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.

The numeral was dropped for its North American release, and its title changed to Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call in Europe.

[6][7][8][9][10] The next entry, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, was released for the Nintendo DS in 2009 in Japan and 2010 in North America.

[19][20] A true MMORPG, Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine, was released for Microsoft Windows in 2007 in Japan, 2008 in North America, and 2009 in Europe.

[68][69] The Persona series takes place exclusively within this setting, spanning a single continuity and mostly focusing on the exploits of a group of young people.

[3] 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.

'Alternate Tale of the Goddess') in Chinese, originating from the Japan version of Megami Tensei series used this term as subtitles in early spin-offs.

[81] Throughout its lifetime, the series has incorporated elements of Gnosticism, various world mythologies and religions including Christianity and Buddhism, early science fiction, Jungian psychology and archetypes, occultism, goth, punk, and cyberpunk.

[87] 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).

[77] A tradition within the core Shin Megami Tensei series is to focus on a single playable character as opposed to a group.

[85] Alongside other recurring characters is Lucifer, the fallen angel who stands against God and is portrayed in multiple forms to represent his omnipotence.

[88] Since Megami Tensei II, the series has used a morality-based decision system, where the player's actions affect the outcome of the story.

[22][72][99][100][101][102] 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.

[103] 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.

[105][106][107] The Shin Megami Tensei and Persona art styles have been defined by two different artists: Kazuma Kaneko and Shigenori Soejima.

Many of Kaneko's demon designs were influenced by both creatures and deities from world mythology, and monsters from popular culture like Godzilla.

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.

[89] Persona 3 proved challenging for Soejima as he needed to refine his drawing style and take the expectations of series fans into account.

[112][113][114] 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.

The original reasons were the heavy religious themes and symbols used, which were considered taboo in western game markets, and Nintendo's strict content guidelines for overseas releases.

[68][117][118] Later, many of these early works were prevented from coming overseas due to their age, which would have put them at a disadvantage in the modern gaming market.

This was done to give Atlus' North American branch a flagship RPG franchise that could compete with the likes of Final Fantasy, Suikoden and Breath of Fire.

[119] According to Okada, the naming of creatures and enemies was adjusted from the main series and original Japanese release of Persona to make it more acceptable for an overseas audience.

[122] Starting with Shin Megami Tensei IV, the company decided to actively promote the franchise overseas to North America, Europe and mainland Asia.

[131] By October 2018, the Megami Tensei main series has shifted approximately 12.4 million packaged and digital copies (including DL of free-to-play titles[132]) of games worldwide.

[135] Based on a December 16, 2023 survey conducted by Nikkei Entertainment, the combined fanbase of the Shin Megami Tensei and Persona series within Japan has an average age of 32 years, and a male-to-female ratio that skews 40:60.

[137] 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.

[138] 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.

[140] IGN's 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".

[118] A Chinese game regulation document in 2021 cited Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse as an example of unsuitable depictions of religious figures.