Editing Shin Megami Tensei (section)

===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]].