Suikoden Tierkreis

[Psyduck]

OK, so I'm sure I'm not the best person for a first play thread, but judging by the headlines thread one would be appreciated. I've never really played a suikoden game before but here goes...

Put about 2 1/2 hours into this so far:

In general, I like JRPGS, except:
Random battles are annoying
save points, especially on DS games are irritating - I sometimes don't have time to play on to one (without the mrs getting annoyed)
"slow" dialogue bits are annoying - ie ones I cant skip
the main character is often a twat I don't want to be
load times are bang out of order - especially on DS


Good news is there are virtually no load times, the main character seems pretty cool to me and there's plenty of dialogue options, and the dialogue is fast. There are load times for random battles, but there's a nice quick "everyone do standard attack" option which is nice to make em go faster. We still have save points and they're too far apart so I doubt I'll finish it, but it's certainly bearable for now.
Gfx and sound are definitely good. No real idea about depth - can't see too much yet but I'm probably not far enough in. Worth a shot though, especially if you love JPRGs/suikoden (i assume)

[Stormtec]

I have been liking the Suikoden's less and less since 2. I miss the proper army battles they used to have =(

[JamesS]

I love the Suikoden series, though IV wasn't terribly good, and V wasn't quite the return to form I'd hoped for. This is just fantastic, though. It doesn't seem to have the 1 on 1 fights or army battles, which is a shame, but it's got castles and armies and politics and stars of destiny and thumping "going to war" music over dramatic moments. Pretty much everything I want from Suikoden, basically.

Unlike previous games, there's a mission structure to the game, with a character in your home base who can give you missions. The first few hours are totally linear, though, with no choice in the missions you take. Also new to this game (I think) is the passing of time. As you move around the world map, days pass and seasons change which affects various things in the world. The game is a bit easy, but Suikoden's levelling system always meant that your characters tended to level up pretty fast, and I'd rather it be too easy than have to spend hours grinding.

Graphically, it's very nice, with FFVII style rendered backdrops and 3D characters. Surprisingly for a DS game, huge chunks of dialogue are spoken. I'm not sure if they've had to time compress some of the speech for size reasons, or if the actor for the main character is just giving a really odd delivery, but the hero speaks really, really fast. Other characters are fine, though. The music's really nice, and reuses a few of the main themes from the previous games. I think a lot of the atmosphere of the early games came from the music, so it's good that they've kept up a decent standard for this game.

I've not tried the online stuff yet, but the set up is quite neat. The game's story is based around the idea of an infinite number of parallel worlds, and you have access to a portal that can take you between worlds. With the online system, you can send out your characters and they go and visit other peoples' copies of the game, join their parties for a bit then come back having gained XP and items. Similarly, you can hire "parallel" versions of characters to put in your own party for a bit.

[Champloo]

The game is a bit easy, but Suikoden's levelling system always meant that your characters tended to level up pretty fast, and I'd rather it be too easy than have to spend hours grinding.

I'm not the biggest fan of having to grind hours either, but I've heard this is so easy that you can more or less get through the whole game on auto-battle. How easy are we talking (if you're far enough to actually say)?

[Dogg Thang]

I was beginning to doubt this even existed. I couldn't find it anywhere. They hadn't even heard of it in GAME and it didn't show up on their computer (yet seems to be listed on their website). Eventually, one guy in a shop found one, not on the shelf where it might, you know, sell a copy but in the back all wrapped up in its original wrapping, which is a novelty in this day and age.

For a game that seemingly nobody is interested in selling, it seems to have rather high production values. I played and loved Suikoden 1 and 2 but never played any of the others. In a way, this one has to battle my nostalgia which is never easy but, so far, I'm really liking it. The backgrounds are lovely and the characters sit really nicely in the overall look.

Voice acting is bizarre in that some characters bail through their words comically fast and yet I can't help feeling that's a touch of genius. They often get through the words almost as fast as I can read meaning I haven't yet resorted to skipping through the voice as I often would since they brought voice acting to RPGs.

The story hasn't yet revealed itself to me as I've just done the first few missions but the overall feel, while very different to those first two Suikoden games so far, is really nice and is keeping me interested.

