Before getting started, I do have to make a quick announcement. Due to the state of the world right now, I've revived a Patreon account to try and ease the blow that is basically the world shutting down due to the Coronavirus. It has affected me pretty hard, due to my main work being Events Operations, so if you do enjoy the work that I do (which should be coming out more consistently due to all the extra free time I have), and you are in a position where you can help, please support me on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/mediaholics), and hopefully, the state of the world isn't like this for too long. If you start seeing an influx of older toys, older shows, movies, games, etc in the coming months from both sites, this is the reason why. Anyway...
Before the development of Fire Emblem Awakening, there have supposedly been talks over at Intelligent Systems on a potential Fire Emblem Game set in the modern world. Bringing the traditional combat system, but replacing swords, bows, and horses with more modern weapons and forms of combat. While some may argue that's what Advanced Wars is for, it turns out modern-day Fire Emblem would end up happening... by turning Fire Emblem into a Persona game. Not the most out-there crossover idea I've heard, as the combat systems between the two games, are similar enough to synergise well, but while this was originally pitched to the world as a crossover between Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei (of which Persona is a spin-off of), by the time people finally got to see the game, what we ended up seeing was... Persona 4 Lite guest staring Edgelord Chrom... The WiiU version of the game is something I purchased but didn't get much of a chance to play it as it was one of the few WiiU games that actually needed both the TV and the Gamepad screens, something that I found hard to explain to people who were used to me playing the WiiU by plugging in a set of headphones to the Gamepad and playing it like a giant Gameboy Advance. So when talk of a Switch port started circulating, I was interested, especially now that my knowledge and experience of Atlus games have grown to be more than just "What's a Persona?". Now that I can actually play it at my own pace, is it any good?
To make it clear out of the gate, this is more of an Atlus RPG then it is a Fire Emblem game. If you do not like large, story-heavy JRPG's, you're not going to like this game. For those wanting more information on what is actually on the cartridge though... Starting with the plot, and where Persona fans will probably feel at home, though I am doing generalized summaries. Mirages, many of whom are corrupted versions of heroes from another world (Fire Emblem characters) are coming to Tokyo to consume an essence known as Performa, a form of energy made up of a persons' talent relating to arts like Singing, Dancing, Modelling and Acting, often by attracting a large crowd to an area with some kind of event. One of those is a contest looking for potential Idols, where your friend, Tsubasa Oribe, is pulled into an alternate world known as an Idolsphere. You run in after her and in the process manage to somewhat restore two Mirages, who in turn become you and your friend's partners, allowing you to properly fight the Mirages as Mirage Masters, and end up being hired by Fortuna Entertainment as a result, as they use their Idol agency as a cover to fight Mirages. From there, the plot can be summed up as "Major event happens, "Oh no, Mirages are corrupting it", run through the dungeon, constantly leaving dungeons to heal and unlock new abilities and weapons, unlock special "through the power of believing in myself..." ability, beat boss, fluff around with sidequests leading to "interesting" interactions, particularly between you and most of the female members of Fortuna, next chapter". Though the stories are interesting enough to not feel as repetitive as it sounds, it's hard to deny that the story falls into a predictable rhythm early on.
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| Is this a joke worthy of Joker? This will just make them louder you know, assuming the sequel wasn't doing that already... |
The Sidequests, though frustrating at times, along with repetitive (looking at you Lucky Spots, that couple who you have to keep trying to meet up by constantly running back and forth between maps, and that guy who keeps falling in love with Mirages), the sidequests relating to the main cast do have interesting stories that not only flesh them out as characters, but also unlock cutscenes relating to the performances they do in the stories, and new moves to use in combat, most of which often make the combat skew heavily in your favour, with the only downside being their dependence on RNG. From randomly appearing screen nukes after fixing plushies and describing flavour's to an almost emotionless guy, to moves that if you choose to activate them can attack every enemy on screen, heal you, and also allow you to keep your combo going to get more money and Performa to use in weapons and abilities. How you unlock those abilities, doing things like teaching someone that it's ok to be cool and cute, teaching someone to respect their opponent, showing someone still has a place on the team even if they aren't on the front line, and then watching him (a grown man for the record) dress up in a dog costume and play fetch by charging at enemies while the axe is in their mouth. Yes, this game gets that absurd at times when it comes to these abilities.
