Genei Ibun Roku #FE: how the game came to be, its rather unexpected origins
At E3, VentureBeat got to talk with Shinjiro Takata (Producer at Atlus) about Genei Ibun Roku #FE, the Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem cross-over that Nintendo announced back in January 2013. And believe it or not, this rather unexpected project has some even more unexpected origins: purikura, a Japanese photo booth app for the Nintendo DSi (and Nintendo 3DS)!
Back then, a conversation started, which was about whether Atlus might end up in charge of a new Fire Emblem game. Of course, it was nothing serious, and at the time, they actually turned down the “offer” because they had too much on their plates.
Then, at the beginning of the project, Hitoshi Yamagami (Producer at Nintendo) went to Atlus in order to ask them if they were interested in making a strategy game. The thing is: Atlus is known for making RPGs, not really S-RPGs. What’s more, they were not quite sure what to do for the setting: should it be fantasy-based or not? After all, Atlus isn’t really used to make such games, so at the beginning, they weren’t sure in which direction push the project.
Another problem that came up is the following:
“If you make it too much like a Fire Emblem game, then why doesn’t Intelligent Systems just make it themselves?”.
In the end, they decided to make something that Fire Emblem can’t do, a game that only Atlus could do. As mentionned during the Nintendo Treehouse Live, yesterday, the end game is neither a Fire Emblem nor a Shin Megami Tensei, it’s something entirely new.
Here’s what the producer had to say about that:
This game was made as an entirely new IP. It may use some bits of the Fire Emblem series as motifs, but there are no demons or anything like you’d see from Shin Megami Tensei. If you know both series, you’ll notice some things and think that they’re very interesting, but we made this so that any player who’s new to the game won’t need any information beforehand to appreciate it.
If you’re interested in learning more about the game, you should definitely check out the full interview on VentureBeat (check out the link below!).
Genei Ibun Roku #FE (Wii U) comes out this Winter in Japan, and next year in Europe and North America.
Source: VentureBeat
