Shin Megami Tensei/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Accidental Innuendo: Jack Frost's Verbal Tic of "Hee-ho!" often comes in the form of ending a sentence with "ho!". Meaning he keeps calling people whores, much to the amusement of players. It's gone on for so long that it's probably no longer accidental at this point.
  • Adaptation Displacement: Shin Megami Tensei spun-off from the original Megami Tensei, which was based on the Digital Devil Story series of books.
  • Broken Base: Alignments. Game of choice. There's a lot to argue over.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Many things, but Mara stands out. A Gag Penis in a golden chariot is one thing. However, the games have made a habit of spewing out puns whenever Mara's around. And then there are the times where Mara's stats contain puns...
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Here.
  • Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Oddly enough, inverted. Many fans take issue if a Shin Megami Tensei game isn't dark enough, and they lose interest. The threshold for Tastes Like Diabetes can be fairly low.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: There is nothing wrong with liking Chaos. Remember though... that's the side that, while wanting to preserve Humanity, was the one to put the Z-Class Apocalypse How on the table and desires a Social Darwinst world with no restraint whatsoever. Just saying.
    • It really depends on the game rather than those two being the only options. Chaos is portrayed far more positively in Devil Summoner 2 Lucifer and his manipulations aside and not every game wants a world of Social Darwinism. Not to mention the choice is between a Z-Class or endless cycle of X-Class Apocalypse How till all of humanity's free will is taken away by God.
    • If you were wondering what the above spoiler means, it refers to the fact that Lucifer tricks a young man, trying to save his friend, into kick-starting the apocalypse. Just for Lucifer's amusement.
  • Fandom Berserk Button: Fans refer to the franchise as Megami Tensei, so calling it Shin Megami Tensei will often get you corrected to the former.
  • First Installment Wins: On two occasions:
    • While the original two games certainly haven't aged well in terms of gameplay, the plot and tone of the games are generally well respected among fans. While all of the later games would have at least a vocal minority dislike the plot, the only common debate concerning these two is which one is better, and opinions that either plot is bad are very rare.
    • Nocturne, the first mainline game to get localized, is beloved among Western fans and generally held up as one of the best games in the franchise.
  • Friendly Fandoms: There's a good amount of fandom overlap with Fire Emblem for their tough as nails, yet satisfying gameplay and simple yet dark stories. This was helped further after the announcement of the crossover between the two series. And even after the back-draft that resulted from the full reveal of the crossover game, the friendliness between the fanbases endured, perhaps even stronger than ever.
  • Ho Yay: Meet Persona. Hell, meet Nocturne. If it's Mega Ten, there's porn of it. Usually in this variety.
  • Memetic Mutation: "Shin Megami Tensei NINE is a psychological horror game about a guy who gets attacked by a giant angry scrotum at a Taylor Swift concert, and then spends several months facing horrific hallucinations from the resulting PTSD". A bizarre copypasta, which references the fact that, thanks to being Japan-only and being released only on XBOX and therefore having poor sales, SMT Nine is basically an enigma for the english fanbase and could be anything.
  • MST3K Mantra: Satan is based on the Jewish view of Satan, the Quirky Miniboss Squad has the Catholic Uriel and Raphael, and only a few people will be allowed into the Millennium Kingdom in Shin Megami Tensei II, which mirrors (the Hollywood version of) Jehovah's Witness teachings. Note that Thor, Narukami and various other thunder gods co-exist and move on.
  • My Real Daddy: Kazuma Kaneko and his artwork. The series just wouldn't have been the same without it. The series actually received some fire for the announcement that Masayuki Doi, who has done art/coloring/other work for Atlus games would be doing character art. Several Sentai plus other artists would be doing new demon art for Shin Megami Tensei IV.
  • Never Live It Down: The series has the reputation as the game where you kill God, when the truth is only a handful of games did that.
  • Paranoia Fuel: An integral part of many of the Persona games.
