Editing Shin Megami Tensei (section)

==The Premise==
Describing the premise of the SMT series is really challenging because, similarly to [[Final Fantasy]], the titles almost never are directly related to each other - they just use a similar basic precept.

That precept, with a little stretching, can be defined with two main draws. The first is "Post-Apocalyptic and/or Cyberpunk Urban Fantasy set to an Order vs. Chaos story where both sides suck". The second is "Every religion and folklore ever devised are all true, so everyone's gods and demons can fight everyone else's". The precise story varies from game to game, but in general you play as a human (or a small team of humans) caught up in a cosmological struggle between the forces of Order and Chaos, each represented by an assortment of different monsters, spirits, demons and gods from real-world [[mythology]] and you have to choose whether to align yourself with one side or the other, or to try and fight your way to an independent victory. This "neutral" path is usually the best (or least worst) outcome, since SMT is even less subtle than [[Planescape]] when it comes to selling that both Order and Chaos are dangerous; an Order victory usually results in the complete erasure of free-will to instead reduce all life to an endless fawning over the ultimate power of Order, whilst a Chaos victory creates a brutal anarchy in which the only law is "Survival of the Fittest". Later games play with this concept, with III having ALL sides be Order (in fact, the most Chaos-like side features the traditionally Order-aligned angelic demons) while Lucifer is trying to destroy the world altogether from the shadows and IV showing Order's leader manipulating his nemesis and gods from other pantheons deciding to intervene.

All games are in general [[Dungeon crawling|Dungeon Crawlers]]. Early games are old-school first-person dungeon crawlers on the style of ''[[Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord|Wizardry]]'' — even moreso when considering that ''Wizardry 4'' has a similar gameplay premise of building a party formed by the evil wizard Werdna (which is game over if he dies) and monsters he can summon — with complex dungeons filled with traps and teleports (MegaTen 1 and 2 didn't even had an automap, you had to use a graph paper and a pencil like ''Wizardry''). From ''Nocturne'' onwards, games are in third person but still dungeon crawlers.

One of the most iconic traits of the SMT games is the idea that you don't just fight against the various monsters and demons, but can actually recruit them to fight alongside you. Each different creature as its own unique strengths, weaknesses and powers. In some games, certain demons will evolve through gaining combat experience, Pokemon style, whilst in all of them, you can use a process called Fusion to sacrifice two demons and create a new demon, with some demons only being available by completely a fusion or even an entire chain of fusions.

These "core" SMT games largely never made it into the West outside of the small cult following of fans willing to acquire untranslated games and either play them that way or do the hard work of translating them. This is because the core SMT games originally launched as Nintendo titles, and since the Order faction in the games are often directly based on Christian trappings and characters... yeah, it was a bit too much religious heat for Nintendo in the 90s. Nocturne was the first mainline game to be released in the west, but it was truly the Persona series that became super popular, which led many people discovering SMT from it.

===Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei===
The very first two games in the SMT universe, these games have gone largely unnoticed outside of the most hardcore Megami Tensei fanboys due to a lack of translations and their divergence from the meta-story of the subsequent ''Shin'' Megami Tensei games.

Both of these games debuted on the Famicom (the Japanese version of the NES), but an updated port of the two games on one cartridge, titled '''Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei''', was launched on the Super Famicom (Japanese Super Nintendo) in 1995.

====Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei====
The very first ever Megami Tensei story, debuting in 1987, this is an old-school 3d dungeon crawler game; there's no overworld, very little plot, and in general it's much more like the Western RPG games of the time. In fact, it's so very different to the SMT "style" that it's largely ignored even by most fans. About the only mechanic it has that passed on to the others is the demon recruitment and fusion system.

