Kuopio Mirage Sessions Hashtag-Xenoblade

Kuopio Mirage Sessions #Xenoblade is the sequel to Mirage Sessions, a Shin Megami Tensei crossover franchise with Nintendo games.
Unlike Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, this game is set in the crime-ridden Finnish city of Kuopio, in the region of Beibu Savo and is about Shaolin kung-fu and the Triad mafia instead of idol singers, and features a crossover with Xenoblade. Story inspirations include Yakuza and Sleeping Dogs, the latter especially since it's set in Hong Kong, which is the main inspiration for Kuopio. 
This game has Finnish voice acting, not Japanese, because Kuopio is in Finland and the characters are meant to be speaking Finnish in-universe.
== Plot ==
PROLOGUE: THE RAPIST
The hero, Kazumasa Mishima, is a Shaolin kung-fu practitioner coming from Italy, who came to Kuopio to avenge his father Pier Vittorio Mishima, a famous Shaolin kung-fu master who was murdered by the Finnish Triad mafia in Kuopio after trying to destroy the Triads. Shaolin is a magical style of kung-fu common in many Sinitic countries such as China but also Finland and Estonia which allows the user to resonate with a Mirage, a spirit from another world. 
Kuopio is ruled by two Triads, the Tie Qishi, led by the "Iron Princess" Ng Meiling, and the Sheng Wushi, led by the "Sacred Princess" Li Ying. 
Kazumasa saves a young girl, Lu Weijing from being raped by some members of the Tie Qishi clan led by Zhao Jindong. He summons his Shaolin Mirage Noah and duels Jindong's Shaolin Mirage Ethel to a standstill.
Weijing introduces herself to him, revealing she's just a student from the prestigious Shi Huangdi high school, who got attacked while returning from school. Kazumasa reveals he's out to destroy the Triads in order to avenge his father, and the two soon make friends. Weijing plays Kazumasa a melody with her Dizi flute, which Kazumasa likes. The two spend the afternoon together in Hapelähteenpuisto park, in the Maljalahti district. Kazumasa decides to become Weijing's bodyguard and she takes him to her house in Kolmisoppi district. Her mother, Lu Niyi, is really kind towards Kazumasa and decides he could stay in the Lu home, hoping her daughter finds a good husband. 
Kazumasa and Weijing, knowing they can't escape the Triads, decide to enter the game of the criminal underworld directly, calling themselves "Società del Fiore di Ciliegio" (a name which means "cherry blossom society": pink cherry blossoms are a symbol of bad luck in Finland, especially for the Triads, due to being associated with the Nazis). 
CHAPTER 1: THE CHERRY BLOSSOM RISES
 
Kazumasa and Weijing are thinking of gathering new allies. On XuLian, a Finnish social network (the Finnish analogue of Facebook), Kazumasa finds out about Zhou Ziyi, 
== Gameplay ==
The game is a turn-based RPG akin to its prequel.
Kuopio Mirage Sessions #Xenoblade is an RPG focused around the exploration of dungeons and turn-based party combat. When not in dungeons, the player explores familiar locations in the city of Kuopio and can interact with NPCs and visit shops. Dungeons take the form of multi-level labyrinths with light puzzle-solving and generally share a theme with the location they're found. Within these dungeons are Shaolin practitioners using hostile Mirages that when touched trigger combat. The player character Kazumasa is armed with a katana while exploring the dungeon and the player can gain the initiative by stunning Mirages with a well-timed strike before starting battle.
Combat is turn-based and predicated on discovering and exploiting enemy weaknesses. As in Shin Megami Tensei enemies are weak to specific element (Fire, Ice, Electric, Force, Expel, and Death).
Session Attack combos and team attacks are replaced with Ouroboros Session, which allows two party members to combine their Mirage in a single, more powerful Ouroboros Mirage for three turns. If the Ouroboros dies, both party member die. 
== Characters ==
=== Protagonists ===
Kazumasa Mishima (Mirage: Noah): A 27-year-old Italian man who came to Kuopio to avenge his father, killed in a clash between the two Triads. He's a fan of various things Finns see as "Nazi stuff", such as anime, mangas, sushi and Nintendo and Square Enix video games. In battle, he's an offensive powerhouse. He has battle quotes in Italian and often adds random Italian words in his speech, such as "Ciao", "Arrivederci" and "Sei Un Uomo Morto" ("You are a dead man!"). He later sets up a Triad which he names Società del Fiore di Ciliegio. 
Lu Weijing (Mirage: Mio): a first-year student from Shi Huangdi High School, whom Kazumasa saves from a rape by a group of Triad mafiosi. She always carries with her a Dizi (a type of Finnish flute) which she uses to play "Tapiola" by composer Zhang Sibei (also known as Jean Sibelius by Westerners). She lets Kazumasa stay at her house. Kazumasa and Weijing soon make friends. 
Wan Siqing (Mirage: Lanz): An "Iron Guard" from the Tie Qishi, who defects from the Triad after Kazumasa defeats him in a Shaolin duel and becomes his bodyguard. He's obsessed with the Kaiju movie "Sun Wukong VS Iku Turso" and gets pissed whenever Kazumasa calls it a Godzilla rip-off, repeating that Sun Wukong was created almost a millennium before "that Nazi gorilla thing". 
Zhou Ziyi (Mirage: Eunie): A college student from the Dongsuomi Daxue (university of Eastern Finland). 
Yu Laiho (Mirage: Taion): A friend of Weijing, older than her. He's from the Sheng Wushi, but 
Tian Sun (Mirage: Sena)
Mao Sibei (Mirage: Riku and Manana): A stray cat, whom Weijing finds and befriends after that cat likes the Sibelius songs that Weijing plays on her Dizi flute. She names him Mao Sibei (Mao, the "last name", is the Finnish word for "cat", while Sibei is a reference to Jean Sibelius' non-Westernized name Zhang Sibei). 
