Suikoden Tiekreis: If there are two screens, do I get 216 stars?

JihadJesus

Apparently Konami came to visit IGN to pimp the new Castlevania game (which is not a hard sell) and brought along a few 'lower-tier' titles to save themselves a trip or something.

Titles like Suikoden Tiekreis. Yeah, they just thought they might as well slip it in there somewhere. Since it's just, you know, FUCKING SUIKODEN!

There's a video available, and apparently they have some pretty cool stuff planned. Check it out:

...each member of the team has a pre-set name and class, but each also change as you equip them. Since the world is 2D with 3D models overtop (similar to Rune Factory), that means you can morph and tweak the characters as you see fit, with every piece of equipment, weapon change, and visual detail changing on the fly based on your equipment. The interface, on-the-fly equipment changing, and overall style reminded us of Soma Bringer, and if we can't get Nintendo's flagship action RPG here in the US, believe us when we say Suikoden is a more than welcomed substitute

Suikoden with a robust loot system? Hell yes. But it gets better:

Konami states that Suikoden will be a one of a kind experience on DS when it comes to online, allowing players to interact in a full Wi-Fi community, leaving and picking up party members for others to take on additional quests and power up when away from their own cart. Once that quest is finished (or, we'd assume, a certain amount of time passes), your character will come back with added levels, skills, items, and equipment. Not too shabby.

I'm wondering what reward you get for leveling up and equipping someone else's character, since they have to provide some incentive or no one will ever bother. All in all it looks very promising, and I'll be buying this at some point for sure. Now, let's close with some pretties.









UPDATE!
Famitsu scans, spoilered for the bigness...

Someone needs to let them know that super zoomed in shots of those 3D character models are definitely not a good idea...

LewieP

From a press release -

Konami wrote:

Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. today announces Suikoden: Tierkreis, the latest iteration of the celebrated Suikoden series, will mark the franchise's debut exclusively on the Nintendo DS™. Encompassing a variety of different characters while exploring many exotic locations and cultures across the game's universe of parallel worlds, Suikoden: Tierkreis will expand the bounds of the handheld RPG. Featuring the franchise's established gameplay while maximizing the technological capabilities of the DS to provide all-new online elements, this epic RPG consists of many cinematic experiences that will drive the grand storyline of the 108 Stars of Destiny as they battle to thwart the powerful One King.

Using the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, Suikoden: Tierkreis offers a rich online community experience that allows players to send their characters on quests that other members of the community will complete for them, eventually returning the player to their party with new abilities and treasures.

With its grand adventure and larger than life scale, this story is told through rich animation sequences and a gripping dialogue, allowing gamers to fully immerse themselves and experience the world of Suikoden. For the first time ever, players will begin with the last three members of the Stars of Destiny and are tasked with resurrecting the other 104 in order to restore order in the universe and defeat the almighty One King.

The Suikoden series launched in 1995 in Japan and was released in the U.S. on the PlayStation® game console in December of 1996. Instantly hailed as one of the most innovative RPGs, Suikoden delivered a unique battle system, an intriguing storyline with numerous plot twists and multiple endings to provide a fun experience for all RPG fans. Since its debut, the Suikoden series has received numerous industry accolades for being one of the top RPG games of all time.

KupotheAvenger

So when is this dropping? This a day one buy. And I haven't said that in a long ass time.

Varega

if this doesn't come out in the US, people will die.

Schide

Ok, so definite American release is good to know.

I don't care about online play.

Um, other stuff sounds interesting.

Feriluce

Ooh, more Suikoden is a very good thing.

StarZapper

I'm willing to bet it'll be good, but man the art style dissapoints me so far. It looks far more like generic anime then it had in the past. I guess we won't really know until we see more about it though.

B:L

Suikoden: Tear Cries?

Dehumanized

That line of dialog in those screenshots is hilariously awkward.

Shadowfire

Is this where I say "all my dicks?"

Because... all my dicks.

I was excited when the original thread started, now that IGN has a preview up, and English text on the screenshots, I'm even more happy. Can't wait!

Judging by the preview... did they mean it was coming out this year? There's too much shit already!

Mr Pink

Day one, easily.

Though I'm worried that the screens look a little cluttered. I have faith that it will work perfectly though.

Rei

Yeah this is day one completely. Although I do have to second the opinion that the art style looks really generic compared to older Suikodens, specifically the PS1 games.

Klatu

My pants just got happy

Baz_Anderson

I'm going to guy into the store naked and buy a DS for that game. And when the guy askes me why I'm naked, I'm going to say:

"Check out this awesome game! I will never put this away! I will never need pockets again!"











Then I will go to jail.

Zimmydoom

Looks interesting. Although I still lament the passing of the visual style from the first two games. These character portraits look rather bland by comparison.

Officer

This is a welcome reboot to the series. Although, I will miss the hell out of the original art as well.

This is going to be an awesome reason to replay and awesome game. The same way that the remakes of Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger kicked fans in the butts to try it out again. Suikoden is one of those games you always wanted to play again, but it was just more of the same when you did it. With a neat little handheld remake like this, I'm more than happy to blow some time doing it all again.

Schide

Um, this is in no way, shape, or form a remake, it's a brand new game with new characters (well, for the most part I'm sure), new setting, new mechanics, new graphics, new platform. You get the idea.

Though they might still put out Suikoden on the PS Store. I dunno.