Plot-wise, this game's a direct sequel to the first two Digital Devil Story novels, specifically taking place after the events of ''Warrior of the Demon City''. Players take the role of the novel's heroes Akemi Nakajima and Yumiko Shirasagi when a demon lord named Lucifer revives their fallen enemies Loki and Set before, with their aid and the help of three other powerful demons, he kidnaps and imprisons the goddess Izanami and creates a magical labyrinth to serve as a gateway between the human and demonic realms. The heroes must plunge in to the labyrinth, free Izanami, defeat the Five Tyrants and their master Lucifer, and stop the impending demonic invasion of Earth.

====Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II====
Whilst officially a sequel to the original DDS: Megami Tensei, this game has very little connections two it in terms of lore (supposedly this takes place long after the events of Megami Tensei I). In fact, this is where the major identity of the Shin Megami Tensei games, with their post-apocalyptic Urban Fantasy Order vs. Chaos motif, was established. That said, there are some oddities - Order is presented as a straight Bad Ending this time around, and Evil demons can't be recruited at all, putting a big emphasis on fusion if you wand a decent team.

Plot-wise, the story takes place 35 years after "199X", when Tokyo was both hit by a missile during a nuclear war ''and'' subsequently invaded by armies of demons. The player is a resident in one of the underground bomb shelters where most of Tokyo's survivors dwell, until he releases a demon called [[Pazuzu]] from a game called "Devil Busters". Pazuzu claims to be an agent of God, and that the player is now a messiah who must free the world from its demonic threat.

Which ultimately leads to the now-iconic Megami Tensei reveal: God is actually evil, Pazuzu is genuinely working for God and so that makes him evil too, and the demons are actually good guys (relatively speaking). So, to prevent the annihilation of all humanity, the player is going to have amass an army of demons and take down God. And yes, we do mean God as in YHVH, so of course God is evil because this is a Japanese game and God is a filthy gaijin.

===Shin Megami Tensei===
Originally released in 1992 for the Super Nintendo, then ported to the PC Engine Super CD-Rom and Sega CD, with updated re-releases for Playstation and Gameboy Advance in 2002.

Plot-wise, it's almost a reimagining of the plot from DDS:MTII. You start out as just an average high schooler in Tokyo on a day that seems like any other... until [[Doom|a portal to Hell opens up and demons invade]], resulting in you trying to stop everything with the aid of the "Demon Summoning Program", a bit of software that allows you to commune with demons and potentially [[Pokemon|bind them to your services]]. Things promptly spiral out of control, between a Japanese general attempting to commit a demon-backed coup-d'etat and America planning to nuke Tokyo.

Long story short... you fail, and Tokyo eats a dozen nukes. But you get thrown forward 30 years, to a post-apocalyptic world where two factions are clashing in the ruins: the angel-backed Messians, who wish to establish a [[Nazis|Thousand Year Kingdom]] of God, and the demon-backed Gaians, who wish to create a primal state of anarchy. So it's your job to decide whether you want to embrace Order, Chaos, or Balance... with the latter largely amounting to "kill 'em all, they're ''all'' dicks".

One mechanical similarity with DDS:MTII is that demons can't level-up, so you rely on fusion and recruitment to get better followers whilst dumping the out-leveled dead weight.

===Shin Megami Tensei II===
Released in 1994 for Super Nintendo, with 2002 Playstation and 2003 Gameboy Advance remakes.

A rarity amongst SMT games, this is the ''direct sequel'' to the Neutral ending of the original SMT. Set decades later, something has gone horribly wrong; the [[3.6 Roentgen|air of the world is now unbreathable]] except to demons, and humanity has retreated into an enclosed city called Tokyo Millennium, which is run by a resurgent Messian cult.

You play Hawk, an amnesiac gladiator living in the Valhalla district and competing in a fighting tournament for the right to win in the Center, the best part of the city, whose inhabitants enjoy lives of luxury. When he wins, however, you learn he is actually Aleph; prophesied savior of the human race chosen to bring about the paradise of the Thousand Year Kingdom. Aleph is promptly equipped with a Demon Summoning Program and sent out to begin clearing demons to prepare for the coming Thousand Year Kingdom, only for his beliefs in the rightness of his cause to come into question.

