Suikoden Tierkreis - Beat this. Got 95 stars of destiny, would have gotten more but got stuck on a random leader quest in a way I really shouldn't have. Looking through the stars of destiny FAQ, there were 2 I missed forever, and most of the rest were in dungeons I hadn't bothered retreading so fair enough. Final time 42 hours, final level was 60. (SHOCK)
Decent overall game. It's a Suikoden, so you roughly know what you're going to get - a game with strong writing but weak gameplay. The short of it is that while the plot easily surpasses Suikoden 4, it still falls short of the stronger entries in the series, and doesn't really do anything else in other departments to make up for it. The gameplay has problems, some of which Grefter notes already a few posts back, though on the whole I probably have a slightly more positive impression of the game's gameplay than the previous two games in the series, largely due to being willing to try some different things.
GameplayGet 108 stars, fight random battles, etc. We've seen this before. I thought recruitment was more intuitive than in the past two games personally, although there are certainly a few lost-forevers and there's no detective, so obviously completionists will want a FAQ. Fortunately the game doesn't give you the finger if you fail to collect enough stars.
As for battles, 4-person parties in such a large cast are kinda lame. The game tries to get around the problem of "I can hardly use anyone" by having lots of sequences where you fight with multiple parties, although only rarely are the non-Tenkai parties faced with any sort of real test. On the other hand, not having to input commands for all 6 characters does slightly decrease the chance you'll just auto- things, as does making special attacks better in general than they used to be (regular physicals have a speed penalty now). Or, well, it would, but...
The game is way, way too easy. For much of the game it's just stupidly so. Not really new, but still as frustrating as ever. Around the three quarters mark the game starts ramping up a bit. From the volcano onwards, randoms show some signs of competence. Bosses are never great (though they also stop being sadsack pathetic right around then, too) until the final who is... quite solid. He/she has a really good attack that I got lucky with because I thought it was OPB but people complaining on GameFAQs make it very clear that it's not, and actual durability in a Suikoden game. Granted, capping off an easy game with a final area/boss who doesn't suck has become a tradition in the recent games, so this is really nothing new. I was just pleased that the game finally made use of its battle system towards the end because early it's just sad.
Too many plot fights, too. I have no real problem with plot fights but would it kill them to make more of them like S3's multitude of them or S5's Dolph/Childerich fight? That'd give us folks who think Suikoden is way too easy something to test ourselves against, even if we get plot-killed afterwards. C'mon Konami, this isn't hard. As it was, all those plot fights just feel like a waste of time. At least some of them have some cool boss music which... often you'll hear for longer in the plot fights than the real thing. <__<
Special ability-wise... well, they finally did something but recycle the same runes they pretty much have used since S2, and I for one welcome the change. The Suikoden series was seriously stagnating gameplaywise, in my eyes - S1 introduced things, S2 put in a whole new spin with multiple rune slots and way more rune options, S3 put in a whole new spin with skills and partner-commands. By contrast, S4-5 offered virtually no innovations (uh formation skills?). Tierkreis opts for a pretty large departure and it works well enough. Certainly, every character receiving different marks of the stars makes character choice more interesting than in many previous games. My main complaint is that the system does take a little while to get rolling - it's dull when everyone has only 1-2 marks and doesn't really hit its stride until everyone has 5-6 and you start making real choices.
Oh, and characters having varied equipment options that make for real differences (dual-wielding vs. 2-handed vs. 1-handed and shield, strike/pierce/slash, short/medium/long range) is another neat way to differentiate characters a little and make the player make choices, probably an overdue idea in the series. BUT BUT BUT YOU CAN'T SHARPEN WEAPONS ANY MORE NOT A SUIKODEN.
The game lacks duels and war battles. In and of itself this doesn't bother me. What does bother me? It seems very clear the game was -meant- to have them at some point in development and they ran out of time or budget to implement them. There's one or two points in the plot where I found myself thinking "okay, that really, really needed a war battle to make me feel I worked for that victory, instead of just having me fight a few soldiers in regular fights" and the game has quite a few duels (the one in Atrasia comes to mind in particular) which would have been more epic with something besides the regular battle system. So yeah, a disappointment, if hardly a fatal one.
