The characters take on abilities of the classes rather than be of those classes like the Fire Emblem games. It has a turn-based system with a timeline. The game is set in a modern day Japan (unlike the Fire Emblem games). When it is night time the monsters will come out.
Plot[]
The setting, much like most entries in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, is modern-day Japan, specifically Tokyo. The plot revolves around Fortuna Entertainment, a talent agency that has scouted the main characters.
The main character, Itsuki Aoi, is a normal high school student along with his lifelong friend Tsubasa Oribe and classmate Touma Akagi. One day the three of them come into contact with what are known as Mirages, beings from another world who are drawn to those with creative potential such as Tsubasa (who wants to be a singer) and Touma (an aspiring action actor).
While many Mirages are malevolent and feed of the energy of others, Itsuki and his friends manage to partner with their Mirages and use them in battle (similar to the titular Personas of the Shin Megami Tensei sub-series). Together, they join forces to fight evil Mirages and found out he mysteries of their amnesiac Mirages, such as Chrom and Caeda.
Main Characters[]
Itsuki Aoi - The main character, Itsuki is a simple high school student who one day comes upon the powers of the Mirages. Unlike the other characters he was practically dragged into joining Fortuna Entertainment and has little interest in show biz.
Tsubasa Oribe - Itsuki's old friend, a clumsy but friendly and perky girl who idolizes her senior, Kiria, and dreams of one day being a singer.
Touma Akagi - A classmate of Itsuki. Passionate and fiery, he wants to become an actor and star in the popular action show MasqueRaider.
Kiria Kurono - An upperclassmen of Itsuki, Kiria is a famous pop singer and has been a Mirage Master for some time.
Eleanora Yumizuru - A half-Scandinavian girl, Eleanora (or "Ellie" as she is often called) is a very successful dramatic actress hoping to break into Hollywood films. Despite being younger than Itsuki and Tsubasa, she is their senior within the talent agency and often treats them as younger than she is.
Maiko Shimazaki - The president of Fortuna Entertainment who gathers Mirage Masters. She is a former model and a lover of alcohol, but also has a very gentle, motherly side.
Tiki - The mascot for a song editing software called Singaloid TiKi that is very popular among young people. Despite supposedly being a fictional character in the setting, Tiki is very much real.
Development[]
Conceptualization[]
In 2010, Nintendo producer Kaori Ando voiced her wish to create a Fire Emblem crossover game to fellow producer Hitoshi Yamagami. Ando's initial vision was for a collaboration between the Fire Emblem and Pokémon series, but this was rejected as a similar collaboration was being developed in the form of Pokémon Conquest. Ando redrafted her proposal and submitted it a week later as a crossover between Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei.[3][4] When the project was pitched to Atlus in 2010, it was assumed that they were not interested after their unenthusiastic response and later said they were too busy to undertake the collaboration. One year later, Atlus inquired as to whether the project was still open for discussion, and it transpired that they had been highly enthusiastic about the proposed collaboration while still being too busy with other projects.[5][6]
As Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem[]
The logo that was featured during the announcement trailer for Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem.
During a brief interview with Famitsu in August 2012, Katsura Hashino of Atlus said he had been working on a "collaborative project that will surprise everyone," but that the announcement for it was ways off.[7] The game was initially announced during the January 23, 2013 Nintendo Direct presentation under the working title Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem as one of many planned collaboration projects with third-party developers for the Wii U. The announcement trailer featured artwork of characters from the Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem series, followed by the moon hovering over an area on fire, and concluding with the message "Development in Progress".[8] Atlus' parent company Index Corporation issued a press release the following day confirming that the game would be an RPG, and that it was being developed by Atlus in collaboration with Nintendo.[9] At the time of its announcement, many parts of the game had yet to be developed and finalized, as it had only been two months since Atlus and Nintendo officially decided to create the game.[10]
During early production, the game’s genre was a key factor in determining whether development would be handled by Atlus or Fire Emblem developer Intelligent Systems, with Nintendo producer Yamagami allowing the developers flexibility in trying different types of gameplay.[11] The first proposal was titled Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem.[11] At the initial planning stage of the game, it was intended for it to be a strategy simulation game,[12] with Atlus conceptualizing a grid-based game that included Fire Emblem characters[12] with positioning elements similar to those of the series.[11] However, it was deemed to be too similar to a traditional Fire Emblem game, and the development team was told by Yamagami and staff from Intelligent Systems to keep within their own skillset rather than trying anything different.[11][12]
As Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE[]
Six months into development, the direction of the game changed, based on Yamagami's suggestion to “think of an RPG that capitalizes on the strengths of Atlus”.[12] The decision was eventually made to create something along the lines of a traditional RPG, so Atlus took on primary development.[11] The final product was visualized as a game only Atlus could make, incorporating elements from both series while standing as an original title that could be enjoyed by fans of both Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem. Despite its ultimate form, some of the conceptual ideas were taken from early plans for Fire Emblem Awakening to take place in a modern-day setting.[13] From conception to release, production on Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE lasted five years.[6] During the project's early stages, a project plan was made for a 3DS version, but this never materialized.[11] The Wii U was chosen as the game's platform since Fire Emblem games had already appeared on the 3DS, Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE was intended to be a different "expression" designed for the Wii U.[14]
The game's cutscenes were created by Anima Inc., who handled the animated cutscenes for Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates, and Studio 4°C.[15]
Reception[]
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE received "generally favorable" reviews, holding a score of 80/100 based on 62 critic reviews on Metacritic.[16]
To promote the announcement of Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem and the release of Shin Megami Tensei IV, Club Nintendo offered $30 USD in Nintendo eShop credit to members who registered both Shin Megami Tensei IV and Fire Emblem Awakening for the Nintendo 3DS from July 16, 2013 until August 31, 2013.[18][19] After each game is registered to the same Club Nintendo account, members needed to complete a registration survey by the August 31 deadline to receive the credit.[17] Atlus released a trailer promoting the offer, along with a press release.[19]
Atlus had previously collaborated with Nintendo on a game titled Itsumo Purikura ☆ Kuradeko Premium for the Nintendo DSi and 3DS.[5]
References[]
↑Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Nintendo Direct 1
↑Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Nintendo Direct 2
↑任天堂ソフトＷ（ダブル）インタビュー. Nintendo Dream (in Japanese) (262). Tokuma Shoten: 32–40. December 21, 2015.
