Woah. Um, ….woah. Did not see this coming at all. During a Wii U centered Nintendo Direct this morning, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata announced that Nintendo and Atlus were collaborating on a game. The trailer commenced with Shin Megami Tensei characters appearing on-screen. Looked normal. And then BAM, Fire Emblem characters! Now I’m very curious as to what exactly these two sides will bring to the table. Both franchises had their roots in being once Japan-Only titles and being RPGs. What could be more different from the two is one being much darker than the other. The stories of Shin Megami Tensei tend to deal with existential dilemmas, religion, and cast God as one big douchebag. Fire Emblem‘s plot varies from game to game, sometimes deals with a power struggle between kingdoms and a search for the titular Fire Emblem. And there’s also the game’s perma-death feature. Wonder if that’ll make it into this game.

One aspect I’m really curious about is the juxtaposition of the music from both franchises. Fire Emblem‘s music is known to have beautiful, sweeping orchestral arrangements, sometimes delving into more pounding rock-like compositions. SMT‘s music on the other hand is really dark with hard guitar riffs, odd voices (sometimes), and some pretty unnerving arrangements. You can even hear the difference in the trailer itself with the SMT characters being shown, followed by the Fire Emblem characters with their theme.
Gotta say, I’m pretty hyped!

Wii U – Shin-Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem Trailer