AKA Completely unrelated to anything. The million worlds* concept was something Konami decided to use so they don't have to bother with continuity anymore.
*I know it was introduced in the canon mainline series, but the Tierkreis/tapestry version of it is completely different.
yes it's not related to the first 6 ( counting tactics not counting the extra scenarios ) suiko games ...it's in his own world and work by his own rules ..
If you want a nice rpg with cool political turmoil and some recruting , then go ahead ..
If you want to explore more of the original world regardless of when ( like 3 or 4 did ) , then no it isn't for you.
One thing is sure ..it's a good rpg , so unless that previous requirement alone is NOT GOOD ENOUGH to waste your time in this game , i can recommand to at least try ( or give it a chance )
There's quite a bit of voicework in the game. Actually, any time a character is first introduced/about to join you, they'll be voiced, as I recall. After that, only characters that are directly involved in major events will be voiced.
That sounds fine. I wonder if they put more emphasis on the narrative during development as opposed to the systems, then. I might modify my expectations of the game system-wise and go in for the narrative first and foremost instead.
About the characters art it's uneven .. Some are really great and the rest is generic to the core.
-MC is not an undecisive angst that keep getting manipulated every 5 min or crying, despite his past ( that isn't great ) . Instead of whinning about it , he acts ... EVEN when someone is revealing something that would shake many rpg leads , He ( and the Heroine ) are collected enough to stay focused on the matters at hand.i enjoy the writing so far. The game doesn't hesitate to mix serious and comic moments thanks to some spécific characters.
-Game is pretty easy if you gear up and level up properly ..
( i know you're reading this dark schala , so i'll be clear , this isn't Xillia level of broken but you'll be at ease if you manage your base members activities properly and that means stocking up with the right items for them to create good things for you this will probably allow you to one shot almost everything in your path except bosses )
I think it's funny that you have to put the difficulty disclaimer in for me. :lol
I don't think I want to artificially increase the difficulty by not levelling things up, not taking on subjobs, or whatnot. If it's too easy, then it's too easy. Disappointing, but since the narrative and political turmoil (yes, this is what I want) appear to be the game's strong suit maybe I can make an exception.
And it's too bad that the art is inconsistent. I wish they'd gotten the more traditional Suikoden artists (at least Kawano) to do the art. :/
How does the MC compare to... Stocke, for example? The way you're describing him makes him seem like FFXIII-2's Noel, but you haven't gotten too far in that game yet, I don't think.
Oh, I'll play it eventually. (An English version would help with that, but I don't know if that's a strong possibility.)
I enjoyed Tierkreis for what it was, a nice, light RPG. But it didn't satisfy my Suikoden fix, and this won't either.
The continuing world and characters are what make the series what it is to me, so I'm hoping that Konami will revisit the main series next and leave these faux Suikodens behind.
The continuing world and characters are what make the series what it is to me, so I'm hoping that Konami will revisit the main series next and leave these faux Suikodens behind.
They won't. The true Suikoden series is dead. All we have to look forward to is one or two more Million Worlds games before they completely kill the franchise.
-Can't explore Bases
-World map is a Dot map ( think Legend of mana or final fantasy advance 1)
-Field areas are small ( don't expect to explore in this game )
-Can't control the camera properly ( why can't i move the camera with L or R ? )
-Game is pretty easy if you gear up and level up properly ..
( i know you're reading this dark schala , so i'll be clear , this isn't Xillia level of broken but you'll be at ease if you manage your base members activities properly and that means stocking up with the right items for them to create good things for you this will probably allow you to one shot almost everything in your path except bosses )
That's because i know how you reacted to Xillia ...Anyway the game is like Suiko 5... not even remotely difficult .
I don't think I want to artificially increase the difficulty by not levelling things up, not taking on subjobs, or whatnot. If it's too easy, then it's too easy. Disappointing, but since the narrative and political turmoil (yes, this is what I want) appear to be the game's strong suit maybe I can make an exception.
And it's too bad that the art is inconsistent. I wish they'd gotten the more traditional Suikoden artists (at least Kawano) to do the art. :/
How does the MC compare to... Stocke, for example? The way you're describing him makes him seem like FFXIII-2's Noel, but you haven't gotten too far in that game yet, I don't think.
I just quit academia 400AF in ff13-2. Anyway the MC is not like Stocke ... Stocke was just too much able ... i doubt i'll see anyone up to his level ever again. Stocke had an initial experience as a spy anyway.
