Loose uncoordinated ideas about the potential for an actual Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem title

[Jotari]

I like Shin Megami Tensei. And I like Fire Emblem. And once upon a time they promised a crossover. What we got instead was TMS which was...not what people were expecting. It was kind of Shin Megami Tensei and kind of Fire Emblem without really being either. But it had good gameplay at it showed the potential for a TMS style game mixed with Fire Emblem elements. But I still kind of want to see a proper attempt at Fire Emblem in a Shin Megami Tensei frame work. One where, instead of fighting and fusing demons, you're fighting and fusing Fire Emblem characters. Enemies have weaknesses based on their weapon triangle disadvantages. Compared to regular TMS this would give it a lot more predictability in what attacks are super effective, but, consequently, if skill inheritance is based on class type or weapon rank then what skills you can give your characters is more limited compared to regular TMS, making varied team composition much more important. Like, say, Dew comes with the Wind Sword skill, and you can fuse him to make either Volke or Kaze, Volke is stronger, but since Volke doesn't have a sword rank, you can't take his Wind Sword skill with him when you fuse while you can if you opt for the statistically weaker Kaze. I just think there's genuine potential for a great game there. One that mixes the TMS gameplay with the collectaton elements of Heroes as you progress from the weaker less known characters into the stronger lords and legendary characters by the end game. Maybe with a plot using actual Fire Emblem characters (unlike in Heroes) where you have to choose which philosophy to follow from significant egos in the franchise like Alvis, Edelgard or Ashnard, reminiscent of the Reason plotline in SMT III, only bigger and more varied since Fire Emblem has so much lore and history to pull from. Honestly I like the potential so much, if there was a proper game maker out there with a SMT style fusion system built in, I probably would make it myself.

And because nobody asked for it, here's all the idea for Fire Emblem named SMT skills I came up with while playing SMT III a few months back
 

Spoiler

Elements are: Sword, Axe, Lance, Bow, Knife, Fire, Wind, Thunder, Light, Dark, Surge (Almighty)

Orders: Knight, Cultist, Noble, Commoner, Mercenary, Royal, Ruffian, Beast, Dragon - These influence fusion like the clans in SM

Skills Active

Fire,Elfire,Archfire

Wind, Elwind,ArchWind

Thunder,ElThunder, ArchThunder

Something for multi target elemental spells, maybe the Tellius Rex spells could be the max of that.

(Mages physical attack is with a knife ala PoR.)

Levin Sword - Bolt Axe - Shock Stick - Thunder Arrow
Flame Sword - Flame Axe - Flame Lance - Fire Arrow
Wind Sword - Wind Axe - Wind Lance - Wind Arrow
Lopt Sword - Devil Axe - Indra's Arrow - Night Arrow
Light Brand - Shining Axe - Lance of Light - Shining Bow

Characters can only inherit skills from their weapon type category, so only mages can use spells, that's what all these elemental weapons are for, to give elemental attacking capabilities to non mages. Also physical characters will have elemental weaknesses that are a little less obvious than their weapon triangle weakness, possibly based off their affinities (for the characters who have affinities). Typical weapon triangle weaknesses might not be 1:1, say, a lance armoured knight like Draug who resists swords and lances but is neutral to his WTD axes and then weak to all the magic types.

Buffs all the buffs (barrier at least exists for resistance). Maybe this could be the sole purview of dancers.

Hammerne = Mana Drain, or possibly mana walk

Heal/Mend/Recover - Single Heal
Bloom Festival/Fortify/Goddess Staff -  Multi Heal
Aum/Bifrost/Valkyrie - (revival)

Death Blow (doubles next attack)

Surge/Elsurge (almighty magic, ignores resistances)

Counter/Magic Counter (the reflect attacks)

Skills Passive
-Bright Might/Dark Might, have a moon system, maybe the Fire Emblem is blazing
-Lance/Axe/Sword/Bow breaker, these are the null resistance skills
-Attack All (nothing resemblances it in Fire Emblem but I like it as a skill)
-Crit +30
-Lightoma equivalent to Light Up Areas given by Micaiah
-Ilyana's Shade is reduce enemy encounters (with maybe Volke's stilness eliminating them altogether)
-Avoid Traps a flying skill in SMT but a general thief skill could work well here
-Armsthrift, chance to not consume MP/HP when using a special
-Miracle = Endure (survive with 1HP once per battle)
-The Apothecary skills to heal automatically after battle

 

Edited March 29 by Jotari

[Zapp Branniglenn]

To be honest, Fire Emblem but As a Creature Collector RPG is sort of covered by Fire Emblem Heroes. You even kill them off to make other units stronger. And I'm skeevy on the idea of SMT's Fuse Demon mechanics if the "demons" are living, breathing, thinking people. Not even actual, Grimdark SMT has ever done that. 

