Fire Emblem’s GameCube and Wii entries are some of the most sought after on their respective platforms. The 3DS’ Awakening revitalized the series in 2013, and Fates, an enormous saga spread across three games, served audiences old and new earlier this year. Shin Megami Tensei’s path has been erratic, as of late, but Nocturne’s aggressive PlayStation 2 reprise in 2004 opened the curtain for Persona 3 and Persona 4 to wave SMT’s flag for the last decade (along with entries from both chapters of Digital Devil Saga, Strange Journey, and the understated performance of 2013’s Shin Megami Tensei IV helping to keep its name relevant). In the east and the west, Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei are badges credence and quality. Under this lens, their curious pairing isn’t so unlikely.
How they’re combined is Tokyo Mirage Sessions’ prime mystery, although it’s not an especially complex formula. It takes the general design and layout of a modern MegaTen game; a fearsome Evil paralyzes society and can only be solved through maze-like dungeons sparkled with bits of supernatural personal drama. Structurally, along with some smart additions and modern concessions, Tokyo Mirage Sessions is closer to Digital Devil Saga and recent Persona games than its merciless and turbulent predecessors.
If MegaTen games are Tokyo Mirage Sessions’ foundation and furnishings, Fire Emblem is its fearsome and flashy exterior. Characters from Fire Emblem essentially serve as battle forms for Tokyo Mirage Sessions’ cast of characters. Awakening’s Chrom, for example, supports the player-character of Itsuki, while Shadow Dragon’s Caeda and Awakening’s Tharja, aid Tsubasa and Kiria, respectively. Building Fire Emblem’s cast of heroes inside Shin Megami Tensei’s architecture kind of feels like an escalating series of cameos (the Fire Emblem crew are all beset with the traditional narrative alibi of “amnesia”), weakening their impact, but it fits inside the story Tokyo Mirage Sessions aches to tell.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions backing narrative is an exploration of modern Japanese pop culture. The aforementioned Itsuki is basically a visage for the player, designed to support the dreams and desires of those he encounters along the way. His high school friend Tsubasa is on track to be a pop idol while his other good buddy Toma yearns to transition from a b-movie actor into more serious roles. They’re all employed at Fortuna Entertainment, a talent agency and an elite collection of young people designed to enter “Idolspheres” that have infested Tokyo and sapped other artists of their creative energy.
The narrative lines fueling Tokyo Mirage Sessions don’t plumb the macabre depths of a classic Shin Megami Tensei game and they don’t quite explore the dynamic interpersonal relationships of either Fire Emblem or Persona. In their place is a substance absent of traditional game construction; the raw exhilarating power of optimism. Seriously. Every surface of Tokyo Mirage Sessions is drenched in pastel colors, and every character, despite the occasionally grim circumstances, is a bastion of positivity. Atlus’ penchant for style is on full display, and illustrated best in, of all places, Tokyo Mirage Sessions’ pause screen. Pushing this button reveals all of its characters lying on their backs in the middle of a sunny meadow, presumably locked in a cathartic daydream. It’s a satisfying retreat from Tokyo Mirage Sessions’ monotonous dungeons, and, as a whole, emblematic of its finer pieces. It ditches all the pretension implicit in both series and allows space for a free-function side story.
If only the basic structure of Shin Megami Tensei had accepted a similar revision. Tokyo Mirage Sessions quickly falls into a familiar pattern of going to an Idolsphere, warping in and out to heal and refine weapons, and toppling a boss before the cycle starts anew. This keeps the game firmly on track, but it loses any of the carefree exploration that defined the softer moments of its lineage. Sequences between dungeons, literally called Intermissions in Tokyo Mirage Sessions, are where the player can complete sidequests (almost always be re-entering a cleared dungeon and reaching an obscure location) or sort out some of the personal issues of Itsuki’s friends. The latter manages an additional and frequently amusing bit of character depth, and it rewards the player by expanding a few of that character’s abilities in battle. Tokyo Mirage Sessions process may be rote, but it’s usually worth it in some capacity.
Dungeon structure also echoes a certain sense of complacency. Entering a labyrinthine, corner-heavy Idolsphere and surmounting an escalating series of dead ends and environmental puzzles has been Shin Megami Tensei’s model for over a decade. While this approach still works—especially with the surreal context affixed to Idolsphere’s narrative conceits—it’s hard to feel like it’s much of anything new. You’re still turning perilous corners, slashing at slightly random enemies to weaken them, and solving brief navigation puzzles all under the menacing watch of a vague camera. At the very least, it was courteous of Tokyo Mirage Sessions to allow a ton of shortcuts and the ability to warp back to the Fortuna offices at any point.
