"'What’s at the end of the universe? Is there an end?' I think most people have asked this sort of question at some point in their life. Personally, I just love thinking about things like that. Even though humans are part of the universe, nobody knows why the universe exists, or how humans came into being. A philosophical approach is the only way we can reach some kind of conclusion. That’s exactly what myths are-philosophical explanations of the universe and man-and why I love myths so much. The demons in the Megaten series all appear with these questions. It’s not wrong to put everything into simple “good” and “evil”, like in other games, but what’s right and wrong can be completely different, depending on your position and perspective; it’s very ambiguous. So I say, why not let each player tackle that question of what’s right and wrong?".

—Kazuma Kaneko in an interview for The Escapist

Shin Megami Tensei (Japanese for "True Reincarnation of the Goddess", though it has been kept as an Untranslated Title in English releases), also known as MegaTen, is a long-running series of JRPG Dungeon Crawlers and spinoffs developed and published by Atlus. In Japan, it has been a direct competitor to Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy since The '80s, while in the West it only gained real popularity with Persona 3 in 2006, despite numerous localizations going all the way back to the 1990s.

Originally based on a novel series called Digital Devil Story, the games tend to involve using technology to summon and control mythological figures from nearly every culture on the planet, as well as the end of the world, deconstructions of common RPG storylines and far-out monster designs.

Thematically, the series emphasizes following one's own beliefs: plots tend to revolve around the forces of Order and Chaos battling it out for supremacy, and the player is generally given complete freedom in deciding which side is "right". If neither side takes their fancy, the player can even kick both sides' butts and declare humanity (temporarily) free of either. Depending on the game, there may be other options.

The games also tend to be Nintendo Hard. Elemental affinities, buffing, and debuffing are far more effective than in most JRPGs and can make or break battles. In an aversion of Useless Useful Spell, instant death and ailment attacks are both effective and encouraged repeatedly. Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne further introduced the Press Turn battle system to the series, where hitting an enemy's elemental weakness will reward the player with more actions whereas hitting their elemental strengths will cost the player actions. Variations of Press Turn went on to be adopted in multiple later MegaTen games, such as the "One More!" system in Persona 3, 4 and 5.

Although a majority of these games were released outside Japan under the Shin Megami Tensei label from Nocturne (2003) to Devil Survivor 2 (2011), in Japan only a handful of main series titles bear that name; the rest are spin-offs unofficially known as MegaTen titles. The Persona, Devil Summoner, Digital Devil Saga, and Devil Survivor series are the best-known of these spin-offs in the West. Catherine, despite not being a series due to only being one game, is also a well-known MegaTen game. Regardless, many include references to other MegaTen games and intra-franchise character cameos.

Examples: This section is for universal tropes related to the series as a whole. Please place tropes related to specific games in their own article, if it exists.

• Tropes A-M
• Tropes N-Z