[DS] Suikoden Tierkreis announced

I think where he said "The game's hero is not one of them" he probably meant that the hero was not one of the four survivors. I mean, it's a pretty black and white sentence.

This looks kinda interesting but one can't help but fear that moving it to DS will result in something of a dumbing down of the standard games. Also, the chances of this coming anywhere near Europe are miniscule so it's lucky that the DS is region free if this turns out to be decent. I don't know if a Neclord game would quite make them gazillionaires but that and a Viktor and Flik based game would probably do it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well they've already gone back to the villany of SIV's four character parties and moving to magic points rather than a set number of casts is a shame. Also my heart sank when I read "The gameplay takes advantage of the Nintendo DS's touch screen" but luckily it seems they only meant you can tap on commands rather than scrolling up and down with the buttons, rather than some kind of gay as anything scribbling on the screen to attack nonsense. Adding talking dolphins is, well, interesting. Surely Salsaville would be the name of a town rather than a whole country? Maybe that grasp of languages is why Konami never give their games European releases...

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I just tried to use Konami.co.uk's support page to ask if this was ever going to get a European release and was told they "Can't find the page you're looking for". Whether the submissions page is broken or they just filter out queries with Suikoden in I couldn't tell you...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by GB

To be fair, I'd say the majority of players enjoyed Suikoden III, and Suikoden Tactics is still a relatively engaging (albeit simple) Strategy-RPG that got unfair criticism from butthurt folks for following up Suikoden IV.

No, Suikoden Tactics really was shit. The characters were completely vanilla, the voice acting made me want to rip my own ears off, the story was predictable as all fuck, the battle system had hundreds of flaws and made the game not challenging, just annoying and the whole thing just basically sucked massive hairy balls. I liked Suikoden IV, despite it's many flaws but even I couldn't bring myself to finish Tactics.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by OmagnusPrime

Also, in before boring coverart redesign for the west.

As opposed to old fashioned, bland, anime-style characters in "Dramatic" poses with "Oh-my-god-I-need-a-shit" faces of grim determination for the Eastern market, succesfully making the box blend in really well with pretty much every other rpg ever released?

Anyway, Suikoden covers generally survive the trip west pretty well and let's face it, once you've bought the thing how much time to you spend looking at anything other than the spine of the box?

How ya doing, buddy?

Except that the PAL cover, where me and Omagnus live looked like this:



I can't think of any particularly bad Suikoden PAL covers off the top of my head.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Muzza

Speaking of Suikoden covers, how 'bout that Japanese Suikoden I cover.

I know the American cover was ghastly but I thought the PAL cover was the same as the Jap one?

Sorry Omagnus, joke away mate.

FELIPE NO

The characters in the battle screen remind me of the first Wild Arms game. The rest looks pretty nice though. Given the chances of this ever getting a European release are basically zero, I might have to import this.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Apparently this is out here already so I might go and buy it at lunchtime. I've got plenty to play on the train to work at the moment but I don't imagine this will be around in the shops for long so it makes sense to pick it up now, even if I don't play it for a while.

Additional Spam:
Well despite the release date on Konami's website being today, it seems that Tierkreis is following the long tradition of Suikoden games in Europe and it's simply not shown up. I remember S2 slipped a good six months before it came out and S3 slipped and slipped until they just didn't bother releasing it so I've put in a pre-order on GAME's website and it'll turn up if and when they decide to release it I guess.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Oh hey, fuck you Konami:

Originally Posted by GAME

Dear Customer,
Thank you for your order.
Unfortunately, this product is no longer being stocked and we will therefore be unable to fulfil your order, which has now been cancelled. No money has been taken from your account for this item.
Please accept our apologies for any disappointment and inconvenience this may have caused.
Kind regards
GAME.co.uk

Looks like it's import or nothing then. Why do Konami hate Europe so much?

Edit: Weird, it's still listed on Konami's UK website so maybe it's just that GAME aren't stocking it. There are a few sellers on Amazon so I've ordered it from one there, with any luck it'll turn up at some point.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I checked the GameFAQS message board and there are people playing the European version apparently so it does exist, it's just proving difficult to track down. Amazon.fr have it in stock for immediate despatch so it is out there. If it had been better reviewed I might be tempted to buy two copies and keep one sealed as if it's this rare a week after launch it'd be worth a fortune in the future. Sadly, most people seem to say it's a bit shit so it's unlikely to become a cult classic like S1 and 2.

Edit: Yep, I've got a copy on the way.