Combat, while overtly composed of Shin Megami Tensei hallmarks, is a chance for Tokyo Mirage Sessions to demonstrate its talent. The basics are all here; various elemental spells, a myriad of buffs and debuffs, and a suite of Fire Emblem-inspired triangle physical attacks. Turn based battles can unfold with the player merely dolling out attacks and weakening their enemy, but in Tokyo Mirage Sessions’ world that would be boring and ineffective. Instead, the game much prefers the player to engage in “sessions,” where a magic or physical weakness is exploited by an attack and, in turn, allows free, out-of-turn supplemental offensive measures from other party members. Eventually, sessions can expand to include improvisations of devastating attacks and even participation from inactive party members, all building into massive combos. If you’re not constantly seeking or performing sessions, you’re playing Tokyo Mirage Sessions incorrectly.
Progression in Tokyo Mirage Sessions is quick and in ample supply. Gaining experience levels up each character and pulls skills out of their respective weapons. These skills come in three forms; session skills that adhere to session opportunities, passive skills that essentially act as buffs, and command skills that compose direct offensive options. Each character, in traditional MegaTen form, is only allowed to retain a handful of earned skills. This requires careful consideration and balance, ensuring you don’t wind up with three party members having rakunda, two forms of zio, and identical physical attacks. Admittedly this has always been somewhere stressful for me (especially without an endless supply of Persona to farm skills from), but, aside from some occasional grinding to meet the overzealous HP of some later bosses, I got by Tokyo Mirage Sessions fine. Weapons are, in a manner of speaking, granted in line with the expected challenge of the game, practically ensuring you’ll have certain skills at necessary instances. In any case, the game lets you drop the difficulty on the fly without much of a penalty.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions delights in replacing legacy terms in flowery language. Players earn “performa” from defeated foes that can be translated into radiant skills, special performances, or new carnages (read: weapons). Similarly, generic terms like “attack” have been smoothed out into Ad-Libs, Dual Performances, and the aforementioned Special Performances. Even the attack animations arrive as some kind of Idol-like performance, complete with characters screaming into microphones and literally air-drawing their signature as a means of issuing their spells. Tokyo Mirage Sessions is all-in on its concept, and in return the player receives a game that, while tried and tested, fronts an impressive illusion of originality.
The Wii U’s GamePad, often an albatross of half-baked ideas (or just willfully ignored), is an integral part of the Tokyo Mirage Sessions experience. A map during the dungeons is expected (and included), but it also has use as an in-game messaging service with Itsuki’s friends. Most of the time it’s used to facilitate the player into progressing through Tokyo Mirage Sessions’ story, but it’s also a place of personality and humor. Characters speak with grammatical flairs and emoji’s, and even erupt in explicit emotion when things start going haywire. It’s all fluff, sure, but messaging friends is one of the few facets Tokyo Mirage Sessions can call its own.
Enjoyment of Tokyo Mirage Sessions arrives with diverse set of qualifications. It feels like we’ve been waiting for Persona 5 for over a decade, but Tokyo Mirage Sessions is the finest example of that style of game on a console since, well, Persona 4 in 2008. For Shin Megami Tensei fans, Tokyo Mirage Sessions is comfort food with a few unexpected spices to make the meal a bit more memorable. Fire Emblem fans may require a more convincing argument than an extended series of cameos but, at the very least, Tokyo Mirage Sessions is an honest role-playing game on a console that seems to hold the genre in contempt. On one hand it’s devastating for a Nintendo machine to have the fewest role-playing exclusives since the Nintendo 64 but, on the other, well, how awesome is it to have a retail library consisting of Tokyo Mirage Session and Xenoblade Chronicles X?
When was the last time a Fire Emblem or MegaTen game didn’t exceed expectations? Why wouldn’t a late-term Wii U game gleefully erupt inside of its doomed platform? Sacrificed (somewhere) were elements of surprise and spontaneity, locking Tokyo Mirage Sessions to a rigid course, but its overall performance leaves little doubt of its capability; Nintendo and Atlus saved one of the best for last.
