Gone all weekend, played DS on the train.
Suikoden Tierkreis: Yeah, finally popped this in. I'd been looking forward to it before it came out, being the Suikoden nut that I am. When I found out it wasn't a proper Suikoden, I stopped caring. But Dhyer's comments about it being a really enjoyable game if it wasn't a Suikoden actually inspired me to give a shot and I just tried to ignore that it was called Suikoden.
Well, the game has more Suikoden elements than I was expecting from Dhyer's descriptions, but it's still removed enough that I can ignore the connections and try to see it for it's own merits.
And so far, those merits have been good! The characters all act logically and obvious conclusions that the player can see coming from a mile away are often picked up on by the PCs shortly after they become obvious. Things like 'Hey, we're toting around a magic book that gave us visions when we touched it... Oh HEY! Let's see if the random people that we meet get visions too!" It's nice to see PCs actually trying to -use- their random McGuffins of Power wisely. Also, I'm not far yet, but Dirk's foreshadowed betrayal through the evil chick's persuasion is actually understandable. Additionally, even though we've gotten to see the villains talking alone, none of them have broken down into evil cackling about destroying the world, but they seem to actually be trying to save it in their own (somewhat flawed) way.
So, everyone acts rationally, this is a pretty good step in the right direction.
The world-building is fairly interesting so far, as I'm really curious why the main can't travel through Gateways, and what the purpose of the randomly-appearing Forest is. The introduction to the different cultures is a little rushed, but serviceable.
Gameplay is boring as hell so far, though. No party-building, no weapon-building, actual battles are really straitforward without many options to play with. Rune skillsets are swappable between PCs, so there's some potential, but I'll probably end up leaving most everyone with their initial skillsets thanks to the DL's influence... >.>;;
Oh, the Support PCs don't suck anymore... at least, not the priestess chick I've picked up so far. That's pretty cool.
Characters: Main and Marica are pretty likable, though Marica was at her best during the stint with Marica? running around too. Everyone else is some flavor of 'Okay...', but at least no one's running around with the idiot ball. In particular, the previously-mentioned priestess chick is fairly cool, though she'll need more screen time if she's ever going to stand out beyond her big scene in her intro.
The best stuff so far has been the presentation of the Order as a fairly weird, but believable view of extreme religious fervor. The Order is presented as being able to predict the future because future is already ordained, however, they will not be able to predict everything -perfectly- until the day the whole world follows its precepts. So, they can predict floods and lightning strikes, but there are some things which they haven't predicted yet becase the Order's influence needs to expand. The more believers, it seems, the better the predictions. As a result, the people who follow the Order live their lives directly according to the Order's instructions, and we see everything from predetermined marriages to punitive action being taken against those who declare a desire for their future, since it implies that Order doesn't already know what their future will be. It's fairly scary to see people believing in this sort of thing, but there are plenty of people who believe in Fate that it rings eerily true in some places. Especially when the followers talk about how excited they are for the day when the Order can predict everything perfectly and they can rise above the 'illusion' of free choice.
I'm looking forward to see what more they'll do with this viewpoint and whether they'll be able to continue making its followers at least somewhat sympathetic even if their beliefs are weird and scary and not conducive to a productive society.
It'll just be nice to see the 'Religion is Bad' trope be used without making the Church a bunch of literal demon-worshippers or child molesters.