If I were in charge of SMT x FE, I would decide immediately on the fire emblem half as the genre, but keep it simple: The Lord is a blue haired sword dork whose death causes a game over, but the rest of your army is built entirely of classic SMT demons standing in for the various classes. It would be an inbetween of Fire Emblem's "Any unit death is a tragedy" and Advance Wars' "Every unit is expendable with literal dollar amounts". The core battle system would reflect classic fire emblem. Small, parse-able numbers. If Agility is X greater, do a double attack. Skills and spells with HP and SP costs would replace weapons with weapon durability. Fusion would facilitate Class promotions but still have a level requirement. And maybe if the two fused units had built up enough support points that allows them to pass on even more skills from their fusion. And also talking to demons to recruit them is just about the most Fire Emblem game mechanic that comes from SMT so we gotta have that too. 

I think it could be refreshing to play a game with Fire Emblem's game mechanics, but not anchored in Fire Emblem conventions. An entirely new roster of classes with their own strengths and weaknesses rather than having to include classic fire emblem classes with their tired tropes. Horses and fliers that dominate via movement, archers that are good against fliers but nothing else, etc. I might also suggest some light dungeon diving like in Shadows of Valentia. Because a game with expendable units probably demands that it not be a linear fire emblem game with finite resources.

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

To be honest, Fire Emblem but As a Creature Collector RPG is sort of covered by Fire Emblem Heroes. You even kill them off to make other units stronger. And I'm skeevy on the idea of SMT's Fuse Demon mechanics if the "demons" are living, breathing, thinking people. Not even actual, Grimdark SMT has ever done that. 

Yeah, but I like SMT's gameplay better than Heroes, especially with the mess of power creep Heroes as become.

8 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

If I were in charge of SMT x FE, I would decide immediately on the fire emblem half as the genre, but keep it simple: The Lord is a blue haired sword dork whose death causes a game over, but the rest of your army is built entirely of classic SMT demons standing in for the various classes. It would be an inbetween of Fire Emblem's "Any unit death is a tragedy" and Advance Wars' "Every unit is expendable with literal dollar amounts". The core battle system would reflect classic fire emblem. Small, parse-able numbers. If Agility is X greater, do a double attack. Skills and spells with HP and SP costs would replace weapons with weapon durability. Fusion would facilitate Class promotions but still have a level requirement. And maybe if the two fused units had built up enough support points that allows them to pass on even more skills from their fusion. And also talking to demons to recruit them is just about the most Fire Emblem game mechanic that comes from SMT so we gotta have that too. 

I think it could be refreshing to play a game with Fire Emblem's game mechanics, but not anchored in Fire Emblem conventions. An entirely new roster of classes with their own strengths and weaknesses rather than having to include classic fire emblem classes with their tired tropes. Horses and fliers that dominate via movement, archers that are good against fliers but nothing else, etc. I might also suggest some light dungeon diving like in Shadows of Valentia. Because a game with expendable units probably demands that it not be a linear fire emblem game with finite resources.

If you're talking about Fire Emblem gameplay with demons, then SMT has kind of done that a few times on their own (they weren't considered the better games in the series though).

Edited March 30 by Jotari

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

If you're talking about Fire Emblem gameplay with demons, then SMT has kind of done that a few times on their own (they weren't considered the better games in the series though).

Majin Tensei is old and most people haven't played the fan translations.

Devil Survivor however, certainly some SMT fans were born because of those two games. -Me being one of them. And I love both entries.😈❤️ Certainly lean more on the RPG side of "SRPG" (whereas FE traditionally leaned on the S), but then that's expectable given what it's a spinoff of.

