Editing Shin Megami Tensei (section)

==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 (aka Highschool students) need to prevent.

Monsters in the Persona series are divided into two primary categories; ''Shadows'' are the embodiments of humanity's collective malice, selfishness, evil and negative thoughts, and these make up the enemies you have to beat up throughout the games. In contrast, ''Personas'' are psychological avatars, constructs of humanity's positive thoughts, and these take the forms of the classical mythological monsters seen in the SMT games. Personas are grouped into categories based on the Major Arcana of the Tarot system, rather than the overarching racial families of the SMT games. The backstory establishes that Personas and Shadows are the same thing, however unlike a Persona, a Shadow is not under a human's conscious control; later games show a character's Shadow directly turning into a Persona once they accept their negative side.

In Persona games, people only normally have a single Persona they can call upon to battle against Shadows. However, the player-controlled characters have the ability to amass legions of Personas and switch between them freely, a trait referred to as "The Wild Card" and which may be connected to their personal Arcana being The Fool. Personas do not evolve via level-up, unlike their demon counterparts, but can still be fused together to create new Personas.

===Shin Megami Tensei if...===
See above. SMTif... is both the spiritual and canonical predecessor to Persona. The protagonist even makes cameos in Persona 1 and 2.

===Persona 1===
Launching on the Playstation, Persona 1 - known as "Megami Ibunroku: Persona: Be Your True Mind" in Japan, "Revelations: Persona" in America, and "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona" in its improved PSP re-release - was an attempt to create a simpler, more mass-appealing spin on the SMT franchise. Ironically, it's a very different beast to the style of the later games, and still quite close mechanically to SMT.

Plot? You're an ordinary high school student who is dared by your friends at a party to play a ritual-like playground game called "persona". Suddenly, you all get struck by lightning and black out, only to have a strange collective dream about a golden butterfly.

Although you do not appear to have any serious injuries, you are sent to the hospital for a check-up. While there, you decide to visit Maki Sonomura, a bedridden classmate who has been in intensive care for a year. Yet your visit is cut short when Maki is suddenly rushed into the emergency room and the hospital undergoes a weird transformation into a demon-filled labyrinth. Fortunately, you and your friends have gained a supernatural power to help defend against the demonic hordes, rescue Maki and find a way out of this maze: the mysterious inner-power of "Persona". It ultimately turns out that this whole mess is connected to a shadowy corporationg researching a means to merge consciousness with reality.

It did introduce the phrase "I am thou... thou art I", which became the catchphrase of the whole series.

===Persona 2===
Releasing in 1999 and 2000, Persona 2 is unusual in that not only is a direct sequel to the original Persona 1, but it comes in two games that tell a single intertwined story.

'''Innocent Sin''' revolves around Japanese high school student Tatsuya Suou. In comparison, '''Eternal Punishment''' revolves around journalist Maya Amano. Both versions involve the protagonist and a small group of friends investigating a rumor that, if you dial your own cellphone number, a mysterious man named "Joker" will appear and either grant you a wish (Innocent Sin) or kill whoever you wish (Eternal Punishment). When the protagonist does so, however, Joker manifests and attacks them, declaring they have committed a crime against him. As the Joker Curse runs out of control and rumors start replacing reality, the protagonists must find an answer to why this weird shit is happening.

If you're wondering how the two games are connected... Innocent Sin is the "original" Persona 2, whilst Eternal Punishment takes place after time is looped/reset at the end of Innocent Sin. For some reason Eternal Punishment was originally localized in English on the PS1 [[fail|''without'' Innocent Sin]].

This is where the iconic social mechanics of Persona first began development, although it wouldn't be until the next game that they hit their iconic form. Both games are also famous for going completely off the rails in their final acts, such as having a boss fight against [[what|Hitler with the spear of destiny commanding an army of robots powered by Mayan shaman magic]].

===Persona 3===
The first Persona game to hit the Playstation 2 in 2006-7-8 (depending on your region).

Once again, you're an ordinary high school student, recently moved to Tatsumi Port Island to attend Gekkoukan High School. However, here, you learn of a dark secret: every night, at the stroke of midnight, the world is engulfed in a mysterious phenomena. During this "hidden" hour of the day, time stands still and most humans are locked inside of coffin-like objects, easy prey for prowling monsters called Shadows; those who are slain by these beasts become mindless zombies, victims of the mysterious "Apathy Syndrome" currently plaguing the city.

You, however, are one of those who do not freeze during the Dark Hour. You also have the power to summon a monstrous guardian, a Persona. This gets you recruited into the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, a secret society of Persona-wielding students dedicated to fighting the Shadows. Along the way, you will discover the cause behind the mysterious Dark Hour.

This was the game that cemented the gameplay mechanics that define the Persona series. Time now passes, dividing each day into nighttime hours, in which you enter the dungeon to grind your combat experience, and daytime hours, which are spent grinding ability scores, completing miniquests, and most importantly: working on Social Links. These are series of conversations between your protagonist and various NPCs which result in the steady progressing of a bond, which in turn affects what Personas you can hope to wield and fuse, as well as ultimately determining your ending.

===Persona 4===
Released in 2008-9 for Playstation 2.

You're a ordinary high school student whose parents have to go and work abroad for a year, and so you're being sent to the rural town of Inaba to stay with your uncle, the local police chief. But things aren't so quiet in Inaba; there's stories of a mysterious "Midnight Channel", and they seem to be connected to strange, inexplicable deaths. A mystery that the player will have to solve.

===Persona 5===
Released in 2016/17 for Playstation 3 and 4. Followed up by its own improved version, "Royal", which got a Nintendo Switch release in 2022 and was promised to be just the first of the Persona games to make the jump to Nintendo's platform.

You're an ordinary high school student (did you really need to be told that at this point?) who has been falsely convicted of assault and sentenced to a year-long probation in Tokyo. This is more dangerous than it sounds; [[Post-Cold War|it is the year 20XX, and a mysterious plague of catatonic episodes and psychotic breakdowns is sweeping Tokyo. If that wasn't bad enough, public confidence in the government and justice system is falling, and this only emboldens the corrupt.]]  Can't fault the developers for writing what they know.

Anyway... you discover you have the ability to enter the Metaverse; a parallel dimension where cognition becomes reality, and real-world locations are twisted by the thoughts of humans.  Within this world, the most corrupt humans have subconsciously created mental fortresses called "Palaces" where their innermost vices and desires are allowed to run rampant.  Stop laughing, how were the devs to know Facebook would rename itself to Meta a couple years after P5 came out?

But unlike real life, in P5 you can erase the twisted desire that gave rise to a palace by stealing the treasure at its core.  Thus, you gather a brave team of fellow Metaverse-spelunkers and start plotting to strike back against the depraved elite as the Phantom Thieves.

One of the odd things about this game is that it abandons the seperation of Shadows and Personas seen in the last two games. Instead, "Shadows" is the term used to refer to any hostile Metaverse denizen, which appear in "Shadow" type forms on the dungeon map - those in the generic training ground dungeon of Mementos appear as crudely formed humanoid figures with several creepy masks sticking out of their near shapeless bulks, whilst those in the story-important dungeons adopt forms unique to that dungeon. However, when you initiate combat, the Shadow changes into one or more "Persona" type demons, whom you must overcome and can potentially talk to and recruit... basically, it's like fighting in SMTV, only with the enemies' true forms being concealed behind their Shadow forms.

Persona 5 got a spin-off title called Strikers and an updated re-release in the vein of Persona 3's P3 Portable and Persona 4 Gold. Called "Royal", this version of the game shuffles some of the sidequests, adds new Personas, and features an extended timeline with a new post-game campaign. It also marks the first game in the series since Persona 2 to bring in Personas from the [[Cthulhu Mythos]], with [[Byakhee]] and [[Hastur]] as recruitable Personas and the Very Final Boss having [[Azathoth]] as his Persona.