Author: Xed51

 

'Digital Devil Story デジタル・デビル物語 女神転生'
'EL ELOHIM ELOHO ELOHIM SEBAOTH'
'ELION EIECH ADIER EIECH ADONAI'
'JAH SADAI TETRAGRAMMATON SADAI'
'AGIOS O THEOS ISCHIROS ATHANATOS'
'AGLA AMEN'

Describing what Shin Megami Tensei is, after 24 years, not an easy task. 
During all these years this franchise spawned so many different games and shifted its focus & atmosphere so many times that it's now hard to point out what made it unique, and why at some point it was the third most successful RPG series in Japan, after Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. 
 
In the beginning 

It all began with one novel, Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei.

The book is about a boy called Nakajima, a computer genius who created a Demon Summoning Program and uses it to create a secret society inside his school.
A young woman named Yumiko transferred to his school.
Yumiko soon grows interested in Nakajima's secrets, but the situation explodes when Nakajima is tricked into summoning Loki, a powerful demon that is after world domination.

 

Nakajima and Yumiko are later revealed to be the reincarnations of Izanagi and Izanami (Hence the title "Megami Tensei" - Reincarnation of the Goddess.) and they are able to defeat Loki and restore world peace.
Note: Insert Izanami/Izanagi myth here. Too bad Topdrunk is too lazy to write it.
The book is not a masterpiece by any means, but it is entertaining and it's interesting to see where the Megaten mythos originated. If anyone is interested in reading it, you can find a translation for it here:

The novel had two sequels, "Warrior of the Demon City" and "Demise of the Reincarnation", but they have nothing to do with the videogame franchise.

 

The DDS novel also spawned an anime adaptation, titled Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei.

The anime is a straight adaptation of the novel, but due to its vague nature it's kind of hard to understand what's going on if you didn't read the novel.
The Demon Summoning Program, the male devil summoner / female companion with magic powers duo and the Kerberos/Cerberus companion, which used to be recurring elements in the series, all originated from the Novel and subsequently from the Anime:

The title screen from the Anime, which would later become the main title screen for the games:

 

The main protagonists, who would later appear in the Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei famicom game:

click thumbnails to enlarge picture.

The Kerberos companion, who would later reappear with the same design in DDS:MT, and with a different design in later games in the series: