Editing Shin Megami Tensei

{{/v/}}
{{stub}}

'''Shin Megami Tensei''', known in Japan as simply "Megami Tensi", is a series of roleplaying videogames inspired by the sci-fi novel series ''Digital Devil Story'' written by Aya Nishitani that are described here because a) they're really good [[Urban Fantasy]] games, and b) there is an official SMT tabletop RPG in Japan, though it has yet to be translated.

==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 as "Urban Fantasy set to an Order vs. Chaos story where both sides suck". 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".

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.

==The Persona Subseries==
The more popular offshoot of Shin Megami Tensi, due to being Playstation based and thus not having to fear Nintendo's censors, the '''Persona''' games are a more [[Science Fantasy]] take on the core SMT premise, rooting themselves in a mixture of the Tarot and Jungian psychology. Basically, rather than being "real", the various monsters and deities are emanations of humanity's collective psyche that have taken up their own identities within the collective subconsciousness. The repeating plot generally centers around humanity's collective maladjustments are causing an impending psychic catastrophe, which a small bunch of plucky heroes need to prevent.