[Discussion] Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

A forum to ask questions if you are stuck in Suikoden Tierkreis; or wish for more clarity with the gameplay systems.
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patapi
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[Discussion] Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by patapi »

Reviews and opinions on certain games are generally disallowed at Suikosource. However, your friendly moderators and admins have noticed that there is a great love and need to discuss opinions and give reviews of the various Suikoden games in the series so these threads have been created!

In this thread you may discuss Suikoden Tierkreis and give your reviews and opinions on it. You may refer to the other Suikodens but please keep the primary focus of the conversations about your opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis. You may talk about plot, setting, gameplay or anything else.

Please keep all reviews and opinions to the stickies in each gameplay forum. This change in policy does not mean that the remainder of Suikosource is allowing opinions or reviews.

Enjoy!


p.s. Description modded from Oppenheimer's impression topics for the other games.
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Raww Le Klueze
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

Yeah. Someone's gonna have to explain what's the deal with the millions of "You can't win this"-fights.

It seems like the game's only attempts at plot turns is to throw you into a fight with some awesomely powerful guy that you can't beat and have you retreat.

Sure, there's usually 1 or 2 fights like that in a Suikoden game but this one has a lot of them.

Not only can you not win them, for the most part you aren't allowed lose them either or you'll get a Game Over but rather you're supposed to survive a few turns.

This gets tedious and annoying really fast and might be one of bigger grievances I have with the game aside from the from "Suikoden but not Suikoden" dealie thingie.
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by Shiva Indis »

Explanation? In my experience those fights have been against the killer librarians, and they're, well, killers. Clearly the intent plot-wise is to drive home that our little band of adventurers is in WAY over their heads.

I'm not as far into the game as some folks here so I don't know for certain, but let me offer some theories on why the librarians are powerful. 1) They are associated with the books and have gained some sort of powers from them. 2) They are from another world. 3) They are good ole' special ops types intended as foils to the Empire's top fighters.
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

The question isn't why they're powerful, the question is why that seems to be games only attempt at a plot turn.

There's a lot of battles you can't win, far from all with the librarians.
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by dragonmasterx »

I'm going to summarize the comments that are pretty much unanimous among all the reviews at http://ndsmk2.net/title.php?title=1343
(my favorite fan review site for Japanese games)

-brilliant characters and story

-great music

-practically no loading

-fairly abundant, well-done anime cut scenes

-slow movement speed(better once you get the ring or character that improves movement speed)+high encounter rate+quests automatically bring you from HQ to the middle of dungeons and leave you stranded there, forcing you to walk all the way out manually = frustration. Since there's no teleport, you have to walk through like 3 screens everytime you leave/enter HQ to talk to the person in charge of quests. (this is by far, the most unanimous complaint)

-4 characters only is lame

-difficulty is for the most part, a joke

-interface problems, like not being able to see how a new piece of equipment compares with the currently equipped one, when outfitting your characters at the weapon shop. Scrolling through the character list to find the characters you want can be stressful. It only shows the name and the part of the face around the eyes. IIRC, Suikoden 1 only showed the name, but the character list was back then was separated into 1 pages. But in Tierkreis, there is only one page. You must also scroll through it when selecting what magics to set for each character.

-no new game+

-only 2 save slots

-Everyone says they ultimated enjoyed it for the story and characters.
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patapi
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by patapi »

Ranked at C, huh? Ouch.
dragonmasterx wrote:-slow movement speed(better once you get the ring or character that improves movement speed)+high encounter rate+quests automatically bring you from HQ to the middle of dungeons and leave you stranded there, forcing you to walk all the way out manually = frustration. Since there's no teleport, you have to walk through like 3 screens everytime you leave/enter HQ to talk to the person in charge of quests. (this is by far, the most unanimous complaint)
Agreed 100%. Considering how the other towns and villages had menu for navigation, it's actually a pain to walk through the HQ screens for the nth time after a while. They should have implemented an optional menu system similar to P4's square button, period.
-interface problems, like not being able to see how a new piece of equipment compares with the currently equipped one, when outfitting your characters at the weapon shop. Scrolling through the character list to find the characters you want can be stressful. It only shows the name and the part of the face around the eyes. IIRC, Suikoden 1 only showed the name, but the character list was back then was separated into 1 pages. But in Tierkreis, there is only one page. You must also scroll through it when selecting what magics to set for each character.
Rather basic, but this was quite irritating after a while. They should have taken advantage of the shoulder buttons for cross page navigation. It took me a while to get used to the character listing, as it's sorted in the tablet order, instead of the usual alphabetical.
-no new game+
Yeah, this decision made little sense after the consistent appearance in IV, Tactics and V.
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by Raww Le Klueze »

dragonmasterx wrote:-practically no loading
Practically no loading what..? It's a cartridge, there shouldn't be any loading.
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by kelvingarinkz »

am i wrong to say that ALL characters are useable in battle ? regardless whether they are offensive ( fighting ) or defensive ( support )
i also like the way support character can join the unite attacks
kelvin loves suikoden
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by Neclord X »

dragonmasterx wrote: -difficulty is for the most part, a joke
Well, at least this is like all the other Suikoden :lol:
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by Braxiatel »

patapi wrote:Ranked at C, huh? Ouch.
So about on par with Suikoden IV, which is better than I expected.
-no new game+
Yeah, this decision made little sense after the consistent appearance in IV, Tactics and V.[/quote]

Just proves Konami has no idea what to do with this series.

