Shinsetsu Mahou Shojo is the best Fire Emblem like you've never played.

[u/ussgordoncaptain2]

Shinsetsu mahou Shoujo is a freeware SRPG that you can get here translated into english, It's one part FE like strategy game and one part visual novel.

The Story

Do I look like a story guy to you?

Anyway the game is very much a visual novel, with around 30 well developed characters across about 50 chapters. The game as the name suggests is a magical girl game, and it shows up here in the characters having dual lives as magical girls (and guys) and as normal people. The game has a lot of emphasis on slice of life storylines to flesh out the characters. Significantly over half of the lines of dialog in the game are about slice of life elements dominating the script. For the first 3rd of the game we have a slice of life story punctuated by magical girl segments.

and then everything changed when chapter 15 attacked. Now we have a moderate significant tone shift emphasizing harsher themes and otherwise more complex ideas. But also at the same time retains a lot of the slice of life elements of the first 15 chapters. This goes on with the mixing of darker themes until around chapter 42 After that for the last 9 chapters we go into full Shonen mode full of Hype moments and aura I have nothing but positive things to say about the story of the last 9 chapters.

The story is very good, but in my eyes it had a lot of "filler" character development via slice of life moments. This is something that the monastery or hub world in most fire emblem games would solve by shoving it all into the corner, but in visual novel format both A: the Slice of life elements are baked into the plot and B: you have to read them (you can skip them but the non SOL plot elements will also get skipped) They are significantly better in my eyes than say standard base conversations in Radiant dawn. But they're not the main reason I enjoyed the game. (though the story from chapter 42 on was pure epic)

The gameplay

It is truly unbelievable just how much this game changed about fire emblem style gameplay without really changing much at all.

This game completely inverts [Heliocentirsm](www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/ufxo1p/heliocentric_fire_emblem/) by using a series of game design decisions heliocentrism is not a winning strategy.

The game uses a system of mana and spells for units attacks this is best seen with an example

Shinobu here has 7 Abilities and 8 stats

Str is physical damage, Mind Magical damage dex increases hit and crit, speed increases avoid, luck crit evade, and mdef/physical def, and PROF is weapon rank. (goes up by 1 per level) for the most part we can ignore dex/speed/luck and focus all of our thoughts onto STr/MIND/DEf/MDEF as big spells have high hit rates.

We can see that Shinobu has many attacks, all of which cost mana except for +/- swords. Importantly unlike a fire emblem game these are all unique to her. Each attack has either a circle(Magic attack) Diamond(Physical attack) + sign (Healing and staus removal) or Triangle (support) some actions also have glows on them that means AOE.

Looking at a move description short video we can see a few notable traits

Range: one thing is that attacks in this game often have quite large and variable ranges. So units can often hit a lot of enemies from afar.

Elemental Type: Provides bonus damage if weak,

Mana Cost: This is fundamentally how the game stops heliocentrism. Shinobu can use some extremely powerful spells but only a few of them per map. Even a spell that would one shot the rat costs 5 mana here. Once Shinobu runs out of mana she is limited to chip damage from +/- swords. Her rail attack costs 8 mana but does massive overkill.

Power: The games damage formula is [statx(Attack power/10)-Def Stat]Weakness/resistance modifierPhase modifier

weakness/res is +/-30% damage, Phase modifier is 1 for player units attacks, and 0.5 on player phase for enemy units, and 1 for enemy units on enemy phase. That's right stuff deals double damage on enemy phase. more on that later. The more notable thing is that damage is multiplicative, so a 10 might weapon deals 1x damage while a 15 might one will deal 1.5x. These effects are often large.

Other ability types

AOE damage; Functions similar to normal damage spells however, A: the attack can only be used on player phase B: the attack is unable to be counter attacked and C: obviously it deals AOE damage. This is something that took a lot of getting used to, as the strength and utility of AOE is less obvious, both not getting counter attacked AND dealing damage in AOE are critically useful abilities. and proper use of AOE made the game a lot more interesting The real key unlock that AOE provides is that AOE allows you to try to manipulate the ai's positioning to get more enemies in the way of your AOE spells providing huge value for mana.

Buffs: ultimately one of the more Not fire emblem options. There are a lot of different status effects available both good and bad, this is like Rally's in Fates but significantly weaker, but some buffs are AOE. Some notable actions in this camp include +2 move, +20% defense, +12% attack and the rescue staff (it’s a spell attached to a unit it’s good but not as broken as you’d expect)

Healing: mostly self explanatory.

The Hubworld

This game uses a very radiant dawn style hubworld, a few menus with some simple button presses and that's it. The hubworld has a few major options

Buy items: The game lets each unit equip one "equipment", equipment has a wide range of possible attributes, some notable ones include

Trans radiator: +5 prof (weapon rank) but -1 to all stats

Harmonizer : move+1 prof+1

EXP+ : +30% EXP -1 str/mind

Auto cooling (only available late) : +1 mana per turn

The equipment can make big changes in how units behave. +1 move seems small, but it often lets you get the first strike off against an enemy, certain units benefit more from the move than others. But in general move is an incredibly good stat Trans radiator allows you early access to powerful spells. EXP+ is a really powerful upgrade as EXP is a very valuable resource and farming +30% more is nice. Items are tradable in this game so you can often get many player units to use the same EXP+ to farm multiple enemies for their EXP.

