Think about the weirdest, most obscure game you know.
What comes to mind? No One Can Stop Mr. Domino? Maybe the Atari ET game? Or, even games like Rule of Rose?
Take all of those obscure games, mix them together in a vat, and pour in gallons of pure, sweet anime. You’ll get Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore (yes, that is the full title).
Tokyo Mirage Sessions
The development and preview for Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore(TMS) was revealed in 2013 under the working title of Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem. The game was initially billed as a sort of gritty crossover between those two juggernauts of the JRPG genre. In 2015, the game was released and received less than stellar reception. The game looked like an “idol pop” game, reminiscent of that popular but not resonant genre of Japanese music. The game received perfectly average critical reception, with its Metacritic score sitting at a neat 80/100 as of writing.
But, why does an idol-pop inspired JRPG franchise crossover game matter?
It may not matter to you, but there are those who the game matters quite a bit – about 13,000 people, precisely.
Via Nintendo
Enter the Zaibatsu
On March 24, 2018, YouTube channel Super Best Friends Play uploaded the first episode of its Let’s Play (LP)1, of TMS. The channel was a collaborative effort between four Canadian comedians and gamers, Matt, Pat, Woolie, and Liam. The “Best Friends Zaibatsu2,” which they called themselves, were a shining example of content creation on YouTube, arguably setting many trends into place on the website with their content. Though the group has since broken up, their shared channel featured various Let’s Plays across a number of game genres. The two most popular videos on the channel each have 1.2M views (see above). When the channel ended, it had accrued almost 800k subscribers.
The channel’s statistics are important to consider when looking at their Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore LP. The full LP of TMS consists of a whopping 83 episodes, each a half hour long. This makes their Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore LP leaps and bounds longer than most of their other work, only surpassed by their 99 episode LP of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Episode #1 of TMS stands at a relatively impressive 168,231 views, barely an eighth of the channel’s overall subscriber count. The view count drops off significantly after that. By episode #10, only 39,017 views are registered, and by the last episode only 26,651 people watched.
The numbers this LP pulled in was clear evidence of a lack of engagement from the main audience of the channel. Viewership eventually dwindled so low that around 13,000 people watched consistently. Fans championed the hashtag #Fe13000 3 as a result, representing this disappointing figure.
Why, then, did Matt and Woolie continue with the game? Why did they soldier on, despite commercial failure?
- Let’s play is a term for a “video (or screenshots accompanied by text) documenting the playthrough of a video game, usually including commentary or a camera view of the gamer’s face“
- Zaibatsu translates to “any of the large capitalist enterprises of Japan before World War II
- For clarification purposes, there are two “hashtag (#)” like symbols. The game title has a “#” which a music sharp and the fans used the “#” to as a tag to name their group.
“Kowashitai!”
As part of the research for this piece, I decided to ask the Best Friends’ community for help. I made a post with a series of questions about TMS on the Super Best Friends Play subreddit, r/TwoBestFriendsPlay. The Super Best Friends’ community is as vibrant as ever, despite the channel’s dissolution. Discussions on the subreddit range from posts about Matt, Pat, Woolie and Liam’s new content to general pop culture discussion.
The survey post I made elicited much discussion from the community, calling on the #FE13000 to offer their opinions. The consensus among the community is generally that the LP was able to survive because of how absurd the game is. The game’s story beats are ridiculous and cliche, drawing heavily from genre tropes. At least one redditor described the progression of the game as a “fall into madness.” Woolie even threatened to leave the LP for good at one point due to certain events on screen. The game’s main theme song, “Reincarnation,” became a meme in this community because of its soaring refrain of the word, “Kowashitai!” which curiously means, “I want to destroy!”
The nature of TMS as a “crossover” game seems to be nothing more than window dressing. The game bears only referential elements to its parent series like Fire Emblem’s ‘weapon quadrangle’ and the names of famous Fire Emblem characters. TMS is mechanically engaging with its innovative Sessions system, but everything surrounding this game play falls flat.
Throughout it all, though, Matt and Woolie carried the experience with their sheer comedic talent. Though Woolie once called the LP a “rough thing to do to the channel,” albeit a “good time”, the LP endures as one of their funniest works because of how Matt and Woolie riffed on the game throughout. The phrase “mistakes into miracles” most accurately describes the trajectory of this LP.
Lessons of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore
In 2020, Atlus released Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore for the Nintendo Switch. It can be argued that the LP by the Super Best Friends contributed to the newfound confidence in the game. Indeed, Woolie’s own recent LP of the game Dokapon Kingdom has, in his words, caused a resurgence of popularity for that game. It would certainly be ironic for an LP that disparages TMS so heavily to have been its catalyst for revival.
More importantly, the Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore LP and its 13,000 dedicated viewers stand as a testament to community culture. In a similar vein to cult classic movies like The Room(2003) and Troll 2(1990), The #FE13000 are proof that communities will rally around even the most obscure or seemingly forgotten pieces of media. It is also a reminder that enjoyment in media is derived, not given. In simpler words, we make our own fun when consuming media. The Internet has allowed for cult classics like TMS to gain more prominence than ever before. One has to wonder, though, whether this means any piece of media can truly be considered a cult classic anymore?
That is a question for another day.
For now, join me in waving your lighters and singing “Kowashitai” in remembrance of Super Best Friends Play, and the 13,000 brave souls who saw this gem of an LP to its conclusion.
Try It Out
Purchase it here for Nintendo Switch or Wii U
Editors note: a previous version of this article stated that the “#” in the game title was a hashtag. However, the symbol represents a music sharp.
HeHimHis is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com