I wish a competent developer would take it over.
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by dragonmasterx »

Braxiatel wrote: So about on par with Suikoden IV, which is better than I expected.
No, Suikoden IV scored E, Suikoden V scored C(everyone complained about loading). Here are direct links to the respective reviews:

http://www.psmk2.net/ps2/soft_04/rpg/genso4.html
http://www.psmk2.net/ps2/soft_06/rpg/genso5.html
http://ndsmk2.net/title.php?title=1343

It's really more accurate to look at the actual comments rather just the score. But if you're gonna go by the letter grade only, then Tierkries is equal to Suikoden V.
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by Braxiatel »

dragonmasterx wrote:
Braxiatel wrote: So about on par with Suikoden IV, which is better than I expected.
No, Suikoden IV scored E, Suikoden V scored C(everyone complained about loading). Here are direct links to the respective reviews:

http://www.psmk2.net/ps2/soft_04/rpg/genso4.html
http://www.psmk2.net/ps2/soft_06/rpg/genso5.html
http://ndsmk2.net/title.php?title=1343

It's really more accurate to look at the actual comments rather just the score. But if you're gonna go by the letter grade only, then Tierkries is equal to Suikoden V.
Well, the loading was a legitimate complaint (horrible!), but other than that it was a good game. And an actual Suikoden game, as opposed to this.

Actually, the Metacritic score is 76, which is a B/B+, so higher than the DS game.
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by Neclord X »

I promised myself to valore it as "rpg" in general and no like a Suikoden.

And still this, the game didn't cause too much very good impression to tell the truth.

1.THOSE HORRIBLE VOICES BURNS MY EARS, heavens, they are...horrible, and with this we go to the point...

2.You cant chose japanese voices, but you cant off the voices because...there aren't configurarion options. Is all predetermined.

3.Only two slots to save.

4.Graphics...i am not going to say nothing because at the end is a DS you cant ask for miracles.

5.Battles...too much and too much easy (all completed in a single turn with "auto"). I supose is natural put a lot of battle since dugeons are soooo tiny that if they don't put so many battles it will be ended in seconds.

After a few more time of play (4:16 hours timeplayed now), reading the text, i only can add that...till the moment, the plot is completly absurd

It's not about if is a suikoden plot like or not...is absurd by itself. More than absurd plot is that the events are quite...stupid in how and why they develop.

SPOILERS

I mean: "oh look a book"; "oh, lets go to the forrest, oh an unknown man who wants acompany us but don't say whar is searching, it doesn matter, come wirh us" "oh, a clone, how curious" "oh, a portal, lets have a little interdimensional travel". "See that lady made a office where was a tree root"

Till the moment is an ilogical conection of events.

And now, as Suikoden series game...only a few minutes is enougth to see that isn't related with the old ones, and not because is "a different world" is because is obvious that still there will be some war involved the main plot turns around something more "magic" and trascendent
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by Shinsengumi »

Suikoden's Tierkreis Map/Navigation is very good. I believe it could be excellent for a new Suikoden DS based on the old series, since it provides a wide range of areas to explore (Who doesn't want to visit Dunan and the Grasslands in one Game), though I hold a criticism for the teleportation in a single area; Inn -> Trading Post.

The battle system is a fresh change from most other RPG systems; yes no Runes, and no six party members, but any DS RPG follower would testify that Suikoden Tierkreis's system is more interesting than the new games styles of combat, taking note on the low difficulty challenges.
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tierkreis

Post by Antimatzist »

Shinsengumi wrote:Suikoden's Tierkreis Map/Navigation is very good. I believe it could be excellent for a new Suikoden DS based on the old series, since it provides a wide range of areas to explore (Who doesn't want to visit Dunan and the Grasslands in one Game), though I hold a criticism for the teleportation in a single area; Inn -> Trading Post.

The battle system is a fresh change from most other RPG systems; yes no Runes, and no six party members, but any DS RPG follower would testify that Suikoden Tierkreis's system is more interesting than the new games styles of combat, taking note on the low difficulty challenges.
Yeah, Tierkreis' map system is better than, let's say, IIÌ's. it's horrible to walk thorugh all dungeons AGAIN! It's pretty much the same as Tactics'...

And the mark of the Stars aren't as bad as I have feared. It's somewhat like the rune system, but you can customize which 4 spells you want to use.

And they didn't forget about old runes.. Several characters can use a falcon-attack and one even Shrike!
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