SMT x FE lives; Nintendo Direct trailer

[Aiddon]

Well...that was unexpected. It definitely gives off more of a Persona vibe, but it's also clearly a spin-off (the game is called Genei Ibunroku: FE in Japan; Ibunroku is used for SMT spinoffs like Persona and Devil Survivor) that's trying to have its own vibe. Judging by the translated website post, it's clear that the game STARTED as an SMT x FE but then they realized they were just forcing it and decided to play to their strengths and make something unique. And they certainly have.

I do like the idea of them channeling FE characters like Tiki, Caeda, Marth, and Cain like a (far less stupid) version of FFX-2's job system. My guess is the main character (like all other SMT titles) can use multiple ones while everyone else is locked to one. I do wonder who the character designer is because I swear I've seen those illustrations' style before. Anyway, definitely defying expectations and I wait to see what they'll show next

Oh yeah, redhead isn't Roy.

He has Red eyes, Roy's (and Eliwood's) are blue

He's channeling Cain from the original game:

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/fireemblem/images/e/ea/CainTCG.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140107224637

Edited April 2, 2015 by Aiddon

[MoonlitSonata]

I never played a SMT or Persona game but I don't get all this hate. After all, I was shocked to hear of a SMT crossover with FE specifically because what I knew of SMT was that it was based in modern day. I had no expectations going into this as the first trailer came off to me as extremely bare bones proof of concept-y. Meanwhile this shows a lot more and honestly, I'm kindof excited for this now, because it looks fairly lighthearted and fun. People are saying about how they wouldn't want to be caught playing this in public, which I'm kinda confused cause its a console game?

Regardless, despite it coming off extremely animesque, I like it for that reason. Looks like a lighthearted fun adventure and I can't wait to play.

[hammerene]

I'm personally not a big fan of the animesque style but each to their own. I guess it's just such a sudden change for a lot of FE fans. To be honest, the only FE-related themes I see is the mechanized pegasus knight and the princely attire of the male MC. (I felt like I missed something else too but oh well.)

I hope new gameplay videos come out soon; I feel that it's too soon to judge the game even though it does have quite a vivid presentation.

[PureshadowXIII]

I've noticed that one of the key complaints is a lack of FE elements or characters, which had had several counterclaims that fell on deaf ears so here's a full analysis I did on the trailer:

Guy with Rapier: outfit, weapon, and obvious holy blood marks so probably sigurd.

peg knight: Obviously a redesign of Caeda

Red hair and motorcycle: Possibly a redesign of Cain considering the mount and that he is the most likely character to dress as an archetypical japanese thug. Although he has a lance, which doesn't quite fit.

Green haired girl with glowing circlets: Possibly Nino, considering the hair and the mage like appearance.

purple haired girl with red robes: likely a shaman, so it may very well be sophia

There are two dancers, one is green haired so maybe ninnian, but I hope not because the outfit is unfitting.

Green haired girl with a bow: I can't believe only one person said this, it's probably Lyn.

Weapon:

All melee weapons aside from axed were shown, and it looked like we had levin swords and shocksticks as well.

Also, a major problem was fanservice so I ask you: What do you think the scramble dlc that some of yo4 may have paid for been like if the game had an M rating? I'm guessing this.

Gameplay: Well, there are three things to look at: aesthetics, world, and battle. The aesthetics, while altered to fit the world, are all FE based. The world is Smt based, more on persona. Battles lean slightly to SMT, but only in that literally anything other than a real time or strictly strategy type would. It actually seems to be time based, and is therefore neither. They may very well have a massive cast and permadeath to account for FE, but that will be seen later. They may also mix supports and social links, which I'm sure most of us would agree would be absolutely glorious.

As for why it's not dark: both games are very dark, but the way in which they are dark are in such different ways that the only way to merge them would be gang wars, which would kinda suck because then it would be like all those free roam games except with a story. It simply doesn't work

that last bit also brings me to my last bit: the reason everyone is angry is due to pure over expectations. We expected more than we could get because we were too blinded by hype to realize how much the two conflict with each other

[Aiddon]

I've noticed that one of the key complaints is a lack of FE elements or characters, which had had several counterclaims that fell on deaf ears so here's a full analysis I did on the trailer:

Guy with Rapier: outfit, weapon, and obvious holy blood marks so probably sigurd.

peg knight: Obviously a redesign of Caeda

Red hair and motorcycle: Possibly a redesign of Cain considering the mount and that he is the most likely character to dress as an archetypical japanese thug. Although he has a lance, which doesn't quite fit.