This was the demon fusion system first achieved a semblance of its perfected form and other plot elements, such as the idea of YHVH being the ultimate reason why Order is an Evil Faction, being cemented in the meta-canon. It's also the first game where the idea of Satan and Lucifer being good guys (yes, guys plural, they're separate characters) is introduced.

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Shin Magami Tensei 2 YHVH.gif|the among the first JRPG in 2 where you can kill the Definitive YHVH GOD.
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===Shin Megami Tensei if...===
The third Shin Megami Tensei game to actually be released, debuting on the Super Famicom in 1994, ''If...'' is a spin-off game that recycles the engine (and a lot of the art) from SMTII, and revolves around the concept "what if a school full of normal kids was somehow thrown into the Demon Realm?"

Basically, this was the prototype for the Persona series, and also inspired the ''Devil Summoner'' knock-off continuity, basically resulting in both those games being canonical alternate continuities to the core SMT games.

The plot is simple: you start as an ordinary high shool student (you choose the gender and the name, but canonically they're considered to be a girl named Tamaki Uchida) who attends Karukozaka High School. Just as school is about to let out for the day, weirdness happens and all hell breaks loose... literally. The school no longer seems to be on Earth, the halls are crawling with demons and the [[zombie]] remnants of students & staff, and one weird kid called Hazama is sending taunting astral projections to you. It's up to you to gather the few other survivors, band together for defense, form alliances with the less malevolent demons, and figure out ''what the fuck is going on here''.

===Shin Megami Tensei NINE===
The fourth SMT game released, debuting on Xbox in 2002, SMT NINE is set in the "time gap" between the pre-apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic sections of the original Shin Megami Tensei.

In the wake of the apocalypse, people are trying to rebuild. For some reason, one of the projects being undertaken is the Idea Space; a digital recreation of a pre-nuking Tokyo. Unfortunately, Idea Space is suffering from a phenomena called "Noise"; glitches in the system that manifest as cybernetic demons that run wild, and which can kill anybody hooked up to the system. You play as a survivor named... well, whatever you like, but canonically Kei Azuma. After surviving an attack by a literal cyber-demon in Idea Space's Shibuya, you get recruited to join the Debuggers, an elite order of glitch hunters battling the Noise.

===Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne===
The ''actual'' third game in the Shin Megami Tensei continuity, ''Nocturne'' debuted on the Playstation 2 in 2003. This was the first SMT game to get an official Western release, so it's the one that most people would be familiar with.

You start off as an ordinary high school student in Tokyo, 20XX. You and a pair of your friends have come to the local hospital to visit a sick teacher, only to find the place mysteriously deserted. Somehow, you wind up ordered to go alone into the spooky basement to check things out, where you meet a bizarre man who nearly kills you with a shadowy demon before, somehow, your teacher stops him. She takes you up to the roof of the hospital, and compels you to watch "The Conception" - the annihilation of the old world and its regression into an embryonic state, from which a new world will ultimately be created.

Needless to say, the sight of the universe being wiped out is too much for you and you faint. In your vulnerable state, a creepy little kid drops a goddamned monster maggot thing ''into your fucking'' '''eye''' and informs you that it will turn you into a demon, then buggers off. Waking up as a half-human, half-demon, henceforth known as the Demi-Fiend, you set off into the Vortex World - Tokyo, which has now been folded in on itself into an sphere wrapped around a strange pulsing not-sun called "Kagutsuchi", littered with deserts, ruins and vast fields of darkness. Gathering a band of submissive demons to your will, you find yourself caught between the many factions battling to define the future world. There's the Assembly of Nihilo (who wish to create a world of complete stillness and peace, devoid of emotion), the Mantra (a powerful gang who believe in ruling by strength, passion and fear), and the wildcard Isamu (a loner who wants to give everyone their own little paradisiacal "world", dividing them forever). The player may side with one of these factions, or strike out and make their own "Reason". Later versions of the game included more factions, and the option for a non-ending in which the Demi-Fiend keeps the Vortex World as it is.

