Can someone please explain to me what SMT is all about and how it relates to the Persona Series? (I honestly have no clue).
I want to get into this series, but I don't know where to start.
This is basically a repost from the first page, with some extra information:
Megami Tensei was a game series, based on the Japanese novel series Digital Devil Story, that started in the NES and featured many mythological creatures, collectivelly called "demons", which the player could recruit to fight alongside them through negotiations during battles. It was basically the first 'monster' franchise, although with a dark story focusing on the battle against hell's forces, and later heaven and hell battling with humanity in the middle of an Earth ruined by the battle (with figures from various mythologies - basically every demon is taken straight out of some legend). The two NES titles were made by Namco, when Atlus rebooted and continued the series in the SNES, it was renamed "Shin Megami Tensei." SMT introduced a law-neutral-chaos axis, which defined the various endings according to which faction the protagonist sides with, heaven's law, the demon's chaos or neither, humanity's neutral.
There was a SMT title for the SNES called "SMT:If" that changed several of the conventions that the series had up to then. It took place in an alternative timeline from the first two SMT games, where the all out war between law and chaos never happened, not following up their story directly. Rather than siding with factions, you chose a character to team up with and that was what changed the storyline and ending. It also introduced a "Guardian Spirit" mechanic, involving associating demons with the hero to get different boosts. It also focused strictly on high school characters, while still keeping the demon system from the previous games.
SMT:If's new mechanics and ideas, rather than staying in future SMT titles, were eventually further developed when Atlus made the original Persona for the Playstation (which was still labeled as a "Megami" title in Japan, although its successors weren't), which continued the world featured in SMT:If and greatly expanded on the Guardian Spirit mechanic with the new "Personas", which replaced the recruitable demons. Spells, fusions and demon/persona designs still are often shared between Persona and the original SMT series, but the focus, structure and tone of the story is very different. The routine and social links only exist in Persona - which dropped demons as party members since the start, and later also dumped demon negotiation. Meanwhile, negotiations and recruiting demons is still a core part of mainline SMT, which also continued focusing on battles involving heavenly and demonic forces with humanity's future in the middle.
