On the second day of Nintendo’s Treehouse Live @ E3 stream, Nintendo started off with quite a bang. They revealed more details about the game Genei Ibun Roku #FE, a working title for the Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem crossover project.
They opened with the trailer previously shown at yesterday’s Nintendo Digital Event, which shows off the characters and world, which is called the Idolosphere. In the game, spirits called Mirages are drawn to people who exhibit a creative energy called Performa. Indeed, music plays a particularly heavy role in Genei Ibun Roku #FE. All of the game’s music is being produced by the in-house team at avex trax, one of Japan’s biggest independent record labels, and the battles take place on what looks to be an idol stage. The game’s locations are all based on real-world locations in Japan, and the designers of Genei Ibun Roku #FE wanted to create a major sense of realism in the game. As with other Atlus games, this game deals with the balance between what is real and what is not, and along with a main story, each main character gets a side story about the entertainment world.
The footage of Genei Ibun Roku #FE opened with a look at the game’s version of Shibuya, a ward of Tokyo, and the main character, Itsuki, went to a convenience store called the Hee-Haw Mart. (Yes, Jack Frost is on it.) They then showed off footage of a concert from Tsubasa, one of the main characters, and after she gets encouraged by the player character, her Performa gets awakened. As this happens, the world’s citizens are drained of their Performa by a spiritual force, and this leads to then getting drained of color.
A dungeon was shown off as well, taking place in Shibuya’s department store 109, a well-known fashion landmark in Japan. All of the dungeons in Genei Ibun Roku #FE are based on real-world locations in Japan, and each one has its own gimmick. In addition to Itsuki and Tsubasa, which have Chrom and Caeda as their Mirages, respectively, the character Touma (whose Mirage is Cain) was shown to be the third member of the party. The battle system takes elements such as the famous “weapons triangle” of Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei’s weakness system. The stream also showcased Session Attacks, which have all three characters in the party jump in on the attack. When they were done with the dungeon, the stream then showed off the GamePad screen, which serves as Itsuki’s cellphone, and players can read iOS-style instant messages between characters.
The stream ended with a look at a boss fight—but not just any boss fight. Gangrel, the main antagonist in Fire Emblem: Awakening, looked quite demonic. His boss fight also showed off different attacks, such as Mirage attacks and Dual Attacks. In the former, the main characters use their Mirages. In the latter, characters can be paired up with one another and use attacks that grow stronger with their relationships, similar to Fire Emblem.
In short, Genei Ibun Roku #FE looks to be quite a different animal from either of the series that inspired it. Genei Ibun Roku #FE is releasing sometime in early 2016.
