Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is the latest game for the Nintendo Wii U from Atlus, coming out June 24, and combines the Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem series into a brand new RPG.
Nintendo held a press event at the Nintendo NY store to give some hands-on time with the upcoming RPG, and here are my five impressions of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.
Hopefully Fire Emblem Elements are More Pronounced
I love the Fire Emblem series, so when I started to play Tokyo Mirage Sessions I looked for how Atlus implemented it and….it was a bit lackluster.
A part of the story of Tokyo Mirage Sessions focuses on how your main characters (or cast as they are called) summon weapon spirits to help them in battle. These spirits are based on the characters from Fire Emblem, with Chrom being the main protagonist’s weapon.
And before you ask: yes this is similar to Bleach, where in battle the wielder can “fuses” with their weapon.
Besides that, the battle system has some elements of Fire Emblem like the sword, axe and lance triangle, but the battle system is definitely something I want to explore more.
And speaking of the battle system:
There’s a Deep Battle System Here
The battle system, as alluded before, has some elements of Fire Emblem but it feels more like the Persona series. It’s a turn-based RPG where your cast and the mirages you face are given their turn orders when battle starts. It’s like other turn-based RPGs in that order may be based on a character’s particular speed, but like the Persona games, the turn order is also affected by whether the mirages in a dungeon attack you first.
If you attack the mirage first in the overworld, you will get the first turn guaranteed.
There’s also a elemental chart that determines what specific mirages are weak or strong against. What I learned, and was told by some of the Tokyo Mirage Sessions demo team, is that you’ll need to figure out what works against what type by trial and error.
During battle, you can scroll over to a mirage and all of the types, both elemental and weapon type, will appear below it. It’ll tell you if the enemy is weak or resistant to it, but it’ll be blank if you haven’t tried that type against that opponent before.
And with so many different types of enemies, be prepared to go in blind, which makes the game a bit more difficult than other turn-based RPGs, and I can appreciate that.
This is a Long Game
While we only had about an hour with the game at Nintendo NY, we were told by the demo team that this game is very long. With the amount of story quests and side quests (more on that in a bit) present you can be playing Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE for hours.
I did one side quest, a simple search and retrieval quest, and that took me over 30 minutes.
There’s a lot to do and given the amount of battles you’ll probably end up in, you are going to be in front of your Wii U for a bit.
RPG elements are really there
Any good RPG should really give you choices and customization in how to play, and Tokyo Mirage Sessions really gives you just that.
Different characters can accompany you, and with battles only allowing three characters (one being your main character) you can mix and match who joins you in battle. You can have all offensive types to breeze through battles or bring some support characters for the long game.
Besides that, your characters can learn new skills as they level up, which can greatly change how you battle. And if you think you’ll have an unlimited amount of skills to choose from, your characters can only carry up a finite number of skills, so choose wisely.
Of course, there are plenty of side quests you can partake in or simply ignore. It’s totally up to you.
This is More Adult than Expected
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is localized from Japan and normally a lot of material is cut or changed when a game comes overseas.
Not that we know what’s been changed from the original game, yet, but I think #FE is going to be more adult than people realize. The one side quest I got to do was based around our boss lady getting hung over, and it was our job to get the ingredients to make a hangover remedy.
It was a pretty funny quest and definitely took me off guard. I’m curious to see what else happens in this game.
So are you looking forward to Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE? What do you hope to see? Let us know in the comments section below.