↑ 6.06.1Yamagami, Hitoshi (December 11, 2015). 構想から5年、いよいよ再来週発売. Genei Ibun Roku#FE Japanese website. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 26, 2015.
↑Gantayat, Anoop (August 8, 2012). "More Future Talk From Japan's Big Producers". Andrisang. "Separately from P5, Hashino says that he's working on a collaborative project that will surprise everyone, but the announcement for this is a ways off."
↑North, Dale (June 18, 2015). "How Nintendo and Atlus made Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem happen". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on June 23, 2015. Retrieved July 14, 2015. "GamesBeat: The very first showing, the announcement, was basically just character portraits. There was a lot of room to think about what could potentially happen. When the first true trailer debuted, it was a surprise for a lot of people, because they just had these preconceived notions of how these two things would come together. Some people said, this is not at all what I expected. That speaks to some of the struggle you had, perhaps? Shinjiro: When we showed that first trailer, just the Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei character portraits, that was basically two months after we decided, between the two companies, to make this new game. We weren’t too certain of where we would take the direction of the game at that point. We just wanted to say that this collaboration was coming."
↑ 11.011.111.211.311.411.5Brian (January 24, 2016). "Genei Ibun Roku #FE devs – thought about different genres, considered 3DS, more". Nintendo Everything. "Yamagami: The first proposal was “Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem”, but I thought it would probably be for the best to give Atlus freedom in handling the game. It is just a little less than three years ago when we started with the proposal “it is necessary to have elements that combine Fire Emblem to some extent, but other than that let’s be flexible and try various things”. ND: What kind of game did Atlus come up with at first? Hirata: At first we thought about a grid-based game that’s similar to Fire Emblem. Yamagami: We discussed how strategy elements could be put in battles, but on the other hand I told Atlus several times to be bolder, so they were having a bit of a trouble. ND: When talking about Fire Emblem, strategy comes to mind for sure. Hirata: In addition to that, we also had various ideas, like ‘shall we make an MMORPG?’ Kaori: Things like Tower Defense. Yano: We also had a discussion about whether to do it for Wii U or Nintendo 3DS. We even wrote a project plan for 3DS version once."
↑ 12.012.112.212.3SATO (June 24, 2016). "How Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem Evolved Into Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE". Siliconera. "Did Atlus and Nintendo experiment with a strategy RPG based game? What ideas did Nintendo suggest to Atlus during development? What ideas worked and what ideas didn’t work? Hitoshi Yamagami, Producer at Nintendo: At the initial planning stage, we were trying to create an SLG (strategy simulation game). However, when we tried to create a strategy simulation game with characters from FE, it ended up looking just like the original FE, and it was hard to differentiate it. So six months into development, we changed direction, based on our suggestion to “think of an RPG that capitalizes on the strengths of Atlus”. That is how the game system was achieved."
↑メイキング オブ ファイアーエムブレム 開発秘話で綴る25周年、覚醒そしてif (in Japanese). Tokuma Shoten. November 28, 2015. pp. 60–61. ISBN 978-4-19-864056-9.
↑『幻影異聞録♯FE』開発者インタビュー：誕生の経緯からバトル詳細、登場キャラの秘密まで！ (in Japanese). Famitsu. July 14, 2015. Archived from the original on July 14, 2015. Retrieved July 14, 2015. "主人公たちの成長を表現するうえで見逃せないのが、要所で挿入されるライブシーンだ。モーションキャプチャーを駆使した3Dムービーは、定評あるアニマが制作。楽曲と振り付けはavex groupが手掛けており、成長するつばさたちの姿が、活き活きと、華やかに描かれる。"
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