IGN article on the game
Hands-on Suikoden: Tierkreis
Konami comes out of nowhere with a seriously impressive DS offering.
by Mark Bozon
September 16, 2008 - Suikoden: Tierkreis is one of those games that simply comes out of nowhere. Konami calls us up, says they're bring a few other titles along with Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, and we write it off as just another "kill two birds with one stone" game demo. Then the team shows up with Suikoden, a franchise that has been around for 12 years, was an explosive RPG on the original PlayStation, and is now making its handheld debut, and blows us away. Suikoden: Tierkreis is the real deal.
The Suikoden franchise has always been known for its impressive visuals, gigantic roster of playable characters, and slick, speedy battle system. Tierkreis has all of that. Even with just a few minutes of hands-on time with the game we were shocked to see just how visually stunning the game is, how gigantic the world looks, and how much attention to detail has been thrown into what is sure to be one of DS's biggest sleeper hits of the year.
In typical Suikoden fashion, players collect new members for their roster as the story goes on, this time again starting off with just a handful of fighters that make up the 108 Stars of Destiny. In the portion we played, we had our own created character, and a group of four others with us as we explored the first two areas of the game. To streamline the experience, Suikoden DS makes use of a similar overworld map as Order of Ecclesia, allowing players to quickly move from section to section of the globe with a quick tap of the stylus or D-pad. In fact, the entire game is optional with its touch control, which is a nice touch, considering players could easily sit down and sink hours upon hours into the game at once.
Once entering into a specific region, Suikoden takes a design inspiration from the countless, traditional dungeon crawling franchises out there, using a main list of locations rather than building the entire world out with the stylistic 2D/3D trickery that makes the game so beautiful. If you select the blacksmith, you'll have a small area to wander around in that region. Pick the church or outskirts of the town, and you'll again work within a more controlled, visually pleasing chunk of game. It's a bit different from the classic RPG fare, but it also streamlines the experience, and worked very well given the platform.
When out in the field or on a quest, Suikoden: Tierkreis looks to be pretty standard fare for the franchise, having random battles on the overworld map that sends your team into a classic turn-based bout. Select specific magic or moves for each character, or set the party to auto-battle and watch them leap in and out in a quick, acrobatic display. Ah... classic Suikoden.
As a quick note on the characters themselves, 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. This game is slick, polished, and ready for you to pour dozens upon dozens of hours into.
Our time with the game was short, but we didn't let Konami leave without giving us a few interesting little tidbits on the game. For starters, you can expect just as many playable characters in Tierkreis as you would any other Suikoden game, which means there's a lot of random quests and challenges to fill out the main game, which is apparently 20+ hours on its own. In addition, the online functionality of Suikoden should be enough to get you frothing at the mouth. Details are slim at the moment, but 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.
Suikoden Tierkreis. Say that three times fast.We're still sketchy on how the whole thing will work, as we first think about the ambitious and lazy style of online gamers, who are more likely to give away a member of their party for free experience than volunteer their time to level one up. We're assuming Konami has a whole system set up where you give a little to get a little, or are required to take on some of these side missions to either level up your own party or gain additional spells yourself, but details will have to wait on it all. As it stands right now, we just know there's an online community aspect to the game, and it has our interest piqued. We'll be online, and yes, we're ready to grab a few of your characters and team up with them. That sounds like a blast, and an awesome way to connect "on the go" RPG gamers.
We'll have more on Suikoden: Tierkreis as we near the remainder of the fall and winter season, and will be getting our grubby little hands on the game just as soon as we can. Until then, seeing is believing, and we encourage you to check out over five minutes of direct-feed footage from the opening hours of the game, complete with some impressive visuals, recorded VO throughout (we weren't kidding when we said it had polish), and some impressive battling. Trust us, there will be a whole lot more coverage on this one before all is said and done. Start saving your cash.
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