Demons by Design: An Introduction to Patterns of Form and Function in Shin Megami Tensei

This article was originally featured in Hardcore Gaming 101's The Unofficial Guide to Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, available now in print or digitally at Amazon, and digitally on itch.io and through HG101's Patreon!

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You’re walking down a dark, seemingly endless video game corridor when, suddenly, a silhouetted form approaches you from the shadows. Its appearance is obscured, its mutterings are unclear, and its motivations unknown--what could it be? This is a question answered by the very game you find yourself playing. If it’s Final Fantasy and the form calls itself Odin, you know it can’t be the real Odin because there is no Scandinavia in its fictitious world. If you’re playing Doom and the silhouette identifies as Satan, you should question the context because Christian Hell is (believe it or not) more complex than skeletons with rocket launchers. But if the game is Shin Megami Tensei and the figure names itself Cu Chulainn, you can be almost certain it is the actual hero from Irish myth because SMT’s “modern reality with a supernatural twist” setting does not exclude the existence of Ireland and its cultural heritage. And thus is SMT’s version of the RPG “monster”: its demons, which serve as the skeleton of its entire body, supporting all of the series’ gameplay mechanics and texturing its narrative conflicts.