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Megami Tensei, marketed internationally as Shin Megami Tensei (formerly Revelations), is a Japanese media franchise created by Aya Nishitani, Kouji Okada, Ginichiro Suzuki, and Kazunari Suzuki. Primarily developed and published by Atlus, the franchise consists of multiple subseries and covers multiple role-playing video game genres including tactical role-playing, action role-playing, and massively multiplayer online role-playing. The first two titles in the series were published by Namco (now Bandai Namco Entertainment), but have been almost always published by Atlus in Japan and North America since the release of Shin Megami Tensei. For Europe, Atlus publishes the games through third-party companies.
The series was originally based on Digital Devil Story, a science fiction novel series by Aya Nishitani. The series takes its name from the first book's subtitle. Most Megami Tensei titles are stand-alone entries with their own stories and characters. Recurring elements include plot themes, a story shaped by the player's choices, and the ability to fight using and often recruit creatures (demons, Personas) to aid the player in battle. Elements of philosophy, religion, occultism, and science fiction have all been incorporated into the series at different times.
While not maintaining as high a profile as series such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, it is highly popular in Japan and maintains a strong cult following in the West, finding critical and commercial success. The series has become well known for its artistic direction, challenging gameplay, and music, but raised controversy over its mature content, dark themes, and use of Christian religious imagery. Additional media include manga adaptations, anime films, and television series.
In Japan, some games in the series do not use the " Megami Tensei" title, such as the Persona sub-series. Many of the early games in the series were not localized due to potentially controversial content including religious references, and later due to their age. English localizations have used the " Shin Megami Tensei" moniker since the release of in 2004.
After an eight-year gap, , was released for the Xbox in 2002. Originally designed as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), it was later split into a dual single-player and multiplayer package, and the single-player version released first. The online version was delayed and eventually cancelled as the developers could not manage the required online capacities using Xbox Live.. was released in 2003 for the PlayStation 2. Its Maniax Edition director's cut was released in Japan and North America in 2004, and in Europe in 2005. The numeral was dropped for its North American release, and its title changed to Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call in Europe. The next entry, , was released for the Nintendo DS in 2009 in Japan and 2010 in North America. Shin Megami Tensei IV for the Nintendo 3DS was released in 2013 in Japan and North America, and a year later in Europe as a digital-only release. Another game set in the same universe, , was released for the 3DS in February 2016 in Japan. Shin Megami Tensei V was released on the Nintendo Switch in 2021. An enhanced version of the game titled Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance was released in June 2024 for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
In addition to the main series, there are also numerous spin-offs. Amongst the most notable ones are , a true MMOROG released for Microsoft Windows in 2007 in Japan, 2008 in North America, and 2009 in Europe. Western service was terminated in 2014 when Marvelous USA, the game's then-handlers, shut down their PC Online game department. Its Japanese service ended in May 2016. A smartphone game, , was released in 2018.
Shin Megami Tensei II is one of the notable early exceptions to the series' common setting, as it is set in a science fiction-styled future despite still including fantasy elements. The Last Bible series also shifted to a full fantasy setting. Two more recent notable departures were Strange Journey, which shifted the focus to Antarctica to portray the threat on a global scale, and Shin Megami Tensei IV, which included a medieval-stage society existing separately from a modern-day Tokyo. The Devil Summoner games take the form of modern-day detective stories as opposed to post-apocalyptic settings.
The series title translates as "Reincarnation of the Goddess": this has carried over into the current Shin Megami Tensei series, which has been officially translated as "True Goddess Metempsychosis". The word "Metempsychosis" refers to the cycle of reincarnation that ties into many Megami Tensei stories. The reborn goddess of the title has multiple meanings: it refers to a female character in each game that could be interpreted as the goddess, and is also representative of the drastic changes a location undergoes during a game. The concept of reincarnation was also included in narratives and gameplay mechanics to tie in with these themes. The series' overarching title has been truncated to " MegaTen" by series fans. Originating in Japan, the abbreviation has become a common term for the series among its fans. Its subseries Persona is named as " Nǚshén Yìwénlù" () in Chinese, originating from the Japan version of Megami Tensei series used this term as subtitles in early spin-offs.
The layouts of the first two Megami Tensei games were noticeably different from later games: Megami Tensei used a 3D first-person perspective, while Megami Tensei II used a combination of first-person 3D displays for battle and top-down 2D displays for navigation. The change was suggested by staff members who did not want players getting lost in a large 3D environment. The 2D/first person viewpoint continued until Nocturne, which switched to a third-person perspective. This was done due to a condition similar to car sickness called "3D sickness" with first person shooters in Japan at the time: the developers wanted something for players to focus on. A first-person perspective was reintroduced in Strange Journey, and incorporated into IVs battles along with navigable 3D environments.