Green haired girl with glowing circlets: Possibly Nino, considering the hair and the mage like appearance.

purple haired girl with red robes: likely a shaman, so it may very well be sophia

There are two dancers, one is green haired so maybe ninnian, but I hope not because the outfit is unfitting.

Green haired girl with a bow: I can't believe only one person said this, it's probably Lyn.

Weapon:

All melee weapons aside from axed were shown, and it looked like we had levin swords and shocksticks as well.

Also, a major problem was fanservice so I ask you: What do you think the scramble dlc that some of yo4 may have paid for been like if the game had an M rating? I'm guessing this.

Gameplay: Well, there are three things to look at: aesthetics, world, and battle. The aesthetics, while altered to fit the world, are all FE based. The world is Smt based, more on persona. Battles lean slightly to SMT, but only in that literally anything other than a real time or strictly strategy type would. It actually seems to be time based, and is therefore neither. They may very well have a massive cast and permadeath to account for FE, but that will be seen later. They may also mix supports and social links, which I'm sure most of us would agree would be absolutely glorious.

As for why it's not dark: both games are very dark, but the way in which they are dark are in such different ways that the only way to merge them would be gang wars, which would kinda suck because then it would be like all those free roam games except with a story. It simply doesn't work

that last bit also brings me to my last bit: the reason everyone is angry is due to pure over expectations. We expected more than we could get because we were too blinded by hype to realize how much the two conflict with each other

In all honesty showing that teaser two years ago was a mistake. It was clearly HORRENDOUSLY early in development and was only used to shut up the whiny public who wouldn't stop whinging over stupid crap. Had this been the debut trailer people would probably still be complaining but nowhere near the magnitude we're seeing. This is what happens when you let people build expectations.

[PureshadowXIII]

but the thing is, anyone whose played the games should know that it doesn't work. The two games have next to nothing in common

[hammerene]

In all honesty showing that teaser two years ago was a mistake. It was clearly HORRENDOUSLY early in development and was only used to shut up the whiny public who wouldn't stop whinging over stupid crap. Had this been the debut trailer people would probably still be complaining but nowhere near the magnitude we're seeing. This is what happens when you let people build expectations.

Wasn't that teaser used in a Nintendo Direct? So isn't it more like an announcement rather than a teaser? The video pretty much only had the official art of past FE and SMT MCs and the title: "SMT x Fire Emblem." I don't think anyone started whining until after a year of no information.

[MJThom_2009]

great that was a total downfall, Atlus and IS please give me a reason why I should reconsider about being into this game?

I'm liking FE14 over this game

[DeadGame]

Instantly lost all interest in this, with that trailer.

[Aiddon]

Wasn't that teaser used in a Nintendo Direct? So isn't it more like an announcement rather than a teaser? The video pretty much only had the official art of past FE and SMT MCs and the title: "SMT x Fire Emblem." I don't think anyone started whining until after a year of no information.

Which would never have happened if they hadn't been forced to do an announcement to shut people up. Ya wonder why Nintendo only announces things when they have them in a playable state? THAT'S WHY.

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Mm, kinda killed my interest. I'm still interested enough to see how it develops, however.

[Jedi]

but the thing is, anyone whose played the games should know that it doesn't work. The two games have next to nothing in common

You could easily use the otherworld gate from Awakening as a catalyst. Also SMT has GAMES THAT PLAY VERY CLOSE TO FE ever play Devil Survivor or Majin Tensei ?

Honestly the crossover could have worked, the various philosophies, law, chaos, neutrality. The choosing sides, SMT has general fantasy elements too.

This bullshit we got instead is a stain on both Atlus and IS and one of the biggest scams I've ever seen in gaming, they advertised mainline fe clashing with mainline SMT.

Not this pissy lighthearted Persona crap.

You know what's amazing. FeIF looks more like a Smt x FE then this does.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Jedi

[Tryhard]

I always kinda wondered why hardcore SMT fans hate Persona and vice versa.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Tryhard

[Jedi]

I always kinda wondered why hardcore SMT fans hate Persona and vice versa.

I don't mind Persona, its just became incredibly over-hyped in my opinion, its good at what it does and SMT is good at what it does. This was advertised as SMT x FE not Persona with a minor in FE.

