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Does Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Deserve Better?


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7 hours ago, Flere210 said:

I don't want to derail the discussion with memes, but i think that in this case a picture ia worth a thousand words

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I consider TMS a masterpiece of bad advertising. 

Both FE and SMT fanbases are known for a divide between traditional fans and new fans that embraced the anime culture. The project was teased as something for the first group, but then it was revealed as something for the other group, enraging the traditionalists. Calling it a Persona collaboration imo would have helped immensely imo. 

I have not played the game and likely never will because i never got into persona(strangely, not even 1 and 2), i don't like idols and the name Fire Emblem is not enought. I just hope that next time they will advertize whatever they make properly.

For the record, while I'm not a fan of the idol aesthetic at all, the gameplay if the game is really, really solid.

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On 3/22/2019 at 6:04 AM, Dragonage2ftw said:

Why not?

Do you want to be reminded of things you did six months ago?  I'd understand if it was something like a project thread, but a snarky response isn't worth the effort.

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Unfortunately this game was doomed to die the second they showed the initial trailer and then withholding any information for as long as they did. The speculation of what the game would be spiraled out of control until the inevitable and disappointing showing of what the final product would be.

While the gameplay is rather fun, everything down to its incredibly cliche anime tropes and odd idol theme did it no favor in reigniting the lost intrest for many people. 

Does it deserve a second chance, I say yes in a sense.  But leave this one behind and make a new game that highlights more from both franchise's history.

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9 hours ago, TheKnightlyNight said:

Unfortunately this game was doomed to die the second they showed the initial trailer and then withholding any information for as long as they did. The speculation of what the game would be spiraled out of control until the inevitable and disappointing showing of what the final product would be.

While the gameplay is rather fun, everything down to its incredibly cliche anime tropes and odd idol theme did it no favor in reigniting the lost intrest for many people. 

Does it deserve a second chance, I say yes in a sense.  But leave this one behind and make a new game that highlights more from both franchise's history.

Those that don't like the idol thing would've been angry no matter what, even if the gameplay was an exact copy of SMT.  They also tend to be the loudest about their dislike.

I went in with zero expectations - both with the initial trailer, and the later reveals.  The original zipper panties got a far-too-detailed analysis out of me (search for it if you dare).  The only direction TMS could've gone was up, and that's exactly what happened, even with the censoring.  I appreciate the game for what it did right, and hope that any future installments improve on what made TMS so much fun.

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27 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Those that don't like the idol thing would've been angry no matter what, even if the gameplay was an exact copy of SMT.  They also tend to be the loudest about their dislike.

I went in with zero expectations - both with the initial trailer, and the later reveals.  The original zipper panties got a far-too-detailed analysis out of me (search for it if you dare).  The only direction TMS could've gone was up, and that's exactly what happened, even with the censoring.  I appreciate the game for what it did right, and hope that any future installments improve on what made TMS so much fun.

The gameplay kind of is identical to SMT.

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20 hours ago, Jotari said:

The gameplay kind of is identical to SMT.

I'd say maybe half, at most.  What stood out to me for SMT was bargaining with the demons, then fusing them to form new (and sometimes unexpected) things.

The closest to the latter is weapon forging, and it's grossly simplified.  There's absolutely nothing like the former in TMS.

For actual gameplay, there's a distinct difference between smirking and having the entire cast gang up on some enemy, dependent on how you sorted your chases.  The swap-for-free mechanic was also welcome, since certain attacks didn't flow very well.  And then there are sessions.

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49 minutes ago, eclipse said:

I'd say maybe half, at most.  What stood out to me for SMT was bargaining with the demons, then fusing them to form new (and sometimes unexpected) things.

The closest to the latter is weapon forging, and it's grossly simplified.  There's absolutely nothing like the former in TMS.

For actual gameplay, there's a distinct difference between smirking and having the entire cast gang up on some enemy, dependent on how you sorted your chases.  The swap-for-free mechanic was also welcome, since certain attacks didn't flow very well.  And then there are sessions.