This was the first game to introduce demons gaining levels in the same manner as the player, and also the first game to introduce the idea of demons evolving through level-up, ''a la'' Pokemon, rather than just being only fusion fodder. The gameplay also went to a third-person perspective instead of first-person. Last 
but not least, it's famous for [[meme|featuring Dante from the ''Devil May Cry'' series]].

===Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey===
Released in 2009 on the Nintendo DS in Japan, with an American port in 2010. An updated re-release with quality-of-life augments called ''Strange Journey Redux'' (or ''Strange Journey Deep'' in Japan) was launched on the 3DS in 2017/2018.

In the year 20XX, a strange zone of pure blackness has appeared at the South Pole and begun expanding outwards, swallowing everything in its wake. You are one of a team of elite soldiers & scientists outfitted with the new experimental "DEMONICA" [[Power Armor]] and sent in to investigate this mysterious "Schwarzewelt", only to be cut off by the legions of demons crawling around inside of it. Thankfully, your DEMONICA updates itself with a software program that allows you to communicate with the demons and recruit them to your side, allowing you to press on in an effort to find out what the hell is going on.

As the Nintendo DS is much less powerful console. ''Strange Journey'' returns to the ''[[Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord|Wizardry]]'' first-person dungeon crawl, and resembles a lot Atlus' own ''Etrian Odyssey'' series.

===Shin Megami Tensei IV===
The fourth main series entry in the SMT, released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013. It's the first "duology" title for the SMT line, with two games where one is a direct sequel to other, and this connection is indicated by their sharing the same numeral with different suffixes, something last seen way back in Persona 2.

The original SMT4 abandons the post-apocalyptic and cyberpunk elements of the previous SMT games for a more fantasy angle... at least, that's how it seems at the start of the game.

You are born into the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado, one of the commoners of the Casualry caste, who serve the elite Luxurors. However, you escape this fate by being chosen to undertake the Gauntlet Rite; success results in your being granted the title of [[Samurai]], an elite warrior charged with protecting Mikado from the demons of the subterranean netherrealm of Naraku. 

Naturally, things aren't that simple...

2016 saw the release of the sequel, ''Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse''. Set in 2038, 25 years after an apocalyptic war between gods and men ruined the world, you play a 15-year-old "Hunter" named Nanashi, who lives in the ruins of Tokyo. In the last days of the war, the city was covered by a massive stone barrier, and has devoloved into a sunless shadow land where humans kill each other for what little remains and both angels and demons rule as the apex predators.

As the game starts, Nanashi is killed by a demon, only to be revived by a fallen deity named Dagda, who demands in return that Nanashi become his "Godslayer" - a living weapon with which to defeat the forces of Lucifer, Merkabah, and Krishna's Old Gods before they annihilate what's left of humanity.

===Shin Megami Tensei V===
The fifth mainline entry, released in 2021 for the Nintendo Switch. The first 3D home console mainline game since Nocturne.

The main character is an [[Slaanesh|incredibly androgynous]] teenage boy who gets sucked into a post-apocalyptic parallel universe version of Tokyo called Da'at, where he is forced to fuse with a demon to survive, becoming a "Nahobino". After fighting for survival to territory controlled by friendly (!) angels, he learns the horrible truth: the world was destroyed nearly 20 years ago in a failed attempt to make a sequel to Nocturne, and God, being the least evil he's ever been in the series, sacrificed His life to put all the humans in a safe pocket dimension where the demons couldn't eat them. What few good aligned demons and gods are left have formed an alliance called Bethel, but the arrival of the Nahobino suddenly has them all on edge and is about to tear apart their shaky truce.

In gameplay SMTV doesn't want to fix what isn't broken. The buffs and debuffs system has been tweaked into a clone of Persona's version (buffs only last three turns, and are split into single-target and full team versions). And now you have a Magatsuhi Guage that charges up over time and can be used for a variety of special attacks that you will never use because [[rape|eight guaranteed critical hits]] is simply too good to pass up.