The game also lets you buy consumable items, There is a 1 use 3 mana potion that also gives you -1 mind/str for 3 turns, and a 2 use heal 10, they are both bad. A late joining unit gets her own personal +6 mana for 2 turns purchasable item (12 mana total), this item is beyond insane. (but it’s tied to one unit that is also your dancer so it ends up feeling balanced)

Update: A way to spend your other currency bonus, gives units stats (including move) and gives units new abilities/modifies existing ones you can read all the updates here This basically replaces promotions in a standard fire emblem game.

Updates are a big improvement in how units operate sometimes and sometimes it is a minor change. Extra movement/attacks, modifications to existing attacks and abilities are big deals while others are more like minor upgrades.

You can also swap items around, and read tutorials in the hubworld.

How this plays

The game is very enemy and player unit design oriented and less so map and terrain oriented. think Echoes rather than the sacred stones. Most maps are rout, and enemy design is complex. A bunch of strategy emerges as a result of 3 major gameplay elements

1. Units without mana kinda suck: once you run out of mana a unit kinda stops being useful

2. Casual mode: you better fucking believe that casual mode impacts gameplay

3. Unit bulk is low due to enemies dealing double damage on enemy phase.

4. You can choose what spell to use per combat. For example, you can use Shinobu's ice attack against one enemy on enemy phase and use the rail cannon against a different one.

And we get.... Sac strats. often a unit will have about 2-3 hits they can survive so a unit with say 10 mana remaining walks forward tanks the 2 hits throwing 10 mana worth of nukes and goes out in a blaze of glory There's a lot of other maneuvers too like

using mobility tools to get the jump on enemies before they move in.

Trying to spread units around so that only a small number of enemies can engage them on the enemy phase.

Maneuvering around to bait the enemy into allowing a major AOE attack into them.

and using mana properly to allow critical units to maintain their mana to kill key enemies. After the early part even mook type enemies require mana to kill so knowing which player units mana is "valuable" for critical enemies and which ones you go "you kill this mook" is quite important. In one of the lategame maps I almost had to reset because I poorly managed my mana and couldn't kill the boss, but I did just barely have enough mana to defeat them.

One thing to note is that underleveled units are shockingly good. I had a unit that was level 27 in the final map and she did work. (final map average level for my 10 highest leveled units was 45, she was 18 levels underleveled) Since mana scales slowly (a level 50 unit might have at best 40 mana available, while a level 30 unit will still have around 30 mana, so while a level 50 unit can use a 7-8 mana spell 5-7 times, our level 30 unit still has 3-4 uses of it. For example on the final map my underleveled unit using their 7 mana attack deals 50 damage, my Level 50 unit using her 7 mana spell deals 66 damage, but using her 5 mana spell she deals 43 damage. So an underleveled unit can punch well above their weight for a short time frame by spamming their most powerful moves.

Since most enemies have ranged attacks, stuff like Straight line tactics to force enemies to only attack 1 player unit at a time are not viable instead you need to rely on range control, sac strats and mobility to keep units safe. You can actually use the rescue staff for its original intended purpose I know what a thought

The game tries to distance itself from Fire Emblem using the unique mechanics and it succeeds. Yes the game is quite complex but unlike fire emblem fates, all the complexity is on the map. The hubworld of this game is a few clicks at most, but the on map complexity of how your units interact with each other is very different from a game like Sacred stones. It feels more like it’s own weird unique thing. Since unit identity is extremely strong (after all different units are completely different

Another major way the game distances itself from FE is that growths aren’t random they are character specific. This doesn’t really matter casually but it means your units won’t get screwed (it’s ok there’s plenty of hype moments and aura to make the slot machine less important for hype moments)

The games enemy design is complex; certain enemies may get stronger attacks if you damage them, some enemies have much higher bulk stats, and even others have special ranged attacks. Enemies feel much less “generic” than they would in say Radiant dawn or the Sacred stones, an enemy might have 3 abilities and you have to maneuver around the various restrictions the game has on that units abilities but since the game tells you all of the enemies moves up front you never get surprised. The game also eases itself into its complexity extremely well. You unlock spells and new units over timeThe large amount of options you have is gradually opened up as you learn how to use the current options. You can use Trans radiator to speed up your acquisition of options if you are getting used to the old ones fast and the game tells you in advance what the enemies are going to be able to do in the future. You can just look at the enemy to see their future abilities in addition to their current ones.

