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Is Persona killing Shin Megami Tensei series? [yes]
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Played basically every megaten stuff post 2003. DDS1/2, Nocturne, DeSu1/2 were a lot easier than SJ imo
He complains that it's been two years since we've been given new info on SMTV, ignoring the years and years that passed with radio silence on Persona 5, only to end with repeated delays. He also complains about no new SMT spinoffs in that same timeframe, ignoring Strange Journey Redux and Liberation Dx2.
There's no evidence at all to suggest SMT is dead or dying. It's always been a niche series and the video feels angry about Persona's popularity for no reason.
There's no evidence at all to suggest SMT is dead or dying. It's always been a niche series and the video feels angry about Persona's popularity for no reason.
If I'm being fully honest I feel that even Shin Megami Tensei II had major problems with this. In a series about philosophical debate and meaningful choice there is literally no reason not to pick Chaos in that game.
The only games in the series to do LNC correct are SMT1, DeSu vanilla, and Strange Journey. Even my beloved Raidou games faltered with this in Devil Summoner 2.
Wait, I just watched the video and that dude's main argument is that Persona doesn't have SMT title now, so people don't know it is SMT....
Ummm... Someone should let him know that the SMT name was only given to Persona in west because of brand recognition and Persona was never SMT to begin with.
Ummm... Someone should let him know that the SMT name was only given to Persona in west because of brand recognition and Persona was never SMT to begin with.
Anime isn't just one thing, berserk is one of the darkest stories ive ever fell in love with and it's anime, it even indulges in anime tropes from time to time
Devil Survivor 1 is bloody hard as well, though. And Nocturne can definitely be very hard with its back to back bosses and Labyrinth of Amala (plus for a lot of us Nocturne was our first SMT, so it was all about getting used to the systems, which are unlike other games).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelations:_Persona#Development
Persona is a spin off of MegaTen, though. SMT if... was the precursor to the first Persona and was what led to its creation in the first place.
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The title is obviously an overreaction (it could be reality years from now though), but the series is getting outshadowed by Persona, part of it because Atlus is investing on its most successful IP, still SMTIV sold well and you'd think Atlus will now give SMT the Persona treatment (that's what happened with Persona after 3), bringing back spin-offs, more marketing and all that jazz, and unfortunately no signs of that at all. (yet?)
The video is clearly a rant for the lack of news and unless they have a surprise segment, there won't be any SMT news at SEGA Fes. (the only Atlus segment is about Persona)
SMT isn't going to get the Persona treatment unless it starts selling Persona numbers. I doubt SMTIV sold as well as Persona 4, for example.
SMT was smaller than Persona even before Persona 3 be it in japan or the west. The only difference is that in older gens Atlus could make much more games for the franchise but otherwise, the marketing never got different.
And the teams are completely different so they don't overlap with each other.
And the teams are completely different so they don't overlap with each other.
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It sold about as much as Persona 3 on single platform (not combined).
Also that's kind of an unfair comparison because Atlus did both handheld and home console versions of Persona since 3, while they never did it for SMT on Wii and Wii U. You could argue we could have seen this coming, but we are seeing the effects only now with HD development of all their series. (except Atlus had one decade to make the work they're only doing now bringing everything in 3D and HD)
BS, prior to 3 very few people cared about Persona. (Atlus itself barely acknowledge the first two entries)
It's not bullshit. Persona was already selling better than SMT even before P3 in Japan. The west is a different story.
Go here and compare their sales
https://sites.google.com/site/gamedatalibrary/game-search
100% truth. I would totally play SMT more if it wasn't on farty little handheld consoles I have no interest in buying or playing games on.
There is NO reason both SMT and Persona can't co-exist and I don't know for the life of me why fans of one wouldn't play and enjoy the other. Reminds me of Shenmue fans vowing to never play a Yakuza game because they stole the limelight... It's like... Good job, you could be enjoying the next best thing but instead, you're dunking on yourself...
The Japanese fanbase is largely on portable consoles nowadays, which is their primary market.
Sega isn't the publisher of Atlus titles. Even after they got bought, Atlus still publish all of their titles in Japan and in US
SMT franchise isn't in the gutter, like at all. And in that same period came SMTIV which is the best-selling game of the franchise in 3DS, while Nocturne couldn't reach it when it was on an install base much bigger.
In the gutter? The next big game from Atlus is SMT V...wtf are you talking about?
