[DS] Suikoden Tierkreis announced

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.

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

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

I was speaking idiomatically.

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.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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!

FELIPE NO

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?

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

Originally Posted by Metapod

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.

I thought so too, but the further I get into the game, the less I'm thinking it's the case. I only played the import long enough to get some impressions, so I actually don't know what happens.

I'm off to Pharamond, which is about three-quarters of the way through it. I went back to the coastal cave for Dromon and the pirate gang and happened to find the Godspeed Ring, which is such a goddamn lifesaver. Shin, make sure you find that thing when you get there. It increases your running speed by about 1.5x, and that was one of my bigger complaints about the game.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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?

Originally Posted by Metapod

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.

The DS does. At least I'm pretty sure mine does. I know I've closed the lid on mine and left it hours before I opened it up again and all was fine. I might have to do an overnight test next time I charge it up to full, see how it goes, but I'm pretty sure it does.

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

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.

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

I'm not sure how efficient the sleep mode is, to be honest. I've left it fully-charged in sleep mode overnight and the battery was in the red by morning. Obviously it's better than just leaving it on since it would have died in the middle of the night, but eh. Not that great.

Also, I would recommend checking a guide for recruits. There are some seriously bullshit characters that would require either lots of luck or some seriously meticulous exploration to find.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by GB

I'm not sure how efficient the sleep mode is, to be honest. I've left it fully-charged in sleep mode overnight and the battery was in the red by morning. Obviously it's better than just leaving it on since it would have died in the middle of the night, but eh. Not that great.

In my experience the sleep mode has always helped a lot. It really cuts power usage when the screens don't have to be lit up all the time. That said, I've also tried closing the lid while playing a GBA game, and then promptly forgotten about it. Apparently it doesn't work that way.

I'm thinking about whether or not to get this game, it seems fun but also sounds a lot like just another RPG as opposed to all of the different stuff I'm finding in Suikoden III right now. Tierkreis just sounds like a cookie cutter RPG when compared to its name sharing counterparts.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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.

FELIPE NO

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.

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

I'm tempted to pick this up, but can't find it anywhere other than Amazon and £32 seems a bit steep.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Good news! Recruiting the Tensoku Star (ie, Stallion and Nash's star) gives you a permanent movement speed boost. Now I can take that Godspeed Ring off Yovel and give him something nice.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

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

Just beat it. As I was beginning to suspect a few days ago, my enjoyment of the game would only go on for as long as there was story to read. Now that it's over, I rank it on the lower end of the list of Suikodens. It doesn't help that the story fell apart at the end, with a really lackluster explanation of the One King's origin and purpose.

In case anyone's wondering, it appears likely that a Tierkreis II would take place in

Spoiler:

the Empire of the North Star. Zenoa is said to have traveled there (and considering what she has with her, that counts for something), and Yula returned after hearing news of a civil war breaking out. The only other explicitly mentioned locations outside of the continent, the Chiefdom of Lonomakua and the United Kingdom of Ritterschild, are both said to be in good shape. No hint of war coming to those places, but it's certainly not out of the question. So there you go.

Still an okay game, just a bland Suikoden. Play it if you like traditional RPGs.

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

*I just reincarnated so I could post my thoughts in this thread. Please feel more than welcome to kill me once again.

Well my first impressions of this game are positive. I just played it for a couple of hours, and I just love the presentation. The graphics are superb, with exceptional detail to the lighting; and the music score is, as I knew before, wonderful. I don't even have a problem with the voice acting, with the exception of Liu (someone get him a handkerchief; or, someone slice his throat). I actually think the Hero's personality is infectious, and the eccentric voice acting reflects this---not irksome at all to me, and his fast-paced dialogue has actually made me smirk a couple of times in amusement.

But one thing that bugs me about the Hero is that he runs like a constipated old grandpa. "WE WON'T KNOW UNLESS WE TR----hold on sonny I think I'm getting the urge."

Battle system is inoffensive if a little mundane and lacking in innovation. (Random encounters are a tad frustrating though in their frequency and monotony) Oh and some of the dialogue is genuinely funny I find; one thing in particular I remember was the cake analogy from Liu. Silly, but it adds a nice element to the game.

I was speaking idiomatically.

A somewhat sizable review of the game follows:

Spoiler:

I just finished the game, in a very meticulous fashion mind you. I made sure I got all 108 stars (without resorting to a guide or anything), which meant I was frequently revisiting places after major plot advancements. But I love the Suikoden formula, so I largely enjoyed the star hunting.

Sadly, Tierkreis throws much of the Suikoden formula out the window. I very much join the consensus that this is a good game, but not a very good Suikoden game. The plot admittedly engaged me, since I'm a sucker for stories involving corruption. However the way the plot was structured, and the way everything was brought together was a tad irksome, like GB pointed out. But throughout the game, when not considering the world in the context of the Infinity, thereby eliminating all Suikoden connotations, I enjoyed the story.

The random battle encounters were extraordinarily frequent and insipid. I don't mind it much when there are heaps of random encounters, as long as the battle system is, well, fun enough to complement such potentially long gaming sessions. And the lack of an escape rope for those times when you venture deep into a monster-filled cavern to trigger a scene? Very, very frustrating. To briefly gloss over another element, the "mission" concept to the game was decent, if a bit monotonous and unrewarding. The game didn't pose much of a challenge, too; it's true that Suikoden games aren't known for their difficulty, but this game was almost laughable. I only had to use a revive spell or item three times during the whole game, and my Hero became such a powerhouse he destroyed almost anything in his path with little difficulty and minimal level grinding (and if you take Marica, Jale and Liu with you to the final battle, their co-op attack completely dominates).

Presentation, on the other hand, was detailed and enjoyable on every level for me. The menu interface was sound, and the graphics and music were wonderful. I especially like, as I mentioned before, the detail on lighting, and the look of some of the 2D backgrounds. The musical score is up to the high Suikoden standard, with a diverse range of cultural and dramatic pieces helping to emphasise the gorgeous locales and emotional scenes with skilled finesse.

I actually, contrary to most who have played the game, wasn't too annoyed by any of the voice acting. Occasionally I'd get a bit frustrated with certain lines or pieces of dialogue, but overall I thought that the voice acting was serviceable. Vaslof is one in particular who annoyed me though, and Nimni's voice was as ambiguous as it was irritating. Characters like Chrodechild and Diadora, however, had restrained voice actors who delivered every line, while not outstandingly, with great clarity of expression and tone.

The dialogue was mostly fine, though quite often it was way too cheesy and mundane. Occasional sparks of humour and wit (such as any scene with Macoute, Zenoa and others) were too often overshadowed by mindless praise of the Hero and his way of dealing with situations. He's your leader, you respect him; we get it. And on that note, albeit not in a negative sense, the characterisation was overwhelmingly solid, with a great fleshing out of each character's personalties and idiosyncrasies, as cliche as some of them were.

So overall, a great DS traditional RPG experience, one which had me for a good 50 hour playthrough. Suikoden purists will either dislike this or will have to overcome a huge obstacle to extract any enjoyment. Thankfully the presentation and story were good enough to hook me.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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

FELIPE NO

It's much too small to qualify though, surely? If not then I'll gladly copy and paste it into a proper review thread.

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

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

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Done. I altered things a bit and added a few points; glad to contribute to the currently bare Front Page review section!

There's nowhere I can't reach.