Shin Megami Tensei/Purseowner

[Rui]

(In order from left to right, Neutral Hero, Law Hero, and Chaos Hero. the sauce.)

The alignment system is a very important part of a lot of the main Shin Megami Tensei games but that'll be explained later.

Summary that I copy and pasted from the Wikipedia page.

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The first game, Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, was based on the novel of the same name by Aya Nishitani. It was released in Japan in 1987 for both the MSX and the Famicom. Alongside its sequel, Megami Tensei II, these are the only two games in the series to have only Megami Tensei in their name. Ky?yaku Megami Tensei (????????), the title of the Super Famicom remake of the first two MegaTen games, translates to "Old Testament Reincarnation of the Goddess". The flagship series then became the Shin Megami Tensei (???????) series, which translates to "Reincarnation of the True Goddess", the Shin in this case being a pun on the shin (??) meaning "new". As a spin-off of Megami Tensei, it eventually became the de facto subtitle of all non-Japanese Megami Tensei releases.

Other games under the Shin Megami Tensei title include Shin Megami Tensei II for the SNES, released in 1994, Shin Megami Tensei if..., also released for the SNES in 1994, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne for the PlayStation 2, and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey for the Nintendo DS. An MMORPG, Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine, was released in January 2008, developed by Cave and published internationally by Aeria Games. The game takes place between the first and second Shin Megami Tensei games, and players assume the role of a Devil Buster who ventures into an apocalyptic Tokyo in light of humanity's resurgence, as well as a sudden onslaught of demons. The fourth game in the main series, Shin Megami Tensei IV, was released in Japan on May 23, 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS.

Tl;dr it's basically a first-person RPG-ish game with an amazing story

There's also the Persona series, which I assume you guys are most familiar with Persona 3 or 4 since those are the most popular.

I'm too lazy to write up stuff so i'll just post screenies from each game.

Shin Megami Tensei

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(Note, the game is a first person dungeon crawler-esque thingy.)

Shin Megami Tensei II

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Shin Megami Tensei: If.... (which is basically an alternate universe sorta prequel to Persona 1 and serves as an alternate ending to the first SMT game?? idk)

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(Unfortunately this one hasn't been translated yet... ;____;)

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne

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Shin Megami Tensei IV

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ALSO

ABOUT THE ALIGNMENT THINGY

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Human characters also possess alignments. There are certain items that can only be equipped to a character of the correct alignment, and the Messian (Law) or Gaean (Chaos) Ashram will charge more money if the Hero is of an opposing alignment. Demons will also refuse to join the Hero if his alignment directly opposes theirs.


The alignment of the Hero is determined by a number of factors. During the course of the game he is asked several philosophical questions (e.g.: "Your mother has been possessed by a demon and pleads with you to end her suffering. Do you kill her?"), the answers to which affects his alignment. Summoning demons will alter the Hero's alignment slightly towards the alignment of the demon summoned. Most importantly, the Hero will be given tasks by both the Law and Chaos factions in the game. Completing one of these tasks will heavily alter the Hero's alignment in favor of the respective faction, while completing both will keep him on the Neutral alignment. The alignment of the Hero directly affects the ending of the game.

This only applies to the main Shin Megami Tensei games I believe.

Persona 1

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Persona 2

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(Note: Persona 3 has absolutely nothing to do with Persona 2 and is basically a reboot of the Persona series, hence why it's so different.)


Persona 3

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Persona 4

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Discuss.

[Tengu]

What a dirty trick, adding Megaman to the title to attract people to it. Tsk tsk.

[The_Broker]

Please do not post misleading topic titles. Next time you want to make a smash-up title related to two game series, reference both series. Thank you sir.

[Blaze Yeager]

I didn't know this thread existed! So bumping to talk about my experiences with the series:

I feel that SMT is not one of the best RPGs to get into right away, it has a certain "challenge" so to speak with understanding the mechanics of the series. Like what buffs, nerfs, magic, or physical (type is also a keyword here for physical, ranging into three catagories: Pierce, Blunt, and Bash(iirc?)) attacks needed to take down the enemy, while maintaining your HP and SP (Skill Point levels.) Plus the whole demon mechanic also affects what ending you get depending on the nature or alignment that the demons are (though I may be very wrong, I haven't played a mainstream SMT game since SMT2.)

Nevertheless, I do enjoy the [mainline] series for a variety of reasons. I feel it's something worth being invested in trying the games out, but start with either SMT3 or SMT4 if possible.

Persona is where my love for the series comes into play. I enjoy the sub-series far more than the mainline series because of the way the games are played out (in terms of the plot being either really good (Persona 2 Duology or Persona 3) or the characters being pretty interesting (Persona 4).

