A.k.a. the Shing Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem crossover.
I'm not much for crossovers and I wasn't exactly hyped when it was first announced, but SMT has demon summoning, varied setups, and dark storylines; Fire Emblem has dragon gods, wars, and a proven combat/levelling system; so it could turn out to be very interesting, right? When Nintendo and Atlus revealed the first trailer we got...idols.
Oh boy.
I don't care for idols one bit, and I actively avoid animes with too many idols in them. I get that Japan really likes their idols and people want to capitalize on this craze, but in a SMT x FE crossover can we keep them as support units, pretty pretty please?
Instead idols and the whole idol world is the center of the game. The story starts with Tsubasa, the female lead, attending to a competition to become an idol. Suddendly the anchor asks Tsubasa about her sister and how she mysteriously disappeared along with an entire theatre five years ago. The anchor reveals himself to be some sort of dark creature here to steal some kind of life essence from good performers. Tsubasa is captured, but Aoi (male childhood friend) comes to the rescue! Only to be ambushed by the anchor's servants.
As tradition wants, both Tsubasa and Aoi manifest some kind of power and summon the powers of Fire Emblem characters to fight the monsters. Aoi summons Chrom (Awakening), Tsubasa summons Shiida (FE1 and its many remakes). Later in the game they meet with a third guy ("using" Cain from FE1) and a colourful cast of characters that I really can't seem to enjoy. Tiki's there too, as a Uta-Loid; game-wise she's there to manage class changes for the Fire Emblem avatars the playable characters use.
This world (the game is set in Tokyo, with many real-world locations such as Shibuya) came under attack by dark beings seeking to acquire all the Performa from humans. Perform is what allows Aoi and Tsubasa to summon their FE avatars, and so everyone is recruited by (I think) military agency masquerading as a talent agency to fight these creatures.
I don't downright hate the setup, but considering the two source games I would have expected something completely different. So far the story has progressed at a rather fast pace, hopefully there will be some twists to increase my interest in characters. To me characters are the weak point of the story, they seem out of any SOL/RomCom anime you can find; Aoi, the male lead and the character you play as, is particularly bland. I really hope the story picks up and delivers, but among the games with RPG elements I'm playing at the moment (Xenoblade X, Summon Night 5, Exist-Archive...heck, even Grand Kingdom), Genei Ibun Roku #FE has the weakest cast.
The game plays like...Persona. Mhmm. The interface, dungeon setup, available choices during dialogues, are much more reminiscent of a Persona game rather than SMT.
Combat is standard turn-based RPG fare, with up to three active characters. Turns are based on character speed and are indicated on a progression bar on the top of the screen. Characters have a standard attack and a number of skills, divided into active, session, and passive skills. As per Fire Emblem tradition, characters come with different weapons (swords, lances, axes) as well as magic; even simple swordmen like Chrom have access to basic elemental magic, though the game already teased mages. There's no weapon triangle, replaced with simple weaknesses to a certain weapon or magic type. Session skills allow characters to continue attacks started by someone else.
Combat brings experience to characters and their FE avatars; when FE avatars level up they might gain a skill, and once they hit level 5, they can change class; class change is only possible if prerequisites, usually number and type of enemies slain, are met.
You might be wondering where is Fire Emblem in this SMT x FE crossover. Well, it's...in the level up jingle? From the first two or so hours of play I haven't seen much Fire Emblem here. The whole system takes elements of Fire Emblem and flattens them to standard RPG mechanics, which is quite disappointing; there is a skill that lets you move characters around, and there's always the chance that the system will open up as the game goes on, but if you're here for Fire Emblem (I am), you'll constantly wonder how underused it is.
I'm not saying that GIR#FE is a bad game, so far it has checked all tickboxes for a decent RPG, but as a crossover it doesn't make use of its source material.
On the plus side, facial expressions in this game are the most hilarious things I've seen in quite some time. Tsubasa is particularly prone for funny expressions, though a couple of named enemies shown some great stuff too. Overall the game looks good, with a very stylish interface, very clean and fairly detailed 3D world. No comment on the soundtrack for now.
Will Genei Ibun Roke #FE be good, or at least decent? I think so, everything seems in place. However it would have been better for it to drop the SMT and FE roots and be its own game, right now I don't feel that developers made a good use of these licenses.