So far, so good.

[JamesS]

I'm not the biggest fan of having to grind hours either, but I've heard this is so easy that you can more or less get through the whole game on auto-battle. How easy are we talking (if you're far enough to actually say)?

It's pretty easy, yes. I've had characters die a couple of times, mostly due to my own stupidity, but I've not seen the game over screen.

I generally tend to fight manually for the first few battles in a new area, until I've levelled up at least once, then just use auto battle. I haven't tried it, but I don't think I'd have beaten the bosses so far with auto.

To some extent, the fact there's an auto battle option draws attention to the difficulty a bit, but really most regular battles in most JRPGs are just a case of having everybody use attack anyway.

It could certainly stand to be harder but, to be honest, I'm enjoying the game too much to really care.

[abigsmurf]

I've picked this up.

Really impressed by the production values. Few hours in and there's loads of voice acting and videos (albeit heavily compressed, slightly blurry ones). The music is some of the best instrumental music I've heard on the DS and the hand drawn backgrounds are very pretty. Only slightly amusing thing is that clearly there's either a time limit on each piece of spoken audio or the VAs were told to speak quickly to save space. They really whizz through their lines.

Battle system is fairly fluid, mashing the buttons actually seems to speed battles up, increasing animation speeds. Buying equipment is a bit more clunky than it should be but given how many DS RPGs forget to let characters try on stuff in the shop or show you stat improvements, it's better than most.

Story is potentially interesting although at this stage it doesn't look like it'll match Suikoden 1 & 2 (but then, that's a tough thing to do), characters and designs are good so far though. The way the game lets characters 'catch up' looks set to eliminate grinding when forced to use characters who are benched, any characters who are lower level than the top rated character in a group (or the enemies level, it's one of the two) get additional xp so they level up very fast.

Another strong RPG for the DS

[Champloo]

It's pretty easy, yes. I've had characters die a couple of times, mostly due to my own stupidity, but I've not seen the game over screen.

I generally tend to fight manually for the first few battles in a new area, until I've levelled up at least once, then just use auto battle. I haven't tried it, but I don't think I'd have beaten the bosses so far with auto.

To some extent, the fact there's an auto battle option draws attention to the difficulty a bit, but really most regular battles in most JRPGs are just a case of having everybody use attack anyway.

It could certainly stand to be harder but, to be honest, I'm enjoying the game too much to really care.

That's true, it's got to be said. Although I have heard that this one is particularly easy.

I'll give it a go at some point anyway. It really does look lovely from the screens I've seen.

[abigsmurf]

I've put another couple of hours in, I'm still relatively early on in the game and it does indeed seem a bit easy with not much through required. However this is after playing DQV which was more challenging(although king cureslimes made the game easier than it should've been). Remain impressed at the amount of voice acting, pretty much all the dialog by main characters is spoken.

[Dogg Thang]

I'm still playing it. I think I've clocked up around 10 hours or so. I'm certainly still enjoying it - it's a good game. But I'm not loving it. Hard to say anything bad about it. I guess, so far, it just doesn't do anything that makes it stand out. And most of what it does do, some other games (perhaps many) have done better.

And yet it's still a pretty good game. I rather like the characters and the backgrounds looking nice really help get a feel for the atmosphere of each location, though that is countered slightly by the reuse of room graphics (fine when you're talking basic graphics and you're using your imagination but harder to get away with when as detailed as this) and the (mostly) lack of a sort of overworld area to give you a sense of distance and travel. The effects, like light coming through trees and butterflies, really look lovely though and it's those touches that bring it to life.

And I'm still liking the voices.

[abigsmurf]

Finished it now.

Good things:

Good plot that has decent twists
High production values throughout and good graphics
Levelling system stops you being handicapped by being forced to use characters you never pick

Bad things:

too easy, removes need for tactics in battles
Awful dungeons with nondescript passages, constant dead ends and fequent encounters.
There are about 5 character archetypes, other than that, they're interchangable.
No crafting

All in all, another good (if not especially outstanding) RPG for the DS.