  • The Scrappy: A LOT of fans hate whoever is on the side of Law in each game that has a Law-Neutral-Chaos axis, such as the Messians in Shin Megami Tensei I and II, Amane in Devil Survivor, and Zelenin and the Three Wise Men in Strange Journey. You'll see a lot of people rooting for Neutral and Chaos, and rarely anyone who likes Law. For that matter, forget about saying that you like Law.
  • Sequel Displacement: The series is called Shin Megami Tensei, ignoring the first two games (Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei and Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II).
    • Before Shin Megami Tensei, there were two games for the Famicom called Megami Tensei (the first was adapted from the first novel of the Digital Devil Story series of novels). Few outside of Japan have heard of them, and even in Japan the number of gamers who came of age during the 90's and 00's who've actually played those games (or read the novel) are increasingly few in number.
    • Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne was not the first game released with the Shin Megami Tensei supertitle in the West. The largely forgotten Demi Kids games also had it (in small text) and predate Nocturne's release in the west by a year.
  • That One Attack: Any spell with the "Megido-" prefix. It must mean "fuck your life" in some other language.
    • In a way, it does. That series of spells is named for the mountain where Armageddon will supposedly be fought.
    • This extends to any Almighty attack, really (the Megido are the main spells but not the only ones).
    • Devil Survivor takes it Up to Eleven by adding the -dyne suffix. As if Megidolaon wasn't bad enough, Bonus Boss Lucifer can drop Megidoladyne on the entire map. And did I mention that it gets 50% more powerful with each hit?
      • Then others like Strange Journey throws fuel on the fire by planting new spells in that are of the same type. Thought Megidolaon was awesome? Add in Big Bang which is even more powerful by a good 200 points. Then we have Babylon Goblet which has a chance to charm. Good luck recovering from that. And god forbid you get the eponymous JIHAD because not only is it one of the strongest spells in the game, but it also LOWERS THEIR STATS TOO. But to be fair while you have those, you can bet your opponent has even better shit than you.
  • That One Boss: Matador and Mot in Nocturne, the golden metal trio in Persona 2, Intrepid Knight in Persona 3, anyone in Digital Devil Saga with the second boss theme and probably a few more. Of course, if you don't use all of the options that are available to you like ailment inducing ammo, buff and debuff skills, buff and debuff cancelling skill, healing skills, elemental and ailments immunity to at least some of the bosses attacks, then expect lot of bosses to suddenly turn into Nintendo Hard That One Boss. You know what, let's just tell you we have That One Boss/Other Games/Atlus (where Shin Megami Tensei makes up most of the article) and leave it at that.
  • Uncanny Valley: Part of the series' aesthetic. While it remains distinctly Manga, the characters tend to share the same grayish skin color and nearly all share the distinctive eye design.
    • This was noticeably absent in Devil Survivor and the later installments of the Persona series, both of which used a more manga, cartoony style, that severely contrasted with all the Nightmare Fuel of the game.
      • Both of those series had different character designers for the human characters, while keeping Kazuma Kaneko's demon/persona designs. Kaneko is responsible for the human character designs in all the main series Shin Megami Tensei games, as well as Digital Devil Saga and the Raidou games.
  • Ugly Cute: Some of the demons that aren't mind-bogglingly strange or Stripperific demon babes could arguably qualify. Decarabia and Yatsufusa are some examples.
  • Values Dissonance: The ratings for each game vary greatly by the region. Nocturne (Lucifers Call) and vanilla Persona 3 have significant gaps between the PEGI (12+) and ESRB (17+) rating alone.
    • Nocturne even got an A in Japan, which basically means suitable for everyone. Note that this game is considerably more difficult than the already difficult Digital Devil Saga and Persona sub-series, you get turned into a demon by having a snake-like parasite get dropped into your eye in first-person perspective and, you can become the literal anti-Christ as you become the new General for the legions of Hell/Darkness to wage war against God.
    • Many speculate that the only reason many of the games—even the less violent ones such as Persona 3 and 4—have M-ratings in the United States is because of Mara, who is absent in Devil Survivor games, one of the few series in the franchise to carry a T-rating.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: Some of the designs for demons are truly awesome (which is why they can be downright terrifying). For example, Beelzebub.
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