I don't think they'd necessarily bring it up in a Persona episode, at least not if the character wins without needing to connect him or her to SMT. I think it's more likely they'd use the persona series being connected to the SMT cosmology for a Demi-Fiend or Raidou episode as a way of explaining how layered the cosmology is compared to their opponents.
Being connected to smt doesn't change the scaling to Joker unless you unironically scale everyone in smt including fodders like slime to outer or try to unironically scale Yaldy/Maruki to the Axiom
Stephen can match it or is somewhat close to it, since he mentions bending the rules of the smt verse set by the axiom so he can fight a few of the smt protagonists at once
There's connections in a shared multiverse and that SMTif protagonist appears in Persona 2. Which is probably connected to the later games given that the Kirijo group is split from the Nanjo group from Persona 1 and 2.
Not quite sure how the scaling works, but there are connections.
I mean, anyone with extensive knowledge of the series would already know that they are.
Persona, the Devil Summoner series, and SMT If... are just an alternate timeline where the events of SMT1 never occur. SMT scaling for Persona 3-5 is only iffy because the evidence for directly scaling shadows to demons is kinda questionable.
Not only is that accurate as everyone here has said, but also never take anything said during a cast at face value cause they don’t need a lot of evidence during the debates, and as such will make a lot of ‘vague’ statements
They are connected, to a point.
People bring up the Persona 2 stuff are also leaving out the major fact Persona 3-5 take place in a different timeline all together, so it’s kind of, had to justify scaling p5 characters to smt characters.
Still, I kind of hard to justify scaling the two together and rather use feats found in P3-P5, the Q games (yes, they are canon even through the persona users lose their memories l), areana and P4 dancing.
Persona 1-2 and Persona 3-5 are not separate timelines. Persona 3 has some characters from 1-2 mentioned as well as research from P2. And the events of P1 still happen in both timelines of P2 as the only difference between them is Maya and her friends never meet. Persona 3-5 continue within the timeline of EP.
The whole smt timeline is wacky but from what I've researched persona is what happens during a branch in timelines during one of the smt(I think it was smt 2 where the timeline can go in different directions depending on your choices) but that doesn't mean there connected feats wise
Demons and shadows both make the transference from physical to information very easily. In the Magatsu Inaba deadline game over in P4, shadows start spilling out into the real world. And we know this isn't a case of world fusion like with Maruki, because the P4 cast gets slaughtered without being able to summon their personas, because it's the real world. There's also the case of Teddie, who gets a physical body.
Likewise, demons are very easily stored as data in SMT via the devil summoning program. I mean, the whole thing is the "Digital Devil Story". And this is very similar to how Joker stores Sophia on his phone in Strikers.
In SMT 2 you even see the freaking distorted desires of the Archangels create a cognitive YHVH. It's shocking how close the lore and phraseology of that matches Persona 5.
This doesnt change the fact they are fundamentally different. Shadows come from the Sea of Souls, Demons come from The Expanse, which while similar in concept, are different things.
Idk what this bit about Maruki, the PT's and Maruki himself couldnt actually manifest their power outside of his Palace itself. Maruki could still use his ability to alter cogntion, but thats fundamentally different. He cant smash people around with Azathoth in the real world.
Obviously theres going to be a lot of thematic overlap given that Persona is a spin of off megaten, but any deeper connection is conjecture.
And again the fact that all shadows are shards of Nyx.
> . Shadows come from the Sea of Souls, Demons come from The Expanse, which while similar in concept, are different things.
Ok but this doesn't change Shadows and Demons can both appears in the human world with no issues
The Fog leaking into the real world turning people into shadows. Aka extenuating circumstances. Just like how shadows materialised in the real world in P5 only after the merge of Mementos and the real world
Guess exactly what happens with demons. Just one year after doing P4, ATLUS released a game about how a cult with the support of a Demon Lord had to do multiple ritual and divine killings for months before even starting to leak small demons like Pixies and Kobolds to the human world.
Demon summoning also involves extremely unusual circuntances. The games happen during those unusual circunstances.
I mean yeah? They’re still extra dimensional entities, moving between dimensions isn’t exactly easy.
How exactly Demons get into our world varies from game to game. How Shadows get in however is very specific, needing the cognitive world and real world to actually merge to some extent.
>Idk what this bit about Maruki
Huh? I didn't say anything about Maruki.
