No-one's denying that Persona takes a lot from SMT, asset reuse is the name of the game with Atlus. But the elements that made SMT an enjoyable, unique series are almost entirely gone if not ignored in Persona. Persona owes more of it's success to dating games and visual novels then it does the RPG franchise it takes almost all of it's mechanics and content from. The focus in Persona is on a cast of vapid archetypes who never grow past their initial character traits even if you supposedly have a maxed out bond with them, while conversation about the series is focused on. The 20 years worth of demon designs being recycled as Persona is more out of practicality than anything else; they're not the marketing focus and the majority of people don't even know their origins as demons.
I also feel like we're maybe downplaying the connection between SMT and Persona here? Like, they don't just share sprites - the female protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei If literally appears in the first three Persona games. SMT is an amazing franchise with a lot of variance that does many unique things and goes in many different directions - from Strange Journey to Devil Summoner to Tokyo Mirage Sessions. The Persona sub-series is a part of that - it just happens to be an especially well-selling part of that.
That doesn't mean much when Persona 1 and 2 might as well be a separate franchise to 3/4/5. When people say they're fans of Persona, they're not talking about 1 and 2. And it's sad that you say SMT is an amazing franchise with a lot of variance when Persona's success is the very thing killing the variety in SMT. Even Apocalypse suffered because one route tried to be Persona, while the other was a caricature of SMT as seen by people who don't play the series. For all the jokes the fanbase make about it, SMT isn't "kill your friends and god" like Apocalypse made it out to be.
Atlus tried a lot of things back in the PS2 era to try get a winning formula on their hands and we got a great spread of games out of it; Nocturne, Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha 1/2, Digital Devil Saga 1/2 and Persona 3/4 And the latter's success meant we would never see that kind of variety again, because Atlus had found their golden goose and no longer needed to take any risks. (Also, lol at you trying to include Tokyo Mirage Sessions as an SMT game. Get that **** out of here.)
For real. The two series aren't even that different aside from the story/setting. The exploration is very similar. The battle system and spell names are pretty much the same. The bestiary and overall lore are the same. The fusion mechanic is the same, albeit simplified. The social links are an evolution and expansion of the demon negotiation system. Persona may lack SMT's branching storylines, but it still retains the multiple endings even though they're implemented differently.
When you look at it this way, it's hard to argue that Persona isn't Megaten through and through. For a gaming crossover between Nintendo's all-stars and a handful of third-party icons, Joker is by far the most fitting Megaten rep. I'm not saying you don't have the right to be disappointed, but you also have to be realistic - Nintendo won't go through the trouble of acquiring the rights to a third-party character for the sake of promoting something niche like mainline SMT when they don't even have a stake in the series (unlike say, Bayonetta).
Personally, I'm just glad the franchise is getting a playable character in Smash. And to be totally honest with y'all, I'd much rather play as Joker than any Megaten character aside from the Demi-Fiend and Raidou. I also think that some of you don't realize how lame of an addition Jack Frost would have been for anyone who isn't a SMT superfan. He's not Pikachu, he's closer to a Goomba or a Piranha Plant.
No, they're pretty different. Most things you listed are just asset-reuse; of course they're not going to redesign 200 characters every game. Persona's exploration and dungeoncrawling doesn't hold a candle to SMT (especially considering SMT's origins are in first person dungeoncrawling, while the dungeons in 3/4 were randomly generated garbage and only 5 bothered having actual dungeons). Social links as the evolution of demon negotiation is also pretty flimsy, especially when Persona 5 has them and actual demon negotiation. They and the time-management mechanics are more like what you'd get out of a dating simulator where you need to spend time with girls over several days to grow closer to them. Multiple endings are not a signature of SMT in and of themselves either; endings based on your alignment are. Persona's endings are explicitly bad/normal/true endings, while SMT's endings are not meant to be better or worse except from a subjective point of view.
No-one here is surprised that Persona was the game that got in, so I don't know why you bother bringing that point up. It's a shallow appeal to what's popular rather then anything with any meaningful history on Nintendo consoles, but it's not shocking that it happened. It's just disappointing compared to something like the Castlevania or Mega Man content where the history of those franchises, Nintendo or otherwise, is recognized and celebrated together. (I'd also argue the fact the newest SMT game is going to be exclusive to their system counts as a stake but I guess it doesn't count if the franchise doesn't need to be entirely bankrolled by Nintendo themselves).
You're free to be glad about Persona's inclusion in Smash. Plenty of people are. There's also plenty of places to discuss how great you think it is without going into a general full of disgruntled people letting out steam on a subject they're passionate about. I don't know what you expect to achieve by posting here. With arguments like Jack Frost being too similar to Pirahna Plant to be included you're veering dangerously close to ****post territory.