I'm currently doing a second cycle run of Persona 4 Golden and I intend on playing Persona 3 FES (or Portable, depending on the situation) next. So far I'm having a great time playing 4 Golden! Can't wait for Persona 5 to come out.

[Luize]

I started with Persona 3 and 4, completed both and now I'm working on Hard mode in 3/FES. I've tried The Answer but, lol I'm not even sure if I should bother completing it. I haven't really had much chance to replay P4, though I did start a new game plus a bit ago. As far as Persona 5 goes, I'm definitely looking forward to it, but whether I'll be able to play it or not depends on me not being poor.

SMT is something I got into late, but I'm still glad I tried it. I'm currently knee-deepen in Strange Journey and have alsi gotten my feet wet in SMT 1-2 for the SNES (bless you, Aeon Genesis).

[Nostalgia]

I'm not really in my SMT phase right now like I was back in 2014, but let me tell you: Nocturne and SMTIV are very, very good shit. The press turn system can be pretty punishing, but it always keeps you on your toes in battle (something I don't experience a lot in other JRPGs) and gives you such a great sense of accomplishment. I mean, sure, it may come down to luck a little bit, but it's more like a risk factor, as in a "what attacks will these demons use against me and how high are the chances they'll wipe out my entire party in an 8-turn crit weakness string on me" type of workaround strategy that adds to the thrill of it, in my opinion. Or just spam Megido(la(on)) and be WEAK! FUCKING WEAK!

I really dig the moral ambiguity of them, too. I've personally gone with chaos pretty much all the time (though I'd likely be a neutral piece of shit if I were actually in that scenario, haha), but there are still aspects of it that I don't really agree with ideologically, such as, oh, I don't know, demons wreaking havoc on earth and the resulting power struggle devolving the world into anarchy for at least a good amount of time. Meanwhile, law/order seems like an okay fit for me except for the fact that they basically exclude anyone that they deem to be "unworthy." I mean, chaos sorta does that too with its whole "survival of the fittest" mantra, but in a much more indirect and much less insulting/bigoted way. So, whichever way you pick, it's not going to live completely up to your ideal vision; I think that this and how choosing a different moral path directly affects the gameplay and story does a really good job of adding replay value without it feeling shoehorned in.

As for Persona, I hate to go all negative all of a sudden, but I absolutely just cannot deal with the grindfest gameplay of Persona 3 and 4. It would be slightly better if the progression wasn't on a (game) day-by-day basis. Like, yeah, I know that you're supposed to slowly learn to cherish like your surroundings and your social link companions and all that, but that same progression is also what hinders the gameplay to the point where I'm just like "e-NOUGH" after like an hour or so. The structure pretty much *lends itself* to constant grinding, which wouldn't be so bad if everything just took too damn long to complete. Every enemy has like a billion health, which reduces the element of actual challenge and the skill required to overcome it. I mean, SMT enemies tend to have reasonably high health, but not so long that you just sit there and get bored while attacking them and you're just waiting for the battle to be over. It seems like Atlus took all the good gameplay ideas from Nocturne and just threw them out the window when they made Persona 3 a couple years later and just gave every enemy a billion health, made their attacks do a ton of damage, and made your attacks do less damage in order to make the game grindier and more artificially difficult in order to accomodate for the simplified battle system. It's really a damn shame that the gameplay had to suffer like this in Persona 3/4, because everything else about them is legitimately great: the soundtrack, characters, story, and the art style (although the graphics are not quite up to snuff with other PS2 games) to name a few.

Persona 2, though... that's a game I really enjoy. This may be my PS1 aesthetic bias talking, but the non-gameplay aspects combined are easily my favorite out of the entire subseries. The soundtrack by itself isn't too, too special, but, like I said, the way it melds with the story, characters, etc. is what matters. Though the gameplay is still a little repetitive (especially with the demon conversation, which basically is just process of elimination dialogue choices without the element of randomness found in mainline SMT games), it feels a lot better due to its much more linear and NOT day-by-day progression that I think does a better job at telling a more cohesive and well-thought-out story at the expense of capturing, like, interesting moments like Persona 3 and 4 did. Speaking of which, the characters. Holy crap, the characters in both Persona 2 games are all so good in like every aspect and I could go on more but wowee zowee I really went on a tangent with this whole response.

I've tried Digital Devil Saga a little bit, but the PSN port lags like nobody's business a lot of the time, unfortunately. Haven't tried any other subseries yet, though I do intend to change that with Devil Survivor Overclocked some day.