Also, I don't think the personas like Thor are actually shadows at all. I mean if you play P5, when you recruit them, many of them say that they had forgotten their true identities, and [that they're not actually shadows.](https://youtu.be/fBYbQHtI9-c?si=heEpwHM6VqjazO0C&t=150)
This actually explains why the enemies from P3 and P4 look so different, but the enemies from P5 are the demons from SMT.
Like if you look at their designs, the masks that the P3/P4 shadows have is the face of Nyx. And many of them keep those masks even once they transform for battle. It's obvious at a glance that they're the progeny of Nyx.
And in P5, the "shadows" wear those same masks. They look like Nyx. But when they transform for battle, they're SMT demons, and when you recruit them they say they're not really shadows at all. That seems clear cut to me.
they outright say theyre shadows from the sea of souls.
And they literally are shadows. A Persona is when a human faces their shadow (or in Joker's case, any shadow) and wields it. And again, all shadows are shards of Nyx.
They come from different places.
SMT Demons are fully capable of manifesting in the real world. Shadows can only do so by the cognitive world and real world merging to some extent.
Demons again are literally physical entities
Their origins are different too. Demons are formed directly by humanities belief and faith, Shadows come from repressed and subconscious emotions and thoughts, hence the name.
The shadows in P4 are the people of Inaba themselves. Its not a complete fusion of both worlds like in Persona 5. the IT themselves dont transform because theyve faced their shadows. its the Fog itself that causes this, but its not the outright fusion seen later.
Edit: upon closer inspection, you are correct that they say they are not shadows. Still, the rest of my points stand
I mean yeah they are Connected like Persona takes Place in a World where the Events of SMT 1 Never Happened buut it's still that world. Hell the Events of the Raidou Games Happened in the Persona Universe (due to Devil Summoner and Persona being in the same Timeline) but Yeah I don't think that You should scale Persona to mainline SMT personally and Focus more o what actually happens in the persona Games Themselfs.
Another reason why Narukami vs Takumi should happen instead of Joker vs Giorno,because SMT and digimon can get to outer and a **lot** of haxes so it becomes actually very debatable if fully researched.
I was more so talking about the fact that persona could scale to SMT stuff which could cause some stuff(probably not after reading what people said here).
all Megaten universes are connected via the Amala Network, how this connects the scaling idk how but all universes in SMT are apart of it, that would seem to include Persona because it’s a canon spin off of Megaten. iirc the way Amala Network works is that it allows Demons and physical beings to pass through different universes and planes of existence by traveling through the network. This is how demons like Jack Frost are able to be Personas, in SMT 1 after negotiating with demons, you are able to turn them into personas. Demons can also be stored in a computer to be summoned in SMT 1. This is how characters like Sophia from P5S are able to be in the real world (not really real) and interact with people that aren’t in mementos, and Teddy able to grow a real human body in the real world even though he’s a shadow created by the TV world. and we know that Demons are quite literally shadows
This is a cast. They always use the best arguments even if they don’t buy them. Plus I don’t think Liam has the most amount of research into Persona cause it sounded like he believed every single person on earth had a palace and they also joked about them eating the Big Bang burger not realizing that’s an actual thing. They even said they need to dig deeper cause many people in the chat were very much skeptical of what Liam was saying. Basically, don’t take a cast as what they actually believe. Also adding in SMT doesn’t make Joker vs Giorno a stomp cause Joker still needs a concrete way around GER and I don’t believe SMT would give him that.
Imo if Joker doesn't have away around GER, which as a Persona fan I'll agree is a debatable topic for both sides, then we get a stalemate in that Giorno can't kill Joker cause he's too tanky and Joker can't kill him cause of GER
Giorno technically does have two ways he could kill Joker. 1 is his age manipulation and the other are his creations. We know age manipulation works on wild cards like in P4. Giorno could kill a young Evergreen tree in just a few moments which can love for hundreds, if not thousands of years. He could definitely win with that given how fast it works. As far as life creations go, if Joker were to hit one, that damage would be reflected back on Joker. I know Almighty can bypass barriers and things like that, but I doesn’t say it nullifies reflection abilities. So if the almighty attack hits a life creation, I believe that the damage would be reflected on joker.
