Talking About: Shin Megami Tensei - Feels More Obscure in the West Than it Actually Does

I finished Devil Survivor and the bonus dungeon in Soul Hackers recently and it's got me thinking about Shin Megami Tensei in general. I've only played a few games, Soul Hackers, Devil Survivor, SMT Nocturne, SMTIV and Persona 4 I guess counts. It's only 4/5 SMT games so far but still, the 4 games I've played are pretty great. And I plan to buy more SMT games like Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2 but anyway. Point is, despite all these games being released here, the series feels more unknown that it really does. People are obviously aware of SMT thanks to stuff like Persona and the crossover Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE (because it was SMTxFE before) so yeah, people know of it but feels like no one plays the games

. Ys is also a series that I know is obscure but I'm just talking about SMT because I'm a fan and haven't been able to play Ys games yet. It makes sense to not know about the older games, from MegaTen 1 on the Famicom all the way up Revelations Persona on the PS1 because until Jack Bros and (mainly) Persona 1, SMT wasn't even a thing in the west. But even with Nocturne that sold well enough back then to help ATLUS USA bring over Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2  and Persona 3 & 4 as well as the Raidou Kuzunoha Devil Summoner games, it feels like the games are still in the shadows of other RPG franchises. And it doesn't help that the spinoffs seem to be more well known.

Like previously mentioned, the Persona games mainly 3 & 4, are more popular than the actual SMT games, especially in the west. Maybe people care more about lite dating sims mixed with randomized dungeons...  Shin Megami Tensei obviously has a strong following in the west but it's clear that Persona is more popular but I wish Shin Megami Tensei was given a bit more credit. Maybe it's a lack of research or something else, but the games never seem to get enough attention. SMTIV at least managed to get a bit of attention here. Like people who review for mainstream game websites and big YouTube people reviewed it, but I wonder how much those reviews got people interested in the game and/or series. In my case, it did since SMTIV was the first one I played and completed. And like earlier, I have played a few others, but I still wanna play the rest. Another thing is that if you try finding videos for Soul Hackers on 3DS, there's not too many videos, a good amount of walkthroughs but not many video reviews.

Soul Hackers itself is probably more obscure because it's a remake of the PS1 version of an old Saturn game which itself was Japan only until now. But yeah, you never really hear about these games unless they are really recent, P3/4, SMTIV etc. SMTIV Final ("Apocalypse" in the west) is coming out here soon so maybe it'll get people excited for it, and the games always go on sale on the 3DS eShop, so people should hurry and buy them anyway. The only people who seem to care or pay attention to the Shin Megami Tensei games are probably people like me who are fans or people who are just huge enthusiasts about games or just RPGs. And that doesn't really bother me. I want more people to play Shin Megami Tensei so they can have fun playing good RPGs and so they can appreciate the games' good gameplay and other features. But regardless, the games will probably stay niche over in the west, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I just wish more people would talk about them. Better than having to see archived forums all the time.

I'm fine with it feeling like an underground series, at least over here but more people being knowledgeable about the games would be nice