Quote:

Dear Ed Smith,
Thank you for your order with gZoop Amazon Marketplace. We can confirm the products(s) below have been sent to you.
Our products are normally despatched from the Channel Islands and therefore 1st class delivery to the UK will usually take 3 to 5 working days. Please allow extra time for deliveries to Europe and the Rest Of The World.
QuantityTitlePrice Each
1Suikoden: TierkreisGBP 26.40

So I guess it's just the major retailers not stocking it rather than any reticence on Konami's part to release it. Given that GAME had eight copies of "My Pet Dolphin 2" for DS when I went in, I'm amazed they're not stocking this at all, unless they've decided to sell the DS purely as a kids' toy and not bother with any of the serious titles on it.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by GB

Well, really, the vast majority of those people on GameFAQs are playing the leaked European version on some sort of pirating device.

Heh, there is that I suppose. You also get an inordinate number of people posting that having played the game through twice, logging 300 hours, they can confidently say it's the worst game they ever played!

I hate the GameFAQS message boards, I wish there was a way to get the information hidden deep within without having to trawl through all the crap floating on the surface.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

So the game arrived yesterday and I've played about an hour so far, having just finished the first quest.

First impressions are it's pretty good. The graphics are great although the change to a more anime style makes it a little difficult to tell the characters apart so far. The 3d characters on a pre-rendered background look is of FFVII quality although the areas are generally much smaller, the character models are better. The music is ace, featuring plenty of nostalgic Suikoden music (Especially the menu music, love that tune). The voice acting is as terrible as everyone has already suggested, mainly as it's all so fast, suggesting they compressed it to fit it on the cart. Also it sounds like they got the same American kid whose voice I hate to do the main character as every other jrpg with an annoyingly voiced main character but I guess Japs see their heroes as whiny and nasal.

The combat is fairly uncomplicated thus far and although they got rid of the limited uses magic in favour of magic points, at the end of the day there's not really that much difference is there? Shame you apparently can't choose who gets what magic though. What you lose in adaptability from runes, you gain in weapon options (Slightly). Basically you can use blunt, piercing or slashing weapons which each do different damage to different enemies so rather than sharpening up your normal weapons, you can swap them about now although I suspect it's not a free for all and you won't be allowed a 100% bows army or anything like that.

The cart must be rammed full of game because there's only two save slots. Not a problem for me as I only ever use one at a time but I guess if you like to save at various stages you're screwed (And should be playing on a memory card based system instead of the DS frankly).

I've not advanced the plot enough yet to form an opinion but what I've seen doesn't look too bad although I fear there may be some Squall/Laguna-esque memory loss previous lives type nonsense in there somewhere.

So yeah, seems alright so far and it being a Suikoden game, chances are I'll actually finish it!

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by OmagnusPrime

That's irritating, I was hoping you'd say it was rubbish Shin, then I could not worry about trying to track down a copy (since it seems to be somewhat difficult to come by). Where did you get your copy in the end?

I got it under the new and second hand option on Amazon, i.e. a third party selling through them. Cost me £25.

The one thing I would also say is a downside is that it uses a save point system rather than save anywhere which when your train journey is only 17 minutes long, is a bit annoying as if you find a save point when you're near the end of the journey you have to hang around it or risk carrying on and not finding another one before you get off. The Gameboy Advance has auto-sleep mode when you shut the lid which gets around this but the DS doesn't (At least mine doesn't) so by the time I get to carry on at lunchtime, the battery's dead.

Thanks for the heads up GB, I've been holding down the cancel button all the time already in the hope he'll run faster! Old Suikoden habits die hard.

How ya doing, buddy?

Ha ha, I just tested it and you're right, it does. I have no idea why I thought it didn't then.

Scratch that, save points aren't a problem quite so much then, although I still think handheld games ought to come with a save anywhere option in case you run out of battery too.

FELIPE NO

I used to find sleep mode fairly effective on the GBA but then I'd generally charge it up properly when I got home so possibly I just never made it quite into the red as it were. The PSP's sleep mode is incredible, I left mine on sleep mode for three days once and it was still moderately charged when I turned it back on.

Anyway, I've made it to the big library place and uncovered who I assume are the main bad guys of the piece (They all look rather gruff in their portraits and have sinister background music). I've found a bit out about the gates which I assume take the place of the blinking mirror in this game and finally worked out the point of companion characters (Non-combatant party members who give special abilities to the group, much like in S4 and 5) although you don't get the option to use them until you first get to a proper inn so why Liu follows you around all through the first dungeon is a mystery to me.