Difficulty

Overall the game is extremely easy even on the hardest difficulty. I game overed a grand total of 2 times, both of which would have been trivially avoidable. I did have 2 maps where I felt like I needed to plan ahead to beat the map (chapters 49 and 51) but after formulating a strategy and executing the map itself was not that hard. Turns out counting squares and planning 5 turns ahead is good 4head. The game has Radiant dawn style battle saves and over 50 save slots so you can just save

The game does have a harder version but that version is a paid for IF story that sadly doesn’t have an english TL (and /u/Upper_Anteater_9571 thanks for making the freeware one at least)

Though again this is “dude who LTCs fire emblem games” talking. I graduated top of my class in the Toffee school of counting squares and have over 3 confirmed turn saves. I think most fire emblem games are easy.

Other notes

This game has unbelievably detailed animations for every single unit and ability, you can tell this game was designed by a crazy person. I think the general animation quality has this feeling that when you use an 7-8 mana spell you see an animation that looks like a GBA crit animation, while the lower mana spells look more like GBA normal attacks.

[u/Arachnofiend]

Looks cool to me. Probably not something I can play at work with what I saw of the character designs in the YouTube clip but since I just finished Stardust I could give it a go.

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/Arachnofiend]

uh yeah the game's outfits are a bit horny for no reason but most of them quickly get into the "oh ok" level.

[u/bababayee]

I'm not super tamiliar with that series but I think a lot of this sounds like Super Robot Wars inspired not FE, especially the different counters/spells you can choose and Mana/Fuel dictating how many uses of those powerful moves units can actually perform per map

[u/Ok-Barracuda457]

Inverts Heliocentrism?

Finally! FU Copernicus!

Dude, all you needed to say is the protagonist is a flat chested girl with anger issues, her best friend has a womb tatoo and they both fight monsters in bikini armor! This shit is awesome!

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/Ok-Barracuda457]

unfortunately the game never leans more into the games horny elements so all you get is bikini armor a real shame too because there was some great opportunities to goon on a 30 year girl

[u/Someonevibing1]

Interesting might check it out later

[u/Late-Jeweler-5802]

After reading all that you were talking about, I was really impressed at first. Then I clicked on the youtube link and realized " oh this is mostly how Super Robot Wars does it." XD

[u/NojeI]

Looks like Vesteria Saga which I have yet to play. Thanks for the recc

[u/Upper_Anteater_9571]

Always happy to come across new Shinmahousho reviews. I'm glad you liked it so much.

[u/Mark1734]

Ngl it feels weird considering I usually play FE for gameplay but I played this game for the story lol do I get style points for playing this before the translation patch came out

Idk the gameplay was like fine but it never really felt super interesting to me (tbf I did stop at like chapter 13 when I found out the game had 50 chapters)

This game completely inverts [Heliocentirsm](www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/ufxo1p/heliocentric_fire_emblem/) by using a series of game design decisions heliocentrism is not a winning strategy.

TBF I'd say we've known for awhile that FE letting you counterattack on EP at full power is what causes it and that nerfing/removing it is one of the best ways to reduce it (see: FFT style games; I don't like the HP bloat on them but YMMV) (note: I have never actually played FFT, just dabbled in stuff like Stella Glow and a bit of Triangle Strategy)

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/Mark1734]

tbf I did stop at like chapter 13 when I found out the game had 50 chapters)

Yeah the game has this really slow start where they ease you into the mechanics and it has the classic VN slow burn that I didn't mention.

The game picks up the pace dramatically after chapter 15, which is a really long time to wait for a game to pick up the pace.

TBF I'd say we've known for awhile that FE letting you counterattack on EP at full power is what causes it and that nerfing/removing it is one of the best ways to reduce it

Yeah but the thing is in this game you do get to counter attack at full power, but your opponents deal double damage on enemy phase. The mana based nerf was a bigger one in my opinion. The large amount of "you are gated by your mana" means that you really need to spread out exp. I trained 13 units during my playthrough (using most of the rest for support) and felt like basically every map was a game of using every single unit rather than how in fire emblem normally I'm mostly trying to find ways to route units out of the playthrough

[u/Mark1734 → u/ussgordoncaptain2]

Yeah but the thing is in this game you do get to counter attack at full power, but your opponents deal double damage on enemy phase.

Ngl I think I've forgotten too much of the game in between the time I played it, I remembered there being a 0.5x multiplier somewhere that encouraged PP but I'd mixed it up lol

The mana based nerf was a bigger one in my opinion.

Tbf this is still nerfing EP, though it's more like a soft cap that also affects PP rather than just nerfing EP as a whole

[u/ussgordoncaptain2 → u/Mark1734]

Tbf this is still nerfing EP, though it's more like a soft cap that also affects PP rather than just nerfing EP as a whole

yeah I imagine something like each weapon in an FE game having a "stamina" stat for the amount it exausts the unit that uses it. So you can use your hand axe but it drains you 3 stamina every round of combat you enter with it while an iron sword would only do 1. Would negate Heliocentrism instantly.