Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore

[Stanshall]

It's the bright and breezy Shin Megami Tensei/Fire Emblem crossover in a world of J-Pop idols which nobody played on the Wii U ported to the Switch where it has been instantly forgotten!

This is a very stylish, slick, streamlined JRPG with an unusual, daft and fun premise, i.e. You become a pop star to explore the shadowy supernatural underbelly of the idol scene to try to find your mate's lost sister. I haven't really played much Persona, maybe ten hours of P5, but it feels very similar in terms of surface sizzle and concise combat. It's structurally very similar to Persona but the social stuff and time management is really toned down which suits me a great deal better.

It's very much cheered me up this afternoon and feels like a great game to sink a few hours into. A number of my most enjoyable recent gaming experiences have been story-driven slower stuff when I've made the effort to adapt to the more leisurely pace. Possibly a lesson in that. It's very very very anime, so caveat emptor, but I seem to have more of a tolerance (even appetite) for that kind of thing these days.

Anyone ever given this a chance either on Switch or Wii U? I'll report back.

[KSubzero1000]

I remember being really excited reading about this game's initial announcement, but my interest completely dropped off a cliff the more details were being unveiled. I'm admittedly really set in my ways when it comes to Fire Emblem, and a Persona-style social JRPG dealing with modern day media personalities and supernatural threats ticks a grand total of zero of my boxes. If there's any correlation whatsoever to the proper FE formula, then they did a terrible job at marketing it because I'm not seeing it.

I'm not terribly proud to admit this considering I've never played this game and my opinion consists of little more than prejudice, but the entire premise sounds... wrong to me considering the alleged FE pedigree.

Must be getting old or something.

[Flabyo]

It’s not a fire emblem game in any way really.

[Stanshall]

Yeah, the FE elements are barely apparent after the first few hours. It's basically a Persona game.

[JadePhoenix]

I'm currently about 75%-ish through the remake, after bouncing off it originally, and yeah, as others have said, it's basically Persona 4.5. The Fire Emblem references basically consist of the names of weapons, some characters, and some sound effects, and that's pretty much it. The combat is super flashy and a ton of fun, but no where near as well balanced as mainline Persona games. I'm really glad I gave it a second chance.

[ThirdDrawing]

I'm still infuriated at the fact we've had this, Catherine AND a P5 spin-off announced and released all AFTER SMT V was announced and we've had ZERO information on it. It's bloody infuriating.

[Stanshall]

I'm only playing half an hour here and there but it's a great little session every time. It's also plenty tough enough for me even on Easy or whatever. It also feels so streamlined up to this point, all good stuff, no padding.

[Alex79]

I'll be completely honest, it's the name that puts me off more than anything. There are so many generic anime sounding games out and I don't have a clue what any of them actually play like, but when you look at screenshots they all look almost identical. Anime characters, battling, dialogue... You couldn't move for the on the Vita online store, they baffle me. I always wondered 'who's buying these!?' It's a shame really because I bet there were some gems in there, which I happily ignored.

[Stanshall]

I'll be completely honest, it's the name that puts me off more than anything. There are so many generic anime sounding games out and I don't have a clue what any of them actually play like, but when you look at screenshots they all look almost identical.

I totally understand this. For a long time, I would have been put off this game by any number of elements which you mentioned. The music and look of it, the slightly questionable character designs, the daft name, the 'weeb shit' - without putting too fine a point on it. And as I've said a couple of times, I'm not generally into JRPGs or even Persona games.

As for what's changed...I guess that culturally, I've become a little desensitised to these off-putting elements and I've found a lot below the surface which is rare and wonderful, and I especially like the mundane slice of life details. I don't really watch anime but the top tier stuff I've seen I've really loved, like Berserk, stuff by Katsuhira Otomo (Akira, Perfect Blue and others), Neon Genesis Evangelion and Studio Ghibli, and this has broken down my prejudice somewhat. Likewise, reading some top tier manga has helped me to see past the superficial elements, and again Berserk and Akira, but also Nausicaa, Lone Wolf and Cub and Monster are absolutely incredible. I've also dipped my toe into less highbrow/well-regarded stuff like Gantz and enjoyed it for the pulpy action and pace and crazy artwork. I still hardly watch any anime or read any manga because I find a lot of it juvenile or it simply doesn't appeal, but I've got past my initial preconceptions.