The MC here is lacking any of the common problems ..that Jrpgs haters often use to judge the jrpgs guilty ....
He has a clear goal , isn't overly optimistic and make correct decisions ( that aren't by your input ) .. He isn't lazy by any means ..doesn't carry a huge sword around ...well you get the type..No silly romances going on. ... regular dude in regular outflit ...as for your initial question ..he isn't one of my favorite lead yet ..but could be ... i really like some scenes i got and even when you fall ( because there is still choices to answer, the rest of the cast will back you up ) in fact while writing this ... that MC remind me of the suiko 5 MC with more personnality ( that is because he does talk ) with a way different background and motives of course...
Everything plotwise sounds great. I should hopefully be getting my copy this week, so I'll jump in. *fingers crossed*
Well you'll probably finish the game before i do ..i still have a lot of things to do and not much time and i tend to waste a lot of time going at my own pace in jrpgs..
Hello everyone ..
i'm bumping this thread because it's the only place to talk about this game right ?
At this point i'm recommanding this game..
I'm biased about time travelling games but in this game it works ....
Sure most of the ancestors are saying " oh so you're from the future ? that's cool " << or something ...nobody seem to care how the time travelling works ( outside the main story ).. the fact that it works and allow the party to progress seems like the only thing that matters... well considering what's happenning ... i'm pretty sure they can think about it later ...
The thing is that when they indeed travel to the past that's a pretty good reason to believe.
The dongeon structure is pretty much the real downsize of the game.. They have some nice ideas ( in a dense forest , your mini map is smaller , meaning that it's easy to get lost or confused if you don't pay attention) nothing game breaking as most of the dongeons are small ..but the design and some sucession of mini maps can make you travel past the same room over & over again.They tried to give you hints ( the arrow on your map is different from the entrance of the map or the entrance of the last map visited )
This, added to the "camera" management can make this frustrating... ( I really don't see WHY WHY i can't manage the camera with L or R ) ..
Battle system is cool ....i have no complains ( except some ennemies that seem strong but not as strong as some damage they can give you ) ..really ..it's fast , leveling is easy .. and for people wanting challenges , you have some missions in your camp to pass the time. ( 1 mission each time you visit the camp )
Everything is correctly streamlimed so that if you pay attention to your inventory , you'll have what to do to progress.
For those complaining about the town maps, it's really weird there are actually several maps that are towns , complete with NPCs ..sure it's 4-5 npcs max but they are there ..they probaby couldn't manage all the towns changes ( with the time changes ) but it's a real contrast.. the capital and several important ( story wise ) towns are 2d maps.. but some smallers areas are in full 3D.
Your camp quickly becomes crowded with the recruits. It feels quite good.
Be carefull with some choices !! Some optionnal answers can prevent you from recruiting !!
I won't talk about the story but it's good .. The MC is really awesome.. can take initiative when needed and has enough attitude to make everything enjoyable. this is clearly thank to the supporting cast ( i have some favorites )
The strategist however is really unusual...he is actually a fighter !! . Given as there is NO battle mini game in this game , it also make sense and YOU HAVE to see his fighting stance
It's no suikoden 2 because there are multiples layers of evil within the story but really it's just GOOD.
Better than Hugo ( way more calm )
Better than Geddoe ( personnal opinion many won't agree .. In fact a friend of mine doesn't agree )
Same as Chris. ( but different character overall )
^^^^ This is a personnal opinion.. For reference i prefer Suiko 5 protagonist than the suiko2 protagonist but i prefer suiko 2 antagonist and story .
I was reading some of the mk2 reviews, and a lot of them were dinging the game because it isn't Suikoden, which I find rather unreasonable, but whatever. Some of the other complaints were rather justified, and the average score doesn't seem very good too.
When I read through the character synopses for this game, I was surprised that they were making the strategist go on the front lines this time around. Which seemed like a good next step for the mainline Suikoden games, so it's interesting to see it here.
As for the protagonist, better than Hugo is always a good thing!
I have a biochem exam tomorrow, so I'll be studying for that. After I'm done, though, I'll start this game. I finished Hakuoki and I need to write impressions for that, but after that, it's Suikoden Time!