Having played quite so much Last Remnant recently, I keep expecting using different weapons to produce different skills, which of course they don't and thus far I've not noticed a massive difference between the different weapon styles aside from their strengths but I'm sure using the right attack style will be of more importance later. Buying new equipment is slightly annoying as although there is a try on option, rather than showing the relative increases and decreases in stats, it shows the absolute abilities of the new stuff so if your memory is a bit shit like mine, you have to keep switching back and forth between menus to work out whether the gear you're buying is better than the old stuff or not.

The main character is brilliant in this game though. Chipmonk voice acting aside, it's a refreshing change to have a main protagonist who's an overly enthusiastic ADD sufferer rather than some moping, emo type. I love the way every time someone suggests something he wants to run off and do it straight away rather than completing the task at hand.

GB, I'm probably going to try to avoid using a guide if I can. At the moment I'm working on the premis that if a character has a voice actor, they're probably going to end up being a SOD, in the same way that everyone with a portrait in the earlier games is one. I don't doubt there'll be some tricky ones but I managed to get all of them in S5 on my first playthrough without a guide so I'll at least give it a shot.

I'd certainly say I'm enjoying it at the moment. It is slightly more generic than previous Suikoden efforts certainly but so long as the story pans out ok, the SOD collecting mechanic has always been one I've loved, there are no technical issues with it so far and there's enough nostalgia in the form of the music to raise a smile now and then so as an early review I'd say it's worth getting if you're a fan of the others.

Then again, I actually quite enjoyed S4, despite it being the worst of the lot (Not ever had a chance to play 3) so I'm a bit biased towards Suiokoden games. I've probably played as far as most reviewers (About four hours) and I've found little to fault it so far.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Eight hours in and I have my own army (Fat Wabs Company) and my own castle (Word of warning, the name of the castle comes after the word castle in this game rather than before as in previous ones so if, like me you wanted to call it "the" Castle, it comes out as "Castle the" ) and am doing missions for people. They've adopted the FF Tactics thing of missions that involve sending people away for a set amount of time and you can send away a full team of four people plus support if you wish. You can also send team members away to "Other worlds" by going online but I can't do that at home as our wireless network is WPA encoded rather than WEP (Or whichever way round it is the DS can't do, we've got a password rather than a 16 digit number). There's no obvious way of telling if the party is up to the taask but as yet I've encountered no time pressing events so you can just send out your best team then wander around the map screen until they finish if you're worried.

Anyway, I'm still enjoying it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

That's handy. I went back into the Coastal Caves as you'd mentioned the ring (And you only get access to the second floor after you've done the first mission in there) and picked it up but it's a bit annoying having to have one character with a shit accessory in the group all the time. I've just had the castle expanded and received the tablet with all the stars on it. It's once you start looking for SODs that you realise quite how limiting only having two save slots is as Suikoden is one of those games where you really want to save before each bit plot movement in case you've missed anyone as a result and want to go back a bit.

I'm playing through without a guide and whilst I think I've got everyone so far, the chances are there's some obscure thing I've missed. I got the chef guy which looked like a missable and that spy dude who helps you out near the beginning. Basically I'm adopting the old Suikoden policy of going back through every dungeon once I've finished the quest that meant going through it the first time and doing a round of all the town locations after each plot event.

I tried the plowing the fields mission but apparently the people I sent weren't strong enough (That giant dude, Liu, one of the dolphin dudes and Marica's sister), I've still not got enough female recruits to do the mission where you have to catch that guy and last time Jale tried to fight his mum he got his arse handed to him at level 20. He's up to 27 now so I might get lucky next time.

It's a great game though, I'm really enjoying it. The plot's making more and more sense without being overly spoonfed to you and it remains one of the funniest rpgs I've ever played.

Edit: Ha ha, I accidentally massively overpowered my main character last night. I've just gone to meet with the Furious Roar Tribe and max level in my party is about 28. I was going to do the rescuing the Por-pos mission and had emptied my party of active members, thinking to set it up once I knew what the mission was about but had the support guy who gives you extra experience still in the party. Next thing I know I've got the main character on his own against the three pirates. I hadn't saved for a while so I didn't want to die and through a combination of defence spells, a load of healing and some lucky counter hits, I beat them, netting him 10,000 experience and launching him to level 39. It's not a tough game at the best of times but until we reach somewhere with much tougher enemies, I think I just finally murdered the challenge from battles...

46 SOD as of last night.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

You should put that in a new thread in the review section...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

There's no minimum limit for reviews and you get your point across well enough I think. Stick it in there.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?