Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is what happens when you throw a Persona game and a Fire Emblem
game in a blender and drink whatever comes out.
The game answers the question we never knew we needed to ask: what if a group of fantasy
heroes tried to become popstars?
It’s no wonder the game’s premise ended up being so weird.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions very nearly didn’t get made at all.
It was only through the power of extraordinary teamwork that creators at Nintendo and Atlus,
led by three collaborating directors, were able to put together one of the most bizarre
mashups in recent gaming history.
Credit for the idea of the game belongs to co-director Kaori Ando.
A veteran at Nintendo, Kaori dreamed about on day seeing two of her favourite game series,
Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem, merged into a single game.
Hitoshi Yamagami, a producer at Nintendo, agreed to take her pitch to Atlus, and so,
they went to beg for an opportunity to collaborate together.
The response they got was…less than positive.
Atlus said, “Let us think about it”, which Nintendo took a polite way of saying, no.
Not a chance.
Later on, Altus clarified this, telling their contacts at Nintendo, “We’re too busy,
and can’t do it right now.”
Kaori and Hitoshi were disappointed, but they were hardly going to lose sleep over the rejection.
They had other things to get on with, and Hitoshi held on to a hope that perhaps this
crossover might still happen one day.
He later said: “I was really bummed about it, but it wasn’t
as though they had straight out said no, so I told [Kaori], ‘I’m sure we’ll cross
paths with them again some time.’”
Hitoshi was right!
It turned out that staff at Atlus had loved the idea of working on a Fire Emblem game,
but they really had just been too busy in that instant to commit to another project.
A year later, Atlus’ then CEO Naoto Hiraoka got back in touch, asking, “Is that talk
still open?”
Yes.
Yes, it absolutely was!
Hitoshi was absolutely thrilled, and Nintendo and Atlus started discussing what kind of
game they wanted to make.
This was a hard question to answer.
Was this going to be a strategy game, or a role playing game?
Which studio would lead development?
Which world should the game be set in?
It was decided that Atlus would spearhead development, and all involved briefly considered
making their collaboration a strategy game, but this didn’t feel quite right.
Second co-director Shinjiro Takada later said: “The problem is, if you make it too much
like a Fire Emblem game, then why doesn’t Intelligent Systems just make it themselves?
The goal for this was to do something that the Fire Emblem series can’t do.
In the end, the reason the game looks the way it does, the reason the content is the
way it is, is because this is something we wanted to do as an Atlus game, a game only
Atlus could make.”
For this reason, the combined teams decided that their work needed to be its own unique
thing.
Not a Fire Emblem game, not a Shin Megami Tensei or a Persona game.
A unique, original property that borrowed elements from their existing work.
Even after the game was announced, then simply titled Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem, the
creative team kept fretting over the specifics of merging their two game franchises.
The game’s third co-director, Mitsuru Hirata, said:
“Even I told myself ‘to think that a collaboration with Fire Emblem would shape up like this!’
and I was really surprised.
Even though I’m the one developing it.”
The team decided on a Persona-style modern setting, recreating real world Tokyo locations
as in Persona 5.
But with this setting, in what way was this really a Fire Emblem game?
Finally a solution was found.
Shinjiro explains: “We were wondering — should we make [Fire
Emblem characters] into humans that can become friends with the main characters?
That was one thing that changed throughout development.
We were able to figure out throughout the scenario that we were going to make the Fire
Emblem characters into demon-like figures, like the demons in Shin Megami Tensei.
They would serve as heroes that helped your main characters in battle situations.”
Through a lot of trial and error, discussion and collaboration, the amalgamation of talent
from Nintendo and Atlus were able to put together Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, a game that they
felt perfectly blended together the core elements from their respective games.
The moral of the story is that sometimes it’s nice to listen to someone else’s perspective.
We all have different strengths and weaknesses, and when we work together, things might not
always go smoothly, but they can lead to some incredible bursts of creativity and inspiration.