their own belief can create a fake one, then doesn't it stand to reason that angels in general can make God fit their view of their creator?
• Game-Breaker: Has its own page.
• Genius Bonus:
  • The recurring tradition of Rangda having an Reflect Physical trait is a reference to the Barong Dance where warriors set on attacking the witch Rangda fall into her trance and instead turn their daggers against themselves. In the Shin Megami Tensei games, reflecting physical attacks involves the user tricked into thinking they attacked themselves.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: More favourable depictions of Law in Strange Journey Redux, Devil Survivor Overclocked and Devil Survivor 2 have made Law more popular in the west, especially as extreme social darwinism is also loathed. The story trailers for Shin Megami Tensei V also excitedly caused fans to associate the Nahobino with Law, well before the game's release.
• High-Tier Scrappy:
  • The Persona Yoshitsune:
    • In Persona 4, Yoshitsune is seen on almost every Final Boss and Superboss team. His power mostly comes from his Secret Art Hassou Tobi, which deals 8 hits of light physical damage to all enemies. This doesn't sound like much, but the buffs from Tarukaja and Power Charge apply to each individual hit, resulting in downright absurd damage, especially if the enemy's defense is debuffed. Additionally, Yoshitsune innately has Power Charge and Heat Riser so you don't need to go out of your way to pass such skills onto him, and if you fuse him on Dec 24th, he gains the boss-weakening Debilitate. All this, and he isn't even an ultimate Persona, meaning he can be fused regardless of your Social Links, which only determine how many instant level-ups he gains on creation.
    • Yoshitsune is just as overpowered in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth and its sequel, and perhaps more so. While Hassou Tobi hits random enemies eight times, the individual damage output also increases, meaning that it's utterly devastating against single targets. Since any party member can equip Yoshitsune as a Sub Persona, you can take advantage of Chie's unique skill, or Aigis' Orgia Mode to increase his damage output to the point that you can potentially one-shot the optional bosses.
    • Persona 5 finally reins Yoshitsune in a bit. He's still very strong, but can't be fused until The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, since one of the components is Futsunushi. Being the Ultimate Persona of the Magician arcana, Futsunushi is unlocked by completing Morgana's Confidant, which advances with the story and maxes out at bedtime the night before the final dungeon opens. As a result, you only have a single day to strengthen Yoshitsune through Sacrifice Fusion on a first playthrough^note Unless you register, dismiss, and resummon him to reset the Sacrifice Fusion restriction; this method will cost a bomb the more you do it., meaning that he may not be as useful as some of the other high level Personas for a first playthrough of the endgame.
  • Trumpeter is a Persona seen on nearly all endgame teams, as its combination of having a lot of resistances/immunities with no weaknesses (and with the right fusion, can be made resistant to everything), learning both Heat Riser and Debilitate and Margaret's final request encouraging you to fuse one with the very useful Mind Charge skill make it one of the best Support Party Member Personas in the game.
  • Daisoujou in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne is seen on almost every team, and in a game as difficult as Nocturne using it might as well be Character Select Forcing. It has a lot of immunities (most of them blocking annoying status ailments to boot) and no weaknesses, learns a full party HP and status heal in Prayer, and its Secret Art Meditation gives it virtually unlimited MP. Fusing it requires defeating it in a superboss battle, but it's available relatively early into the game and remains useful the whole way through. Daisoujou's support capabilities are so notorious that hard-type ROM Hacks tend to simply remove his ability to learn Prayer just to keep him balanced.
  • Soul Hackers: Nemissa is the strongest magic-user in the game, bar none. She can cast magic, unlike the protagonist, and has access to strong spells, depending on her build. Unlike the other demons who have magic, Nemissa doesn't need Mag to stay on the field, on top of using guns in a pinch. But what makes her truly broken is that her stats can be allocated, easily turning her into the most powerful caster in the game as she levels. As early as a third into the game, Nemissa will be dealing the bulk of damage while demons provide support and block damage.