I think that's how I've come to play and enjoy this game, basically. I'd also say that Fire Emblem Three Houses probably played a significant part, because it borrows heavily from this type of Persona template and all the slice of life stuff really appealed to me. Tokyo Mirage Sessions is by no means a masterpiece or deep in almost any way besides the combat system, but it's very slick, playable, condensed, polished, flashy and it has a happy, silly atmosphere which really appeals to me these days. It's a very pleasant way to unwind, as opposed to killing myself chaining Ikaruga or grinding out a few ranking points in some multiplayer game. I love those things, too, but not all the time and not when I'm knackered and really busy. Balanced diet, and all that!

Anyway, just wanted to give you a decent reply because I totally get where you're coming from, but having dipped my toe into this kind of thing now, I would say there are some unique riches to be found.

[Stanshall]

I've been putting more time into this of late rather than the odd twenty minutes/half hour and I love every moment with it. For something about such a dodgy industry, it's such a bright and breezy and light-hearted romp. The music and combat are especially excellent but the whole aesthetic just makes me feel happy to play it.

You could certainly argue that they're presenting a tone-deaf sanitised version which belittles the suffering and abuse which goes on behind closed doors but, in fact, they do address some of the issues within the idol circles and still manage to create and encourage a celebration of pop music and self-expression. They even acknowledge some of the lustier elements in quite a healthy way. It's never at all explicit or particularly played for laughs, rather than an expression that talented, attractive, confident people are appealing and that it's OK to be proud of yourself. There's a refreshing sincerity to that message which I feel would be sneered at in Europe, albeit possibly not so much in the States where people seem much more comfortable to promote themselves!

I also find that in Western culture (both in Europe and the US) there's a lot more overt sexualisation which ironically goes hand-in-hand with a culture of shame (I stopped short of saying 'slut shaming', but that's what I I'm referring to predominantly). This attitude is also brought up in the game where it's subsequently conquered by the purity of artistic vision!

I honestly think this would make a really interesting show.

[raisinbman]

Not sure how forum conduct is here, but there are spoilers below:

Spoiler: show

TMS:FE# is  a great game, but not the game I was expecting - we waited a long time for the vaunted crossover from the two not-so-similar franchises, and in my case, maybe because of Tekken and Street Figther also vowing to cross, I was a bit more interested. I've played all US-released Fire Emblems, and most of them to death. The console ones were a little tougher in that money doesn't grow on trees, and TV time was often at a premium, but I was always able to play the mobile entries in the car or to and fro otherwise.

There's a bit of a preamble here though: I actually missed the initial release, I have no idea why, but sometimes I end up a hermit from the world if for no real  reason. I had a Wii U for Smash, so I'm not sure what my deal was then, but it probably involved being obsessed with MOBAs or filler mobile games at the time. 

In hearing it was being rereleased, like the rest of the WiiU games that ended up on the Nintendo Switch, as if the industry itself okayed a Do-over for nintendo, I planned on getting it as soon as I finished with Three Houses. I had went through a bit of a crisis of faith with Nintendo, with them ruining Paper Mario, still not supporting online properly,  starting an ethos of 'hiring people who aren't game developers', and probably most famously telling us they wouldn't give us new entries in various franchises if they couldn't do something 'new' with it. Point being, I was outgrowing Nintendo. So I didn't have a Switch, but Three Houses was coming out. In hearing it got good reviews, dangerously close to it's release date, but I ordered a switch and realized I didn't grab the limited edition - something super out of character for me. So I begrudgingly grabbed the normal version and kept checking for some reason if the limited edition would be up for grabs, as unlikely as that seemed. I think either the night before or close to that, my wish had been granted - someone decided to cancel their limited edition preorder, and it was mine. I swapped the two orders as soon as humanly possible and in playing it realized Fire Emblem was still there for me, even if that was nearly my only interest in Nintendo anymore. And so I knew next I'd need to grab TMS.

And now that I've set the scene, I can get into the actual game: it's less of a crossover and more of a fun side-game that isn't very Fire Emblem, but I think what was behind the scenes of this is even more important. Although this is just speculation on my part, oftentimes we hear of games getting greenlighted after a previous success, because that initial project was a proof of concept and let them seed their ideas. I don't know the SMT/Persona side of things as well as I know the Fire Emblem side of things, but it DEFINITELY seems like this crossover made Three Houses that much better through taking a page from Persona. Though much of what 3 Houses ended up doing had previously been in the series, I imagine lots of talk happened between the two.

