I've probably played almost every game under the Megaten umbrella, and I get the feeling I'm the person randomkid was referencing in his earlier post.
These are ordered based on my preference, but I haven't numbered them since a couple of them are kinda semi-tied. Apologies for the length, but I had a fair bit to say about some of them!
Shin Megami Tensei 3 - When this first came out, I wasn't a big fan. Shin Megami Tensei 2 was a game that, quite frankly, changed my outlook on video games. It was such an incredible experience, and I really wanted to see Atlus expand more upon the things that made that game great. Instead, what I got was something very different. A hero who can't equip guns or swords, and actually
becomes a demon? And there's no humans anywhere to talk to? It was so strange. But when the Maniax version released and I got to delve into the Amala Labyrinth, it really took hold of me. I began to really appreciate things about the game that I didn't see before, and frankly the game feels better balanced in the Maniax release, as well. The new content is so seamlessly integrated that I'm sure those who played it for the first time never realized that content wasn't there originally. The beauty of the battle system made itself apparent to me here, as well. Some call it broken, but I have always felt that it's completely fair. Sure, you can overpower your enemies by exploiting their weaknesses, but all mistakes you can make are punished harshly by removing turns, or worse, giving you status effects. And everything you can do, the enemies can do right back to you. The magatama system also finally gave you a way to customize your hero, which is something I didn't even know I wanted until I got it. The negotiation system was also really interesting to me, as well. Finally you could gain the ability to speak with demons you otherwise were unable to, and demons could even speak on your behalf. And if you know your mythology, you can even use that to your advantage and have demons with actual mythological relationships speak to each other. Over time, this game elevated itself to my absolute favorite. The atmosphere, the graphical style, the music, the combat system, they're all so wonderful. I just love it to bits.
Shin Megami Tensei 2 - As I mentioned above, this game changed my outlook on video games. I had played a lot of RPGs before playing it, and few of them had quite the impact on me that this game had. The setting is really interesting, really building heavily upon what SMT1 established. A post-apocalyptic world, now much more established, with all kinds of factions and people who have very different views of how the world should be. And it had some really chilling scenarios, particularly the factory area, which was accompanied by
music that still gives me goosebumps to this day. Top it off with a more advanced version of the fusion system from SMT1, where this time demons could actually inherit some skills from their parents, which I thought was super cool at the time.
Soul Hackers - This game is so cool. It really went full bore with the cyberpunk aesthetic that prior games in the franchise had been hinting at. The music has a similar kind of dreamy vibe to Persona's, and I really liked how the vision quests had their own versions of the area music. Speaking of the vision quests, I found that whole setup to be really novel, being able to see through the eyes of other people and see what they saw. The demon loyalty system was really neat, if not easily abusable, and although it debuted in Devil Summoner, I first saw it here. The whole idea of a virtual world was really interesting back in 1997, I think, and hadn't really been done to death as it has been now. Coming off of Persona, I really appreciated the quicker combat system too. To this day, I consider this game to be one of my favorite RPGs, even if it isn't quite so unique these days. The 3DS remake really improved a lot of the more iffy aspects, particularly the battle speed, which made me fall in love with the game all over again.
Shin Megami Tensei 4 - I'm not one to say things like this generally, but for a lack of a better way to express it, I think that this game has balls. I still can't believe the developers decided to take the risk of starting it the way it does, because it can and did turn people off quite easily. But once I made it past the minotaur and Medusa, the feeling I had as I walked out into Tokyo is something that I had not felt in a very long time. Indeed, perhaps not since SMT2. And it's really obvious to me that the developers wanted to invoke SMT2. The entire Tokyo portion of the game feels like a love letter to that game, and it's the main reason why I love it so much. Add to that the triumphant return of the press turn system from SMT3, and a fusion system that actually gives you control over your results, and you've got a really special game on your hands.
Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2 - I am grouping these together because, frankly, they're one game in my mind. This was Atlus's attempt at a more cinematic approach to an RPG under the Megaten umbrella, and I think it worked really well. No demon party members, no fusion. The sphere grid-inspired mantra systems (in 2, especially) were pretty interesting, and certainly gave me what I felt was a good enough amount of control over my party. I really love the graphical style and the music, and the return of the press-turn combat system from SMT3 was super welcome. The dungeon design is quite good, right up there with SMT3. The Junkyard really sucked me in in the first "half," and the twist at the midpoint really threw me for a loop. The world you're thrown into afterward, and its politics, are also incredibly interesting to me. It's a good thing that the gap between the two wasn't too long.
Megami Tensei 2 - This is the game that started it all for me. My first Megaten game, and in fact one of my first RPGs. It was so much more advanced than the other first-person RPGs I had seen before, such as Wizardry. The demon recruitment and fusion systems alone were totally unlike anything I'd ever played before. Another thing I really like is something that I didn't appreciate until I played MT1, but the game starts out with a neat top-down game that is basically the beginning of MT1. A super neat touch. The music in the game is fantastic, using the 4-channel version of the Namco 163 chip which added a much more layered sound to the music than I'd heard in other Famicom games at the time.
Shin Megami Tensei - The leap from MT2 to this game was huge. You can really tell they had some great ideas and they were finally unfettered by the book license that originally birthed the series. The presentation was top notch and beyond anything I expected going in. I really like the way the game begins, in a dream sequence where you can actually meet and name your characters that you'll be meeting on your journey. It was really interesting to actually start in a modern Tokyo setting, too. The previous games had much less ordinary settings, and I think that really added to the game's appeal. In the grand scheme of the franchise, this game has been greatly surpassed by its predecessors, but it still means a lot to me for the role it played in my childhood, so I guess nostalgia holds it up a bit, if you want to say that.
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey - Ever since Atlus released Etrian Odyssey, I had really been craving a new first-person mainline SMT game. I repeatedly talked about how cool it would be if they just used the EO engine to make a new one. So when SJ was announced, I was completely blown over. I was finally getting what I wanted! SJ isn't quite in line with the mainline games. It is much closer to Wizardry (or EO, if you will) in that it has the main base and you go into dungeons branching out from there. Even with this difference in format, I mostly had a pretty good time with the game. I'm not a big fan of the musical style, though, nor do I really care for the demon co-op system since it is completely one-sided and offers no risks for the player (i.e., enemies can't use it at all). The demon source system was kinda novel, but the implementation was kinda iffy for me. The demonica suit system was a nice throwback to the GUMP system from Soul Hackers, though.
Persona 2: Innocent Sin - I wasn't sure about this game at first. No first-person dungeons? What! But honestly it worked out really well, in the end. They upped the dungeon complexity, without making it too obtuse (looking at you, Phantasy Star 2). The character interactions are such a huge step over Persona 1, and the ability for them to team up to make contacts was really neat as well. The combat system takes a bit of getting used to, but I like the efficiency once you get it set up, particularly for setting up fusion attacks. It has such an interesting tone compared to the rest of the franchise, and something about it is just irresistible.
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment - A Persona game that
doesn't take place in high school? Well, frankly, after finishing Innocent Sin, the idea of a parallel world version of Persona 2 where Maya is the heroine and the events of Innocent Sin didn't happen was incredibly appealing, so I jumped on it immediately. It's such a neat idea. I waffle on whether I like Innocent Sin or Eternal Punishment more on a frequent basis, so these are kinda tied right now, but EP has a faster battle system and I like the unique bits of music it has more than IS, so I tend to lean that way lately.
Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon - This game fixed every issue I had with the first Raidou game. The combat is dramatically better, and the story kinda suits me a little bit better than the first game's, as well. I really like how they made the luck stat important here, and I also love that alignment is really important. In fact, the game really felt like the most "mainline" Megaten game we'd had in a very long time at the time of its release, particularly when you also take the negotiation system into account. I really like how you can send your demons in to negotiate with their conversation skills. The fusion system also allowing you to choose some of the abilities you carry over was also super welcome.
Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - I was excited to see the announcement of the return of the Devil Summoner series, but it being an action RPG was really strange. The combat system in this game is really basic, and not particularly fun, but it was serviceable enough to get through the game. I love the setting (a lot), and the musical style, as well as the adventure game aspect with the detective system and how your demons work into it. The direction the story goes is hilarious, but I like how it ties into SMT1.
Persona - After SMT If..., I was a little cautious about another game with a school setting from Atlus. But since it wasn't Shin Megami Tensei, I figured it should be different enough to be interesting. I really like the setting, and the music has a super dreamy vibe to it that nobody else was really doing at the time. The way the game opens was kind of chilling for me at the time, with the way they start playing a game and things actually start happening in the real world. I really liked the combination of 3D dungeons and 2D areas where you could talk to NPCs and stuff. I also really liked the idea of assigning personas to characters, giving them different kinds of abilities to use. It was almost like a job system, and DQ3/FF3/FF5 had already taught me to love them in the years prior. This game has a bad reputation for a bunch of reasons, some of which I'll agree with. The dungeon design is not particularly interesting, even if the actual locales are pretty neat. And the battles are fairly slow in the original version of the game. But overall, I'm a pretty big fan of the game, and I love how it has essentially two completely disparate paths to play through. I know American gamers missed out on this originally, and I always wonder if it may have gone over well had the Snow Queen scenario been in the original release. We may never know now!
Persona 4 - This game really improved upon the stuff from Persona 3 I didn't like, and although it still focuses heavily on the social links, I think I minded it less here because I actually like the characters more. I really like the main storyline, and the musical style is much more suited to me than Persona 3's. I also like how each dungeon has a theme to at least differentiate itself some from the others, and of course the manual party member control here was huge.
Devil Survivor - Although the Megaten franchise has had many attempts at strategy RPGs, this was the first time I really felt that they actually hit it. And it doesn't surprise me, since it was developed by developers with a lot of SRPG experience (Careersoft, of Growlanser and Langrisser fame). I love how the combat works, allowing each unit to have a whole party associated with it and switching to a normal menu-driven system where you can exploit weaknesses for extra turns. This also has what I think is one of the best alignment systems in the whole franchise. The demon auction system was also pretty interesting, although the lack of a compendium felt a little restrictive. Sadly, the music is pretty crappy, and that's my most major complaint with the game.
Persona 3 - The day Persona 3 was announced, I couldn't sit still. A new Persona game omggg. Sadly, it didn't turn out to be what I expected it to be, even if it was a fairly good game. The total focus on school life had yet to become a downer for me compared to these days, although I wasn't big on the social link aspect or the personal stat "grinding." I also found Tartarus to be really boring after a time, with the floors barely differentiating themselves from each other and the layouts being randomized. I did like how the music built upon itself as you got higher though. The battle system felt like a step down compared to the press-turn system in prior games, although being without the ability to manually control my party members didn't help either. Overall, I like the game, but it doesn't stack up to the earlier games in the series in my mind.
Megami Tensei - I played this after MT2, but it still really impressed me, because it has the same kind of demon recruiting and fusion, but in a game that was released in 1987. It's quite a bit uglier than MT2, but still cooler looking than Wizardry, so it was enough for me to enjoy it. It isn't a very long game, but really cool either way, especially when compared to its peers.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner (Saturn) - I missed out on this game for a little while since I didn't buy a Saturn until later, and as a result I ended up playing it after Persona 1 and Soul Hackers. I think that may have reduced some of the impact of it being the first 3D Megami Tensei game. Putting myself in the mindset of its release period, I think it's a very cool take on the formula. The SMT series had dealt with the concept of armageddon many times in the past, but Devil Summoner kinda flips that on its head. Within the first several hours of the game,
, and your world is turned upside down in a different way. Overall, I like it much less than Soul Hackers, but this is where the demon loyalty system started, which I always kinda thought of as an extension of the intelligence system in Dragon Quest 5.