Yeah, the strategist is on the frontline in this but is justified because he's actually a
ninja
. In particular, this game doesn't have large scale battles so his job isn't directing an army but to give tactical advice and insight into what's going on which he does very nicely.
Thanks for the impressions, R_thanatos.
-----
I have a biochem exam tomorrow, so I'll be studying for that. After I'm done, though, I'll start this game. I finished Hakuoki and I need to write impressions for that, but after that, it's Suikoden Time!
Well i will write my own review about this game when i'll get the true end ( i'm pretty sure i'm missing some characters ) so 'ill have to retry ... unless i've missed an event ? And then i'll do the opposite ..start hakuoki.
I finally found composer credits off the Japanese iTunes release of the OST. It is advisable to get this version because it has more pieces on it, I think.
Music: Seiichi Takamoto (SOLIDTUNE Inc.)
Music: Miki Higashino (original composition only; this is for the Name Entry BGM, and another theme: 成長の証 ~レベルアップBGM~ (Proof of Growth ~Level up BGM~), which I assume to be the victory theme?
I am bumping this thread because there is nowhere else to talk about the game, and I felt it was time to post up my impressions of it. R_thanatos had also very recently finished the game with 108 stars but I guess he forgot to post his final impressions right after that.
So I finally finished this with all 108 stars, meaning I played through this twice, and my second time was assisted by the gameclear wiki. There are two endings: one with the 108 stars and one without having the 108 stars.
Overall, I think its fairly average, and I agree with Shoutas sentiments of giving it a 6-7/10. It isnt awful at all, and I got more out of the story and some of the gameplay bits than I thought I would have. With that said, Im disappointed that Konami decided not to release a canon game, but in some ways, while Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki isnt really a Suikoden game, it feels a lot like a Suikoden game. It may not be a good Genso Suikoden game, but its a decent, but average, RPG. Thus my impressions are rather consistent with Shoutas and R_thanatoss.
The voice cast is excellent. Norio Wakamoto, Takahiro Sakurai, Daisuke Ono, Tomokazu Sugita, Miyuki Sawashiro, etc. They got some good guys to voice the characters and theyre generally a good fit.
The game itself is fairly easy. Battle formations dont seem to matter much, either, which is disappointing since GS5 did a lot to include the importance of formations and adjusted stats accordingly. Remember how in the trailer we said the battles looked like they were slow? Theyre not as slow as I thought they would be, but theyre not as fast as GS1 or GS2.
The camera is crap. Its just utter crap. Horrible. The game doesnt really come out looking that great either. Its aesthetics almost scream budget. Compared to Tierkreis, this game is quite dull and muddy to look at, and the textures are hilarious.
Um, there are some changes that I dont think Suikoden fans would like, but I thought the approaches they took to the formula were interesting. For example:
rather than having access to a lot of playable characters, you have access to 18 playable characters out of the 108 stars. 12 of your recruitable characters dont even have character portraits because of certain plot things, but they just join because you inherit their skills.
This approach isnt quite to my liking (because some of the members arent around for you to meet and talk to for certain spoileriffic reasons) but because you can assign subjobs and stuff, your number of characters to use in combat increases. Its just too bad that
you cant bring people to and from eras (since only the characters of the present time era can go back and forth through time).
Unite attacks work way differently; you can group certain characters to get some bonus stats in battle and theyll have a name assigned to their unit similar to a name that youd have for a unite attack. Then theyll just attack enemies randomly together rather than having a special unite attack animation. I think this is a bit of a shame, tbh, since I got a lot out of the unite attacks. Healers and offensive mages need items so they can attack but it isnt hard to accumulate these items at all. Field areas are also quite small.
With regards to the plot, its darker than Tierkreiss plot. Thats welcome. I didnt care for Tierkreis much. The best ending is really good. The writing is solid, and very complete. Time travel in this game is used very competently as a mechanic; I really like it. It shows how much of a scale the games conflict and plot expands, like for example, Zephon says at the beginning that
when you go back in time and change something, the present you experience isnt changed. Rather, a new present is created, and the present that youre a part of just branches off into its own thing. So there are no timelines being discarded into a DBT like in Chrono Trigger, so this is just a more less cruel version of time travel. Its very interesting. He says that time-travel has the possibility of causing a paradox (philosophical paradox, not FFXIII-2 definition of paradox) if they erase the reason why they travelled back in time, and that sort of thing couldnt be resolved without using the Million Worlds
. So, its pretty interesting. I think the game should have been longer because the characters themselves dont get much time in the spotlight, so their development isnt very great and that sort of thing was Suikodens strength. So while its well-written and the plot overall is interesting, they couldve done a lot more with it character-wise. Otherwise, it being decent was a surprise. I do like Zephons explanation of the Million Worlds concept, though. There were a few twists and surprises I wasnt expecting, so thats good!