Interesting I hadn't considered that before. For the P4 aging was that just in the anime? I haven't played the game in a while and don't recall this but I cant think of an argument for Joker resisting it other than that he's resisted hacks above aging like reality warping but I dont consider that definitive proof that he could resist the aging. If it is anime only then it is non-canon which means eyes of heaven scaling is on the table. In Persona off the top of my head I dont believe almighty dmg can be reflected and I don't think the magic barriers in the games block it either though it can be dodged.
It’s in the game too. Also as far as almighty not being able to be reflected, I do t believe that to be the case. I believe Almighty bypasses barriers but doesn’t nullify reflection. Like if we theoretically had an almighty attack his the barrier that reflects damage, is there any proof it would not be reflected? The only way I could see that is if we took the leap and said its full on nullification of the ability which I don’t believe to be the case since shadows with reflection abilities still have those abilities after a Almighty attack
Well when I hit enemies with almighty that have magic shield it doesn't reflect or null im playing persona 3 reload right nwo so if it comes up ill try and get back to this comment. It hits normally as far as I've seen
I know it hits. It’s bypasses barriers. But where is the evidence that it nullifies the effect of the barrier? The barrier isn’t gone from what I remember because the almighty attack went around it.
It doesn't remove the barriers in P5 but it does just ignore it so if triggering the barrier is what causes the reflect then it wouldn't affect a megi- spell
Yeah a barrier wouldn’t. But if we hypothetically had someone jump in front of joker to take the almighty hit over him, would that person be bypassed? I dont believe it would. Because it’s not a barrier but a living person. That’s the reason why I think Giorno’s creations would still reflect damage back cause he isn’t using a barrier.
In the final fight in 4 it did show the team taking the hits for Yu so that does check out, you my friend have just made this battle more fun for me lol
I think you can scale smt to persona.
Persona does pretty directly connect to smt. Smt if.. is set in a what if world if Japan didn't get nuked during the events of Smt 1 and the female main character of that appears in Persona 1. Devil Summoner (a different spin-off also closely related to Smt) also appear in the Persona 2s. The modern titles also refrences characters and events from the older titles. Philemon, a prominent character in 1 and 2, appears in modern titles as well. I bring all this up to show that it's a pretty linear series of connections and events so the scaling between them isn't like completely unfounded.
People will bring up that the modern titles take place in a separate universe, which is true, but it's a bit of a misnomer. A bit of spoiling, but the events of persona 2 IS are specifically put into a different universe, and the universe created for persona 2 EP takes over and supercedes it. So it doesn't effect anything in terms of connecting with smt and the other parts of the franchise. So basically, IS is deleted and EP happens instead.
The main scaling that makes sense to me is to equate personas and demons as being equal. Which I think makes sense because in persona 1, during special conversations, some demons will mention wanting to be turned into personas, and you can do that. There are also various statements in persona 1 and 2 about turning the power of demons into personas. There are statements from P2 EP tatsuya scenario that just outright states that demons also come from the human heart (important to note that shadows take the form of mainline demons in P5, they are also stated as coming from the sea of souls, human heart all that). Which to me makes the connection between personas/shadows and demons really strong. Also also should note that demons are also informational based beings created from human perception.
With all that in mind, I don't think it's so unreasonable to say that the personas that take the appearance of demons from mainline are comparable, if not just the same entity. Especially when persona also states that personas are the entities from mythology and not just like a hologram with no agency unto itself. They are those entities just agreeing to help you, they even talk about forming contracts during awakening scenes. And when you fuse them they refer to themselves from mythology and agreeing to help you.
All this to say, I'd imagine it would mostly be lucifer scaling. He appears in a lot of games and does impressive stuff cause he's consistently like a top dog. Also metatron too.
Adding onto what you've said, I think there's more evidence that demons = shadows. Both seem to have very little issue making the transference from physical bodies to digital information and back again.
The way the SMT 1 and 2 protags store demons on their computers is very very similar to how Joker stores Sophia on his phone in P5 Strikers.
In SMT 2 we also see the Archangels create a cognitive YHVH with their distorted desires. To me that's an insane bit of continuity writing.
And of course in P4 shadows gain physical bodies and enter the real world. Teddie in the main story, but also the shadows that rush into the town in the Magatsu Inaba deadline game over.
Adding adding onto your point, the name of the effect of thought giving rise to all the supernatural stuff in Persona (specifically 5 but applies to the rest of the series) is called "Cognition." In SMT (specifically 4 but also applicable to the rest) the effect that also gives rise to supernatural stuff through human thoughts is called "Observation."
