Megami Tensei

• 1. Introduction

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  Megami Tensei reached Japanese players on the 11th of September 1987, when Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei launched on the Famicom. The game grew out of a science-fiction novel series by Aya Nishitani, and the franchise took its name from the subtitle of the first book. Decades later, that odd title covers games on consoles, handhelds, personal computers and phones, plus manga, anime films and a television series. Its stories pit ordinary people against demons, rival gods and the end of the world. Three questions run through this documentary. Who built such a strange series, and why did it take so long to reach Western players? What makes its battles so punishing? And why has its handling of religion earned both devotion and alarm?

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• 2. From Novels To Games

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  Tokuma Shoten, the publisher of Nishitani's books, helped him carry the story from the page to the screen. The novels were a trilogy of science-fantasy written during the 1980s. Atlus developed the game, and Namco, now Bandai Namco, published it. The team wanted to fit in as much of the original plot as possible. The Famicom's limited hardware made that nearly impossible.

  Credit for creating the series goes to Kouji Okada, known in English as Cozy Okada, together with Ginichiro Suzuki and Ginichiro's son Kazunari. The game proved popular in Japan and launched the franchise. A more ambitious sequel followed in 1990.

  Shin Megami Tensei, built for the Super Famicom, began with a simple idea: a game for that console carrying the company's own brand. Along the way, the team slowly resolved to break with the gaming status quo through its look and its subject matter. Even so, the staff regarded it as a remake of Megami Tensei II. Atlus employees also slipped cameo appearances into many of these early games.

  Most of the series comes from R&D Department 1 at Atlus. Outside studios have helped now and then. Multimedia Intelligence Transfer worked on Last Bible, Lancarse on Strange Journey, CAVE on Imagine and Nex Entertainment on Nine. Arc System Works developed Persona 4 Arena.

  Okada handled most of the games up to 2003. Then he left to form his own company, Gaia, and Kazuma Kaneko became the series' creative director. Two writers shaped the stories: Shogo Isogai and Ryutaro Ito. Ito joined Megami Tensei II after development to write the script, and he also served on the debug team. He later wrote If..., which deliberately stepped away from the grand scale of earlier games by setting its story inside a cloistered school. His last work for the series was the first Devil Summoner. Isogai made his debut with the script for Shin Megami Tensei II, and he later worked on several Devil Summoner games, Nocturne and Strange Journey.

  Tsukasa Masuko composed the music for the first five main titles. For Nocturne, the team brought in Shoji Meguro, who had already worked on earlier spin-offs. He would later become well known for his Persona scores.

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• 3. The Look Of Demons

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  Kazuma Kaneko shaped the look of the Shin Megami Tensei games. He had done some work on the original titles, but his first prominent job was Shin Megami Tensei, where he made the sprite art and the promotional artwork for characters and demons. He also pushed for many of the darker features that defined the series' eventual identity.

  Before designing any demon, Kaneko researches the mythological background of his subject and builds on it. His creatures draw on gods and monsters from world mythology, and on popular monsters such as Godzilla. His style has been called "cold and stoic", a quality he developed over time to keep the artwork close to what appears in the game itself. He mostly draws lines, beginning in pencil and then scanning the pages so other artists can work on them digitally. Beyond Shin Megami Tensei II, If... and Nocturne, he designed the characters for the first three Persona games.

  Shigenori Soejima defined the Persona look. He started in the digital coloring team for the first Devil Summoner. Later he took minor roles on the first Persona and on Soul Hackers, then designed the secondary characters for the Persona 2 duology. He also helped check the PlayStation ports of the first three Shin Megami Tensei games. Kaneko chose him as lead designer for Persona 3 because he wanted younger staff to gain experience. The job was hard, since Soejima had to refine his drawing style while weighing what longtime fans expected. His work is recognized as lighter in tone than Kaneko's. He went on to design Persona 3 FES, Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 and Persona 5.

  Other artists have left marks of their own. For Nine, the developers wanted a fresh style to suit the game's original vision, so animator Yasuomi Umetsu designed the characters. Atlus hired Suzuhito Yasuda as character designer for Devil Survivor, hoping to reach a wider audience and reinvigorate the franchise. Manga artist Mohiro Kitoh designed some monsters for the second Devil Survivor.