The main character is pretty decent. Like, dont expect Hugo or whatshisfacewhospeakslikethis Sieg. Youd think hed be all down-in-the-dumps considering his past and current circumstances, but he general takes action and hes pretty focused. Hes voiced, but that doesnt really detract from his character. The seiyuu does a good job with communicating his personality.
This Genso Suikoden game has something that every Suikoden game after it should have: dinner time! These provide stat buffs for the next day, and they can also increase the affection of your teammates. Depending on who you pick to eat with, youll have some conversations. There are also lotsa different cooks, and they specialize in a certain type of food (ex: one of them cooks meat well, another cooks fruits/vegetables well, etc). This kind of mechanic is very welcome and shouldve made its way into Suikoden a lot earlier than this.
Linking to how certain cooks have their own specialties, you can have people who are proficient at crafting certain items (so they may be proficient at making one thing and not very proficient at making something else, so it makes sense for other Stars of Destiny not used in battle to be useful for something. Armour/weapon crafting adds temporary bonuses, and Magic/Arrow/Medicine crafting is used for techniques. Also, the strategist participates in battle, so thats really neat since its never happened before! Hes a
ninja
. Thats different. The game doesnt have large-scale army battles like the other games do, so he just gives advice to the army in terms of general tactics and current developments.
Trap bases are requests and you can put Potch in and you can set traps to catch monsters. If you want to have higher chances of capture, youll put more in. After you get back to your base later on, youll money and items for it. This is a decent way to rack up money and items for crafting and other stuff like that. Challenge battles are really nice too, and I think Suikoden probably should have had that before. Theyre just timed battles and you get some spoils from those too.
The music isnt as good as Tierkreiss massive soundscape, which spanned several CDs, but its good enough. A lot of the people on this soundtrack arent people Ive heard very much of (they had a few Tierkreis composers working on Frontier Gates soundtrack, which is pretty good). The theme song, The Giving Tree, is very good. I think its better than Tierkreiss, and feels kind of consistent in tone and vocalist tone colour with some of the old games theme songs, but it has more of a pop-ish feel. With that said, its a very decent song with a good tempo, especially for the chorus, which I think is quite well-composed.
Im not sure if the soundtrack is on YouTube, otherwise Id post samples. The Beginning Theme, which is in every single Genso Suikoden game, is, uh, it makes me feel pretty happy to hear because they managed to slip a tribute to Into a World of Illusions in there and selected some decent samples to make the instrumentation good, and lets the composition shine. Its very good. The World Map theme To the Yet Unseen World is good as well. Again, good samples, good composition, and when it goes into the main bit, its very reminiscent of a regular old Suikoden game, with that woodwind, piano, and keyboard voice.
The battle theme, An Opponent Blocking Your Way, is one that Im not super-hot about. It starts off a little slow, and goes into a melody that I really like, and then it moves into a portion that Im not enthusiastic about. It isnt messy, but it isnt really my thing either. The loop takes long to come back to (1:30), so since youre likely going to finish battles quickly, you might not get to the nice bit. The Victory theme makes me smile because its exactly what you think it is with this games variation of it.
There are several versions of the HQ theme, which each corresponding to the time of day. Its pretty decent. Lotsa woodwind in the noon one, and it sounds pretty. As for the town themes, if youre used to instrumental variation from the older games, youll like this one. I didnt find one that hit me as hard as Porpos from Tierkreis, but theyre all good. Maybe Multillion might come close to it, because I think the theme is very sweet and the instrument samples are very good.
No, the strategy theme doesnt call back to the strategy theme from either II or V. But its a decent composition on its own.
Im sure the soundtrack itself will worm itself into my Soundtrack of the Year 2012 post either as an honourable mention or a Top 3, so be on the lookout for a more in-depth post about it, I guess.
Im not sure that if people who didnt like Tierkreis would like this very much, though. There are many gameplay changes and story bits that Im sure canon fans wouldnt enjoy. Actually, Im sure that the gameplay changes wouldnt be to fans liking at all. I tried going into this with an open mind and not expecting a Suikoden game and came out a little pleasantly surprised.