  • In Persona 5 Royal, maxing Iwai's Confidant unlocks the fusion for Attis, who comes with the Trait of being able to use skills you could only use when surrounded at any time. This includes Thermopylae, a party-wide version of Heat Riser, which raises all of your party's stats for three turns. And Attis starts with this move as soon as he can be fused. Yusuke can eventually learn a similar ability with his third-tier Persona Gorokichi, but that costs 95 SP compared to Thermopylae's 30 SP. Even though Attis' stats are subpar and his resistances are just okay for the endgame, the ability to fully buff your party with only one move will see Attis end up on a lot of endgame party lists, and get a lot of use on the Final Boss and the Superbosses of Royal.
• It Was His Sled: If a game lets you fight YHVH and defeat Him, it's a safe bet that it'll be one of the most well-known twists of the game. His appearance in Shin Megami Tensei II is one of the most famous parts of the entire franchise even including Persona, and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse uses His return as a selling point. Satan appearing in a mainline game falls into this as well, being closely related to YHVH in all of their appearances, though given that he's not God, it's a bit more downplayed.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: More than a few JRPG enthusiasts who try this series for the first time (including those introduced to the franchise via Persona) have come away feeling that the series' approach to difficulty relies too much on trial-and-error and luck (and the usual RPG trick of spending hours grinding to out-stat a boss usually isn't viable). Of course, saying this to any devoted fan of the series isn't a particularly good idea.
  • Much of this comes down to the fact that a lot of common RPG-player habits can be pretty detrimental to those not used to Megami Tensei. Things like hoarding lots of powerful items and never using them, spending most of your money on expensive equipment and healing items, ignoring status buff skills, and relying on raw stat numbers to get past difficult bosses are all reasonable tactics in most JRPGs, but will likely get you into trouble here.
  • Similarly, anyone used to the Pokémon games will tell you that picking a handful of 'mons early on and sticking with them for a long time is usually the ideal way to play. Try that in any MegaTen game and you'll likely get stomped into the ground.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!:
  • Persona gets this treatment by longstanding fans of the main series, as do installments of other sub-series, most commonly Devil Survivor 2 and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, which these fans see as including Persona-esque elements to boost sales to the detriment of the game's overall quality.
  • While Persona 4 used to hold this position, Persona 5 caused a massive Newbie Boom among mainstream audiences who had otherwise never even touched a Persona game before, let alone the SMT series, which firmly landed it in this category. In fact, P5 is sometimes given this treatment even among Persona-exclusive fans. This escalated after the protagonist of Persona 5 was announced as a DLC fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with no representation for any games outside of the Persona series, which resulted in a second wave of newbies joining the fandom and further outcries from the usual suspects that the game was overhyped.
  • Nocturne, as the most well-regarded mainline game, has gotten this on occasion. While not the fault of the game itself, a subset of the fandom compares every later game to Nocturne and dislikes drastic changes from what that game did, turning off some others who don't mind the changes.
• Love to Hate:
  • One of the highlights for many players in some of the games, especially II and IV: Apocalypse, is being able to challenge God and kill Him.
  • The raison d' être of most of the series' human villains, simply because the great figures of myth are too cool to properly hate.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Persona 3 and Persona 4:
    • In 3, Ken Amada, already something of The Scrappy, specializes in Hama spells, and though his physical prowess with a spear is decent (he even learns Spear Master), whatever other spells he has are single-target. Although he can also heal and revive allies, Yukari can do the same, and she specializes with Garu spells, and is tied with Mitsuru for strongest magic caster at that. It is plainly obvious that he is trying to focus on too many things at once and, since his stats are all over the place, ends up as a Master of None. Portable makes him slightly better by having him start with Diarama, learn Mediarama one level above his join level (and on lower level than Yukari to boot), as well as giving him Primal Force, at the cost of removing Hama Boost, making his Hama spells even more unreliable than they usually are. While he is still over the place in Reload, the addition of damaging Light spells (including Makouga/Makougaon, giving him a Herd-Hitting Attack at last), Light Amp and a number of utility spells, like Dekaja and Tetrakarn/Makarakarn makes him much more viable.
