## 2025-07-25 I am **Tokyo Mirage Sessions’** biggest defender. I am Tsubasa Oribe’s strongest soldier. I had a big crush on Eleonora Yumizuru when I was *checks notes* let’s not talk about how old the original version of this game is. But I have the special edition of it on the Wii U! With the artbook and everything. **TMS** gets dogged on a lot and it makes me sad because it’s fun and cute and light-hearted. These are things that I now cling to harder than ever in 2025. I’m playing the Switch version as I continue to play around with my [[Thoughts on the Nintendo Switch 2|Switch 2]], and I’m having a grand old time. The game has barely any budget, and it doesn’t really change in the time you play it. But it’s the perfect breezy summer game. I love how colorful it is, the music bops, and the combat is a blast — even moreso now that you can skip session-chain animations. There is a certain, simplistic beauty to a solid dungeon crawler. **Tokyo Mirage Sessions** is similar to **Soul Hackers 2** in this way — or I guess the other way around. The loop of destroying mirages to level up weapons and power up your ~~party~~ cast is engaging and brisk. The numbers go up at a consistent pace so that I never felt things were too repetitive. There’s always another upgrade or level up around the corner. Also, I think the backlash against this game after its original teaser trailer is vastly overblown in that hive-mind way that gamers can frenzy themselves into. There was no way that a pure **SMT x Fire Emblem** crossover was going to work. The Demi-Fiend is not going to be chilling with Marth, and Chrom is not going to be dapping up Flynn. Not only are those two games’ aesthetics so starkly different from one another, I think what we got is significantly more interesting. It’s an engaging blend of **SMT** and **Fire Emblem** mechanics, while also a nice little story about pursuing creative endeavors — something that resonates with me a lot! It sucks…I’m forever cursed to like games that aren’t received very well. I promise it’s not on purpose! I’m not a contrarian. I just like what I like, and sometimes what I like is deemed mid by most people. But I also enjoyed my time with **Blue Reflection: Second Light**[^1], so what do I know. ## Notes ### Class Change Order - Itsuki: Great Lord → Conqueror - Tsubasa: Falcon Knight → Wyvern Knight - Touma: Dark Knight → Paladin - Kiria: Sage → Sorcerer - Eleonora: Assassin → Sniper - Mamori: General → Berserker - Yashiro: Hero → Swordmaster [^1]: *NOT* the first game