Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore Review (Nintendo Switch)

Game: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
Genre: Role-Playing
System: Nintendo Switch (Older version on Wii U)
Developer|Publisher: Atlus | Nintendo
Age Rating: US T|EU 12+ 
Price: US $ 59.99 | CA $ 83.99 | AU $ 79.95| £49.99 | € 59,99
Release Date: 17th January 2020

No review code used, bought the game myself

As a fan of the Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem, I have been waiting for this game to drop on the Switch since it was announced that the two were teaming up for a new game! Now, I know, I’m waaay behind on this, but, I have now completed TMS for the first playthrough.

Meet Itsuki Aoi

My first thoughts as I wandered through the dungeons with the feel of Persona slapping me in the face every step I took, all I could think was “This is different”, and it took me longer than I wish to admit before I realised I was loving it!

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE LadiesGamers.com

You are the main character, Itsuki Aoi, a normal highschool boy in Tokyo, with his friends, Tsubasa Oribe and Touma Akagi. You learn very quickly that Tokyo is overrun with what they call Mirages, beings that are trying to absorb power from the people. However, like all Persona games, there are friendly mirages, which you encounter and team up with to fight the deadly, bad mirages. And this is where the Fire Emblem team comes in! These friendly mirages are all characters from Fire Emblem games, I believe the original Fire Emblem from the Famicom and Fire Emblem Awakening on the 3DS.

Exploring the Idolaspheres

The feel of the game is more Persona than Fire Emblem, for me anyway, but that does not detract from the experience they have laid out for us, at all. The battles are turn-based, on a beautiful stage, just for your performances, ahem, I mean battles, which falls in line with Persona games, unfortunately no grid based Fire Emblem battles in this game. You’ll explore dungeons, called Idolaspheres, as you go through TMS, meeting interesting characters as you go, progressing the story and side stories as you fight alongside and learn about your friends and team.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE LadiesGamers.com

Full of J-Pop

Now, I am not one for looking up and exploring what the game I’m about to purchase is going to entail, but I’ll watch a trailer or two, with no sound! So, when I realised this game is full of J-Pop cutscenes and the like, I knew I had to listen to this game properly. And I was not disappointed, the songs are beautiful, definitely worth listening to, and that feature of rewatching cutscenes makes that even better!

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE LadiesGamers.com

Now, I’m not one that cares for graphics much, I’d rather play a game with terrible graphics but great gameplay and story than a game with amazing graphics but no real substance. But, just as we’ve seen before from Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem, their graphics are once again on point! The characters are built fantastically, with all the facial expressions you’d hope for from a game as hitting as this one can be, and the scenery is so lushious and sublime, it’s so very pretty to look at while you have a moment to stand still and look around. The dungeons are built very well, with so much detail you may get surprised that it’s background detail!

Three levels of Difficulty

The beauty of the music, the places and the characters makes this game just so thrilling and positive! From the bright colours to the sounds of the characters voices, I don’t think I ever stopped smiling whilst playing this game, except on some of those bosses, gosh darn they can be hard! Especially if you’re like me and have to start on the highest difficulty available to you. Although there were only three levels of difficulty, easy, normal and hard to start with, once you finish the game once, you will unlock two more levels! FDSA and Lunatic. I can just imagine the amount of grinding needed for that playthrough!

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE LadiesGamers.com

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you enjoy Japanese pop culture, bright colours and generally being made to feel quite light and fluffy whilst fighting off bad guys, give this a go. And if you aren’t into any of those things, give it a go too! You might come to love them, if only for a little bit at a time, just like me.

Final Verdict: I Like it a lot I like it a lot!

 

4 comments

  1. I suppose I’m not surprised this isn’t brought up in the review, but this game is actually censored compared to the Japanese release (not just clothes or covering the female characters up from anything remotely fanservice-y, but a whole chapter of the game’s context was changed from underwear modeling to just generic modeling or something). It’s not as evident compared to the Wii U version as even the Japanese Switch port of Tokyo Mirage Sessions was changed to match what was localized. This honestly makes no sense due to the fact that it’s set in Japan to begin with and the idol culture there shouldn’t have been a bother or hassle. I REALLY wanted to buy and support this game, and it definitely looks fun, but that is still a major negative IMHO. It’s like they tried to cater to everyone instead of the target audience (who wouldn’t have minded what was considered important enough to censor IMO).

    1. Ahh yes, I did deliberate over whether or not to talk about the censorship involved in this game. Obviously I decided against it.
      Thank you for bringing it up though! I was also displeased when I found out about it, especially losing that chapters original content.
      I would have loved to play it as they originally intended, but, the game was still a fantastic story. I’m sorry you feel so negatively about the censorship issue with this game.

  2. Well I might come back to pick it up someday. I heard there are people making a mod patch of sorts to bring back the original content from the Wii U JAP version into the Switch. Clearly means there are others like you and me that don’t like what happened to Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and want to make Encore the true definitive version it can be.

  3. That would be amazing! I would love to play it as intended but in English xD
    Thanks for the heads up, I’ll keep my eye out

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