    • Also in 3 Koromaru while better than Ken, is not much better. He is mostly let down by his stats being mediocre in general, save for a high Agility stat, as he otherwise takes two things (Mudo and Agi spells), and sticks with them, random Evil Touch/Evil Smile aside. In Portable", those less-useful status spells are instead replaced with much more practical (Ma)Sukukaja. Reload'' makes Koro much less specialized by giving him damaging Dark spells, along with utility spells like the everyone's favorite Debilitate, while also boosting his Strength and Magic.
    • In 4, Naoto specializes in both Hama and Mudo spells, as well as Almighty magic, so while she's a good choice for quick random encounters, she's useless for boss fights, as all bosses are immune from both and Almighty spells are too expensive to keep up. The Golden re-release fixed this problem by subbing out some of her physical skills for regular elemental skills, and also gave her third tier Persona moves such as Tetrakarn and Makarakarn.
    • In Persona Q, Teddie went from having a mixture of supportive and offensive spells to having the lowest stats sans Luck, and his role as a debuff/enemy sweeper is better performed by Ken or Naoto due to their advantage in speed and magic. While he learns some high-level healing spells naturally, again his slow speed more often than not meant his healing may come too late. Despite the game's recommendations, low vitality means he will take a lot of damage in the front row even though his HP is at a respectable amount. His only saving grace is that he easily takes advantage of the Boost system; his slow speed means that he's very likely to keep a Boosted state (thus a free skill), which can be easily achieved through exploiting weaknesses or better yet, his high critical rate due to his Luck, which would the allow him to spam powerful skills with impunity...but you still have to contend with his abysmally low offensive stats and using an accessory to swap his Luck with the other stats makes the aforementioned strategy useless.
  • Persona 5 is considered to be better than its predecessors in regards to stat and skill distribution, and the ability to swap out characters mid-battle via the Star Confidant helps greatly. That being said...
    • Yusuke Kitagawa is a physical powerhouse like Ryuji, but lacks the optimization. While Yusuke is extremely powerful since he has the most Strength, the majority of his attacks are more ideal for targeting a group of enemies instead of one, and some of his single-target attacks only power up under special circumstances (the Deadly Fury attack gaining a boost of power via a Baton Pass, for one). What's more, none of Yusuke's passive spells empower him in any way; he doesn't even gain Ice Boost or Ice Amp like the other elemental users, and the one passive set he has that gives him a chance to reflect physical attacks isn't always guaranteed to work. In later levels, Ryuji learns Matarukaja and Charge to buff his damage even more, further widening the gap between him and Yusuke.
    • Goro Akechi not only is the last character to join the Phantom Thieves in the original game, but despite possessing both Bless and Curse skills, doesn't have multi-target skills or the Bless/Curse Boost/Amp passives. Like Naoto from the previous game, Akechi has a smattering of other skills, which aren't all that useful on their own, and the only advantage he brings to the table is an automatically leveled up Confidant (at a point in the game at which Haru's Confidant has only just been unlocked). It doesn't help that he only stays with the party for one Palace. While he gets more time to shine in Royal, he is practically a different character once he returns.
    • In terms of abilities, the Devil Confidant's Ichiko Ohya is considered the worst Confidant in the game. Her bonus is helping the Alertness level in dungeons stay low by decreasing the amount the Alert Meter goes up when spotted, and increasing the amount the Alert Meter goes down upon winning an ambush battle. Problem is, it's already very easy to ambush enemies with the game's stealth mechanics. Ambushing enemies lowers Alertness level, so even if you get spotted, you just need to ambush one or two other enemies to return to 0% Alertness, and it's also possible to make tools that reduce the alert level all by themselves. Unless you're deliberately running into enemies head-on, Ohya's Confidant bonus is useless. Royal makes her better by virtue of increasing the default Alertness level in Palaces to 40% and causing it to decrease slower without her Confidant bonuses, as well as making the Alert Meter drop upon finding a Safe Room for the first time. However, even with all of these additions in Royal, Ohya's Confidant is still considered the least useful one.