The stories of the core Shin Megami Tensei titles frequently include fighting against a tyrannical God. The method of story-telling in the series can involve traditional use of cutscenes and spoken dialogue ( Persona, Digital Devil Saga), or a text-based minimalist approach that places emphasis on atmosphere ( Nocturne). A tradition within the core Shin Megami Tensei series is to focus on a single playable character as opposed to a group. Alongside other recurring characters is Lucifer, the fallen angel who stands against God and is portrayed in multiple forms to represent his omnipotence. Since Megami Tensei II, the series has used a morality-based decision system, where the player's actions affect the outcome of the story. In Megami Tensei II, the alignments were first defined as "Law" (the forces of God) and "Chaos" (the army of Lucifer). In future games, an additional "Neutral" route was included where the player could reject both sides. Selected games have been thematically or otherwise linked to a particular alignment. Shin Megami Tensei II, due to events prior to the story, focuses on the "Law" alignment. For Nocturne, all the characters were roughly aligned with "Chaos", which was done both to bring variety to the series and allow the development team more creative freedom. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse is restricted to a "Neutral" alignment while still having multiple endings. The three-tiered alignment was used in Strange Journey, and continued into Shin Megami Tensei IV.
The majority of the Megami Tensei series is developed by Atlus' R&D Department 1. Other developers have been involved with the series: these include Multimedia Intelligence Transfer ( Last Bible series), Lancarse ( Strange Journey), CAVE ( Imagine) and Nex Entertainment ( Nine), and Arc System Works ( Persona 4 Arena). Most of the games up to 2003 were handled by Okada, but when he departed to form his own company Gaia, Kazuma Kaneko became the series' creative director. There are two main writers in the franchise: Shogo Isogai and Ryutaro Ito. Ito first worked on Megami Tensei II, joining the team after development to write the script, along with working with the script and being part of the debug team. Isogai's first work for the series was the script for Shin Megami Tensei II. The next entry If... was also written by Ito, and designed as a departure from the grand scale of previous games, instead being set within a cloistered school environment. His final work for the series was the first Devil Summoner. Isogai also worked on Shin Megami Tensei II and If..., and later worked on multiple Devil Summoner games, Nocturne and Strange Journey. The music for the first five main Megami Tensei titles was composed by Tsukasa Masuko. For Nocturne, Shoji Meguro, who had done work on earlier spin-off titles, was brought in. He later became well known for his work on the Persona titles.
Soejima's first work for the series was as part of the digital coloring team for the first Devil Summoner. He later had minor roles in artwork and character design in the first Persona and Soul Hackers. He later did the secondary characters for the Persona 2 duology, and was also part of the team checking over the PlayStation ports of the first three Shin Megami Tensei games, as well as minor work on Nocturne. Soejima was chosen as the lead designer for Persona 3 by Kaneko, as Kaneko wanted the younger staff members to gain experience. Persona 3 proved challenging for Soejima as he needed to refine his drawing style and take the expectations of series fans into account. He would go on to design for Persona 3/FES and Portable, Persona 4, and Persona 5. Soejima's drawing style is recognized as being lighter-toned than Kaneko's work on the Shin Megami Tensei games.
Other designers have also worked on the series. For Nine, the developers wanted to have a new style to suit the game's original vision, so the characters were designed by animator Yasuomi Umetsu. the new main designer for the series is Masayuki Doi, who had made a name for himself with the Trauma Center series; and designed the main characters for Shin Megami Tensei IV. Inspired in his work by Kaneko's designs, he created the main characters' clothing to be a blend of Japanese and western fashions while incorporating design elements from the Star Wars series. After the success of IV, he went on to become the main demon designer for and Shin Megami Tensei V, while still retaining his job as lead character designer. For the Devil Survivor games, Atlus were aiming to appeal to a wider audience and reinvigorate the Megami Tensei franchise, hiring Suzuhito Yasuda as character designer for this purpose. Some monsters in the second Devil Survivor were designed by manga artist Mohiro Kitoh.
Nocturne was the first release in the Shin Megami Tensei series to be released overseas. After the release of Nocturne, Atlus' overseas branches decided to add the Shin Megami Tensei moniker to future releases within the Megami Tensei franchise to help market the games. Despite many of the original games not bearing the moniker, it ultimately worked in Atlus' favor as, regardless of title differences, the games chosen for localization were all part of the larger Megami Tensei franchise, and using the core Shin Megami Tensei moniker kept all the titles under a single banner. Before this decision was made, the series was given the localized title Revelations, used for the first Persona and the first Last Bible. Later, changes to titles were made to make them less unwieldy, such as with Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army. Called Raidō Kuzunoha vs. The Super-Powered Army in Japan, the title was altered as it sounded "goofy" in English. By the time Strange Journey was in development, the franchise had a strong presence overseas, so the team created Strange Journey with localization in mind: the two aspects actively linked with this were the game's setting in Antarctica as opposed to modern-day Japan, and the fact that it was not given a numeral. Starting with Shin Megami Tensei IV, the company decided to actively promote the franchise overseas to North America, Europe and mainland Asia. After 2016, due to Atlus USA's merger with Sega of America, Sega took over North American publishing duties, although the Atlus brand remained intact.
