I recently played through this charming little game called Heroes Tactics, It is a Fire emblem fan game developed by Screaming Souls over on Gamejolt.
In it you play as Noah from Xenoblade Chronicles 3 leading a group of heroes from many different video game series to fight Koukouvagia the Big Bad. I am unfamiliar with Xenoblade and some other franchises depicted within this game, and for my Fire Emblem experience, I have only played Awakening, Fates, Three Houses and Holy War so I am a little unfamiliar with some of the source material as well.
It just so happens that the characters chosen to represent Persona are Aigis and Makoto!.
You can get Aigis relatively early in the game through the gacha, Sadly Makoto is locked as one of the later units in the game which is a shame
First of all, props to them for choosing these two rather than choosing someone more iconic like Joker as the rep. I can tell their choices were prioritizing who they love rather than which ones are more recognizable, or who knows?, maybe someone that worked on the game is an Aikoto shipper too!.
As mentioned above, I am somewhat acquainted with the Fire Emblem gameplay, though a small nitpick I have with this game is the story it is very minimal and lackluster, It can be touched up here and there but as it is now it serves mostly as an excuse for this multi crossover to happen. But to me the absolute best part of the game is seeing all these characters interact and work off each other no matter how brief it is and coming up with how they synergize within your team what made my evening.
Chapter 5: For the Glory of Mankind
During the Nier Automata chapter of the game after defeating 2B, Aigis approaches her and she asks what the point of her continued existence if just to suffer again?, Aigis reminds her of how much 2B wants to protect 9S, and that it is not the mission that gives meaning but rather who she fights for,
We got them together before Nikke did, Nice.
I’d like to think Aigis here is speaking from experience that as a living machine, she is no longer functioning by this point in time she is “living” and seeing another person of the same kin of her struggling to find meaning in that existence would of course remind her of herself, so she turns towards her time with Makoto and how much He meant to her, how much she learns just being with him and tries to use that purpose she found to something similar to 2B.
I am familiar somewhat with Nier Automata I know people ship 9S with her. Aigis here tells 2B that she is alive that people they want to protect is enough to give meaning to their existence she is trying to instill that onto 2B and in the end she admits that she does want to protect him and will continue onward to protect 9S just like how Aigis was able to find a reason to be alive to protect Makoto. 2B admits to keep on living because of 9S
Aigis saying that she is fighting because someone’s voice reaches her, Just like with her and Makoto,
I love that Aigis is depicted as a machine that wants to protect those close to her, the person that writes this clearly cares and respects her character as prior i thought they were going to depict her as a “haha funny robot” character that’s so prominent in Persona spinoffs. And I love how Aigis here is depicted as more mature, our girl has learned so much through the course of her journey that she hopes that there'd be more like her so that less people would give into despair and Makoto's pain would lessen.
This is the chapter where Makoto appears it was built up that The Tower is where Koukouvagia will descend much like Nyx did (This is a lie) From the context given throughout the story the events of the game takes place after Makoto dies, so Aigis is meeting him here once more, this reunion a wicked as someone that has to bear a great burden in sacrificing his life understands their resolve, Makoto is depicted with the burden of becoming the seal how it affects him even now, Noah tells him to not carry it alone but Makoto tells him to prove it, prove that they can still stand against Fate
Makoto warns them of standing between Life and Death
Off topic but in this chapter, I had Wesker solo Death from Darksiders 2 with his bare hands it was awesome.
I made sure that Aigis landed the final hit on Makoto there was no other way it could’ve ended I wouldn’t allow it but even then Aigis still missed which is a happy little accident by me it means, even Aigis knowing it wouild be for his own good doesn't want to hurt him.
Once Makoto is defeated Him and Noah has this talk about burdens and that he shouldn't carry them alonewith Death butting in to tell him his sacrifice did matter and that because of his sacrifice he should still turn to hope, and how much his death meant to the ones close to him and the world
Aigis tells him she will not fail him again and that Makoto protected her once before but now its Her turn to protect him once again, I love this, like a lot, Aigis and Makoto has this I'll protect you cycle going on throughout the course of Persona 3 and it's spinoffs and it keeps perpetuating, even in Fire emblem fangames.
Their ending matches with the pairing’s themes of mortality and the meaning of life, here we are told that Makoto was still living in borrowed time and that his battle with Koukouvagia was more of a temporary respite from being the seal and that he will have to return to the seal so that Nyx maybe sealed once again, but before that he decided to go back to his world and reunite with SEES once more and after parting ways with them saying his proper goodbye to Aigis, Aigis finally understands what it means to live because of their brief reunion.
Unlike some of the other endings here that give these characters unambiguously happy endings Makoto and Aigis’s ending remains bittersweet yet beautiful, they really did understand what makes these two special the finite life Makoto last has to end and even after Makoto’s parting Aigis still retains that she understood the meaning to live.
It impresses me that this game exists and my OTP is included among other characters I love. their dynamic is done justice here, It’s from someone that understands them and I appreciate that , As i said before please check it out, I’ll provide a link at the very bottom of this post, Screaming Souls spent 600+ hours developing this game and it shows with how each character and map is drawn and how the characters are so unique gameplaywise, Here’s the full roster see if you can find your favorites and test them out.
(though it should be noted that the game has somewhat of a balancing issue some characters are vastly stronger than others that didn’t stop me from picking Makoto and Aigis when I can though)