However, if this game had a bigger budget, I feel like it couldve been a great RPG.
This will probably serve as final impressions given that 3 people gave their impressions on this game already ( myself included ) ..that's also why i didn't write my final thoughts since they didn't change much regarding the overall package.
So
-Yes the camera is utter garbage..i complained about it since way before and i'll say it again ... it's just obvious something is wrong as soon as you go the first field you can explore .. how they didn't realise this and fix it is a mystery ....the fact that you can change camera settings yet this is so BAD make it really weird .
garbage is a strong word ... it's tolerable ... but it would have been perfect with semi manual controls with L+R ...as it stand it feel incomplete and lacking
The cast of characters is strong no doubt , the voice acting made them very good and Mr Norio wakamoto is perfect as always ...
Otherwise..yeah time mecanics that works ... it works well and doesn't leave you confused a definite achievement.
Pacing is bad... if you go blind you'll be lost ..thankfully the game does give some very very subtle hints that you should explore a bit before continuing ..
Traps bases are broken , seriously you can just put money on it each time before going out and aside from 3 items that are specifics to some places ( only 3) you'll never run out of items ..that means that you can spam your BEST spells/HP recovery / mana recovery without ever caring ... meaning that some battles that are already not that harder get easier..
You'll be fine and almost never run out of ressources .. recrutables characters however will give you some nice problems if you don't go with a faq ( like me the first time )
Battle scénarios/quests are very good ... Some 5 stars battles were pretty cool .. the goal is not to just beat the monsters but to do it within the time limit .. A regular balanced party won't be enough for the best battles , so there was so nice moments were i finished with 0.00 on the timer and i enjoyed it a lot.
Recrutable characters were really good with on 2 that i didn't like ( they were tolarable)
However, if this game had a bigger budget, I feel like it couldve been a great RPG.
So true ..something that could have been great but wasn't ...
The rest has already been said ..i have nothing to add and i agree with the others opinions
Traps bases are broken , seriously you can just put money on it each time before going out and aside from 3 items that are specifics to some places ( only 3) you'll never run out of items ..that means that you can spam your BEST spells/HP recovery / mana recovery without ever caring ... meaning that some battles that are already not that harder get easier..
This is one of the reasons why I thought this game was quite easy. You'll never run out of items because a lot of the materials to make better recovery/best spells items are plentiful. So if you keep spamming the stuff, the battles are easier as a result. And since you expect battles in Genso Suikoden to go by quickly, you kind of want them to be completed in just a few rounds. >.>
Just like every GS game, so sometimes you'll miss some. I ended up using a wiki for it as well. I guess Shouta did too.
So overall, it was a good game. A mediocre game, hampered by the budget and general ease, but it isn't that bad. It could have been great if it had a bigger budget, I guess, or if the camera was better. They added a lot of stuff like challenge battles and dinner scenes which should be in every Suikoden game from now on because they added a lot to the game, imo. At least it brings something new and interesting to the table, and the plot in general was interesting. I liked it better than Tierkreis.
In case anyone's interested, I did some digging and managed to confirm the character designer: Ohtsuki Beruno. He's a newcomer to the series, as well as games in general. So far, the only other work I've found by him is a FFXI spinoff manga.
Yeah tried searching that name in kana and didn't come up with much outside of the FFXI stuff and the twitter.
That name looks familiar in a Suikoden thing, though... I swear I've seen that name before in some Suikoden media outside of this one. Fake edit: this thing (幻想水滸伝 アライアンス. Look for おおつきべるの. Same person?
Fake edit: this thing (幻想水滸伝 アライアンス. Look for おおつきべるの. Same person?
Sorry for the bump to this old thread, but wanted to share this as some may be interested.
From Suikoden Revival Movement
We are excited to announce the release of the Suikoden: Woven Web of the Centuries English patch made possible by Twisted Phoenix in collaboration with Gensopedia and Suikoden Revival Movement. The game will be released on Friday (10.8.2021.) Disclaimer: The game patch is a free / non-commercial and fan-based project. This is NOT an official translation and all rights belong to Konami. Please support the official release. Suikoden: Woven Web of the Centuries is a PSP game that never was localized outside of Japan. It's the last published Suikoden title by Konami in 2012.