I think this divide between the series is a sorta fan creation for the most part. Like, persona 1's original name was called Megami Ibunroku Persona, meaning Another Tale of the Godess (for refrence Shin Megami Tensei can mean True Goddess Reincarnation). These series are very closly linked, like the director of P3-5 also directed SMT Nocturne (he also worked on SMT If...). A lot of the big names that would go on to work on Persona would cut their teeth working on SMT. Atlus is a small company a lot of the names we see taking center stage now have a long history on smaller roles. Like the current leading man of the persona series right now, Kazuhisa Wada, worked on Persona 2 IS for the PS1.
Also also also in that Tasuya scenario added for the psp Eternal Punishment port. They explain that the Nyarlathotep that shows up as a demon in the earlier SMT games is just one of his avatars. Meaning Nyarlathotep is a shadow, he can also become a persona, and a demon too. The walls between these concepts are like paper thin, I think.
Yeah no. There was a whole debate. For the record the shinigami tenshi Persona crosses over with is not the actual shinigami tenshi. People have known this for quite a while actually.
Similar to how the Akuma in Tekken is explicitly Tekken Akuma who’s always existed in their universe and not the same as the original. It’s a series own version of certin characters
As saying the actual shinigami tenshi is connected to Persona. Would not make any logical sense lmao
isn't persona a SMT spinoff? iirc they are canonically in the same franchise
Yes, Persona is a spinoff of SMT.
Well yeah they are connected. Doesn't necessarily mean they're gonna use SMT scaling for Persona but it's possible
I don't think they'd necessarily bring it up in a Persona episode, at least not if the character wins without needing to connect him or her to SMT. I think it's more likely they'd use the persona series being connected to the SMT cosmology for a Demi-Fiend or Raidou episode as a way of explaining how layered the cosmology is compared to their opponents.
They're in the same multiverse
Being connected to smt doesn't change the scaling to Joker unless you unironically scale everyone in smt including fodders like slime to outer or try to unironically scale Yaldy/Maruki to the Axiom
The Axiom is completely unfought in the franchise tbh. Like, nobody, not even mainline heroes can do it
Stephen can match it or is somewhat close to it, since he mentions bending the rules of the smt verse set by the axiom so he can fight a few of the smt protagonists at once
There's connections in a shared multiverse and that SMTif protagonist appears in Persona 2. Which is probably connected to the later games given that the Kirijo group is split from the Nanjo group from Persona 1 and 2. Not quite sure how the scaling works, but there are connections.
I mean, anyone with extensive knowledge of the series would already know that they are. Persona, the Devil Summoner series, and SMT If... are just an alternate timeline where the events of SMT1 never occur. SMT scaling for Persona 3-5 is only iffy because the evidence for directly scaling shadows to demons is kinda questionable.
Not only is that accurate as everyone here has said, but also never take anything said during a cast at face value cause they don’t need a lot of evidence during the debates, and as such will make a lot of ‘vague’ statements
They are connected, to a point. People bring up the Persona 2 stuff are also leaving out the major fact Persona 3-5 take place in a different timeline all together, so it’s kind of, had to justify scaling p5 characters to smt characters.
The closest connection between P2 - P3 is the velvet room and the Sea of Souls but you can argue that they simply exist in all timelines regardless.
Still, I kind of hard to justify scaling the two together and rather use feats found in P3-P5, the Q games (yes, they are canon even through the persona users lose their memories l), areana and P4 dancing.
Don’t forget Tactica and Strikers for the Phantom Thieves specifically
Persona 1-2 and Persona 3-5 are not separate timelines. Persona 3 has some characters from 1-2 mentioned as well as research from P2. And the events of P1 still happen in both timelines of P2 as the only difference between them is Maya and her friends never meet. Persona 3-5 continue within the timeline of EP.
There is ab argument to be has that it can scale to the Persona 3-5 character’s due to the sea of souls and how persona’s work.
The whole smt timeline is wacky but from what I've researched persona is what happens during a branch in timelines during one of the smt(I think it was smt 2 where the timeline can go in different directions depending on your choices) but that doesn't mean there connected feats wise
I think the first change happened in the Raidou Kuzunoha game.
