The original Shin Megami Tensei game came out in (I think) 1992.

It is an old series all right, with a ton of spin offs, and it goes through quite a lot of changes in its various incarnations.

The most popular spinoff (at least, outside of Japan) is easily the Persona series.



The main SMT series as a whole is some of the most classical JRPG gaming you will encounter anywhere. Like Dragon Quest, it's as traditional as JRPGs get, except on the other end. While DQ is all light and silly, SMT has a much darker mood.

Story wise, the main series involves wars between Heaven and Hell, and the varying forces of Angels and Demons as they battle, and the havoc these wars cause on Earth. The game pulls figures from varying mythologies of the world, but, unlike Persona games, actually makes them individual characters with personalities and places in the plot.

Perhaps more importantly, it lets them join your party, and this is one of the two major twists on gameplay. While you get the standard turn based options ("Attack", "Magic", etcetera), you also get options to negotiate and communicate with enemies. It takes a turn, sure. But you can get items, weaken enemies, cause enemies to flee, cause them to join you, or just piss them off or waste a turn, depending on how you talk to them, what other demons you've acquired, or even what level you are when you talk to them. It gets really deep.

The second twist is the difficulty. It is no coincidence that Atlus also made Dark Souls. The SMT games can be insanely difficult. Anyone who says turn based gaming can't be hard has never played an SMT game. The series is famous for its "my way or the highway" bosses, who will flat out kill you instantly if you don't use the right strategies on them. But even without them, the games delight in making you miserable. Actually, this series, and most Atlus games as a whole, enjoy making you beat yourself up.


The games are good, solid JRPGs. But they aren't perfect, and I definitely prefer the Persona games.

First, the setting tends to be better. While the mood in both series is dark, and extremely atmospheric, the main SMT series lends itself a bit too much to a post-apocalyptic "everybody's dead, Dave" approach. Generally, by the time the game starts, you don't have a lot else to fight for except your own survival, as the rest of the world is pretty screwed. In Persona, you wind up fighting to prevent judgement day before it occurs, rather than just dealing with the aftermath. Yeah, you can decide the outcome of a demon/angel war in SMT. But I prefer fighting for humanity, which brings me to my second point.

I'm not a fan of how they handle religion in the SMT games. Relegion is a huge part of the series, and depending on how knowledgable you are about the cultures and mythological figures involved, you can be in for a pretty damned annoying look at various relegions. But this is definitely a case of Your Mileage May Vary. And even I admit it's usually better than most relegions are handled in games, where they are usually just an excuse to have a mystical organized bad guy group. They do have a clear mythology, with goals, motives, a hierarchy, and events. It's just how badly the series meshes with any of the actual mythological entities that the game uses. If you disconnect it entirely from any of the actual mythologies it uses, and just take them all as entirely new characters, you'll be a lot better off. But enough on relegion.

Third, I prefer the characterization in Persona much better. The cast in SMT is huge, as there are hundreds of demons and angels to talk to and recruit. But, like Chrono Cross, this comes back to haunt the game. Because the characters just aren't as good. The development and exploration of character traits and personalities is just nowhere near as good as it is in Persona. You don't get to see characters really develop or grow, and, as a result, you don't get as attached to them.

Unfortunately, the Persona series is easier than SMT, only spiking up to close to SMT's difficulty with things like the optional superbosses. But, as a whole, I think it's just a better series.