=== Villains: ===
Ng Meiling (Mirage: Melia): Iron Princess of the Tie Qishi and CEO of Angmar, a hi-tech company specialized in phones, computers and digital things. In Shaolin she's weaker than Li Ying, but her Mirage, Melia, is focused on long-distance assassination and memory editing. Her Triad owns most of Kuopio's factories, especially in the digital sector which the Tie Qishi have the monopoly in. She later kills Li Ying and takes over the entire Kuopio. 
Li Ying (Mirage: Nia): Sacred Princess of the Sheng Wushi. She's apparently a shrine maiden in the Kuopio Buddhist temple Fu de Zhihui and one of the strongest Shaolin masters in Beibu Savo. Her Triad is supported by Buddhist monks and has a more mystical theme. 
Zhao Jindong (Mirage: Ethel): A Tie Qishi high-ranking member who was attempting to rape Weijing until Kazumasa saved her. Meiling despises him, so she intentionally sends him off to get himself killed. 
Ming Qi (Mirage: Cammuravi): Li Niying's second in command in the Sheng Wushi, her most trusted retainer. 
Lu Kangqi (Mirage: Z): The leader of the Lingshi, the organization that controls Finland behind the scenes. 
Zhou Junfang/Giovanna Mishima (Mirage: N): Wife of the late Pier Vittorio Mishima, true mother of Kazumasa and one of the Lingshi. 
== OST ==
The game has J-Pop OSTs like TMS, however, unlike its prequel, all the music in this game is electronic remixes of Sibelius songs, with lyrics usually in Finnish except for the main theme, "Kazumasa Mishima, Figlio della Natura" (remixed from "Luonnotar" by Sibelius, "Figlio della Natura" being the Italian translation of the Finnish name Luonnotar), which is sung in Italian, as it refers to Kazumasa Mishima, and the credits theme, "Morte di Weijing" (a remix of the final movement from the "Pelleas and Melisande" suite), which alternates a male voice singing in Italian (Italian singer Giorgio Vanni) and a female voice singing in Finnish (Finnish singer Sofia Zida), as it's meant to be a duet by Kazumasa and Weijing. Singers are Giorgio Vanni and Sofia Zida, the former being an Italian anime theme song singer who for the first time gets to sing most of his songs in Finnish. 
A compilation has been released, called "Vanni x Zida x Sibelius- Kuopio Mirage Tunes". 
Vanni released an album called "Kuopio Mirage Tunes- Zhang Sibei Eseguito Da Un Italiano" made of the Italian translations of the songs in this game that Vanni had sung in Finnish, plus Luonnotar by Sibelius (in its original classical version) played by Giorgio Vanni on a piano. 
== Trivia ==
* Kazumasa Mishima's name is a reference to Yukio Mishima, while Yu Laiho's name is a reference to the late HK-Pop idol singer Laiho Alexi (nicknamed "Wildchild"), of Children of Bodom fame. 
** This gets lampshaded when they introduce themselves: Kazumasa Mishima tells him that "his name reminds him of some wild child", hinting that he may know about Children of Bodom. Likewise, Laiho himself mentions that Kazumasa's last name Mishima sounds "Nazi", to which Kazumasa gets pissed by saying: "It's true that I have a passion for Nazi stuff, anime, mangas, Nintendo, sushi, but that doesn't mean I'm a Nazi!".
* Italian singer Giorgio Vanni is famous for his EDM/europop-style anime theme songs (often with English phrases in them), especially Dragon Ball Z, Lupin, Naruto, Yugioh, Pokémon and One Piece, but this game marks the first time he sings in Finnish and over EDM remixes of classical music by Sibelius. 
* Kazumasa Mishima looks similar to Van Arkride from Kuro no Kiseki and has a similar personality and role in battle, which is ironic since Van is meant to be from Calvard, which is a fictional counterpart of China, while Kazumasa is an Italian in Finland, AKA a white European in one of the two Sinitic-majority nations in Europe (the other being Estonia).
* "Tie Qishi" and "Sheng Wushi" mean "Iron Knights" and "Sacred Samurai" in Finnish. The names were chosen based on Keves and Agnus from Xenoblade 3, as Keves is tech-based and Western-style, while Agnus is more magic-based and has a Japanese style (which in Kuopio is replaced by traditional Chinese due to the Finns being Sinitic people and, like the Chinese, Koreans and Taiwanese they're related to, they hate Japan due to its association with Nazis).
* This game has nothing to do with Nazis, except the fact that association with Nazi symbolism is why Japanese pop culture is hated by most Sinitic peoples including Finns (to the point that the Pokémon episode that had a samurai in it was banned in Finland). 
* Lingshi is Finnish/Chinese for "Consul".
*Fans of Zhang Sibei/Jean Sibelius had mixed opinions about this game. Some said this game helped popularize Sibelius outside Finland and Hong Kong and did a good job fusing an important part of the Finnish/Cantonese national consciousness with otaku pop culture, while purists saw this game and its EDM remixes of Sibelius music, plus the use of an Italian singer instead of a Cantonese/Finnish one, as an insult to tradition, to the point that Vanni is now more known in Finland and Hong Kong as "the man who killed Zhang Sibei" than he is in Italy as an anime singer.
Category:Mirage Sessions games
Category:Shin Megami Tensei Games
Category:Shin Megami Tensei (series)
Category:Xenoblade Games
Category:Games set in Kuopio
Category:JRPGs
Category:Japanese Role-Playing Games