The
Megami Tensei series is one of the longest-running JRPG franchises in the history of video games, yet until very recently it was almost unknown among Western audiences. As a JRPG hipster I've played most of the modern games, but unlike a JRPG hipster I want as many people as possible to play them. To encourage this, I'll do a retrospective of recent games in the
MegaTen franchise, in reverse chronological order.
Series Overview
To begin with, I thought it prudent to mention properties that almost all games in the series have in common. There are exceptions, and I'll mention them when it's relevant.
MegaTen is a truly massive franchise, with multiple side stories that have become franchises themselves. Despite this, they are all descended from dungeon crawlers, being some of the unconditional titles in that genre. To begin with, the games are time sinks, typically taking between 60-80 hours to complete the basic story. Very difficult turn-based combat is the mechanic of choice, and the
MegaTen franchise was one of the first to have a mechanic popularized by
Pokémon: the ability to convince enemies to join your party and fight for you. In addition, you can also fuse these demons (it's usually demons, but even when it's not the fusion mechanic is still there). Fusion is vital, as you can't recruit all enemies and the skills you've grafted to your new demon may not be learned normally. The stories of
MegaTen games are also significantly darker than the stereotype of the happy-go-lucky JRPGS, often featuring apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic settings. With all that said, let's get to the games!
Persona 4: The Popular, Mainstream One
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| This game is very yellow, color-wise |
This is the one most people have heard of, if they've heard of it at all.
Persona 4 is incredibly popular in America and Japan, with huge merchandising, and animated adaptation, a updated re-release for the PS Vita (
Persona 4: The Golden), and a spin-off fighting game bridging the stories of
Persona 3 and
Persona 4 (Person 4: Arena). The story focusing on the unnamed main character moving to a small country town in Japan, where a strange fog rolls in to town followed by a serial killer. The protagonist teams up with his high school friends to solve the mystery, which (due to the protagonist's ridiculous power to climb inside a television) leads them to the Midnight Channel, to fight the dark side of man's collective unconscious. The story is very character focused, each level being generated by the dark side of whatever particular character is trapped in the Midnight Channel. This brings a lot of character development to the game, while the murder mystery overplot is well paced and gives you a constant goal to focus on.
