(Game played with Japanese text.)
I imported Tokyo Mirage Sessions # FE Wii U bundle from Japan at the tail end of 2015. Not a wise purchase choice by any mean. In terms of the industry, while the Wii U exclusive Super Mario Maker was winning Game of the Year 2015 from at least Giantbomb and Usgamer, it was clear that Nintendo’s struggling console had entered into its twilight year. In terms of personal experience, TMS#FE’s mandated dual screen set-up had always been in the way of me beating the game. I needed 2 pairs of earphones, one plugged into the display and other into the Wii U game pad, just to play the damned thing at night. I got through its first chapter by April, 2016 and never had chance to finish it.
So, TMS#FE sold a Wii U to me, but I did not beat it until it became just another entry into my way too big Switch software library. And I’m glad to report that it stood out for me in a good way. With Atlus still refusing to port Persona 5 proper to Switch, TMS#FE is very much the next best thing. If you like anime, this might be the getaway drug into JRPG for you like it was for me. If you don’t like anime, well, there is still a decent dungeon crawler to play with here.
Story and Presentation
Itsuki Aoi is an 18-year-old with friends in the show business. But soon enough, he found out that his showbiz friends are not just in it for the fame and dream. They are fighting against an extra-dimensional threat known as Mirages, with friendly Mirages resembling characters from Fire Emblem games. Young Mr. Aoi now has to get into the showbiz himself, improving his own skills as entertainer and performer just so he can help his friends in the fight for the human race and lead them to victory.
The Atlus developed JRPG was announced as a crossover between Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensen series and Nintendo’s Fire Emblem. Now that Three Houses had put the series back on its political intrigue in high fantasy land track, TMS#FE might seem like a far cry from Fire Emblem story. But back in 2015, “fighting evil from another dimension” could not be more Fire Emblem. It’s what I remember from playing Fates Birthright and also what I heard about Awakening. TMS#FE has the marks of 3DS’ heydays written all over it.
“Fighting evil from another dimension” is only half of the story, the other is a dramady anime about Japanese showbiz. As the game justifies, a brighter star one becomes in the showbiz, a better guardian against hostile Mirages they are. TMS#FE came out roughly 9 months after the conclusion of animated series Shirobako, “White Box”, a show about the anime industry. While it touches on the hardship people in that business encounter, it is overall in a dramady package. TMS#FE has a similar vibe.
For one thing, neither the game nor the show contains anything resembling romantic story line. There are some “Will they? Won’t they?” going on with Aoi and other characters in TMS#FE, but they all conclude with a loud “Nah, they won’t”. Both the show and the game centre around their heroes’ hard work towards establishment in the industry they work in, all of them are too busy for love.
Also like Shirobako, TMS#FE features reference to real life people in Japanese pop culture, “with the serial number filed off” of course. My favourite is a cult film director who works in television during the current days of the game and dreams of a Hollywood career (Oh, 2015 certainly sounds like a lifetime ago). The real life counterpart of that character, the (in)famous Miike, directed a movie with all English dialogue and an all Japanese cast except Quentin Tarantino playing a minor role in it. The movie is titled Sukiyaki Western Django and it’s as weird as it sounds.
So, I personal find Tokyo Mirage Sessions # FE’s story interesting. It is certainly anime as fuck to the point of off putting to lots of people. But for people who are into it, the treasure hunt for interesting bits would definitely be worth it.
Structure
The game contain 8 chapters in total. It begins with a Prologue, ends with an Epilogue and between those two there are 6 numbered chapters. Between each numbered chapters, there are segments called Intermission where player can clear side quests without the pressure to push the main plot forward. Playing with “Easy” difficulty, it took me 48 hours and 27 minutes to beat the game according to save data.
This game’s quest log is presented as its own fictional social media called TOPIC. Main quests are categorized under Main Story, in which player needs to map out the dungeon introduced in the each numbered chapters. The Switch port’s additional contents called Ex Story is under here as well.
Aside from the main quests, there are 2 kinds of side quests.
The first kind featuring Aoi’s 9 TOPIC contacts is categorized under Side Story. Each contact has 3 side quests throughout the game. They are optional, but not that optional. Gameplay wise, the main plot points in the game all have recommended levels and each quest accomplished has additional experience points. I don’t think I could get the recommended level 60 for the final boss fight without doing the Side Story. Story wise, the game has the Fire Emblem signature one paragraph ending for each character and how those turn out depends on how many Side Stories the player completed.