 

9 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

And I'm skeevy on the idea of SMT's Fuse Demon mechanics if the "demons" are living, breathing, thinking people. Not even actual, Grimdark SMT has ever done that. 

Give it a samsara-spin. By which I mean:

• The combination of the two individuals sees their souls momentarily return to the underlying reality of the universe.
• While part of the collective unconscious, the fragmentary ancient memories of other lives contained in those two souls are combined.
• When all the memory fragments are added together, the one other life which the combined souls possess the most memory fragments of becomes the focus of this fusion process.
• The fused soul searches for other fragments of this past life in the collective unconscious and collects as many as it can. -If at the cost of shedding some memories of the two lives now one.
• Finally, the fused soul is physically reincarnated, resembling the old life whose memories were reassembled.

...I think this works?😅 SMT has touched on samsara before, it wouldn't be unusual for it. This is less fusing people, and more... soul-searching?

[Zapp Branniglenn]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

If you're talking about Fire Emblem gameplay with demons, then SMT has kind of done that a few times on their own (they weren't considered the better games in the series though).

They should be considered among the better games, Devil Survivor is the closest I came to finishing an SMT game that doesn't have Persona in the title. The battle system works about as well when placed on a grid. It's just that Fire Emblem's systems are way more satisfying and predictable then a random crit making you lose your turn - even if you resisted the element of the attack that crit you and barely took damage from it. I don't like Press Turn interactions when they hinge on random, undefined chance.

Edited March 30 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Use the Falchion]

On 3/29/2024 at 3:09 AM, Jotari said:

I like Shin Megami Tensei. And I like Fire Emblem. And once upon a time they promised a crossover. What we got instead was TMS which was...not what people were expecting. It was kind of Shin Megami Tensei and kind of Fire Emblem without really being either. But it had good gameplay at it showed the potential for a TMS style game mixed with Fire Emblem elements. But I still kind of want to see a proper attempt at Fire Emblem in a Shin Megami Tensei frame work. One where, instead of fighting and fusing demons, you're fighting and fusing Fire Emblem characters. Enemies have weaknesses based on their weapon triangle disadvantages. Compared to regular TMS this would give it a lot more predictability in what attacks are super effective, but, consequently, if skill inheritance is based on class type or weapon rank then what skills you can give your characters is more limited compared to regular TMS, making varied team composition much more important. Like, say, Dew comes with the Wind Sword skill, and you can fuse him to make either Volke or Kaze, Volke is stronger, but since Volke doesn't have a sword rank, you can't take his Wind Sword skill with him when you fuse while you can if you opt for the statistically weaker Kaze. I just think there's genuine potential for a great game there. One that mixes the TMS gameplay with the collectaton elements of Heroes as you progress from the weaker less known characters into the stronger lords and legendary characters by the end game. Maybe with a plot using actual Fire Emblem characters (unlike in Heroes) where you have to choose which philosophy to follow from significant egos in the franchise like Alvis, Edelgard or Ashnard, reminiscent of the Reason plotline in SMT III, only bigger and more varied since Fire Emblem has so much lore and history to pull from. Honestly I like the potential so much, if there was a proper game maker out there with a SMT style fusion system built in, I probably would make it myself.

And because nobody asked for it, here's all the idea for Fire Emblem named SMT skills I came up with while playing SMT III a few months back
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Elements are: Sword, Axe, Lance, Bow, Knife, Fire, Wind, Thunder, Light, Dark, Surge (Almighty)

Orders: Knight, Cultist, Noble, Commoner, Mercenary, Royal, Ruffian, Beast, Dragon - These influence fusion like the clans in SM

Skills Active

Fire,Elfire,Archfire

Wind, Elwind,ArchWind

Thunder,ElThunder, ArchThunder

Something for multi target elemental spells, maybe the Tellius Rex spells could be the max of that.

(Mages physical attack is with a knife ala PoR.)