In general, Atlus publishes Megami Tensei games in Japan and North America, but as they lack a European branch, they publish titles in the region through third-party companies such as Ghostlight and NIS America. Their latest partnership, after their deal with NIS America ended with the publication of Odin Sphere, was with European publishing firm Deep Silver to publish multiple titles in the region, including Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and Persona 5. Atlus has occasionally published titles digitally in Europe.
Japanese website 4Gamer.net referred to the series as one of Japan's biggest role-playing franchises. UGO Networks writer K. Thor Jensen cited the first Megami Tensei game as the first successful use of cyberpunk aesthetics in video games, saying that the series' mix of science fiction elements and the occult "create a truly unique fictional cyberpunk world". Nintendo Power has noted that Atlus always mixes "familiar gameplay" with surprising settings when creating games for the series, citing Persona, with its "modern-day horror stories" and "teams of Japanese high-school kids", as the perfect example. The editor also added that Strange Journey followed a similar system, calling it a "science-fiction makeover" of the series. In an article about the interaction of Japanese and Western gaming culture, 1UP.com mentioned the Shin Megami Tensei subseries alongside Nippon Ichi Software's Disgaea series. Kurt Kalata wrote: "They may not be big sellers, but they've garnered underground success and attracted thousands of obsessed fans." GameSpot writer Andrew Vestal referred to the series as the third biggest RPG series in Japan after Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. IGN Matt Coleman mentioned Nocturne in the article "A History of Console RPGs", referring to its content as "challenging stuff for a genre that used to be all about princess saving and evil cleansing".
Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II and Shin Megami Tensei both appeared on Famitsu 2006 "Top 100 Favorite Games of All Time" audience poll at No. 58 and No. 59, respectively. RPGFan's "Top 20 RPGs of the Past Decade" list was topped by the two Digital Devil Saga games, followed by Persona 3 in second place, while Persona 4 ranked fourth place. Kalata, writing for Gamasutra, referred to Nocturne as one of the 20 essential RPGs for players of the genre. GameTrailers cited the Press Turn system as one of the best JRPG battle systems in existence, with particular reference to the version used in Shin Megami Tensei IV.
Alongside its critical acclaim, the series has garnered controversy both in Japan and overseas. Amongst the material cited are its demon negotiation mechanic, depictions of suicide and cannibalism, religious criticism, its use and mixture of Christian and occult imagery, political references, depictions of homosexuality, and its sometimes-strange demon designs. Specific examples have been cited by western journalists. The original release of Persona caused concern due to the title's religious implications. 1UP.com's 2007 game awards, which ran in the March 2008 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Persona 3 was given the "Most controversial game that created no controversy" award: the writers said "Rockstar Games's Hot Coffee sex scandal and Bullys boy-on-boy kissing's got nothing on this PS2 role-player's suicide-initiated battles or subplot involving student-teacher dating." GamesRadar included the series on its list of "Controversies Waiting to Happen", saying that the lack of public outcry was due to its niche status when compared to other series with similar content. Writing for 1UP.com in a later article, Kalata traced this use of controversial content back to the Digital Devil Story novels, which depicted violence and rape committed by demons, and said that "Such violence is not particularly rare in the land of Japanese animation, but it became even more disturbing in Megami Tensei II. A Chinese game regulation document in 2021 cited Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse as an example of unsuitable depictions of religious figures.
In a review of the Shin Megami Tensei series in Black Gate, Josh Bycer said "the Shin Megami Tensei series is very similar to Pokémon, in the use of an ever changing party roster. However Shin Megami Tensei did come first and is more mature, both in terms of design and storytelling."
(2026). 9780974170046, DoubleJump Publishing. ISBN 9780974170046
(2006). 9780761554479, DoubleJump Publishing. ISBN 9780761554479
(1993). 9784757200142, ASCII Media Works. ISBN 9784757200142
(2026). 9784775301494, Shinkigensha. ISBN 9784775301494
(2026). 9784775303153, Shinkigensha. ISBN 9784775303153
(2006). 9784775303504, Shinkigensha. ISBN 9784775303504
(2008). 9784775306093, Shinkigensha. ISBN 9784775306093
(2010). 9781926778327, Udon Entertainment. ISBN 9781926778327
(2013). 9781926778730, Udon Entertainment. ISBN 9781926778730
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