Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem: message from the Chief Director
Today, the official website for the Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem crossover was updated, and two new blog posts were added. The first one is from Mitsuru Hirata (Chief Director and Game Designer), and the second one is from Eiji Ishida (Development Director, Chief Battle Designer). We finally have a translation for the first one, courtesy of Siliconera.
Mitsuru Hirata is well-known for his work on Radiant Historia (that he directed), but also Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey (where he was Supporting Director). He starts by talking about the game itself, and how surprising it is: many players were not expecting a collaboration between Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem to turn out like this… including Mitsuru Hirata himself!
His first encouter with the Fire Emblem series was 25 years ago: the package design actually reminded him of a popular animated movie. He had already played plenty of tough-as-nails RPG before discovering Fire Emblem, but the game systems at the time still managed to crush him completely.
He muttered “T-this is the devil” everytime one of his units was incapacited (which is pretty bad with perma-death). At one point, he didn’t have enough units to keep playing, and his character got incapacited… a rather brutal end to his very first run of the game, forcing him to start from scratch.
When he played the game, he always followed the same pattern: Reset > Sulk in bed > Eat > Try again > Reset > Sulk in bed > Take a bath > Try again > Reset. He was completely absorbed, and he just kept playing. Then, fate repeated itself, and he actually managed to break the reset button of his Super NES!
On GameBoy Advance, he was so absorbed in the game that one time, he actually forgot to get out at the right stop in the train… he ended up taking a taxi to get back home.
The thing is, Mitsuru Hirata is actually pretty bad at Strategy games, but he still loves the Fire Emblem series nonetheless. One thing he loves about it is how different it is from other strategy games: it actually puts a lot of emphasis on the individual units. If they die, they’re lost forever, and you can’t really win with sheer numbers either. He mentions the birth of the “drama that arises from having your favorite unit win through battles”.
He frequently comes up with mini-scenarios for each units, like this one:
“Ack! Hear me, the now deceased Draug… I, the Armor Knight, shall take on this castle wall in your stead! The rest of you sneak around for a surprise attack!”
“R-Roger!”
“Only I, the Pegasus Knight, can go over these mountains! I must catch up to the others! Their lives are in danger!”
He believes that the importance of the characters is an element shared with the games made at Atlus, which is why a collaboration with the Fire Emblem series made so much sense to him. And just like that, he went from mere player to actual developer of a Fire Emblem game! He compares this to the experience of finally meeting someone after many years of longing.
In this blog post, he wanted to write about his experience with the Fire Emblem series, so he’ll talk about the game itself in a later post. However, he did show a new screenshot for the game, which is from one of the dungeons of the game. It was actually improved (compared to the trailer shown during the April 2nd Nintendo Direct), with more details on the floor’s texture, the background, etc.
Here’s the two screenshots posted on the official blog:
Obviously, the trailer shown during the April 2nd Nintendo Direct was not from the final build of the game, so visuals are bound to change and improve over time. Finally, he explains that the staff is zealously working on the game, and he believes that they will be able to reveal new information pretty soon. Next time, they’ll introduce staff members from outside Atlus.
Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem (Illustory Revelations #FE in Japan) (Wii U) will come out this Winter in Japan, next year in Europe and North America.
Source: Official website
Via: Siliconera