Overall, though, the gameplay is a generic system with a few neat mix-ups compared to previous Suikodens (but not really innovative overall) which are welcomed, but wasted on a game which is too easy for far too long.
Plot stuffNon-spoiler version: It's a Suikoden game, so we expect a good story and we get it. It's not as good as S2/3/5, though, which is a little disappointing because it felt like it had the potential to be midway through the game. Still, the writing is way above par for RPGs and a game I don't regret playing just for this aspect of it. The main character talks and has a real personality and this is wonderful since a whole bunch of scenes work well because of him bouncing off the people he meets.
Beyond that, there will be
SPOILERS here obviously. I'll hide the worst but only the worst. Blah blah if you hate any sort of spoilers content yourself with the previous paragraph and skip to the next section.
..
There's a few things in the plot I thought were particularly excellent. The plot with the magedom was wonderfully done in general. I dug Danash, he's a lovable old scoundrel playing his own people against each other both for entertainment and because
he honestly thinks it brings out the best in them. Having to work with him and his people is interesting and brought a layer of complexity to the plot. Sometimes your allies aren't always nice! It was kinda disappointing when it ended with just a "we're going off on our own now", but what really bugged me is the magedom just... stopped being important thereafter. Damnit, they're still the strongest military force opposing the Order, they should have been more involved. I'd have loved to see more interaction with them even when you're not working for them any more, but oh well.
On the other hand, I thought it was pretty great that the writers were actually willing to pretty much
do the fantasy equivalent of nuke the country from orbit, killing millions of its people. Great moral event horizon for the main villain, it felt gutsy and the characters reacted appropriately. From the understandable "what the fuck" of the hero and company, the absolutely crushing effect on the surviving Magedom characters themselves, and the fact that Valfred's closest allies (hell, Diadora felt like a friend) react to this
by betraying him. I mean, yeah, who wouldn't? But too often in RPGs stupid loyalty enters the equation.
Otherwise I thought the theocratic Order made for a good antagonist, as a nation and as personified in Valfred himself. It's not a completely unreasonable view as much as the hero loathes it, and the lengths Valfred goes to are pretty much the logical extension of any relgious fundamentalism, something that actually exists in our world. Kinda scary. I made a snide comment about Tales of the Abyss before but will elaborate on it here - Tierkreis actually nailed how a religiously fanatical villain would operate in a world where religion is tied to fantastical powers in one way or another, something I find far more convincing than the usual RPG corrupt churchmen. He actually had his backstory presented in the game so you understand how he became that way, always a bonus.
I liked the hero. He's a total dweeb but an immensely charismatic dweeb. The weird disconnect there worked for me, I can't really give good justifications for why. I like my dweeb mains I guess. Also liked his reaction to the Ladzaa Fortress incident because seeing thousands of people die in front of your eyes when you were just trying to save them is fucking AWFUL and I'm glad they didn't gloss over that.
Oh yeah, a minor detail, but I loved how the writers totally faked you out with Liu and his blatant lying early in the game. I was convinced he'd be the traitor like Jowy or Snowe, so of course this meant Dirk totally flew under the radar for me (even though he made a lot o sense as a betrayal). And they do give an excellent reason for Liu's lying later on. Good stuff. Liu himself is pretty fun, smart kid, and I liked the hero-strategist relationship being an immensely friendly one instead of a manipulative one. Marica and Jale (particularly Jale) weren't as good mostly because they felt kinda dropped, although Marica has a fun enough personality while she's prominent and bounces off the hero well.