Although I was a bit disappointed that Fire Emblem(It's effectively a Persona: Gaiden game, and that's okay) didn't really make up much of the actual crossover, I took to the game quickly. And, ultimately, I see it as a nice detour you might stop when travelling down the road and being pleasantly surprised that it was worth doing, revitalizing you when you get back on your journey.

The narrative starts off pretty silly, with a girl who wants to be an idol but for some reason didn't bring an actual idol clothes to her audition(when the other two auditioning ladies did), but I think that sets the tone for what you should expect if you didn't know already. And that ultimately is, not much. If you're at the intersection of RPG, Anime, and Persona/Fire Emblem, you're either used to it or probably won't mind. While they're some great character highlights, AMV(Anime Music Videos) and pretty cutscenes, much of the actual story is a vehicle just to move the story on. There are some confusing moments, when Yashiro goes from your enemy to your ally(trope in anime) just because you're strong, the main character dies right before the end fight to be revived(trope in anime), your main antagonist just fighting you and dying without much fanfare (????). 

The Fire Emblem player in me did enjoy getting to see the character moments in the main story and the side story, but it's more tropes than actual characterization. Playing as a blank slate MC who all the female party members fall in love with instantaneously and for some reason(despite not being a veteran in terms of combat or the entertainment industry, both of which end up in his party) decide to nominate as leader was pretty disappointing, but it's standard for the genre. And at the end of the game, they decide to make him president of the company despite him probably still being in school? Woof. Completely random and Wish fulfillment personified. The most disappointing and odd part of the story was the MC gets to say goodbye to his companions, and NO ONE ELSE IS THERE. For those without context, each of the characters has a companion they're stuck with for the duration of the game. You're telling me this vanilla, Marty Stu dude is the one you want to say goodbye to but not the companion who's life is in your hands? Uh, no! Another weird moment was when a character asked the MC if he got along with his partner, and you could choose 2 completely opposite options. Because there'd been no development on that front, I sort of mentally shrugged and thought 'none of this matters'. But some decisions DO matter when it comes to getting the 'perfect' ending, so you can't ignore it if you'd like to do well, even if it leaves you grinding your teeth. 

My favorite character was probably Ayaha,whom the bad guys decide to take her clothes away when they brainwash her, which doesn't happen with anyone else, but moving on... She's not even a party member, but her poking fun at the MC, that he didn't laugh at jokes for instance was a nice bit of possible 4th wall breaking. Tsubasa was pretty great as well, although her heart's in a good place, I like getting the behind the scenes moments of someone who, on stage is a big idol, but in reality, she's a bit of a mess. And as much as some of the antics are over the top and ridiculous, I have to admit her passing out while standing up, completely standing still got a chuckle out of me. And then we get to the negative - Barry. The less said the better, and even the ingame achievement is something like 'you've put up with talking to barry 50 times'. It's also really absurd: from his 'american' name, to the fact that he used to be a famous rock star, decided for some reason to either become or embrace his love of anime and 2D girls/young girls and go to Japan, and his character arc has him put himself in danger and get jealous of the MC despite swearing off combat earlier to the point he asked his previous companion to go to someone younger, and finally making you go through a stupid maze for something that isn't really important. If you haven't gotten a creeper vibe yet he makes a comment later on in the game about 'not listening to a girl with a 2D chest', so yeah. I actually can see Barry being acceptable in some of the dialogue and actions(typing in all caps, has at least 1 funny comeback), but as is, Barry is dangerously close to being cancelled. Maiko is a bit over the top, and I'm sort of conflicted on her, I think she's mostly okay, but her gag that she's flirty goes a bit too far when the game implies you're/you're going to grope her breasts? 

In terms of issues with the game, I had a couple. I didn't do a ton with the WiiU, so I don't know whether to heavily penalize them for these things or not, but I imagine they knew about these things and could have done something about them at the time: there's no autosave. It has been a very long time since i've played something without an autosave, and in this game, savage enemies(who you can't run from without a certain item/skill reliably) can wipe you out and appear randomly. I never lost a TON of progress, but it took some getting used to to go back to saving before anything and everything. That being said, the game does prompt you every time you go up against a boss/miniboss if you're ready for the encounter. The game doesn't track all status effects equally - it doesn't happen a ton, but there's some encounters where certain units enter a guarding stance or counterattacking stance and because they look the same and the constant camera shifting, you CANNOT tell which one did what. You can just outlevel everything as per the DLC(or if you're in the switch version, the included DLC), but I found that annoying. And something a bit more nebulous, the game says pretty early on you shouldn't overlevel because it won't be enjoyable, but my pattern of play would be go as far as possible, fight the boss, if I win, okay, if I lose, train up everything until that point. and even in doing that, I was struggling and it seems some encounters just come down to luck, provided you don't want to overlevel or really just grind out for that specific encounter. I did start realizing that sometimes, my characters were just going to die, and that sometimes, I wouldn't be able to do anything with a character. This is partly alleviated in having items that can function as attacks, or just having making a character an item user. Grinding is minimal though, with the DLC. If you're looking for 100% completion, that's different, but I do like the option to just go to the DLC dungeon and level up every battle.