    • Decarabia, a Shadow encountered in the fifth Palace, is weak against Physical skills, meaning that virtually all enemies can knock Joker down while he's using this Persona. It can potentially become a Lethal Joke Character if you use a skill to give it resistance or immunity to Physical, but you're generally better off using it as material to strengthen other Personas.
    • Lucifer is rather lackluster in this game, since despite having Morning Star, it also has a weakness against Bless and no resistances, immunities, reflects or absorbs. It's generally only useful for fusing Satanael on a New Game Plus. Royal sees him Rescued from the Scrappy Heap with a major overhaul in power- he still has his weakness against Bless, but he starts with immunity to Physical and Gun Damage, Drains Curse, and has Resistance to Fire, Ice, Wind, and Lightning. And he gets Repel Bless as a level-up ability. He also has the powerful Allure of Wisdom trait, which reduces the SP cost of all spells he casts by 75% and stacks with passive abilities that decrease spell SP costs, such as Spell Mastery.
  • Cielo in Digital Devil Saga. It's not that he's poor in attack strength and average in everything else. It's that his weakness is "Ailment". This includes attacks that have ailments as a secondary effect, which nearly every end-game enemy will be using. (Ironically, this weakness makes him an ideal character for fighting the Nintendo Hard superboss.) He was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap in Digital Devil Saga 2, where his weakness was restricted to only three specific types of ailment attacks. This- coupled with decent stats, no elemental weaknesses and a period in the game where you have to use him- brings him up to par with the rest of the party... if you can stand his bizarre Jamaican accent, frequent Friendship Speeches and the fact that he was barely involved in the events leading up to the first game.
  • In Devil Survivor, this applies to any team leader specialized in physical attacks. Physical is only a single element instead of the usual two or three in a Shin Megami Tensei game, which hampers their effectiveness by quite a bit when enemies start resisting physical attacks. The biggest deal breaker is when the player starts encountering enemies immune to physical, as it renders them powerless until the player picks up Pierce, which bypasses all forms of physical resistance barring Repel. Oh, and since you can only distribute one copy of a cracked skill among your team leaders, you effectively are allowed to field only one human physical attacker at a time. To make things worse, physical specialists often are lacking in the Magic department, and due to Magic affecting both magic damage and magic defense they suffer considerably against enemy casters. Of the playable physical specialists, Atsuro usually avoids this trope due to him being your only non-protagonist physical specialist for most of the game; his competition, like Izuna and Kaido, will qualify due to their comparatively abysmal Magic stats.
  • Devil Survivor 2
    • Daichi has rather balanced parameters, which is actually worse to pick compared to being specialized in an area. He is helpful early on due to his strength and agility, so a good candidate for the Multi-Strike ability. But compared to later characters who specialize in areas or, like Hinako or Keita, have better strength and agility than him, he quickly gets shoved aside for one of them.
    • Makoto is a Magic Knight who favours Strength over Magic, meaning she's outclassed at physical offence by Jungo, Keita and Hinako, outclassed at magic offence by any other magic user, and outclassed at mixed attacking by Io and Yamato. Her build doesn't even give her access to any notable niche skills, unlike Io whose "Magic Knight favouring Magic" build at least gives her access to Fire Boost/Amp.
  • Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse has two examples involving partners:
    • Nozomi is one of the first partners that you get, and she isn't too useful. Her damage-dealing attacks are all Gun-elemental, which means that until she gets her Awakening any enemy that is at least immune to Gun can simply No-Sell her attacks. Her two non-damaging skills, Photo Flash and Seducing Shot, are more useful as in addition to possibly inflicting Daze and Charm respectively on all enemies, they also debuff their agility and physical attack by one stage respectively, but Navarre is much better at debuffing enemies once he learns Debilitate.
    • Gaston is agreed to be one of the worst partners in the game, even more than Asahi and the previously-mentioned Nozomi. He can steal your Press Turns in attacking, and it still counts as your attack if he misses or the enemy blocks it. His awakened passive merely increases his damage output, which is his only saving grace. For this reason, Toki is regarded to be vastly superior to Gaston, mainly because she attacks at the beginning or the end of the turn without using your Press Turns, and the fact that she can inflict instant death reliably. Relatively mitigated when Gaston obtains Gungnir after killing Odin, which pierces resistances, but the issue of him stealing Press Turns persists, especially since he also learns Gungnir Sever which is a Powerful, but Inaccurate attack which can again cause you to take turn penalties, and his skillset doesn't really offer anything unique unlike, say, Nozomi's status-oriented arsenal or Hallelujah's anti-status and anti-Lost abilities.
• Magnificent Bastard: Has its own page.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Rated M for Mara^ExplanationGames featuring the Gag Penis demon Mara tend to receive an automatic ESRB "M" (Mature) rating when exported to North America, even if the rest of the game content only warrants a "T" (Teen) rating. For example, Devil Survivor and Devil Survivor 2 feature characters getting killed on-screen with pools of blood, or being murdered in other brutal ways, like getting blown up or knocked down a flight of stairs, but Mara is not present. Both games are rated "T". Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth features a Super-Deformed visual style and your typical dungeon crawler fare, and features Mara. It is rated "M".
  • SMT Bullshit^ExplanationA phrase coined by the Let's Player Sirlionhart regarding the games' often unforgiving difficulty often leading to moments that can leave the player (as he described it) "salty".
  • Kaneko in his field of flowers.^ExplanationAs a result of Kaneko's seemingly shrinking involvement in the series, it leads to a lot of people giving the answer when asked where he has gone off to that he is now spending time in his flower-field that was shown in the Persona 2 guide book. A variation of the meme is that he instead is locked in Atlus' secret bunker, only allowed out to smoke once a year.
  • Use buffs, retard. ^ExplanationA common notion that players of other JRPGs carry is that buff and debuff skills are all Useless Useful Spells. The series averts this hard, where buffs and debuffs can determine whether you barely survive an attack or suffer a Total Party Kill. This is one of the first pieces of advice to be given to anyone inexperienced with SMT.
  • Play a real Shin Megami Tensei/Shin Megoomi Tensay game! ^ExplanationA rather infamous video has two men stage a debate embodying the countless Mainline vs Persona arguments in the fanbase. The one arguing for mainline says this partway in, and both sides of the fanbase have run wild with it. The franchise name is sometimes butchered like the original video. What does or doesn't qualify as a real Shin Megami Tensei game, other than actual mainline games and modern Persona, is up to debate. So much so that many joke Jack Bros, the Virtual Boy puzzle spin off, is the only real SMT game despite being far removed from all its mechanics.
  • "ATTACK AND DETHRONE GOD"^ExplanationA Fox News broadcast on June 5th, 2020 (in light of the George Floyd riots) listed "Attack and dethrone God" as one of the goals of antifa protesters, who they claimed to be associated with the (long-defunct) Weather Underground Organization. The phrase immediately began trending on Twitter alongside Shin Megami Tensei, as ATTACK AND DETHRONE GOD succinctly describes what the franchise is about. This meme quickly became more popular after the HD remaster of Nocturne and the release date of Shin Megami Tensei V were revealed.