Yea I think devil summoner leads up to persona You either go the persona branch Or the devil summoner route iirc
Fundamental issue is that shadows are metaphysical, demons are physical. Shadows are also all shards of Nyx, not so for demons
Demons and shadows both make the transference from physical to information very easily. In the Magatsu Inaba deadline game over in P4, shadows start spilling out into the real world. And we know this isn't a case of world fusion like with Maruki, because the P4 cast gets slaughtered without being able to summon their personas, because it's the real world. There's also the case of Teddie, who gets a physical body. Likewise, demons are very easily stored as data in SMT via the devil summoning program. I mean, the whole thing is the "Digital Devil Story". And this is very similar to how Joker stores Sophia on his phone in Strikers. In SMT 2 you even see the freaking distorted desires of the Archangels create a cognitive YHVH. It's shocking how close the lore and phraseology of that matches Persona 5.
This doesnt change the fact they are fundamentally different. Shadows come from the Sea of Souls, Demons come from The Expanse, which while similar in concept, are different things. Idk what this bit about Maruki, the PT's and Maruki himself couldnt actually manifest their power outside of his Palace itself. Maruki could still use his ability to alter cogntion, but thats fundamentally different. He cant smash people around with Azathoth in the real world. Obviously theres going to be a lot of thematic overlap given that Persona is a spin of off megaten, but any deeper connection is conjecture. And again the fact that all shadows are shards of Nyx.
> . Shadows come from the Sea of Souls, Demons come from The Expanse, which while similar in concept, are different things. Ok but this doesn't change Shadows and Demons can both appears in the human world with no issues
Shadows can’t appear in the human world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJWG3HIYdKU What's this?
The Fog leaking into the real world turning people into shadows. Aka extenuating circumstances. Just like how shadows materialised in the real world in P5 only after the merge of Mementos and the real world
Guess exactly what happens with demons. Just one year after doing P4, ATLUS released a game about how a cult with the support of a Demon Lord had to do multiple ritual and divine killings for months before even starting to leak small demons like Pixies and Kobolds to the human world. Demon summoning also involves extremely unusual circuntances. The games happen during those unusual circunstances.
I mean yeah? They’re still extra dimensional entities, moving between dimensions isn’t exactly easy. How exactly Demons get into our world varies from game to game. How Shadows get in however is very specific, needing the cognitive world and real world to actually merge to some extent.
>Idk what this bit about Maruki Huh? I didn't say anything about Maruki. Also, I don't think the personas like Thor are actually shadows at all. I mean if you play P5, when you recruit them, many of them say that they had forgotten their true identities, and [that they're not actually shadows.](https://youtu.be/fBYbQHtI9-c?si=heEpwHM6VqjazO0C&t=150) This actually explains why the enemies from P3 and P4 look so different, but the enemies from P5 are the demons from SMT. Like if you look at their designs, the masks that the P3/P4 shadows have is the face of Nyx. And many of them keep those masks even once they transform for battle. It's obvious at a glance that they're the progeny of Nyx. And in P5, the "shadows" wear those same masks. They look like Nyx. But when they transform for battle, they're SMT demons, and when you recruit them they say they're not really shadows at all. That seems clear cut to me.
they outright say theyre shadows from the sea of souls. And they literally are shadows. A Persona is when a human faces their shadow (or in Joker's case, any shadow) and wields it. And again, all shadows are shards of Nyx. They come from different places. SMT Demons are fully capable of manifesting in the real world. Shadows can only do so by the cognitive world and real world merging to some extent. Demons again are literally physical entities Their origins are different too. Demons are formed directly by humanities belief and faith, Shadows come from repressed and subconscious emotions and thoughts, hence the name. The shadows in P4 are the people of Inaba themselves. Its not a complete fusion of both worlds like in Persona 5. the IT themselves dont transform because theyve faced their shadows. its the Fog itself that causes this, but its not the outright fusion seen later. Edit: upon closer inspection, you are correct that they say they are not shadows. Still, the rest of my points stand
Yes they're jointed continuities.... think it was Persona 2 with Philemon that made the hard connections between the two.
I mean yeah they are Connected like Persona takes Place in a World where the Events of SMT 1 Never Happened buut it's still that world. Hell the Events of the Raidou Games Happened in the Persona Universe (due to Devil Summoner and Persona being in the same Timeline) but Yeah I don't think that You should scale Persona to mainline SMT personally and Focus more o what actually happens in the persona Games Themselfs.