Officer

Schide wrote: »

Um, this is in no way, shape, or form a remake, it's a brand new game with new characters (well, for the most part I'm sure), new setting, new mechanics, new graphics, new platform. You get the idea.

Though they might still put out Suikoden on the PS Store. I dunno.

Ahh, I guess I should have read the article more carefully. Either way, I'm very pleased for another Suikoden is making it's way on the market. But I'm slightly less excited, considering the lackluster quality of the previous 2 iterations. Four and five just weren't up to snuff with the classics.

Voth

This is great news. I love this series. I could see myself playing some of these community adventures for fun, as long as they were kept simple and weren't too time consuming.

Mojo_Jojo

The landscapes look lovely but man, those combat models and character portraits are awful. I'm still pretty excited though.

Frosteey

Zimmydoom wrote: »

Looks interesting. Although I still lament the passing of the visual style from the first two games. These character portraits look rather bland by comparison.

Let's go with styles. 2's is a shame, maybe. But the evolution from 1's will always be welcome.

I think this style would be fine if it had decent character design to go with it, but so far I've seen far more that are generic or that I dislike than I've seen that I've liked.

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Watching the videos...

The quality of the flashback/flashforward animation was laughable in pretty much all respects. Dialogue, voice acting, and animation were all fairly terrible. The standard intro movie was actually pretty good, though, since there was little movement, no speaking, decent music, and I was left fairly satisfied by the characters they showed.

The normal spoken dialogue was at least passable. Based off the small sample, it's still a step back from 5's, but I should be able to tolerate it.

Battles look a little uglier than i'd feared.

Still hate the main character.

Overall, I'm probably a little more optimistic than before.

Xagarath

Looks interesting, but this is not an acceptable substitute for Soma Bringer.

Frosteey

Soma Bringer sucks. I am fully confident this will be a better game.

Xagarath

Frosteey wrote: »

Soma Bringer sucks. I am fully confident this will be a better game.

Please, expand on this statement.
I'd generally been hearing otherwise.

Frosteey

Art-Terrible. Saturday morning cartoon terrible, then dropped another two categories. Along with that, the character designs are overall horrible. Kr...Millers is the only one passable. (The backgrounds look excellent though, I'll give it that)

Gameplay-Terribly basic. The same combo every single time. New skills are basically the same as the old ones. The entirety of 'customizing' your character is basically limited to 'deal more damage'.

This might be alleviated a bit in the Phantasy Star Online vein by an addiction to getting the coolest new equips, but as far as I'd played (four or five chapters), I wasn't getting things I would really classify as awesome. And I was getting them at a pretty boring pace (maybe one weapon upgrade per fairly long chapter). I'll grant that this may improve later on, but it's a snoozer to start out.

However, you get a whole hell of a lot of equipment you can't even use, and it is completely worthless owing to the fact that you can't customize your allies. I probably hold this against the game more than I should, but it's just ridiculous that in a game that is essentially focused on finding equipment and using it, they would limit your ability to use it. Being able to equip your partners would have added a hell of a lot to the game.

Story-Generic and terrible. See: Saturday morning cartoon comment above.

Music-Okay. Maybe slightly better. Can't really remember, honestly, which is why I'll just assume okay.

---

I wouldn't probably say it actually sucks. But it definitely hasn't drawn me in as the bastion of awesome that it was made out to be.

carmofin

this sounds horrible!!
characters tradable online? does that means the times where we got 108 characters, each of them more developed then many main characters in other games are over?

JihadJesus

carmofin wrote: »

this sounds horrible!!
characters tradable online? does that means the times where we got 108 characters, each of them more developed then many main characters in other games are over?

It very specifically states that the 108 stars are back, and characters aren't 'tradeable' - you kind of loan them out, maybe for specific side quests or something that can only be done that way, and the character you loan out 'returns' to your cart with some bonus EXP or a new item or something.

tehkensai

so is this happening in the same world as the other suikodens? I really hope so, because putting it in a different world would really, really piss me off. Suiko is one of the few series that I love because of the connected storylines.

And I would agree with the art style. 1/4s were...eh. Boring. 2/3/5 had the best artist, in my opinion.

Frosteey

I don't think there's been official word, but seeing as the continuity is about as important to the series as the 108 stars thing, it would be pretty much unthinkable it wouldn't be tied to some degree.

So, maybe 15% chance it's completely unrelated.

---

And I just realized that the weapons thing means more Bronze Sword and less Tengaar++.

---

Anyway, Due Fiumi seems to have quite a bit more information than IGN.

Things from there and the other five Suikoden Tetris threads we've had recently-

Four member party
Porpoise people
Magic points instead of Magic levels
Salsaville!!!

JihadJesus

Updated OP with Famitsu scans. They REALLY need to not zoom in on the character models, though - they look fine from a distance ala Rune Factory, but when them pull the camera in close they look FFVII level terrible.

Core

I'm totally buying this, though this better not mean they aren't working on Suikoden VI on a console. Cause I want another full blown Suikoden!

Mr Pink

So if you loan out a character, and for some reason that person doesn't give them back...did you just lose a character?

Ardor

The 4 character thing is something I didn't enjoy much in Suikoden 4. I've always enjoyed a 6 person party. However, I love the series and will likely buy this quickly upon release.

Ergandar

So, this will be out in about early spring 2009?

Considering the pummeling my wallet is receiving this holiday season, the spring date is good news.

TheEternalCowboy

I haven't used my DS in months. This game needs to hurry up.

I wish they'd remake 1 & 2.