Levin Sword - Bolt Axe - Shock Stick - Thunder Arrow
Flame Sword - Flame Axe - Flame Lance - Fire Arrow
Wind Sword - Wind Axe - Wind Lance - Wind Arrow
Lopt Sword - Devil Axe - Indra's Arrow - Night Arrow
Light Brand - Shining Axe - Lance of Light - Shining Bow

Characters can only inherit skills from their weapon type category, so only mages can use spells, that's what all these elemental weapons are for, to give elemental attacking capabilities to non mages. Also physical characters will have elemental weaknesses that are a little less obvious than their weapon triangle weakness, possibly based off their affinities (for the characters who have affinities). Typical weapon triangle weaknesses might not be 1:1, say, a lance armoured knight like Draug who resists swords and lances but is neutral to his WTD axes and then weak to all the magic types.

Buffs all the buffs (barrier at least exists for resistance). Maybe this could be the sole purview of dancers.

Hammerne = Mana Drain, or possibly mana walk

Heal/Mend/Recover - Single Heal
Bloom Festival/Fortify/Goddess Staff -  Multi Heal
Aum/Bifrost/Valkyrie - (revival)

Death Blow (doubles next attack)

Surge/Elsurge (almighty magic, ignores resistances)

Counter/Magic Counter (the reflect attacks)

Skills Passive
-Bright Might/Dark Might, have a moon system, maybe the Fire Emblem is blazing
-Lance/Axe/Sword/Bow breaker, these are the null resistance skills
-Attack All (nothing resemblances it in Fire Emblem but I like it as a skill)
-Crit +30
-Lightoma equivalent to Light Up Areas given by Micaiah
-Ilyana's Shade is reduce enemy encounters (with maybe Volke's stilness eliminating them altogether)
-Avoid Traps a flying skill in SMT but a general thief skill could work well here
-Armsthrift, chance to not consume MP/HP when using a special
-Miracle = Endure (survive with 1HP once per battle)
-The Apothecary skills to heal automatically after battle

 

 

I came up with a SMT x FE game idea myself a few years ago! Most of my notes are from last year to early this year, but the original idea dates back to late-2022 IIRC. Maybe into 2021, but I don't think it's THAT far back. This is also NOT my idea for a TMS 2. That's a completely separate idea, with separate documents and sequels. 

Basically, it's an Isekai story, where a character from our world gets summoned to a world with demons where historical figures from our world are still alive. (This is important for world-building, lore, plot arcs, and personal story arcs.) 

The gameplay would be a mix of FE, Persona and TMS, in which you have allies who have set classes, but you can also capture demons and use them in place of your allies if you desire.* The main character can change classes too, but to do so you have to "sacrifice" a specific number of monsters of a certain type on your "altar" or to your "Emblem," I haven't decided yet, to gain the class. So, for example, if you wanted the Pegasus Knight class, you'd need to sacrifice a certain number of "flying" type monsters or whatnot. (I.e. 10-20 Pixies, or 1 Pegasus and 1 Pixie.) The lower the level and more common the monster, the lower the percentage each monster will fill. 

I don't think I got far with the morality aspect, as I was torn on even including it. My thinking of it would be that the "chaos" would be aligned with the "holy" side of things, as an embodiment of Free Will, while the "Order" would be aligned with the "Fell" side of things, as a sort of "Repressive But Efficient" style of government. There are alternative routes I could take as well, depending on the story, potentially. Overall, I like the idea of it, but I'm not sure I want to follow that path. I'm not sure it fits with the story I'm trying to tell. 

 

*My notes from January say there would be five humans who have made pacts with demons, with all other characters being recruited later on or simply allowing demons to be used. My notes for the humans are sparce at best, with only the MC and the Jagen archetype having any notes or background at all, but I do know that the five humans would be coworkers who start out as the antithesis of their FE counterpart and grow into it as the game progresses. I do have some idea for mid-to-late-game human characters, but nothing concrete. 

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Use the Falchion said:

 

I came up with a SMT x FE game idea myself a few years ago! Most of my notes are from last year to early this year, but the original idea dates back to late-2022 IIRC. Maybe into 2021, but I don't think it's THAT far back. This is also NOT my idea for a TMS 2. That's a completely separate idea, with separate documents and sequels. 

Basically, it's an Isekai story, where a character from our world gets summoned to a world with demons where historical figures from our world are still alive. (This is important for world-building, lore, plot arcs, and personal story arcs.) 