  • HEE-HOES MAD ^ExplanationA mash-up of the ever-popular "Hoes mad" meme with Jack Frost's signature verbal tic. It exploded in popularity after the 7/20/2020 Nintendo Direct Mini received backlash from mainstream gamers who were hoping for news on anything other than an HD remaster of a 17-year old JRPG and a niche JRPG stuck in development hell for over 3 years.
  • HEE FUCKING HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ^ExplanationA variant of the popular "LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" meme with the face having Jack Frost's hat, which became more popular after the HD remaster of Nocturne and Shin Megami Tensei V's release date being revealed, much to the joy of the fans of the franchise.
  • Shin Megami Tensei is the Dark Souls of Persona ^ExplanationMore people are familiar with Persona than Shin Megami Tensei, so some people who had previously played a Persona game before playing an SMT game would compare it to Dark Souls. It's a further mutation the "Dark Souls of X" meme, which parodies the tendency of Nintendo Hard games being compared to Dark Souls
  • Shin Megami Tensei is a Persona spin-off ^ExplanationMany people are more familiar with Persona than with Shin Megami Tensei, so some might think that the latter is the spin-off of the former when the reverse is actually true. MegaTen fans made jokes about it. This rose in popularity after the July 2020 Nintendo Direct Mini. Another variant of the meme, which saw light during the E3 2021 Nintendo Direct, is to say that Shin Megami Tensei is a Persona rip-off, merely because of the sheer ignorance of the statement.
  • Persona: Team up with your friends to defeat the Shadows. Shin Megami Tensei: Team up with the Demons to kill your friends. ^ExplanationThe contrast between the two series' respective treatment of each protagonist's social circles is... notable. Persona tends to have character-based plots usually resolved through The Power of Friendship, not to mention the Social Link/Confidant system introduced by Persona 3 which can provide significant gameplay bonuses. Meanwhile, the main series protagonists will have to inevitably fight against some of their acquaintances (especially those who become "alignment representatives" and generally have to be defeated if the player chooses an opposing philosophy).
  • Vote Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne ^ExplanationX-Play, in the buildup for their 2004 award show, made a commercial that portrayed Nocturne, which would take the award for Best RPG, as a political challenger against an incumbent Kingdom Hearts II. The sheer absurdity of an old couple talking about a pair of video games like politicians caught on, and even Atlus themselves left a comment asking, "What in the damn hell is this?"
  • At age X, Kazuma Kaneko, the character and demon designer for the Megami Tensei series ^ExplanationA running joke on the r/Megaten subreddit where someone posts a picture of Kazuma Kaneko to make it seem as though he died from the way the post is titled. Example
  • Mot's Drama ^ExplanationMot is infamous among Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne players for its AI having the ability to spamg Beast Eye, alongside occasional Makakaja and Megidolaon, to pretty much wipe the party before anyone has a chance to act.
  • "Have you begun to notice yet? How this world is beyond salvation..."^ExplanationA line said by Walter in Shin Megami Tensei IV, used as a reaction to Squicky content.
  • The mf that reflects physical ^Explanation Arahabaki is a demon well known in the community for either nullifying or reflecting physical attacks throughout its many appearances. It's also a running joke to ask "is that the mf that reflects physical" whenever they summon Arahabaki in a game or if someone posts a picture of a Dogū statue.
• Memetic Molester: Mara, due to being a penis demon that spits out Double Entendres as Pre Asskicking One Liners.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: With the series depiction of YHVH and the angels, you'd be surprised to find it has a decent number of Christian fans.
• Moe:
  • Jack Frost, being one of the more he-helpful demons in the series, ho! generally earns him and his relatives many fans. Their dialogue tends to be hilarious amid the usual threats and anxiety in demon negotiation. Having a Badass Adorable reputation for having solid early demon stats and skills helps a lot.
  • While every player has their favorite demons, the fandom is universally affectionate to the humble Pixie. They may not amount to much after a few hours into an installment, but they're typically the first friendly faces seen in a playthrough. They're almost always easy to recruit and come with healing magic that can easily be fused to a new demon. It helps they tend to be adorable at best, and lovably bratty at worst.