  Masayuki Doi, who made his name on the Trauma Center series, designed the main characters of Shin Megami Tensei IV. Inspired by Kaneko, he blended Japanese and western fashion in their clothing and borrowed design ideas from the Star Wars series. After the success of that game, he became main demon designer for Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and Shin Megami Tensei V, while remaining lead character designer.

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• 4. Fusion And Press Turn

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  The Press Turn system is the series' most recognizable battle mechanic, and it first appeared in Nocturne. It is a turn-based system that governs both the player's party and the enemies. Striking a weakness or landing a critical hit earns an extra turn. Missed or blocked attacks can cost turns instead.

  Since the first Megami Tensei, players have been able to recruit demons to fight beside them. They can also fuse two different demons to create a stronger one. The later Persona titles carry equivalents of both systems. Several games add a Moon Phase System or something like it, in which lunar phases or changes in the weather alter how enemies behave. The series has become notable for its high difficulty.

  The way players see the world has changed several times. The first Megami Tensei used a 3D first-person view. Megami Tensei II combined first-person 3D for battle with a top-down 2D display for navigation, a change suggested by staff who did not want players getting lost in a large 3D space. That mix of 2D and first-person continued until Nocturne.

  Nocturne switched to a third-person view. The reason was a condition like car sickness, called "3D sickness", which was linked to first-person shooters in Japan at the time. The developers wanted players to have something to focus on. Strange Journey brought back the first-person view, and Shin Megami Tensei IV used it in battle while adding navigable 3D environments.

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• 5. Tokyo And The Tyrant

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  Modern-day Tokyo is the series' home ground, and post-apocalyptic touches recur in its settings and stories. The choice was made early to set the games apart from the fantasy franchises of the time. Games rarely showed Tokyo as it looked in the present, as opposed to versions of it from the past. The Persona games never leave this setting. They follow a single continuity and mostly focus on a group of young people.

  Shin Megami Tensei II is one notable early exception, set in a science-fiction-styled future that still holds fantasy elements. The Last Bible series moved fully into fantasy. Strange Journey relocated the action to Antarctica to show a threat on a global scale. Shin Megami Tensei IV placed a medieval-stage society apart from modern-day Tokyo. The Devil Summoner games are modern detective stories rather than post-apocalyptic tales.

  The name Megami Tensei translates as "Reincarnation of the Goddess". The current Shin Megami Tensei series has been officially rendered as "True Goddess Metempsychosis", and the last word means the cycle of rebirth that runs through many of the stories. The reborn goddess has more than one meaning. It can point to a female character in each game who might be read as the goddess, and it can stand for the drastic changes a location goes through. Fans shorten the whole name to "MegaTen".

  Every title shows the extraordinary invading the ordinary world, though the two main branches stress different things. Shin Megami Tensei follows a protagonist who gains the power to survive in a world ruled by tyrannical deities. Persona turns to relationships and the psychology of a group. Core protagonists are generally male. A female lead or a choice of gender is not out of the question, but some staff feel male leads suit the series better.

  The series has drawn on Gnosticism, world mythologies, Christianity, Buddhism, early science fiction, Jungian psychology and archetypes, occultism, goth, punk and cyberpunk. Philosophical ideas hold together science fiction and fantasy that might otherwise clash. Core Shin Megami Tensei stories often involve fighting a tyrannical God. Lucifer, the fallen angel who stands against God, appears in several forms to show his omnipotence.

  Core titles traditionally follow a single playable character rather than a group. Persona and Digital Devil Saga tell their stories with cutscenes and spoken dialogue. Nocturne takes a minimalist, text-based approach that emphasizes atmosphere.

  Starting with Megami Tensei II, the player's actions have decided how the story ends. That game defined the alignments as "Law", the forces of God, and "Chaos", the army of Lucifer. Later games added a "Neutral" route for players who reject both sides. Shin Megami Tensei II centers on Law because of events before its story begins. Nocturne aligned all its characters roughly with Chaos, which brought variety and gave the team more creative freedom. Strange Journey and Shin Megami Tensei IV used all three tiers, while Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse is restricted to Neutral yet still has multiple endings.