The gameplay would be a mix of FE, Persona and TMS, in which you have allies who have set classes, but you can also capture demons and use them in place of your allies if you desire.* The main character can change classes too, but to do so you have to "sacrifice" a specific number of monsters of a certain type on your "altar" or to your "Emblem," I haven't decided yet, to gain the class. So, for example, if you wanted the Pegasus Knight class, you'd need to sacrifice a certain number of "flying" type monsters or whatnot. (I.e. 10-20 Pixies, or 1 Pegasus and 1 Pixie.) The lower the level and more common the monster, the lower the percentage each monster will fill. 

I don't think I got far with the morality aspect, as I was torn on even including it. My thinking of it would be that the "chaos" would be aligned with the "holy" side of things, as an embodiment of Free Will, while the "Order" would be aligned with the "Fell" side of things, as a sort of "Repressive But Efficient" style of government. There are alternative routes I could take as well, depending on the story, potentially. Overall, I like the idea of it, but I'm not sure I want to follow that path. I'm not sure it fits with the story I'm trying to tell. 

 

*My notes from January say there would be five humans who have made pacts with demons, with all other characters being recruited later on or simply allowing demons to be used. My notes for the humans are sparce at best, with only the MC and the Jagen archetype having any notes or background at all, but I do know that the five humans would be coworkers who start out as the antithesis of their FE counterpart and grow into it as the game progresses. I do have some idea for mid-to-late-game human characters, but nothing concrete. 

Yeah, I wouldn't try and put the law order dichotomy into Fire Emblem. It would inevitably and up being forced. None of the bad guys are really "Repressive but Efficient" government. The only one that really falls into that is the Lopt Empire (for a given definition of efficient, dealing with rebellions every five minutes doesn't strike me as maximum efficiency), maybe Rhea if we want to count her as a villain (but really her status quo is basically the same as any given Fire Embelm lord would end up doing). Most Fire Emblem villains if they were to fall onto the dichotomy at all would be chaos since they support some sort of social darwanism (even the lopt empire has that in an ordered structure with its hunger games). Or they're just racist or want suffering for the sake of suffering. Meanwhile most of the protagonists are so milquetoast in their beliefs that they basically have no leaning either way. That's why I feel like focusing on some individual characters that do have strong philosophies and outlooks and going the whole SMT III Reason plotline would suit better.

Edited April 11 by Jotari

[Zapp Branniglenn]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

None of the bad guys are really "Repressive but Efficient" government. The only one that really falls into that is the Lopt Empire (for a given definition of efficient, dealing with rebellions every five minutes doesn't strike me as maximum efficiency)

"Say what you want about the Loptyr cult but they sure got the trains running on time"

[Jotari]

12 minutes ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

"Say what you want about the Loptyr cult but they sure got the trains running on time"

It's because the trains are fuelled entirely on baby organs. It's surprisingly environmentally friendly!

[Use the Falchion]

On 4/10/2024 at 9:11 PM, Jotari said:

Yeah, I wouldn't try and put the law order dichotomy into Fire Emblem. It would inevitably and up being forced. None of the bad guys are really "Repressive but Efficient" government. The only one that really falls into that is the Lopt Empire (for a given definition of efficient, dealing with rebellions every five minutes doesn't strike me as maximum efficiency), maybe Rhea if we want to count her as a villain (but really her status quo is basically the same as any given Fire Embelm lord would end up doing). Most Fire Emblem villains if they were to fall onto the dichotomy at all would be chaos since they support some sort of social darwanism (even the lopt empire has that in an ordered structure with its hunger games). Or they're just racist or want suffering for the sake of suffering. Meanwhile most of the protagonists are so milquetoast in their beliefs that they basically have no leaning either way. That's why I feel like focusing on some individual characters that do have strong philosophies and outlooks and going the whole SMT III Reason plotline would suit better.

Fair enough, but I think you may be assuming that I'd be using FE characters in the game. I wouldn't be. I'd be taking the classes, archetypes, maybe a few story beats, and some gameplay mechanics from Fire Emblem, but all of the characters would be 100% original to this game (outside of some historical public-domain figures), hence my lack of worry about fitting the archetypes to these characters. I'm more worried about whether it'd fit the story than FE characters as a whole.