The map system is confusing - I don't know if it was just because I needed to look into the options about this, but coming straight off Three houses and straight into Persona 5, the difference is vast. In particular for the city, it seems to be split into really weird sections and the map doesn't really help? 

This might just be on me, but I hate puzzles and hate confusing dungeons, and we've got both of those here. I could make an exception if they show you the entire 'puzzle' at the same time but especially because I'm playing on my exercise bike, I don't really have the presence of mind to do puzzles. There's even achievements for flipping proverbial puzzle switches enough times, so I'm sure they knew about it themselves. But in one case at least, luckily the switch has a photomode, so I could NOT memorize stupid puzzle and just swap back and forth between the puzzle key and the actual puzzle.

I've heard a fair bit about Persona and Persona music but I've never played them, and was excited to get into the game for that reason. Fire Emblem also has it's fair share of catchy tunes, but none of them are really present in the game? I think there was 1 song during intense/boss battles that was pretty good. And something else sound-wise, and again, I don't know if this was just a WiiU thing but it was extremely quiet. I thought I was going crazy but I remembered the volume was great in 3 houses, so I have no idea what was going on there but I did end up maxing out music volume just to try and hear it.

Some of the character choices felt odd in terms of fire emblem representation, obviously, Awakening was huge, but as someone who played FEH and knows that there's a character popularity ranking they do occasionally, really stood out. But this is nothing new, fire emblem reps in smash also suffers by that a bit.
Item inventory being limited was really weird, if I had to put myself in the dev's shoes, I guess they didn't want you to be overpowered, but in the real combat tests of this game, you aren't even allowed items, or in another case, items just won't cut it. This just ends up hurting people like me who hoard items, so in some cases, you can't open treasure chests or most egregiously, can't go back into the arena until you use/sell an item in order to get the item that's waiting for you.  

I thought I'd write in with this in particular because I did end up caning and rinsing it - I actually was content to put it down when I finished it, as I normally might, but I kept earning trophies and got 50% of them. That plus the fact that this was my exercise bike game, I didn't have much to lose to keep going. The only thing I haven't done in the game is beat the game on the highest difficulty, and that's because in doing the rest of the achievements, alot of the harder content is just grinding prestige levels. It did get a little less fun in getting to level cap and realizing the only way to reliably kill savage enemies at that point was to use Ellie's insta-kill supers. It also became a bit tedious in upgrading weapons with it having a cutscene every time.

But this is a pretty unique game, or I assume, at least a pretty unique game that actually made it to our shores - it was interesting learning about idols and that sort of thing, with what little that was there. It does make me a bit interested in how the japan-only content(if it was handled well) would've talked about these young women entering industries like gravure and what that would've been like.

I haven't mentioned it too much, but that's because there wasn't anything wrong it with - probably the star of this game is the battle system. Again, here it takes more after Persona than Fire Emblem, but it actually has the same effect of you wanting to do the most advantageous thing possible, and NOT let the enemy get a chance to do anything because that'd probably mean death. For most of the game, you're rewarded for your decisions in battle. It's a common complaint that you can't do certain things to (usually) bosses in RPGs, and here, for the most part, you have combat freedom in pursuing certain strategies. Though it does unravel later on when you realize who's weaker and what you need to do for very very specific battles. Most of this is absolutely extra, but it's always a sad moment for me when I have to bench certain characters, and completely revamp what I'm doing. But I was happy in learning I wasn't completely wrong in my feeling of what characters were better than others and what I should be doing in the lategame.

Let me know if you need someone for a TMS show

[Alex79]

Well that was an epic and bizarrely specific first post! Welcome to the forum!

[raisinbman]

Thanks, I have quite a bit of free time at the job so I have to do SOMETHING to keep from going insane from boredom.

epic and bizarrely specific

That's a first, but I'll take it, lol.