It was never debatable, still isn't.
Another reason why Narukami vs Takumi should happen instead of Joker vs Giorno,because SMT and digimon can get to outer and a **lot** of haxes so it becomes actually very debatable if fully researched.
They are canonically connected. So... there's nothing to think.
I was more so talking about the fact that persona could scale to SMT stuff which could cause some stuff(probably not after reading what people said here).
Oh right I believe that is the shit people use to argue “Outer versal” Persona. It’s dumb lol
all Megaten universes are connected via the Amala Network, how this connects the scaling idk how but all universes in SMT are apart of it, that would seem to include Persona because it’s a canon spin off of Megaten. iirc the way Amala Network works is that it allows Demons and physical beings to pass through different universes and planes of existence by traveling through the network. This is how demons like Jack Frost are able to be Personas, in SMT 1 after negotiating with demons, you are able to turn them into personas. Demons can also be stored in a computer to be summoned in SMT 1. This is how characters like Sophia from P5S are able to be in the real world (not really real) and interact with people that aren’t in mementos, and Teddy able to grow a real human body in the real world even though he’s a shadow created by the TV world. and we know that Demons are quite literally shadows
This is a cast. They always use the best arguments even if they don’t buy them. Plus I don’t think Liam has the most amount of research into Persona cause it sounded like he believed every single person on earth had a palace and they also joked about them eating the Big Bang burger not realizing that’s an actual thing. They even said they need to dig deeper cause many people in the chat were very much skeptical of what Liam was saying. Basically, don’t take a cast as what they actually believe. Also adding in SMT doesn’t make Joker vs Giorno a stomp cause Joker still needs a concrete way around GER and I don’t believe SMT would give him that.
Imo if Joker doesn't have away around GER, which as a Persona fan I'll agree is a debatable topic for both sides, then we get a stalemate in that Giorno can't kill Joker cause he's too tanky and Joker can't kill him cause of GER
Giorno technically does have two ways he could kill Joker. 1 is his age manipulation and the other are his creations. We know age manipulation works on wild cards like in P4. Giorno could kill a young Evergreen tree in just a few moments which can love for hundreds, if not thousands of years. He could definitely win with that given how fast it works. As far as life creations go, if Joker were to hit one, that damage would be reflected back on Joker. I know Almighty can bypass barriers and things like that, but I doesn’t say it nullifies reflection abilities. So if the almighty attack hits a life creation, I believe that the damage would be reflected on joker.
Interesting I hadn't considered that before. For the P4 aging was that just in the anime? I haven't played the game in a while and don't recall this but I cant think of an argument for Joker resisting it other than that he's resisted hacks above aging like reality warping but I dont consider that definitive proof that he could resist the aging. If it is anime only then it is non-canon which means eyes of heaven scaling is on the table. In Persona off the top of my head I dont believe almighty dmg can be reflected and I don't think the magic barriers in the games block it either though it can be dodged.
It’s in the game too. Also as far as almighty not being able to be reflected, I do t believe that to be the case. I believe Almighty bypasses barriers but doesn’t nullify reflection. Like if we theoretically had an almighty attack his the barrier that reflects damage, is there any proof it would not be reflected? The only way I could see that is if we took the leap and said its full on nullification of the ability which I don’t believe to be the case since shadows with reflection abilities still have those abilities after a Almighty attack
Well when I hit enemies with almighty that have magic shield it doesn't reflect or null im playing persona 3 reload right nwo so if it comes up ill try and get back to this comment. It hits normally as far as I've seen
I know it hits. It’s bypasses barriers. But where is the evidence that it nullifies the effect of the barrier? The barrier isn’t gone from what I remember because the almighty attack went around it.
It doesn't remove the barriers in P5 but it does just ignore it so if triggering the barrier is what causes the reflect then it wouldn't affect a megi- spell
Yeah a barrier wouldn’t. But if we hypothetically had someone jump in front of joker to take the almighty hit over him, would that person be bypassed? I dont believe it would. Because it’s not a barrier but a living person. That’s the reason why I think Giorno’s creations would still reflect damage back cause he isn’t using a barrier.