The real Atlus question is, what killed Trauma Center? Was it the awful cover from New Blood? They could have kept making low budget games for the 3ds if motion controls going away was the problem.
About SMT, tho, hasn't this been the situation ever since the ps2 era? At least is surprised me back in the day the jump between consoles that the SMT series had made. I wouldn't say it's dead, but it's just not as popular.
About SMT, tho, hasn't this been the situation ever since the ps2 era? At least is surprised me back in the day the jump between consoles that the SMT series had made. I wouldn't say it's dead, but it's just not as popular.
Trauma Center didn't sell, and I guess they didn't want to use double screen either.
Doubt it'd sell on mobile too.
honestly maybe this is a cold take but i really liked the shading style used in new blood, and i get that the 3DS's screen was so small that doing this much detail would have been pointless for the 3DS SMT titles, but if smt5 chooses to go with talking character portraits i hope they commit to this level
Yeah. One thing I liked about Devil Survivor is that it mostly seemed to take the alignments and focus on what a person may actually like about them rather than taking them to extremes.
SMT4 sold almost as well as Persona 4 Golden which IIRC before Persona 5 was the best-selling Persona game. 600k worldwide in about 2 years vs 700k in about 1.5 years.
Trauma Team bombed badly. It's a real shame since it's an amazing game.
Devil Survivor 1's biggest strength is that the Law and Chaos avatars were, like, their own people who had their own goals before the events of the game started. By comparison, Devil Survivor 2, where the non-alignment avatar characters were way too eager to start Alignment Philosophizing after they found out the nature of the game's events, and Shin Megami Tensei 4, where it feels like the writers knew Jon and Walt had to become alignment avatars but didn't know how to get them there so after being largely normal for the whole game they just kind of snap for no discernible reason, are huge let downs.
I don't know what "the Persona treatment" would look like for SMT. I feel like Persona's unique qualities lend it to spinoff and merchandising opportunities that SMT doesn't.
Even if SMT did Persona numbers they're not going to make SMT IV: Dancing All Night.
I'd hardly consider it in the gutter sales-wise. It consistently does pretty well.
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Atlus already threw some attempts of new kinds of SMT spin-offs with the mobile game Dx2 Liberation and the free side scroller Synchronicity Prologue, that's the SMT version of Dancing All Night.
My prediction is that if SMTV is successful enough, they will make Synchronicity games for PC (not for free this time obviously)
If Synchronicity was SMT's equivalent of Dancing, then please bring on more SMT Dancing. Synchronicity was excellent, and the fact that they called it "Synchronicity Prologue" made it sound like they could potentially do a full game out of it. I would love to see that.
Persona - wow, she's a great character and I'm going to work on building up the MC and her relationship.
Shin Megami Tensei - THAT FUCKING DEMON ATE MY WAIFU!!!!
I personally love both of these series including all the Shin Megami Tensei spin offs. I'm not too big on the Persona spin offs.
Is Persona killing the mainline series? No, if you think about what Atlus is doing you'll see they're just chasing the money off the hype of Persona 5 right now.
Shin Megami Tensei IV was a critical and commercial success for them.
Persona 5 blew up for them deservingly so. The only mistake they made was taking out the Shin Megami Tensei moniker from the Persona series as now there's a portion of the Persona fan base that doesn't know its connected to the Shin Megami Tensei universe.
I absolutely love the Persona series including 1 & 2 but I still hold the mainline SMT series in a higher regard.
Shin Megami Tensei - THAT FUCKING DEMON ATE MY WAIFU!!!!
I personally love both of these series including all the Shin Megami Tensei spin offs. I'm not too big on the Persona spin offs.
Is Persona killing the mainline series? No, if you think about what Atlus is doing you'll see they're just chasing the money off the hype of Persona 5 right now.
Shin Megami Tensei IV was a critical and commercial success for them.
Persona 5 blew up for them deservingly so. The only mistake they made was taking out the Shin Megami Tensei moniker from the Persona series as now there's a portion of the Persona fan base that doesn't know its connected to the Shin Megami Tensei universe.
I absolutely love the Persona series including 1 & 2 but I still hold the mainline SMT series in a higher regard.