• Moral Event Horizon: See here.
• More Popular Spin Off:
  • Persona, naturally.
  • The video game series as a whole is much more popular than the original Digital Devil Story that the series initially used as source material.
• My Real Daddy: Kazuma Kaneko and his artwork. The series just wouldn't have been the same without it. The series actually received some fire for the announcement that Masayuki Doi, who has done art/coloring/other work for Atlus games would be doing character art. Several Sentai plus other artists would be doing new demon art for Shin Megami Tensei IV.
• Never Live It Down: The series has the reputation as the game where you kill God, when the truth is only a handful of games did that.
• Older Than They Think: The series started using the 3D models of the demons in the lesser known title Shin Megami Tensei NINE and not Nocturne as it's commonly believed.
• Only the Creator Does It Right: Shin Megami Tensei IV was the last game in the series where the original creators had any kind of real involvement. In turn, it has lead some fans to see it as the last game of the series golden age with subsequent titles being seen as derivative or creatively lacking even if they tend to be mechanically sound. Specifically, the impression is that the older games were willing to take risks and push the envelope of the genre while the newer ones instead seems intent on following modern trends and clichés, lacking the spark that made the series so distinct.
• Sequel Displacement: The series is called Shin Megami Tensei, ignoring the first two games (Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei and Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II).
  • Before Shin Megami Tensei, there were two games for the Famicom called Megami Tensei (the first was adapted from the first novel of the Digital Devil Story series of novels). Few outside of Japan have heard of them, and even in Japan the number of gamers who came of age during the 90s and 00s who've actually played those games (or read the novel) are increasingly few in number.
  • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne was not the first game released with the Shin Megami Tensei supertitle in the west. The largely forgotten Demi Kids games also had it (in small text) and predate Nocturne's release in the west by a year. Additionally, the western release of Nocturne was actually an Updated Re-release, and much of the content that became infamous in the west (Dante from the Devil May Cry Series, the True Demon Ending) weren't in the original version.
• Signature Scene:
  • The Final Boss fights with YHVH — yes, that YHVH — in Shin Megami Tensei II and IV: Apocalypse are some of the most well-known parts of the series.
  • The Superboss fight with the Demi-Fiend in Digital Devil Saga, for being one of the hardest fights in the series, if not the most difficult.
• Signature Song:
  • The original Law theme from SMT I is easily the most recognizable Law theme, and has reappeared in other games as arranged versions in similar contexts.
  • The Fiend theme from Nocturne, easily well-known due to being the battle theme of the infamous Wake-Up Call Boss Matador. It would later be remixed for the Fiends in IMAGINE, SMT IV, IV Apocalypse, and V.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys:
  • This being a Nintendo Hard franchise, there are many players who, while being experienced and proficient with the series, fail to see why the games are so hard and dismiss anyone complaining about x boss or y dungeon to be an idiot.
  • In games that have an easy difficulty, playing on those easy modes is disliked by some fans, and is often met with responses along the lines of "Atlus games are supposed to be unfair!" Never mind that easy modes are entirely optional.
• That One Attack: There are numerous examples, and it's now to the point where there's an entire sub-page dedicated to this:
  • Almighty spells in general, including the "Megido" spells. When your attacks are named after the place that Armageddon will begin in the Bible, you know you're in for a world of hurt. Not only are they resisted by absolutely nothing (bar a handful of bosses throughout the series) but they do a lot of damage as well. Megido, Megidola and Megidolaon are the main Almighty attacks, and it's common for late-game bosses to have all of their attacks be Almighty as well.
  • Devil Survivor takes it up to eleven by adding the -dyne suffix. As if Megidolaon wasn't bad enough, Superboss Lucifer can drop Megidoladyne on the entire map. And it gets 50% more powerful with each hit, effectively making the fight a timed battle because it's Almighty and can't be blocked, so even with maxed magic and vitality it'll eventually do more damage than you've got hp.