I'm not much for crossovers and I wasn't exactly hyped when it was first announced, but SMT has demon summoning, varied setups, and dark storylines; Fire Emblem has dragon gods, wars, and a proven combat/levelling system; so it could turn out to be very interesting, right? When Nintendo and Atlus revealed the first trailer we got...idols.
Oh boy.
I don't care for idols one bit, and I actively avoid animes with too many idols in them. I get that Japan really likes their idols and people want to capitalize on this craze, but in a SMT x FE crossover can we keep them as support units, pretty pretty please?
Instead idols and the whole idol world is the center of the game. The story starts with Tsubasa, the female lead, attending to a competition to become an idol. Suddendly the anchor asks Tsubasa about her sister and how she mysteriously disappeared along with an entire theatre five years ago. The anchor reveals himself to be some sort of dark creature here to steal some kind of life essence from good performers. Tsubasa is captured, but Aoi (male childhood friend) comes to the rescue! Only to be ambushed by the anchor's servants.
As tradition wants, both Tsubasa and Aoi manifest some kind of power and summon the powers of Fire Emblem characters to fight the monsters. Aoi summons Chrom (Awakening), Tsubasa summons Shiida (FE1 and its many remakes). Later in the game they meet with a third guy ("using" Cain from FE1) and a colourful cast of characters that I really can't seem to enjoy. Tiki's there too, as a Uta-Loid; game-wise she's there to manage class changes for the Fire Emblem avatars the playable characters use.
This world (the game is set in Tokyo, with many real-world locations such as Shibuya) came under attack by dark beings seeking to acquire all the Performa from humans. Perform is what allows Aoi and Tsubasa to summon their FE avatars, and so everyone is recruited by (I think) military agency masquerading as a talent agency to fight these creatures.
I don't downright hate the setup, but considering the two source games I would have expected something completely different. So far the story has progressed at a rather fast pace, hopefully there will be some twists to increase my interest in characters. To me characters are the weak point of the story, they seem out of any SOL/RomCom anime you can find; Aoi, the male lead and the character you play as, is particularly bland. I really hope the story picks up and delivers, but among the games with RPG elements I'm playing at the moment (Xenoblade X, Summon Night 5, Exist-Archive...heck, even Grand Kingdom), Genei Ibun Roku #FE has the weakest cast.
The game plays like...Persona. Mhmm. The interface, dungeon setup, available choices during dialogues, are much more reminiscent of a Persona game rather than SMT.
Combat is standard turn-based RPG fare, with up to three active characters. Turns are based on character speed and are indicated on a progression bar on the top of the screen. Characters have a standard attack and a number of skills, divided into active, session, and passive skills. As per Fire Emblem tradition, characters come with different weapons (swords, lances, axes) as well as magic; even simple swordmen like Chrom have access to basic elemental magic, though the game already teased mages. There's no weapon triangle, replaced with simple weaknesses to a certain weapon or magic type. Session skills allow characters to continue attacks started by someone else.
Combat brings experience to characters and their FE avatars; when FE avatars level up they might gain a skill, and once they hit level 5, they can change class; class change is only possible if prerequisites, usually number and type of enemies slain, are met.
You might be wondering where is Fire Emblem in this SMT x FE crossover. Well, it's...in the level up jingle? From the first two or so hours of play I haven't seen much Fire Emblem here. The whole system takes elements of Fire Emblem and flattens them to standard RPG mechanics, which is quite disappointing; there is a skill that lets you move characters around, and there's always the chance that the system will open up as the game goes on, but if you're here for Fire Emblem (I am), you'll constantly wonder how underused it is.
I'm not saying that GIR#FE is a bad game, so far it has checked all tickboxes for a decent RPG, but as a crossover it doesn't make use of its source material.
On the plus side, facial expressions in this game are the most hilarious things I've seen in quite some time. Tsubasa is particularly prone for funny expressions, though a couple of named enemies shown some great stuff too. Overall the game looks good, with a very stylish interface, very clean and fairly detailed 3D world. No comment on the soundtrack for now.
Will Genei Ibun Roke #FE be good, or at least decent? I think so, everything seems in place. However it would have been better for it to drop the SMT and FE roots and be its own game, right now I don't feel that developers made a good use of these licenses.
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