The second kind of side quest is cheekily named “Request”, which works as a pun in both English and Japanese written with katakana. It’s mostly fetch quests and occasionally something interesting. There is no quest log for those, player needs to check the colors of icons above the quest givers’ heads in the hubs, yellow means new quest not yet taken, green means in-progress and purple means time to cash in. The lack of quest log for Requests can be annoying given that player can take on several Requests at once while only a Side Story at a time.
Gameplay
Gameplay wise Tokyo Mirage Sessions # FE is a turn-based dungeon crawling role playing game. It lays heavily towards the Shin Megami Tensen side of the crossover. The Fire Emblem side of the thing, like the weapon triangle, is never in the front of my mind while doing battle in the game. Altus’ trademark elemental consideration is.
There are 3 kinds of color coded enemies in the dungeons: Red robed regular enemies; Black robed “Wild Enemy”, who are usually a few levels above the party and if player play their cards right, a harvest of XP; and the Golden robed Rare Enemy, who can only be defeated in a particular way and figuring out is the fun.
Regular “Attack” command is not often used in battle, unless you want to save some EP for Skills and just whack an enemy on their last breath. Combo known as Session is what one should go for during battles. I mean the localization team did consider it important enough to be the titular mechanic. Player launches an attack with a weapon or an element the enemy is weak to, and everyone can get a hit in.
Sessions are not free, they are triggered by either the Skills consuming EPs, the game’s magic points, or one time use Items. And if one party member misses while Session, then it’s over. If one party member attack with an element the enemy is immune to, the Session is over. There are 6 party members in the game to pick from and all have a perk (or Radiant Unity, later on that) to allow them to chime in during Sessions even if they are on the bench. The Switch port allows the 3 non party member TOPIC contacts to get a piece of the action during Sessions through loots in the additional dungeon.
Late game would unlock Duo Arts that would randomly pop up during Sessions. They would attack all enemies and buff up party members in one way or another. One Duo Art called “Dream Catcher” is a life saver for me during the final boss fight. It charmed the 2 minions on screen into not attacking for several turns so I can focus on the boss.
Aside from battles and cut scenes, player can save wherever and whenever they want. And they can change party members due “Casting” that freely as well. “Main Cast” are those player takes into battle, and “Sub Cast” are the aforementioned bench. “Change” is also a command during battle, anyone besides Aoi can be swapped with another party member when their turn is up.
Weapon known as Carnage Unity is forged exclusively in Bloom Palace, a room in the talent agency Aoi works for and his friends signed to, with material known as Performa (If you think it’s a pun the localization team came up with, then imagine playing the game in Japanese and the katakana is indistinguishable from “performer”.). Each Carnage would give party member different elemental strengths and weaknesses, as well as different Skills, active, passive or used in Sessions only. Managing those Skills is more complicated than inventory management.
Perks known as Radiant Unity is forged this way as well. And since there are story related Radiant Unities, this can dragged the pacing of the game a little bit. Player reaches a certain point in the dungeon, told one such perk needs forging. Then they leave the dungeon and literally go back to the office. Forge the perk and head back to the dungeon. Thank god for those teleportation spots in the dungeon, but one still needs to traverse the hubs.
The inventory is pretty simple in the game. Besides the appear only costume change, one only needs to manage the aforementioned Carnage Unities and pieces of jewels party member wears as armor. Jewels can be purchased in one particular shop in the Shibuya hub or earned by completing Requests.
Even playing “Easy”, there is neither automatic life restoration nor heal from poison or curses for the party, but there are several ways to restore HP and EP in the hubs. Aoi can buy drinks from vendors or eat at several spots. Depends on the things he eats and drinks, there are different effects on party members. As mentioned before, there are only 6 party members, so no Fire Emblem’s signature permanent death. Though if a party member is down in the battle, consumables are needed to bring them back into the fold.
Strangely “Easy” is not the lowest difficulty, the game has to offer. After one playthrough, an even lower difficulty called “Friendly” would be unlocked along side the highest one called “Lunatic”. It’s kind of baffling to see Atlus putting the so-called baby mode behind one playthrough wall...
TMS#FE is by no mean a visual novel, but there are collection elements resembling that genre. For one there are cut scenes to collect, which is one reason to complete Side Stories(Another being to unlock Critical Hit style attack hitting every enemy during battles.). Since Aoi works for a upcoming talent agency, there are always new works coming out and those have posters. It’s just another thing to collect.
Time to revisit an old Giantbomb joke: how good is TMS#FE’s fishing mini game? Well, there is no fishing mini game to speak of. In fact, there is no mini game of any kind in the game. There are only the adventure in the hubs and the dungeon crawling action.