[eclipse]

ITT: Atlus isn't allowed to change their minds. Remember that a certain company was dissolved between then and now.

[Jedi]

ITT: Atlus isn't allowed to change their minds. Remember that a certain company was dissolved between then and now.

Its.. just bizarre and disappointing.. Yes I'm aware of the company issue. Its just, this wasn't anything like I had dreamed or expected. I'm left feeling a bit letdown.. I've been ranting on Skype about it for hours.

To be honest I'll give it a shot, but I'm not optimistic.

[Refa]

Shouldn't the subforum name be changed considering this isn't even SMT x FE in Japan anymore (dunno if US is still using that name)?

Edited April 2, 2015 by Refa

[Roflolxp54]

So... Tiki, Marth and Caeda are pretty much the FE characters shown (or FE-based character inspirations)...

Looks more like a SMT/Persona game with heavily redesigned FE characters for Personas from what I can tell.

[Irysa]

ITT: Atlus isn't allowed to change their minds. Remember that a certain company was dissolved between then and now.

Yeah and people aren't allowed to be dissapointed either? The title of the WIP was Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem. Not Persona x Fire Emblem. Rather than complain about a lack of FE stuff, I'm more pissed off about the lack of legitimate SMT in there.

I always kinda wondered why hardcore SMT fans hate Persona and vice versa.

It's Persona 3 and 4 that are the main sticking points, although tbh Persona fans are less likely to "dislike" SMT, as opposed to just not being bothered to play it. <_<

Persona 1, 2 and 3 are notably closer to the rooted, philosophical, supernatural and morally grey landscape SMT likes to delve into than 4. 3's biggest problem is that it simulteanously attempts to keep that up in combination with an excessive focus on standard teenage high school problems/angst and generally encompasses a much more upbeat and corny tone, although it could be argued in some respects that it adds to the surrealness (I'd disagree though). Persona 4 basically threw it out the window and is impossible to take seriously on any level unless your suspension of disbelief thrusters are set to maximum, and has not been unfairly described before as frequently reminscient of Scooby Doo. The tone is simply far too goofy for a game trying to delve into serious subjects. Personally, I also have an issue with the fact that about 90% of the characters in those two games are wholly unlikable self centred dickheads who expect to be able to just agony aunt on the protagonist or lash out about the slightest things. Atlus have always had issues with making appropriately "human" and likable characters in their scripts but in mainline those characters transcend the somewhat bland dialogue beacuse they represent idealogies or concepts, and function more as those representations than actual people. Most of the stuff you're forced to read in P3/4 is practically no better than the average dialogue random demons say in battle in mainline

If you don't care about the thematic narratives being maintained, then the next hurdle is the gameplay. P3 and 4 are both heavily simplified mechanically compared to the mainline series when it comes to raw combat. Admittedly the purpose of this is to make battles faster (for reasons I'll get into later), and it succeeds in that respect. But there's a significantly smaller amount of customisation and depth present, even when it comes down to just preparing for tougher fights, and this means that there are way too many scenarios where grinding in short, simple battles ends up becoming a key factor in combat prowess and progress. In terms of rough time spent, it may take about the same amount of time to grind your way to your benchmarks in P3/4 as it does to recruit, fuse, breed and train an optimal party for a specific area or boss in a mainline SMT game, but each step is far more engrossing and engaging in mainline.

Even outside the combat the gameplay suffers massively because the dungeons have been devolved into incredibly bland pseudorandomly generated floors that are wholly uninteresting to navigate and only change in theme once a month (in game schedule time). There's no real fun to be had in exploring these areas beacuse they all look the same, there's nothing interesting in them and they only really serve as a way to level up. After that we're left with schedule simulator 2000, which hilariously has the most depth of any part of the two games (although toned down somewhat from vanilla P3 where you had to have some meticulous planning in order to max out all your Social Links). This stuff is kind of engrossing in the planning phase I guess but there's not much real reward for it enough of the time, as you spend far too many days just basically going through repetitive tasks and getting nothing out of it until you hit your next level for a tiny bit of exposition in what are mostly extremely forgettable short stories. The games seem to revel in the drudgery of common obligatory interactions such as these, and I can't fathom why. Actually scratch that, they just revel in drudgery period! You spend all your time preforming menial repetitive actions with little to no meaningful input required in order to advance, and get drip fed more content at a snails pace, and people have the audacity to claim the games have a large scope or amount of content.