Yeah, but not all SMT have identical gameplay to each other either. Digital Devil Saga for example doesn't have any demon recruitment. And a lot of them don't have the whole nodes set up either. If the gameplay of Tokyo  Mirage Sessions was used in a different game without the idle or Fire Emblem aesthetic, I doubt anyone would be saying "This isn't a SMT game." TMS has a close as you can get to SMT gameplay without literally being a port of an existing game.

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9 hours ago, eclipse said:

I'd say maybe half, at most.  What stood out to me for SMT was bargaining with the demons, then fusing them to form new (and sometimes unexpected) things.

The closest to the latter is weapon forging, and it's grossly simplified.  There's absolutely nothing like the former in TMS.

For actual gameplay, there's a distinct difference between smirking and having the entire cast gang up on some enemy, dependent on how you sorted your chases.  The swap-for-free mechanic was also welcome, since certain attacks didn't flow very well.  And then there are sessions.

To offer a some explanation, SMT in the "classic" era, os everything prior to SMT III: Nocturne on the PS2. Here, there was demon fusion, albeit for much of this time (pre-Devil Summoner) without any form of skill inheritance among demons. However, there was not press/extra turn system, that was a Nocturne invention, so weakness targeting mattered a whole lot less and the gameplay was a bit drab and now dated.

I'm not versed on the Persona subseries that became its own franchise, nor can I speak of the MMOs that were the failed NINE and successful IMAGINE. However, as pointed out before, Digital Devil Saga got rid of demon recruitment/fusion, while keeping press turns and using Mantras for skill learning, which are sorta like Carnages, the big differences being Mantras need money and not enemy drops to make, and don't offer any stats or resistance changes in themselves. 

However, where TMS gets its primary inspiration is from Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey on the DS. The director for SJ was one of the directors for TMS. There are two minor references to Strange Journey in TMS. The first is Performa, "Forma" is the name for enemy drops in SJ needed to forge new equipment in addition to money. The second is the stadium in which the portal to TMS's final dungeon is located- the Cosmic Egg. The Cosmic Eggs are Macguffins in the final Sector (dungeon) of SJ. In addition, the Performa-draining atmosphere emanating from the Cosmic Egg in TMS is reminiscent of the Schwarzwelt- the black hole-esque spatial anomaly emanating from the South Pole which is slowly devouring the Earth in SJ and which the game takes place entirely inside of.

In gameplay, there is one clear connection between SJ and TMS. In SJ, they got rid of Press Turns (and made the fusion system rather difficult on inheritance), but added a new weakness-targeting mechanic- Demon Co-Op Attacks. If the hero or a demon lands an attack targeting an enemy weakness, and any of the three other active units shares their primary alignment (Law, Neutral, or Chaos) that ally or those allies (more damage dealt when more allies attack) will do an element-free followup attack to the attacked enemy.

Sessions are Demon Co-Op attacks, but with greater elaboration. I won't say they call for more skill, or have that much more depth, you can't decide which Session skills to string together and Duo Arts are random, but they are a progression on the idea.

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1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

To offer a some explanation, SMT in the "classic" era, os everything prior to SMT III: Nocturne on the PS2. Here, there was demon fusion, albeit for much of this time (pre-Devil Summoner) without any form of skill inheritance among demons. However, there was not press/extra turn system, that was a Nocturne invention, so weakness targeting mattered a whole lot less and the gameplay was a bit drab and now dated.

I'm not versed on the Persona subseries that became its own franchise, nor can I speak of the MMOs that were the failed NINE and successful IMAGINE. However, as pointed out before, Digital Devil Saga got rid of demon recruitment/fusion, while keeping press turns and using Mantras for skill learning, which are sorta like Carnages, the big differences being Mantras need money and not enemy drops to make, and don't offer any stats or resistance changes in themselves. 