    • Then others like Strange Journey throws fuel on the fire by planting new spells in that are of the same type. Thought Megidolaon was awesome? Add in Big Bang which is even more powerful by a good 200 points. Then we have Babylon Goblet which has a chance to charm. Good luck recovering from that. And god forbid you get the eponymous JIHAD because not only is it one of the strongest spells in the game, but it also LOWERS THEIR STATS TOO. But to be fair while you have those, you can bet your opponent has even better shit than you.
  • Three games to date — Strange Journey, IV, and IV: Apocalypse — have Macca Beam, which takes away 20% of your Macca, and Wastrel Beam, which takes away 50%. Hope you didn't have a lot of Macca saved up at the time. And no, the player-controlled versions of the demons that use these moves don't have either attack.
  • In games with the Press Turn system, many enemies, and enemies only, have moves that grant them additional half-turns, such as Beast Eye and Dragon Eye in III and Psycho-Rage in Digital Devil Saga, making one enemy feel like several. IV lets you get Guardian's Eye, but it requires defeating the hardest DLC boss in the game and it costs an outrageous 255 MP.
  • Considering how important it is to apply buffs and debuffs in this game, any ability that removes either(Dekaja and Dekunda, respectively) can be a pain to deal with. A single cast can wipe out multiple turns of buff/debuff casts, during which time you've spent tens of MP to even the odds against the demons.
• That One Boss: Matador and Mot in Nocturne, the golden metal trio in Persona 2, Intrepid Knight in Persona 3, anyone in Digital Devil Saga with the second boss theme and probably a few more. Of course, if you don't use all of the options that are available to you like ailment inducing ammo, buff and debuff skills, buff and debuff cancelling skill, healing skills, elemental and ailments immunity to at least some of the bosses attacks, then expect lot of bosses to suddenly turn into Nintendo Hard That One Boss. You know what, let's just tell you we have ThatOneBoss/Atlus (where Shin Megami Tensei makes up a good chunk of the article) and leave it at that.
• Ugly Cute: Some of the demons that aren't mindbogglingly strange or Stripperific demon babes could arguably qualify. Decarabia, a starfish with a single eye in the center, is one such example.
• Unconventional Learning Experience: Almost all Demons, Shadows, and Personas are taken from the various mythologies and religions of the world, spanning from the more well-known creatures and gods from Japanese, Judeo-Christian, or Greco-Roman mythologies, to even the more obscure ones. Scrolling through the Flavor Text in the Compendium can teach the player much about mythical characters from all cultures.
• Values Dissonance: The ratings for each game vary greatly by the region. Nocturne (Lucifers Call) and vanilla Persona 3 have significant gaps between the PEGI (12+ ) and ESRB (17+ ) rating alone.
  • Nocturne even got an A in Japan, which basically means suitable for everyone. Note that this game is considerably more difficult than the already difficult Digital Devil Saga and Persona sub-series, you get turned into a demon by having a snake-like parasite get dropped into your eye in first-person perspective and you can become the literal anti-Christ as you become the new General for the legions of Hell/Darkness to wage war against God.
  • Many speculate that the only reason many of the games—even the less violent ones such as Persona 3 and 4—have M-ratings in the United States is because of Mara, who is absent in Devil Survivor games, one of the few series in the franchise to carry a T-rating despite showing several graphic on-screen deaths.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Tends to be averted for the most part, but Liberator Dx2 on iOS and Android proved a notable exception. Despite characters attempting suicide onscreen in the first few hours of the game, scantily-clad demons, subplots involving the underground criminal syndicates, and Mara, the powers that be at the App Store (who, to be fair, were likely unfamiliar with the franchise's reputation) took one look at the cartoony graphics and figured it was appropriate for everyone 10 and up.

---