Well I haven't played Shin Megami Tensei, but I have played Wizardy 8 and I know it's nowhere near Pokemon's strategic depth and doesn't have any multiplayer for an online metagame or competition.  Shin Megami Tensei according to the Wiki article seems like a very watered down version of Pokemon.  Not that it really matters, as without multiplayer you are limited to a pathetic game AI, just like Wizardy.

Wizardy has:

11 Races

15 Classes

6 spell types

Although each Race can be any class, there are really only 2 or 3 reasonable choices based on the traits of the races for those classes.  Yes, there is strategy, but each class already has it's set skills and abilities, leading to quite a few possibilities of strategy, but NOTHING to Pokemon.  I'll give you that there is much more strategy in the single player though.

Lets see:


There are 493 Pokemon in the world thusfar. 

Each Pokemon has 1 or 2 types out of a list of 17 different types, allowing for 51 possible type combinations. 

Each Pokemon has it's own ability (sometimes 2 ability options) out of a list of 120 different abilities, each of which has a different effect on the battle while the pokemon is present (such as allowing the pokemon to absorb a certain attack type).  

Each Pokemon can hold an item, each of which also has a different effect. There are 112 items in the game that Pokemon can hold, again each has it's own effect (these aren't just duplicate effects of the abilities either). 

Each Pokemon has a varried value of 6 stats: Health Points, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. 

Of course, all of that isn't even counting the moves.  There are over 600 individual moves in Pokemon, and each Pokemon can learn a combination of 4 moves (though each Pokemon obviously can't learn all 600 moves).  Every move that inflicts damage is divided up into a special attack move or a physical attack move (note that unlike in recent games this isn't a division based on pokemon type anymore).

And of course, you have a team of 6 Pokemon.

You have no clue what you are getting into.  The varrying combinations of strategies between these different factors is infinite.  You really just don't have a clue what kind of strategy goes into competitive Pokemon battling.   I'm sorry, but your wrong.

wow... i can't believe you just wrote that. im speechless honestly. did u just call shin megami tensei, and wizardy games pathetic, because they don't have online.

 megaten games (shin megami tensei) have been around since the nes days, therefore pokemon is a watered version of megaten

No, I said the strategy is limited to the pathetic game AI. Game AI is great, but the challenge of playing other people is much greater. Wizardy 8 was a very fun game, but strategically it's limited. Sorry I can't comment on SMT much as I have never played it.

Oh, and the original Pokemon game may have been a watered down version of Shin Megami, but the franchise has evolved signifficantly since then (despite what the popular media thinks). 

i remember when i was in 8th grade, i had pokemon blue, and we used to have tournaments at the school thanks to the link cables :).

Me too, in fact that's how I got into it (7th grade for me). It was the same way with GSC. Then came the GBA and Ruby Sapphire and Emerald, and unbeknownst to most, the formula and strategy were changed signifficantly. I discovered a program called Netbattle, which opened up a whole new world of Pokemon depth and strategy to me through online pokemon battles. Netbattle has been discontinued now because DP is online, but DP added a lot more to the already expanded strategy and I'm just beginning to get the hang of the new options.

God damn. I need to play the first two games immediately. I watched a friend of mine play the second one a bit, and holy crap does it look gorgeous. Want. Want much.