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• 6. Crossing The Ocean

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  Jack Bros. was the first title in the franchise to be localized for the West. For a long time, nothing else followed, even though a market was recognized. Heavy religious themes and symbols were taboo in Western game markets, and Nintendo's strict content guidelines for overseas releases added to the problem. Early PlayStation entries were blocked by the approval policies of Sony of America at the time. Later, many early works stayed home because their age would have left them at a disadvantage.

  The first role-playing game in the franchise to go overseas was the first Persona. The aim was to give the North American branch of Atlus a flagship RPG franchise that could compete with Final Fantasy, Suikoden and Breath of Fire. Okada said that the names of creatures and enemies were adjusted from the Japanese release to suit overseas audiences. The work was taxing because the staff was small and many aspects had to change. References to Japanese culture were removed, and one character was changed from Japanese to African-American. Those changes were fixed in the PlayStation Portable re-release. The first Persona 2 game, Innocent Sin, was skipped because of a shortage of manpower and because development was focused on Eternal Punishment.

  Nocturne was the first Shin Megami Tensei release overseas. Afterward, the overseas branches of Atlus decided to attach the Shin Megami Tensei name to future releases in the franchise as a marketing aid. Many of the original games never carried that name. Still, every game chosen for localization belonged to the larger franchise, so the banner kept them together. Before that decision, the series had used the localized title Revelations for the first Persona and the first Last Bible.

  Some titles were trimmed for practicality. Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army was called Raidō Kuzunoha vs. The Super-Powered Army in Japan, and the team changed it because it sounded "goofy" in English. The Persona 4 Arena duology and Persona 4 Golden dropped the Shin Megami Tensei name because it would have made the titles too long.

  By the time Strange Journey was in development, the franchise had a strong presence overseas, so the team built that game with localization in mind. Two choices were linked to it: the Antarctic setting instead of modern-day Japan, and the lack of a numeral in the title. Starting with Shin Megami Tensei IV, the company set out to promote the franchise actively in North America, Europe and mainland Asia. After 2016, Atlus USA merged with Sega of America, and Sega took over North American publishing while the Atlus brand remained intact.

  Europe works differently. Atlus has no European branch, so it publishes through third parties such as Ghostlight and NIS America. After its deal with NIS America ended with the release of Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, Atlus partnered with the European firm Deep Silver. That deal covered several titles, including Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and Persona 5.

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• 7. Branches And Screens

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  Shin Megami Tensei arrived on the Super Famicom in 1992. Shin Megami Tensei II followed in 1994, and If... came later in the same year. Nocturne reached the PlayStation 2 in 2003, and its Maniax Edition followed in Japan and North America in 2004 and in Europe in 2005. Its numeral was dropped in North America, and Europe received it as Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call. Shin Megami Tensei IV reached the Nintendo 3DS in 2013, and Europe received it a year later as a digital-only release. Apocalypse followed in February 2016 in Japan. Shin Megami Tensei V came to the Nintendo Switch in 2021. An enhanced version, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, appeared in June 2024 on Windows, Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

  Persona is the largest and most popular spin-off. Megami Ibunroku Persona came out in 1996 in Japan and North America, and overseas it was first called Revelations: Persona. Persona 2: Innocent Sin followed in Japan in 1999, and Eternal Punishment came out in 2000 in Japan and North America. Persona 3 was released in 2006 in Japan, 2007 in North America and 2008 in Europe. Persona 4 reached Japan and North America in 2008 and Europe in 2009. Persona 5 launched in Japan on the 15th of September 2016 and in North America and Europe on the 4th of April 2017, to critical acclaim. The branch also includes Persona Q and Persona Q2, the fighting games Persona 4 Arena and Arena Ultimax, the tactical Persona 5 Tactica, the action game Persona 5 Strikers and the rhythm games Persona 4: Dancing All Night, Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is a crossover fighting game that includes the series.

  The Devil Summoner subseries began in 1995 with Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner. Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers followed in 1997, and Soul Hackers 2 arrived in 2022. Two action prequels set in 1920s Tokyo follow the demon summoner Raidou Kuzunoha. Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army came out in 2006, and Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon in 2008.