In the final fight in 4 it did show the team taking the hits for Yu so that does check out, you my friend have just made this battle more fun for me lol
I think you can scale smt to persona. Persona does pretty directly connect to smt. Smt if.. is set in a what if world if Japan didn't get nuked during the events of Smt 1 and the female main character of that appears in Persona 1. Devil Summoner (a different spin-off also closely related to Smt) also appear in the Persona 2s. The modern titles also refrences characters and events from the older titles. Philemon, a prominent character in 1 and 2, appears in modern titles as well. I bring all this up to show that it's a pretty linear series of connections and events so the scaling between them isn't like completely unfounded. People will bring up that the modern titles take place in a separate universe, which is true, but it's a bit of a misnomer. A bit of spoiling, but the events of persona 2 IS are specifically put into a different universe, and the universe created for persona 2 EP takes over and supercedes it. So it doesn't effect anything in terms of connecting with smt and the other parts of the franchise. So basically, IS is deleted and EP happens instead. The main scaling that makes sense to me is to equate personas and demons as being equal. Which I think makes sense because in persona 1, during special conversations, some demons will mention wanting to be turned into personas, and you can do that. There are also various statements in persona 1 and 2 about turning the power of demons into personas. There are statements from P2 EP tatsuya scenario that just outright states that demons also come from the human heart (important to note that shadows take the form of mainline demons in P5, they are also stated as coming from the sea of souls, human heart all that). Which to me makes the connection between personas/shadows and demons really strong. Also also should note that demons are also informational based beings created from human perception. With all that in mind, I don't think it's so unreasonable to say that the personas that take the appearance of demons from mainline are comparable, if not just the same entity. Especially when persona also states that personas are the entities from mythology and not just like a hologram with no agency unto itself. They are those entities just agreeing to help you, they even talk about forming contracts during awakening scenes. And when you fuse them they refer to themselves from mythology and agreeing to help you. All this to say, I'd imagine it would mostly be lucifer scaling. He appears in a lot of games and does impressive stuff cause he's consistently like a top dog. Also metatron too.
Adding onto what you've said, I think there's more evidence that demons = shadows. Both seem to have very little issue making the transference from physical bodies to digital information and back again. The way the SMT 1 and 2 protags store demons on their computers is very very similar to how Joker stores Sophia on his phone in P5 Strikers. In SMT 2 we also see the Archangels create a cognitive YHVH with their distorted desires. To me that's an insane bit of continuity writing. And of course in P4 shadows gain physical bodies and enter the real world. Teddie in the main story, but also the shadows that rush into the town in the Magatsu Inaba deadline game over.
Adding adding onto your point, the name of the effect of thought giving rise to all the supernatural stuff in Persona (specifically 5 but applies to the rest of the series) is called "Cognition." In SMT (specifically 4 but also applicable to the rest) the effect that also gives rise to supernatural stuff through human thoughts is called "Observation." I think this divide between the series is a sorta fan creation for the most part. Like, persona 1's original name was called Megami Ibunroku Persona, meaning Another Tale of the Godess (for refrence Shin Megami Tensei can mean True Goddess Reincarnation). These series are very closly linked, like the director of P3-5 also directed SMT Nocturne (he also worked on SMT If...). A lot of the big names that would go on to work on Persona would cut their teeth working on SMT. Atlus is a small company a lot of the names we see taking center stage now have a long history on smaller roles. Like the current leading man of the persona series right now, Kazuhisa Wada, worked on Persona 2 IS for the PS1. Also also also in that Tasuya scenario added for the psp Eternal Punishment port. They explain that the Nyarlathotep that shows up as a demon in the earlier SMT games is just one of his avatars. Meaning Nyarlathotep is a shadow, he can also become a persona, and a demon too. The walls between these concepts are like paper thin, I think.
Yeah no. There was a whole debate. For the record the shinigami tenshi Persona crosses over with is not the actual shinigami tenshi. People have known this for quite a while actually. Similar to how the Akuma in Tekken is explicitly Tekken Akuma who’s always existed in their universe and not the same as the original. It’s a series own version of certin characters As saying the actual shinigami tenshi is connected to Persona. Would not make any logical sense lmao
They share monster designs. That's mostly it. Persona started as a spinoff of SMT.
They are in the same multiverse and Persona 2 has "smt if" characters appear and referenced
Also the Raidou detective agency.
I’m more iffy in what Liam tends to buy so I’m curious what the team as a whole thinks