In Japan it never had the SMT moniker. The first game was titled "Megami Ibunroku: Persona" in Japan. Megami Ibunroku means "Strange Tale of the Goddess". The original English release (the butchered PS1 version) was titled "Revelations: Persona", but that was before the SMT name was used in the west. Persona 2 and onward in Japan didn't have a prefix to the title, they were just "Persona 2: Innocent Sin/Eternal Punishment, "Persona 3", and so on. They were implicitly related to SMT in Japan, but aren't SMT. In the west Persona 3 and 4's original releases were branded with the "Shin Megami Tensei" name, as well as Persona 1 on PSP. This was dropped for P4G, P5, and all the spinoffs that were released in the west.
Interestingly enough, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE was titled "Genei Ibunroku #FE", translating to "Illusory Revelations #FE". Given the title's vague ties to SMT in Japanese, it was fitting that it was *somewhat* tied to SMT, but not really an SMT game. The title becoming "Tokyo Mirage Sessions" (SMT backwards) was a really good localized title for the game.
If you look up "ibun," you do get "strange tale" or "rumor," but I think the name is a clever way to signify to ATLUS fans that this is the same, but "different," which is what the "i" in "ibun" means. Japanese Wikipedia classifies both SMT and Persona under a broader "Megami Tensei" series, and provides a quote that the series was invented to reach those who weren't familiar with the MT series.
If it had been a Switch launch period title and named Persona x Fire Emblem it would have sold ten times as many copies. It's a fantastic game, better than Persona 5.
If it comes to Switch period I bet it would do a lot better than on Wii U.
Devil Survivor 1 felt like it put each character's personal goals first and alignments second. The latter were basically only a means to an end. Amane might be the shining example of this. She is technically the game's Law character, but her real goal is ensuring humanity's wellbeing. So when you choose the Neutral Gin/Haru route and talk to her, she is able to recognize that even though it isn't the method she would have chosen herself, as a Law person, it is still a way to reach her goal.
Honestly speaking (some) Japanese companies and devs are weird with their branding and are sometimes convoluted.
I remember watching some Japanese press conference where guys went up to the podium and described their games concept as mash ups of X games series combined with X games franchise.
In this age where branding can elavate a franchise I think it's a missed opportunity for Atlus not to include the Shin Megami Tensei into the Persona series.
Persona 3 was a lot of people firsts into the Persona franchise and because it had Shin Megami Tensei in its title some of the people went and looked up the other Shin Megami Tensei games and saw it was all connected.
I'm not doom and gloom on the mainline series because I know Persona 5 is the hotness for Atlus right now and they want to milk it dry before even thinking about a possible Persona 6 or anything else. I'm just amazed that Atlus doesn't treat the mainline SMT games better since before the Megami Tensei franchise fell on their lap they were making shitty NES license movie games.
But it's not a Persona game in any way. People like to scream about the colorful setting and high school cast, but the game mechanics are distinct from Persona in the ways that other spin-offs distinguish themselves from the ideas of core MegaTen.
Ugh, I hated the alignment lock in 4, John and Walt just basically take a flying leap off the slippery slope with no real reason for it.
The dynamic of the 4 samurai beforehand was great.
I think one of SMTIV's biggest strength is it's environments and subtle storytelling. Obviously there are moments where they beat you over the head with plot reveals, but a lot of them they just leave to the player to interpret. This applies to general world building too. One of my favorite examples of this: Read relic descriptions before you sell them. It's all the samurai trying to understand what the objects are and it shows the culture shock between Mikado and Tokyo.
Spoiler example:
Tayama, the leader of the Ashura-kai is a pedophile, but they never tell you this straight up. He shows the kids that stay in his building on the monitor to the samurai, then when you go to the Reverse Hills dungeon, in one of the rooms is a little girl. She talks about how she will "get to marry Mr. Tayama...
What the hell ever happened to Devilizer? Or are they just sitting on trademarks of stuff they might call their games just in case they do end up making a game asnd call it Devilizer?
They should put Persona on all platforms, make SMT multiplatform as well and use that money to give the main series a decent budget.
SMT if... was a spin off of MegaTen that was well received so Atlus decided make a new franchise that is inspired by that.
Persona itself wasn't titled "SMT Persona" in Japan and the franchise wasn't made as a spin-off of SMT.
Do any of the series that go into overly-anime-tropey territory ever actually leave?
Right. Persona is not an SMT spin off but still a part of the MegaTen umbrella. My point was that SMT isn't as separate as some Persona fans like to make it. They're all part of the same whole for me and becoming more and more similar nowadays (Apocalypse was pretty damn close to Persona and P5's dungeons were very PS2 era SMT/DDS).
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