Where the plot missteps a bit is that it loses some momentum as time goes on. As mentioned, leaving the magedom kinda sucks since you lose a great dynamic there and it sets the stage for a hell of a lot of "go to random people who dislike you, solve a problem for them, woohoo they like you now, RECRUIT GET!" Yes, complaining about this in a Suikoden game is like complaining about singing in a Disney movie (awesome saying, Djinn) but it still feels tired compared to the more subtle and clever political plots the game is capable of having. It's sorta like the middle of Suikoden 5, but it weighs more heavilly on the game since it comes a bit later, and the final plot isn't as good because Valfred lacks much of a supporting set of characters (to continue the S5 parallel: if Valfred is Marscal, then he lacks a Gizel and Lymsleia). The One King is also pretty boring, although not as boring as I expected (him being a Tenkai star who chose to make the sacrifice the game tempts you with is a nice twist). Dirk is a bit of a miss as a villain. I like his motivation and I think it's very real, but he still said some really stupid shit in the times he showed up. I wanted to like the character and think if he'd been written a little better he'd be a wonderful window into why someone might turn to the One True Way but as is they fell a bit short because his logic often fails to make sense.
Minor character hype, since what Suikoden is complete without this?
Zahra - Crazy fucking doctor who goes shirtless and talks about experimenting on his own patients. Good times.
Asad - I dunno, I liked him. Nice loyal character who showed there are limits to loyalty, and the crush on Crodechild was cute. Crode herself wasn't bad either, though pretty much a vanilla execution of the swordgirl archetype.
Neira - I'm pretty sure her being possessed by the sea god is a bunch of bullshit and that cracks me up with how overdramatic she is and some of the situations she "calls on" the Sea God for. The game definitely tossed enough hints that this is the case.
Some others probably but those are the big ones besides folks I've already touched on in the main rant.
AestheticsLet's start with the bad: the 3D models of characters are not very good at all. They're like FF3DS' but worse. Some of them look really goofy up close, such as the hero in particular. Kinda unfortunate. Background/dungeon design is better, though rarely amazing. Sorta standard DS stuff.
The game's art itself is quite solid, good character designs all-around. Special shout-out to the consistency of the Magedom designs and the few North Star Empire characters we see (idly, North Star Empire sequel? Possible if the sub-series ever gets one).
Music was very solid - some highlights include the formation music (when setting up parties for story missions), the archivist battle theme, the Grayridge theme, and a few more. Suikoden never completely blows me away for music and this game is no different, but it's definitely a fairly strong entry to the series music-wise, which I wasn't really expecting.
Voice acting could definitely be better. For the most part I approve of faster talking over slower talking because it sounds more real to me, but some Tierkreis talking is definitely too fast. The hero suffers from this a fair bit earlier on though weirdly it got a fair bit better past the earlygame. Also, a bunch of names are pronounced differently than they're written (Shairah, Macoute, Rizwan, Hotupa for some blatant ones), suggesting they were translated at different times. Not really a big deal, far from the worst or most unrealistic thing ever to have names that are pronounced differently from how they're written, but still notable.
DL notesThe game lends itself nicely enough to the DL if it ever gets playership (if if if). Quite a few PCs with plenty of plot who are also forced for reasonable durations, everyone has clearly unique skillsets, etc. Haven't looked closely at the individual duellers yet beyond one or two (Hero is a very solid Heavy, for instance), but offhand I'd certainly support Hero, Liu, Marica, Jale, Asad, Crodechild, and Diadora, and would certainly consider supporting Diulf, Sophia, Fredegund, Manaril, Vaslof, Resno, Neira, Hotupa, Cougar, and probably a few more. Valfred for bosses, unsure if anyone else is worthwhile as an idea (the final maybe, about 4 others are workable if anyone actually cares about mediocre Suikoden human bosses who aren't Zahhak/Alenia level comically bad).
OverallIt's a Suikoden game, but different. It's not in the same world, but this frees them to tell a different style of story. It lacks some Suiko traditions in gameplay, but innovation is missed and most of the traditions weren't much to write home about. Gameplay itself is kinda dull in large part because it's too damn easy (not that it'd be great even without this flaw). Polish could be a bit better, though not terrible. It has its flaws, but none stop it from being just a plain enjoyable game due to strong writing. It's just not a top-tier "writing is all I have" game like Suikoden 5 or Xenogears, so it doesn't merit that kinda of praise. Thinking it's a 6/10 to me.