Part of my bias is no doubt due to the fact that I play way too many actual dungeon crawlers and visual novels, of which P3 and P4 strive to combine, but only manage to do so in the most mediocre way. There is an attempt to mask that mediocrity in a banner of style (that is undeniably very well pulled off), but ultimately P3 and 4 are abnegated procedures that work more like anime skinnerboxes than anything else. They try to give you just enough of various factors that you constantly cycle through in order to not get bogged down or bored in any particular area, but the gimmick wears off fast.

tl;dr

persona 3 is just a fucking allegory for real life including why I bothered to actually finish the stupid thing. engage in menial reptitive activities that i don't find enjoyable for no real reason. have to try to get along and get to know people i don't even like for no real reason. keep doing it anyway, then at the end you fucking die and nobody will ever give a shit. what a meta videogame.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Irysa

[Jedi]

Irysa thank you for speaking my mind mostly on the matter.

[MrStardustRicon]

I always kinda wondered why hardcore SMT fans hate Persona and vice versa.

Honestly it's really comparable to why majority of the fans of the older FE games hate the fans of Awakening. In America at least, while mainline SMT has been around for ages persona is much newer by comparison, and has generated a mass following, especially with Persona 3 + 4, afterwords Persona became Atlus's sonic the hedgehog, and has been milking the same two games for the last 7 years, in those seven years a lot of things were generated from the two games included forced memes, breaking the original characters, and the fandom of the spinoff trying to change the mascot of the main series. All the meanwhile not trying to play the prior games in the franchise, or extend themselves out of their "persona"l barrier, and as such gained a really bad reputation for being people who don't have a respect for the series. Granted the mainline fans aren't the most eloquent of types to introduce them to the older (and frankly better) games often spouting "y dunt uu plai a rele sheen megoomi tensie gaym" causing backlash from the persona fandom, and afterwards it just becomes a constant back and forth conflict that will unfortunately never see a resolution.

[Tryhard]

I wasn't particularly looking for a "here's why persona sucks" post, Irysa. I just find it amusing how people get pretty entitled over this.

[Irysa]

Phrase your questions more rhetorically if you don't want actual responses then?

I'm not sure how anyone is neccessarily behaving "entitled" by being dissapointed? It's less of a "why isn't it X, this is shit" and more like "they initially made it out to be X, but clearly now it isn't, that's dissapointing and frustrating".

Edited April 2, 2015 by Irysa

[eclipse]

The resulting backlash is disproportionally heavy, IMO. Something that was teased changed over the last two years - this doesn't surprise me, especially given what happened to Atlus shortly afterwards. It's a video game, not the terms of your mortgage. You don't like the change? No need to frequent this subforum, and definitely no need for an essay! You do like the change? More power to you! You're unsure of what to make of this? Game's not coming out for a while, and I'm sure there'll be more tidbits dropped along the way~!

In other words, chill. It's not the end of the world. Feel free to be disappointed, but do keep in mind that you're getting worked up over a video game. Life's got way more important things than that~!

Edited April 2, 2015 by eclipse

[feplus]

Until developers start handing out games for free and until gaming is no longer an artistic medium open to critical thought, "entitled" will remain a vacuous buzzword.

Kudos to Irysa's lucid write-up on the issues with P3 and P4. I'd like to expound on those thoughts with a few of my own:

First, understand that fans of both Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei are disappointed in large part because a series crossover had such potential. The realpolitik, rich character development, and sharp tactical gameplay of FE combined with the demon recruitment / summoning, expressive post-apocalyptic aesthetic, and moral choice system of SMT? Seemed like a match made by YHVH himself.

Second, the issue mainline SMT fans have with Persona is not with the attention those games receive, but rather with how the mainline series has been left to rot. If Atlus satiated fans with a solid traditional MegaTen game every three or four years, there'd be no trouble with Persona and SMT coexisting.

Third, even if this new Persona ft. Awakening project was a shock to expectations, the real trouble is that I have a hard time distinguishing between SMTxFE and something like Hyperdimension Neptunia: female leads become sexualized idols, girls strip to their undergarments, everyone's in high school, and all this is set to an ultra-generic, cringe-inducing anime theme song. Forgive some of us for being deeply skeptical at this new direction.

EDIT: And I'm curious about eclipse's implication that critical thoughts are undeserving of "an essay." Unless this subforum has switched gears and become a hugbox, I see no reason critical voices shouldn't be heard in addition to positive voices.

Edited April 2, 2015 by feplus