Combat itself is a traditional RPG Rock Paper Scissors combat system. Alongside the Fire Emblem Weapon Triangle, each character can learn elemental attacks (Fire, Ice, Wind, Electric, etc), with enemies being weak to at least one of those types of attacks. You also have the buff systems from games like Shin Megami Tensei and Persona, where you can buff or debuff members in combat for 3 turns. Something that breaks this battle system in half though is the game's Session Skills. Sessions are this game's combo systems, by attacking enemies with their weaknesses, you can automatically link follow up attacks against that enemy provided the other members of your party have the right session skills (unlocked by levelling up weapons). For example, Tsubasa will only do a session attack after you use a Sword attack if she has a Session Skill that follows on from a sword attack. These are easy to unlock, to the point that by end game, I was consistently doing attacks where everyone in my party, including three unlockable session characters. While part of this is coming from me being quite over levelled by the time I went to the final dungeon, during the dungeon's "Boss Rush", bosses tended to have 1-2 turns to attack before I Session combo them to death. It's shockingly easy to become too powerful in this game, both in terms of levels and raw power, and the ability to purchase items and costumes. By the time I was in the final dungeon, partly down to my playing style as I spent a large chunk of time in a mini-dungeon beforehand unlocking abilities, I had 15 million yen in-game, and by the time I finished the game I had roughly 20 million, even after purchasing all the costumes, raffle prizes, items from the Hee Ho Market, and using vending machines to heal my party. That and the Idol focus of the story is how the game has gotten the reputation of Persona 4 Lite, as it almost unashamedly takes more from Shin Megami Tensei and Persona then it does Fire Emblem.
What it does take from Fire Emblem though are the names used for the Mirages, with the major Mirages having identifiable visual cues as they're given Atlus Persona inspired designs. To give you an idea of this, here's Chrom from Fire Emblem Awakening on the left compared to his design in TMS#FE on the right.
One of the things I do feel is a bit of a missed opportunity is that while it's clear that it's only calling back to the original Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem Awakening, for most of the game it feels like Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon 2, guest staring Chrom, Virion and Tharja, at least that's how it feels from memory. Three of the main bosses come from Awakening, but most of the named Mirages you see get their names from Shadow Dragon (at least that's what it feels like due to the drastically different designs, and the plot being lifted from Shadow Dragon, to be fair though, I'm not a die-hard Fire Emblem fan so without a visual aid, I can't easily tell who is from what game). However, due to the drastically different designs, almost all of them feel like name drops more than anything else. That example I give of Chrom is one of the more recognizable ones, the bosses themselves go even further into the abstract, unrecognizable designs.
Presentation-wise, I'm mixed about it. The game looks great, with a very bright colour palette giving the areas an almost surreal, music video-esque feel to them. But a part of me does think the localization is a bit on the lazy side with there being no English voice actors. While I somewhat get the justification of it being set in Japan, that argument loses a lot of weight when you look at the Shin Megami Tensei and especially Persona games. Is it because of the music focus? The songs themselves are alright overall, but they are distracting compared to the game's somewhat generic overall score, and due to the sheer variety of styles, the soundtrack doesn't feel as cohesive as other video game soundtracks, not counting amalgamation soundtracks like Smash Brothers.
While I have enjoyed my time playing TMS#FE, a lot of that enjoyment has been me laughing at parts of the game, making jokes at the game's expense, or laughing at some of the music videos, and how questionable, if not impossible some of the stunts they pull off in the clips are (coming from an AV technician perspective, many, many, MANY organizations would stop that inflatable dino stunt in Give Me before they even began rehearsals doing it). Things like syncing Mass Destruction to one of Virion's special moves (which works surprisingly well considering as I wasn't trying too hard to make it work...). It's been a nice delve into an Atlus RPG without some of the more pressuring aspects of them from an outsider's perspective, such as the Confidant systems, and the time limits. I'm glad that this has been given another chance of life on the Switch, and I'd be up for it getting a sequel, especially if they add in other Mirage classes based on the more out there classes from Fire Emblem. Imagine a (and I use this example because they're recognizable thanks to Smash) Mirage based on Corrin from Fire Emblem Fates, where the Mirage form is Corrin's Dragon form, and the Mirage Master is based more on their humanoid form. In fact, for a game all about using singing and dancing to take out your enemies, I'm surprised there isn't a dedicated Singer/ Dancer class, that was reduced to a buff move that a handful of characters can use. There's potential for this to grow further, and I hope that this second chance on life has at least inspired talks on a sequel.
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