Some bullshit regarding Mass Effect...
Okay, 3 out of 3. I don’t seem to be capable of writing a user review without mentioning Mass Effect. Well, so be it.
Pile 1
Back in the dawn of that day in April, 2016, I was listening to the boss of the first proper dungeon in TMS#FE. She was talking about how we human beings are just food to them, she was just the first wave and blah blah blah. I could not help but have flashback about Sovereign the Reaper’s speech to Commander Shepard on the planet Virmire in the first Mass Effect.
Of course TMS#FE presents the whole thing as an episode villain trying to scare the hero in a Saturday morning cartoon. While Mass Effect has the Star Wars by the way of Dark Horse comic production value and cosmic horror undertone. I guess “Huh? I have seen this story delivered with more gravitas.” was one of the reasons why I didn’t carry on with the game.
Pile 2
TMS#FE can be sold as a “Persona lite” experience. I have nothing to add to that expect that within the same amount of time I got to the entrance of tutorial dungeon of Persona 4 or 5, I can clear the first proper dungeon in TMS#FE. And also regarding their Japanese voice cast.
During TGS 2015, Altus put up a Persona 5 trailer ending with a wall of kanjis. As someone who pay some attention to the voice acting scene in Japan, I looked at it and went “Wow! That’s one all star cast they got there!” TMS#FE don’t have enough people to construct a wall of kanjis, but it does have an all star cast to attract their target audience among anime viewers. And here are 5 I would love to hear in a dub for Mass Effect trilogy.
Tomokazu Sugita played Chrom, Aoi Itsuki’s bond friendly Mirage based the character from Fire Emblem Awakening. Urdnot Wrex in Mass Effect 2 and 3, should he survive that long, is basically a wise cracking Chrom and Mr. Sugita broke into the scene as a wise cracker. So he would be a perfect match for Wrex.
Saori Hayami played Caeda, party member Tsubasa Oribe’s bond friendly Mirage based the character from the original Fire Emblem(Not the GBA one, the Famicom one). Ms. Hayami also played Clarissa “Clarice” Snowflake in Project Sakura Wars, the girl I chose to date in that visual novel for 3 reasons. A she is blonde. B she more or less share the name with Agent Sterling in Silence of the Lamb. And C Ms. Hayami’s softly spoken performance reminds me of Dr. Liara T’Soni, the asari I would date in Mass Effect trilogy regardless of the gender I played in those games.
Yuichi Nakamura played Barry Goodman, music instructor, anime fanatic and comic relief in TMS#FE. I would think the aforementioned Mr. Sugita is more suitable for this over-the-top comedic role, but he is here to reprise his role from Awakening. Mr. Nakamura’s performance here would not give this away, but his A voice sounds a lot like Mark Meer. And Mr. Nakamura played Io Fleming in Thunderbolt, the rare Gundam pilot who went through action hero boot camp. So he can bring Commander Shepard to life for Japanese audience.
Ai Kayano played Ayaha Oribe, the elder sister of party member Tsubasa in TMS#FE. The elder Oribe is a Request giver regarding saving showbiz people from Mirage induced burnout, those are among the something interesting in Requests. Ms. Kayano usually operates in 2 type of voices: the first wants to hold you close, Ayaha falls into this category; the second wants to keep you at arm length, which is a fit for Tail’Zorah in Mass Effect trilogy.
Ayane Sakura played Eleonora Yumizuru, a mixed race, white passing actor who would not shout up about her Hollywood dream. She must be the third of such archetype I've seen: the white passing Japanese knows less English than their peer with less fair complexion and darker hair. This is Ms. Sakura’s typical cocky performance, but her performance as Sakura Amamiya in Project Sakura Wars has the same “the girl next door just joined the armed service ” vibe as Samantha Traynor in Mass Effect 3. Plus I want to hear Ms. Sakura as a quarter of a Nisekoi reunion throughout Mass Effect trilogy.
Verdict
I came to Tokyo Mirage Sessions # FE Encore as a Fire Emblem fan and left as a new fan of JRPG. I played the game on Easy just because this is my first JRPG in terms of both origin of country and style.
Like I said in the beginning, this is a entrance level JRPG for anime fans. And if you are not into anime, well, skip those skippable cut scene and fast forward through those you can not, then find some dungeons to crawl in and one dragon to slay. This is a good one of those on Switch, good enough to attract a new comer.
P.S. The game does not seem to have vibration function in this Switch port. Whether it’s to achieve parody between Switch Lite and a regular model or something the port team overlooked, only time and patch can tell.