Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE

Most of the reviews acknowledge that the story's nothing to write home about and mostly praise the gameplay and style of the game. At least one even acknowledges that it absolutely wasn't what most fans expected, so I don't think bias is playing a part. It got respectable reviews in its home country too.

But good reviews don't translate to good sales, unfortunately.

It needed to be handled better as far as marketing goes. The content isn't an instant turnoff for me, but I can see how it'd alienate some people, too.

I sure said that!

The content will alienate people, yes, but there's also a distinct audience that accepts and even embraces that kind of content. The problem is that Nintendo of America seem to have done their best to alienate that audience, meaning there is nobody left to appeal to. And I guarantee you that there is nothing in the original game that would have warranted an M, especially after they gave the girls an Age Lift to 18. If this game flops (which I'm confident it will), then it will be 100% deserved no matter how good its actual gameplay is.

I'm also surprised that sites like Polygon, which are usually so keen on gender issues, would gloss over a game that so glorifies the Japanese idol industry, which is actually very oppressive and abusive towards women.

Fight for something, even if its meaningless.

Yeah, the localization efforts seem extremely confused, to say the least. Leaving the Japanese voice track but wielding the censor stick so hard means it'll appeal to not much of anyone.

edited 22nd Jun '16 10:06:14 PM by Pulse

I sure said that!

Especially when they are pushing the Link fanservice in the new Zelda and he isn't even 18 as well.

Its so completely hypocritical its not even funny, especially when you look at the stuff that actually makes it into a T rated game like the Neptunia franchise.

To be fair, the Polygon reviewer isn't quite the same reviewer as the others that usually bring up those gender issues (she only posted a review on one other game so far and she has yet to post an opinion piece regarding gender), so it could simply be that that reviewer has different priorities to others.

I used to think Nintendo had no idea how to handle these sorts of games. Because they don't. But it did give this game far more exposure via pointless complaints keeping it alive on forums, so maybe they're on to something after all.

edited 22nd Jun '16 10:24:48 PM by Sterok

Your preferences are not everyone else's preferences.

I just hope they learn from all this. They probably will just take it as "see, RPGs are bombs no matter what," though.

I sure said that!

Fire Emblem says "Hi".

Yeah, maybe she's actually focusing on reviewing the game rather than debating gender politics.

Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!

Fire Emblem is a principally handheld series and a tactical RPG. It's different enough that they might not notice, given how intelligently they handled this game.

I sure said that!

It already bombed HARD in Japan.

How well did SMTIV do?

Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!

Well their biggest series is an RPG, so I doubt that. The lesson learned as I have said before is to work out the conceptual marketing next time they want to fund a console JRPG. Look at their audience and create something that appeals to them instead of shoving a Vita game on the antithesis of that.

Xenoblade needs this lesson too. They figured it out for a shooter and strategy RPG, so they have the capability.

Your preferences are not everyone else's preferences.

Extremely well, it sold about 7x as many copies as this game did overall in the first week.

edited 22nd Jun '16 10:48:32 PM by Memers

Bravely Default also made most of its sales westward, so assuming RP Gs are going to bomb absolutely isn't their paradigm.

IV also did great in the west thanks to the Fire Emblem cross-promotion. That's a partnership with Atlus that actually worked out. Pity that Apocalypse won't repeat that performance.

Your preferences are not everyone else's preferences.

If you mean SMTIV Apocalypse it should arou d 4x as much as TMS. Less than IV as its a sequel that wasn't promoted as much as IV.

edited 22nd Jun '16 10:49:59 PM by OmegaRadiance

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

Moreover, much better than anticipated. The expected perhaps half as many sales as they got.

Apocalypse won't do as well by virtue of being a revamp that looks like a Mission-Pack Sequel even if it isn't, but it also isn't chewing as many resources so it'll work out.

That's another handheld series, so I'm still forced to assume NoA will avoid console JRPGs anyway.

edited 22nd Jun '16 10:54:21 PM by Pulse

I sure said that!

From my understanding no one in Japan liked how they handled the mashup at all and didn't like the gameplay, the characters or the censoring made from the trailers to the game. Pieces of the game leaked online and preorders were cancelled in mass. IIRC Fire Emblem fans hated it the most.

Had it been just an SMT Idol game or a Atlus made Fire Emblem game I bet it would have sold big time, at least for a Wii U title, but not like this.

edited 22nd Jun '16 11:03:31 PM by Memers

That doesn't seem true. Famitsu give it a 34/40 which is a 8, 9, 9, and 8 while also getting the Dengeki Online Award of 2015.

Also, what do you mean by censorship in Japan?

If 3 out of 10 pre-orders are cancelled, the issue isn't the cancelled pre-orders. The issue is that there were only 10 pre-orders to begin with. No one cared about non-existent censorship because no one with a Wii U cared about this product to begin with. Now if you're saying this should've been more like an actual SMT or Fire Emblem game (though apparently it does take a lot from SMT after all) then sure, I'd agree, but that's a conceptual issue, not a policy or execution problem.

Your preferences are not everyone else's preferences.

That's not true at all. General consensus was that the gameplay was perfectly fine.

It was mostly just the fact that it was so wildly different from what fans expected that neither Fire Emblem nor SMT fans wanted any part of it. Couple that with it being on a famously unpopular console and the game just had very little going for it.

Only in gameplay. Thematically and especially in terms of story it's extremely generic and safe, the antithesis of the religion, doom and gloom heavy SMT games. Even the side ones like Persona tend to deal with heavy themes, which this game apparently mostly sidesteps.

edited 22nd Jun '16 11:10:43 PM by Hashil

Yeah, even Persona, being relatively lighter than the mainline, deals with big concepts- Psychology, the meaning of truth, what it means to die. I was hoping for something like that from this game, but apparently it wasn't meant to be.

I sure said that!

Kiria’s Outfit was censored in Japan. it hit a few weeks before the game released and quite a few places blew up. The final boss cutscene leaked online too and yeah the reaction was insanely bad.

And yeah the reviewers liked it but the public certainly didn't. It sold 23k the first week and didn't get much better after that.

In contrast SMT IV sold 188k first week and fire emblem fates sold 353k the first week. (not factoring digital sales.)

edited 22nd Jun '16 11:17:36 PM by Memers

I suppose another factor to add to this is that the digital version has faster load times than physical copies which a few videos have tested this on and only Nintendo and Atlus have access to those numbers. It probably wasn't that significant, but it might be a noticeable impact.