The true reincarnation of the godess
Chance: 20%
Shin Megami Tensei is a series refined by some things. One of them is that it's one of the oldest and most influencial jrpg series out there, starting not too long after Dragon Quest and months before Final Fantasy, standing alongside both as one of the 3 pillard of jrpgs. Furthermore, it is the first jrpg in the monster collector sub-genre, way before Pokemon existed. Without SMT, there's no Pokemon, plain and simple (before people argue with how Pokemon is inspired by bug catching, Red and Green went trough hellish development, and without the assurance that a game of the monster collector genre would work thanks to SMT, it would have probably got scrapped). So yeah, the importance of SMT, or the MegaTen series, cannot be undetermined, especialy for Nintendo. In fact, SMTV was one of the first Swotch games Nintendo revealed for the Switch, to carter to more hardcore audiences, and If I remember correctly, it was the second 3rd part game revealed.for the Switch, after Dragon Quest XIS. Granted, Skyrim was also one of the first 3rd party games shown for the Switch, but I'd say that DQ and SMT are much more similar to each others than compared to the Elder Scrolls series. Furthermore, as seen in the first partner showcase, Nintendo put 2 games from the series as the big highlights from the partner showcase, the only other series who got that much of an highlight in a partner showcase was Monster Hunter, who is much more popular than SMT. So yeah, Nintendo trust SMT as a big name. All of this pretty much says that you cannot undermine how SMT is at worst a possibility. For the arguments against it, there's how P5 alreay has content, but none of it is SMT, there's not even a Jack Frost hat for Miis. Another that I thankfully don't see getting brought up a lot of at all is the origin of the series being the novel series Digital Devil Story, but it's like with Castlevania, yes the inspiration is from a novel, but the series is very different from the origin, or at least far more than series like The Witcher. And I don't think that I need to explain that all the gods, angels, and demons from different culture also falls under that, and so does a big part of the Kid Icarus cast, but just putting that here in case someone actualy think that makes SMT 4th party for some reason. However, there is one thing that I could see really going against SMT getting a playable rep. SMTV and DQ11S were 2 of the first games anounced for Switch, and so it could be though that Nintendo wanted for both to get a playable character as they see both as big names, but since SMTV took a while to get a second trailer, it could be that the Atlus character case went to Joker instead. However, I don't see that as too much of a step back, especialy since there's 6 characters in the second fighter pass, and Demi-Fiend is also back on the front now thanks to Nocturne getting an HD remaster, meaning that there would be no problems like the character getting in Smash before their own games, or the character being decided to be in Smash "too soon". And now, of the possible candidates for being this SMT rep, well, there's the protagonist of SMTV, Demi-Fiend, Jack Frost, but also Flynn, Nanashi, Space Marine, and even Raidou, Anel, Serph, and many more if you count spin-offs of MegaTen. Really there's just such a wide aray of choices for an SMT rep. Overall, I see an SMT rep in the second fighter pass as a good possibility, even if nowhere near a guarantee, though my score may be veryinnacurate to what I wrote, considering how I love Shin Megami Tensei and tried to be as unbiased for the chance score as much as possible, which I don't know if I suceeded at. Also fun fact, Shin Megami Tensei means "True Reincarnation of the godess", which is just badass.
Want: 100%
Yes, yes, yes, all of my yes. Shin Megami Tensei is one of my favorite series in all of fiction, and Nocturne is my favorite game of all time. Mainline SMT getting in Smash would just be so amazing to me. I mean, after all, Demi-Fiend is my second most wanted behind only Reimu, so of course my want score for this concept that I nominated many time would be on the very high spectrum of my want, but even without Demi-Fiend there's so many amazing choices between Flynn, Raidou, Space Marine, Serph, Abel, and many more, even Jack Frost, even if I don't like the idea of big jrpg series being represented by their mascot, would be very cool to have. The moveset for any of them would be incredibly fun, and also very contrasting to Joker's flashiness as SMT characters would have more roughter moves, signifying how their lives and fights are pretty much hell. The music would also be amazing, as it is in the series. And a stage based either on one of the post-apocalyptic landscapes of the series or one of the final dungeon would also be so cool to have. The series would just have amazing content in Smash, mainly due to how amazing everything in SMT is. Seriously, SMT has an amazing battle system, amazing writing, amazing character design, an incredible choice system based on your own morality and the concept of there being no wrong choices, and the main conflict being between YHWH ans Lucifer on a war where no one is correct and only few chosen survivors and messiahs can persist, with their ideology being able to corupt them far beyond the point of return at any time, making do that at any time you could find yourself to be alone in a desolated word with no one but demons who pledged moyalty to you, it's just so good, and I fully recommand to try it if you're interested in it. It really is one of the greatest video game series out there.
Predictions:
Klonoa: 9.2%
Nominations:
Hades x10
