The name Shin Megami Tensei 5 would seem to imply that relatively few Shin Megami Tensei games have been released over the franchise's lifespan of more than thirty years. Five games in thirty years definitely would seem like a sparse timeline, but as any Shin Megami Tensei veteran knows, there's way more games in this series than a game called Shin Megami Tensei 5 would imply. Shin Megami Tensei just keeps spinning off of itself, even as the core series keeps running strong. Atlus has found no shortage of ways to interpret the Megami Tensei formula and present it in different lights.
Longtime fans of Shin Megami Tensei are probably able to keep all the games straight by now. However, this is a time where fans might just be getting into the series. Persona 5's huge success is bringing fans into its parent series, and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne's upcoming Switch port is bound to generate some new SMT fans too. Players are under no obligation to play every Shin Megami Tensei game to understand what's happening, since they're almost all standalone stories. Still, it's valuable to have a surface awareness of all the games that have gotten Shin Megami Tensei to where it is today.
The Core of Shin Megami Tensei
The first Shin Megami Tensei game released exclusively in Japan in 1992, kicking off the franchise well as a large success. In the first game, a Japanese scientist accidentally summons a tremendous demonic invasion that ravages the Earth and prompts other nations to wage war in an attempt to stop the demons. The game takes place thirty years after the first demonic incursion and sees the player make choices between law and chaos. Shin Megami Tensei 2 is technically a direct sequel, taking place many years later as the player character -- who believes he is the Messiah -- sets out into a world still overrun by demons.
Shin Megami Tensei's habit of unconnected stories emerged with Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne, which was also an early example of Megami Tensei's habit of high school aged protagonists. In SMT 3: Nocturne, a demonic cult plunges the world into a fiendish apocalypse and the game's teenage protagonist becomes a powerful being called the Demi-fiend. After that was Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, which sent the player to Antarctica to investigate demonic forces there. Shin Megami Tensei 4 differed significantly from past games in that it was set in medieval times, focusing on a samurai tasked with stopping a mysterious villain turning humans into demons. It got its own spinoff in the form of Shin Megami Tensei 4: Apocalypse.
There's a few noteworthy spinoffs of Shin Megami Tensei. One of the earliest was Shin Megami Tensei: If..., which focused on fighting demons in a high school instead of a large apocalyptic scale, and ended up inspiring the Persona franchise. Shin Megami Tensei: Nine was supposed to be Atlus' stab at an online multiplayer SMT game, but it didn't quite shake out as planned. This spinoff set between the first and second Shin Megami Tensei games instead released as a singleplayer experience. Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine succeeded where Shin Megami Tensei: Nine failed, developing an acclaimed MMORPG set in the same time as Nine.
The Greater Megami Tensei Series
There's tons of spinoffs outside of Shin Megami Tensei that still belong to the Megami Tensei series and still sometimes use the Megami Tensei or Shin Megami Tensei moniker. One of the most important is Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, which actually came out before the first Shin Megami Tensei games. Digital Devil Story and its sequel are based on a series of science fantasy books by Aya Nishitani. Digital Devil Story is responsible for the entire Megami Tensei family's themes of demon summoning and turn-based RPG combat -- in other words, all roads lead to Digital Devil Story.
The Persona franchise is another huge spinoff of Shin Megami Tensei. Persona can be split up into two halves consisting of three games each. Revelations: Persona established the franchise's themes of teenagers using the Personas within them to fight supernatural forces, and Persona 2's two versions, Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment, carried them on. Notably, both games involve fighting demons attacking the physical world, much like SMT. In contrast, Persona 3, 4, and 5 all limit teenagers' Persona powers to another part of reality, where they can still fight demons and somehow affect the human world. They're also considerably more stylized in terms of art and music than the first Persona games, distancing thematically from SMT.
These are only two of the most important spinoffs of Shin Megami Tensei; there's a great many more. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children is a more kid-friendly take on SMT, borrowing colorful aesthetics from Pokemon over the course of several entries mostly released in the early 2000s. Last Bible is another franchise targeted at a broader audience, using monsters instead of demons and largely taking place in medieval settings. The Devil Summoner franchise offers broad takes on devil summoning RPGs, from games set in sci-fi future Japan to Japan in the 1920s. There's also Majin Tensei, a series of strategy games from the 1990s and 2000s. One thing's for sure: Atlus hasn't run short on ways to make use of the franchise.
Shin Megami Tensei's Future
It should be stressed again that players just getting into Shin Megami Tensei don't need to feel obligated in any way to play any of these many previous games. Atlus has produced an unbelievable amount of content for this IP, and playing through all these games would be a Herculean task. Shin Megami Tensei 5, like so many of its predecessors, is a standalone title, and doesn't require any previous knowledge of an ongoing plot to play. Fans should feel free to jump into Shin Megami Tensei at its long-awaited Switch exclusive. For anyone who enjoys the newest Shin Megami Tensei game, though, there's clearly no shortage of options to scratch that Shin Megami Tensei itch. In fact, Shin Megami Tensei 5 might just be the catalyst for a retro revival of many of Atlus' greatest works.
Shin Megami Tensei 5 will release on Nintendo Switch in 2021.