In the three years since a Shin Megami Tensei / Fire Emblem crossover was first announced, the project has changed a lot. Rather than mashing together existing characters from separate games in the style of Persona Q, Atlus instead took a battle system inspired by SMT and spinoff Persona and added Fire Emblem characters to the mix.
In an interview with IGN, Atlus producer Shinjiro Takata and Nintendo designer Hitoshi Yamagami explained how the project evolved from the team’s original vision.
“At the very beginning, we started thinking of a simulation game in a fantasy world,” Yamagami told IGN. “The difficulty with this first idea was that when we tried to create a simulation with a fantasy world view, it ended up being too similar to the original [Fire Emblem]. Just at that time, [Nintendo] proposed a suggestion to consider working on a ‘present day’ RPG, which is the specialty of Atlus. So we made the bold policy change, and the direction of our work changed significantly.”
According to Yamagami, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE was the idea of Kaori Ando, one of the game's directors. “Many of the Atlus game customers are also Fire Emblem customers. We wanted to create a game that would satisfy both sets of customers, and initiated a collaboration with Atlus,” he said.
Once the collaboration was firmly in place, the next question was what kind of game this would be. Rather than opting for a dark, dramatic story, the team instead settled upon a light, more cheerful mood that fits the light aesthetic.
“Because of the nature of what we wanted to depict, we ended up with this upbeat tone,” Takata explained. “With this title, we wanted to have the customers enjoy the drama of the character's growth, that can only be depicted in everyday surroundings.”
“On that basis, we decided to depict a character that lives in the Japanese [entertainment] industry with a bright, positive attitude,” he explained. “That is why we decided to go for bright and colorful expressions. Nevertheless, this title, by its nature, is influenced in a good way by both the Fire Emblem series and [RPGs] in general by Atlus.”
Having worked on Bayonetta 2, Devil's Third, and many other projects, Yamagami has a long history of working with third-party developers, but told us that Atlus brings something unique to the table.
“I think Atlus has a strong desire to incorporate as much of Japan's subculture as possible into their games and convey that to players,” he said. “Japan's game developers look at the huge games in the United States and Europe, and tend to try to copy them. However, when working with Atlus, it makes me feel that there is much about Japanese culture that can be enjoyed if it is sent out to the world. I learned how to offer to the world wonderful games that make use of Japan's subculture.”
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is out now on Wii U and could be a good way to pass the time until another big Atlus RPG is released next year.
For our full thoughts, read our Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE review.
Andrew is IGN’s executive editor of news and can’t get enough of Itsuki and his friends. You can find him rambling about EarthBound and cute animals on Twitter.
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