Shin Megami Tensei If... - This is a really weird game. The "If..." in the title is basically saying "what if Tokyo had NOT been destroyed in SMT1?" and takes place in a high school setting that has been transported into the expanse. It's often cited to be the predecessor of Persona, although it is certainly quite different. At the time, I think the school setting was really novel, and I got pretty into it. But the reuse of assets from SMT1 and 2, particularly the music, really put me off. I also wasn't a big fan of the guardian system in the game, which lets you manipulate your stats when you die based on your guardian's relative stats to yours. It's a really weird/screwy system and I think it's one of the things looking back on the game that makes me not really ever feel like replaying it.
Devil Survivor 2 - There are some improvements in this compared to the first game, like the presence of the demon compendium and the vastly better music (thanks, Ito!), but overall I didn't like it as much as the first. The Fate system reeked of social links, I didn't like how tied to battle effectiveness it was. Storywise it felt really out of place in the franchise to me.
Last Bible 3 - Last Bible 3 is probably the only halfway decent game to come out of the whole Bible series. I'm not a huge fan of it, but I did have some fun with it, and I appreciated the way it gave you feedback on how your demon negotiations were going. When people ask me about this series, this is the one I recommend they play.
Last Bible - This is where Atlus hopped on the Dragon Quest clone bandwagon. There were a lot of these in the early 90s, and most didn't really do a whole lot to stand out. Last Bible probably would have stood out some with its demon recruitment aspect had it not come out the same year as Dragon Quest 5. At least it did have an actual negotiation system, even if it was totally nonsensical. In the end, it's fairly unremarkable and I don't consider myself a big fan.
Last Bible Special - This game was developed by Sega, and is a first-person dungeon crawler unlike the Dragon Quest style of the other games in the series. It's not a very interesting game, and I think that were it not on Game Gear without a lot of competition, it probably wouldn't have gotten very much attention in the first place.
Last Bible 2 - This game has virtually no interesting improvements over the first game, and the story is (IMO) fairly worse.
Another Bible - As I was writing this, I couldn't decide if I liked this more than Majin Tensei or not. It's a strategy RPG spinoff of the Bible series, set in the same kind of fantasy world. It doesn't have very much going for it for my tastes, but it isn't completely terrible.
Majin Tensei - The Majin Tensei games were Atlus's attempt to piggyback on the success of Fire Emblem and Famicom Wars, and frankly I'm not a big fan. It has really pretty battle art, I guess. Really disliked the way magnetite worked in the game, it's really easy to screw yourself over if you run out since it's constantly ticking away during battle.
Majin Tensei 2 - Moving on from the Fire Emblem influence, this game is more along the lines of Front Mission or Tactics Ogre with terrain bonuses and stuff. I'm not a very big fan of this game, either.
Shin Megami Tensei NINE - I admit that I only played this for a couple of hours, but what I did play of it didn't really impress me. It was supposed to be an online game, and I think the game design really reflects that. The areas feel kinda empty and "hubby," and the battles are real-time and your companions are AI controlled. The whole game feels incredibly cheap. It's not very fun, sadly, although it isn't quite the worst thing this franchise has to offer.
Giten Megami Tensei - This game is absolutely terrible. It was by far the worst Megaten-related thing I'd played for a good long while (see below, however). It was designed by one of the original designers on the Megami Tensei series, but somehow has none of the good things about those games. They also just threw in nudity for no reason, like a lot of other Japanese PC games of the time.
Ronde - This game is total garbage. It's another strategy RPG along the lines of Majin Tensei, but it's 3D and super ugly. I believe it came out before Shining Force 3, but it kinda reminded me of that, only considerably worse. It was developed by the same people responsible for Last Bible, and it shows. I admit I didn't play this game when it was new (1997), it was several years later that I tried it, so perhaps that really colored my impressions. I don't know. It does have fairly okay music and the setting is kinda novel, but that's about all I can say positively about the game.
Although I played the original
Devil Children release (black book), I am not a fan of that franchise so I won't be including it here. I never really got into the whole monster capturing game craze despite trying several times with Pokemon, Devil Children, and Dragon Quest Monsters.
That makes it sound so bad! They're so great.