  After Shin Megami Tensei II, Atlus began building spin-offs and subseries as part of the franchise. Soon after Nocturne, the Digital Devil Saga duology appeared, using similar systems but intended as a more accessible experience. Atlus made two tactical role-playing games for the DS under the Devil Survivor name, and both received expanded 3DS ports. Last Bible aimed at a younger audience with a pure fantasy setting. Devil Children took inspiration from Pokémon, and Majin Tensei is a series of strategy games. Two notable stand-alone spin-offs are the action game Jack Bros. and Tokyo Mirage Sessions music sharp sign FE, a crossover with the Fire Emblem series from Intelligent Systems.

  Several games reached other screens. Persona 3 became a four-part theatrical adaptation, with the subtitles Spring of Birth, Midsummer Knight's Dream, Falling Down and Winter of Rebirth. It also inspired a series called Persona: Trinity Soul. Persona 4 produced Persona 4: The Animation and Persona 4: The Golden Animation, the latter based on the expanded PlayStation Vita version. A live-action television series based on the first Devil Summoner aired between 1997 and 1998. Devil Survivor 2 became an anime of the same name, and Devil Children received two anime adaptations. Many Shin Megami Tensei and Persona titles also have manga and CD drama versions, and Persona has produced action figures and other merchandise.

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• 8. Cult Hit And Controversy

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  Over four million copies of the series had sold in Japan by 2003, before it found its Western audience. By October 2017, the games outside Persona had sold about 7.2 million copies. A year later, the main series stood at roughly 12.4 million packaged and digital copies worldwide, counting downloads of free-to-play titles. The Persona branch had sold 9.3 million, bringing the franchise total to 21.7 million units by 2018. By 2023, the series outside Persona had supplied 19.2 million copies, and Persona alone had reached 22.6 million units.

  A survey by Nikkei Entertainment on the 16th of December 2023 looked at the Japanese fans of Shin Megami Tensei and Persona together. Their average age was 32, and the male-to-female ratio was 40:60.

  The series is not as prominent as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. Even so, the Japanese website 4Gamer.net called it one of Japan's biggest role-playing franchises, and GameSpot writer Andrew Vestal ranked it third in Japan behind those two. UGO Networks writer K. Thor Jensen credited the first Megami Tensei as the first successful use of cyberpunk style in video games. Nintendo Power observed that Atlus pairs familiar gameplay with surprising settings, citing Persona's modern-day horror stories and teams of Japanese high-school kids. It called Strange Journey a science-fiction makeover of the series.

  Writer Kurt Kalata, discussing the series alongside Nippon Ichi Software's Disgaea, said these games "may not be big sellers, but they've garnered underground success and attracted thousands of obsessed fans." IGN's Matt Coleman called Nocturne "challenging stuff for a genre that used to be all about princess saving and evil cleansing". Famitsu's 2006 audience poll of the top 100 favorite games of all time placed Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II at No. 58 and Shin Megami Tensei at No. 59. RPGFan's list of the top 20 RPGs of the past decade put the two Digital Devil Saga games first, with Persona 3 second and Persona 4 fourth. GameTrailers named the Press Turn system, in its Shin Megami Tensei IV form, among the best JRPG battle systems in existence.

  Critical praise came with controversy in Japan and overseas. Critics pointed to the demon negotiation mechanic, depictions of suicide and cannibalism, religious criticism, mixed Christian and occult imagery, political references, depictions of homosexuality and unusual demon designs. The original Persona raised concern over its religious implications. In 2008, the writers of 1UP.com gave Persona 3 an award for "Most controversial game that created no controversy", pointing to its suicide-initiated battles and a student-teacher dating subplot. GamesRadar listed the series among "Controversies Waiting to Happen" and said its niche status explained the lack of public outcry. Kalata traced the habit back to the Digital Devil Story novels, which showed violence and rape committed by demons. A Chinese game regulation document in 2021 named Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse as an example of unsuitable depictions of religious figures.

  Writing in Black Gate, Josh Bycer compared the series to a more famous monster-collecting game. He said that "the Shin Megami Tensei series is very similar to Pokémon, in the use of an ever changing party roster." Then he added: "However Shin Megami Tensei did come first and is more mature, both in terms of design and storytelling."

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