4/5 ★ – Elesh's review of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a JRPG about idols made by Atlus featuring characters and themes from the Fire Emblem series. An eclectic mix, to be sure, so I was eager to give it a try. I had a bit of concern that the one-dimensional nature of Fire Emblem's cast might not mesh well with Atlus' writing style... but I was definitely not going to let that get in the way of giving this strange concept a try when it got a re-release. Taking place in an alternate universe Tokyo and centering around a young aspiring idol named Tsubasa Oribe and her friend and classmate Itsuki Aoi as they become involved with an agency - Fortuna Entertainment - with a somewhat unique side hustle: engaging in a shadow war against a mysterious foe to save peoples' creative energies which manifest in this world as 'Performa'. And, of course, this same power is what allows Fortuna's idols to fight against their enigmatic enemy, which naturally paints a massive target on the back of our Performa-rich protagonists. I'm sure some of you are thinking 'that sounds like a side plot straight out of Sailor Moon' and you're not alone. It is very much the type of camp 'monster of the day' basis that magical girl shows are often built on. And I mean that as the highest of compliments. This is not Shakespeare, but it doesn't try to be. It knows what it is, and it embraces it, and I genuinely wish more games were this willing to go all in on a concept. The characters and storylines were great, the overall main story was solid, the drama was the silly, hilarious ridiculousness you'd expect from the genre. And, thankfully, they didn't put too much stock in the Fire Emblem characters. Instead of trying to make them have more depth, they used them for the amnesiac 'Mirages' that allow the cast to turn their Performa into both weapon and shield. This sets them up to serve as pure fanservice and contribute to the game in a positive way. The one thing I will say is that the ending was a bit of a letdown, which failed to live up to the story's promise. The game plays much like a Persona game, with a turn-based setup focused around exploiting enemies' weaknesses to enable follow-up attacks. And not just a single follow-up per turn - if you have the right units and chains of abilities available, you can sometimes get 5 to 10 followup attacks in a row. It is a ton of fun to take advantage of, although I will admit there is one downside that particularly comes into play in higher difficulties. These follow-up attacks are your primary source of damage, which can make even fights against weaker enemies take an enormous amount of time as you get later in the game. What truly makes this game shine though is their willingness to go absolutely all in on the idol concept. The game is full of animated music videos, concerts, and tv-show style skits. Concerts and music videos which, by the way, contain some of my favourite video game music in history. This game's soundtrack is phenomenal, and they took every chance they could to let you hear a variety of tracks. Most of the animated scenes I mentioned above unlock combat abilities based on them that trigger - some random and some deterministic - that actually play the music from that skit during combat. It's one of the most unique combat gimmicks I've ever seen, and I hope to see someone else do something similar. This game is a ton of fun and a true testament to the magic that can arise from a team who is willing to not make any concessions to their core premise. The game has some flaws - the story's a bid predictable and ends on a bit of a sour note, the combat can get lengthy especially when you're just wanting to farm - but none of those flaws do anything to tarnish my memories of this game. And, if I haven't said so yet, this game's music is absolutely magical. Seriously, it's amazing.