However, where TMS gets its primary inspiration is from Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey on the DS. The director for SJ was one of the directors for TMS. There are two minor references to Strange Journey in TMS. The first is Performa, "Forma" is the name for enemy drops in SJ needed to forge new equipment in addition to money. The second is the stadium in which the portal to TMS's final dungeon is located- the Cosmic Egg. The Cosmic Eggs are Macguffins in the final Sector (dungeon) of SJ. In addition, the Performa-draining atmosphere emanating from the Cosmic Egg in TMS is reminiscent of the Schwarzwelt- the black hole-esque spatial anomaly emanating from the South Pole which is slowly devouring the Earth in SJ and which the game takes place entirely inside of.

In gameplay, there is one clear connection between SJ and TMS. In SJ, they got rid of Press Turns (and made the fusion system rather difficult on inheritance), but added a new weakness-targeting mechanic- Demon Co-Op Attacks. If the hero or a demon lands an attack targeting an enemy weakness, and any of the three other active units shares their primary alignment (Law, Neutral, or Chaos) that ally or those allies (more damage dealt when more allies attack) will do an element-free followup attack to the attacked enemy.

Sessions are Demon Co-Op attacks, but with greater elaboration. I won't say they call for more skill, or have that much more depth, you can't decide which Session skills to string together and Duo Arts are random, but they are a progression on the idea.

Huh. So from the sounds of it, it almost is a direct port of the gameplay of another SMT game.

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9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Huh. So from the sounds of it, it almost is a direct port of the gameplay of another SMT game.

I've only played about halfway into SJ (but I know how the story goes), but it is certainly influenced by it. Not completely, for instance SJ is a purer dungeon crawler in first-person, which was how classic SMT played, but the game engine was borrowed from the Etrian Odyssey franchise of Atlus (if you don't mind an old-fashioned dungeon crawler with minimal story, they're good). EO also has you buy equipment you first have to get in the shop via selling enemy drops, which thus led to SJ Forma, and thus TMS Performa; normally you just buy your stuff in SMT sans enemy drops (although Sword Fusion did exist in a couple games). 

 

And after a little checking, it appears that Persona (Persona 3 and beyond to be precise, rarely does "Persona" in the generic refer to 1 & 2) had something like Demon Co-Op attacks several years- P3 released in Japan in 06, P4 in 08, SJ in 09, beforehand. All-Out Attacks is what they were called, hit all enemies with criticals or their weaknesses to knock them down and trigger a target all physical melee by all allies. Apparently P4's Golden enhanced version (released in 2012- three years before TMS) even added what in TMS would be called Duo Arts.

So it could be that Persona is to thank for Sessions. Even though the two franchises are handled separately within Atlus, there is nothing stopping the one development crew on one side from borrowing from the other. Persona did begin as an SMT spinoff, and Persona 1 and 2 feature on the side the Female Protagonist of SMT: If..., which is itself- a high school setting SMT- the inspiration for Persona. 

Although I wouldn't rule out the role of Strange Journey's director entirely, since opting not for the Press Turn system in TMS was certainly a little odd, given it seems to be rather popular, hence its return in SMTIV.

Nor would I call TMS a Persona game wholesale. Since although I don't play Persona, from what I've read, I'd imagine Persona fans would be complaining of how nonexistent their beloved simulation elements are in TMS (which is why I don't care for Persona). There is no Japanese school life, no part-time jobs, no little recreations, no untranslated Japanese honorifics, no serious social commentary, Side Stories are a threadbare and sorry substitute for Social Links/Confidants (and Side Stories I think have some FE influence, since complete all three for a character and their purely texted-based character endings change- as if you A/S Supported them).

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That is why seeing the game was so familiar, still wonder what was Atlus whole issues with the concept...Seems Nintendo got something they don't want to cancel as Wii U have so little games....better a persona 4 port or remake would have been better

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  • 4 months later...

If they didn't lie to the fans it wouldn't of gotten blown out into irrelevancy. A shame because it represented Archanea better than Warriors did.

The only thing Warriors has over it is providing some long ignored interactions. For example: Navarre and Tiki. It's so silly that it took until now for such obvious bond convos to happen.

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