07/11- 12:00PM EST
Well it seems that just like in the Suikoden III
opening when it says "the story never ends,"
people just can not get enough of talking
about this series. I'm not going to
complain. Keep sending in as many Suikoden
comments/questions/stories as you'd like! Of
course don't let this stop you if there are
other topics you'd like to talk about, such
as Nintendo's bungling of the Fire Emblem localization
announcement.
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I think around two weeks ago, you've wrote
something along the lines of
"I wonder what the Japanese think of the
handheld Suikodens"
so I figured I'm going
to write something, having actually played
the latest PSP Suikoden and followed the
online
reactions to the game.
Wheels
Excellent,
I did not expect to get a
response from anyone with a
finger on the pulse of the
Japanese gaming community, so
this should be quite
interesting.
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Quick disclaimer: I don't particularly care
about the Suikoden
series. I had some fun
with some of the games, but I could really
care less than it has a
billion plot threads that hasn't been
resolved yet like what Yuber and
Persmerga deal is and why Viki and Jeanne
are in every game and blah
blah. This is my take as someone who doesn't
have that much of a
connection which I'm certain a lot of people
are going to disagree with.
Wheels
That's
perfectly fine. Different
strokes for different folks as
they say. As much as I enjoy the
series I can perfectly
understand why it won't be for
some. This means you have a more
level headed opinion than us
crazy fans!
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Ever since Suiko 3, the
series has been bleeding out in terms of
sales. Suiko
4 is the game with the most
"mixed" reactions, but even Suikoden
5, a game that is generally agreed
to be better than 4 and maybe as good as 2 sold
LESS than Suiko
4. By this point, it's rather
obvious that if the series is going to
survive, catering to its "old
guard" does not seem like a viable strategy.
Wheels
That's
a shame, did Suikoden
IV scare people away
from even trying Suikoden
V? It's odd that it
sold so much less (about 110,000
fewer copies than IV
according to Wikipedia) despite
a more positive reaction. Was it
too little too late? Did it come
out too late in the life of the
PS2? While I agree they couldn't
continue just appealing to the
"old guard" with that kind of
drop in sales, at the same time
I believe they could have
appealed to new fans while at
the same time not alienating the
old ones.
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Suikoden
Tierkreis
was supposed to be a reboot of the series to
attract newcomers to the
series. The removal of the "old" universe
with its True Runes was
intentional because the series has built up
quite the web of continuity
knowledge in the same way Superhero comic
books tend to do. You can technically claim
main series are
"standalone" but I believe there was already
one person who claimed he
has no idea where to begin with in the
series and for good reason.
Wheels
Oh,
I completely understand
rebooting the story. Standalone
titles or not, it's hard to
completely enjoy the series
without having some idea about
the stories and characters of
all the games. That part of Tierkreis
I get completely. My issue comes
with the way it was rebooted,
moving away not only from the
gameplay ideas that made the
series so fun to play, but
moving to a more traditional
JRPG style story instead of the
intricate conflicts the series
is heralded for. I know that
sounds a bit unfair since Teirkreis
doesn't have an awful
story, but reboot shouldn't mean
that they throw away almost
everything that makes the series
what it is.
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Why use the Suikoden name instead of
starting a new series? Maybe they
just want the name to be relevant rather
than having it falling into
disuse and hibernation the way Breath
of
Fire did. Tir McDohl is still
getting consistent marketing spotlights once
in a while in Japan. The
thing about series reinventions which make
huge changes is that the
bar is set really high but if executed
right, the influx of new fans
will outright drown out the people who
"ragequit" the series at a drop
of the hat. Examples include Final
Fantasy 7 and Resident Evil
4
Wheels
That
is absolutely a fair point
(though I wouldn't consider FFVII
to be a reinvention), especially
citing Resident Evil 4 which
completely revived the pit that
series was falling into. Still,
RE4 maintains
the core gameplay of the series,
just tweaking it to be faster
paced and more relevant to
modern gaming. Imagine how they
could have done this with Suikoden!
Duels in the style of a fighting
game. Massive army battles as
real time strategy. How about
combat and exploration similar
to Dragon Age Origins?
Granted these are ideas more
appealing to Western gamers, but
you get the idea.
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The problem here is that Konami just doesn't
seem to have the
competence to pull it off. Which, for me,
isn't that surprising,
because unlike most people, I think Suikoden
is only an "above average" series in terms
of quality, and Konami has
been bleeding talent for quite some time.
They lack the talent to
actually go all the way and really bring the
series to the next
generation the way the examples I listed
earlier did.
Wheels
Having
not played many Konami games in
recent years outside of the fun
Castlevania
reboot, I can see that. They
certainly haven't produced any
RPGs of real note in a long
time. It is quite likely that we
Suikoden fans
will just have to be content
with the series as it is, which
is fine.
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Now, despite the flaws that I think the game
had, the general reception
for
Tierkreis tends to be
rather positive except for the
aforementioned "ragequitting" fans, both
in the English and Japanese market. A
comment trend in review sites is
that the game encouraged them to look for
the older games in the series
and look forward to the future of the
series, despite nutcases
constantly trying to sabotage the health of
their series by hanging
around internet forums and insulting
everyone who claims to like it. Konami seems
to consider the
game a financial success which succeeded at
its task.
Wheels
Well
that's good to hear. I certainly
would never complain about
anyone liking the game, and
encouraged everyone I knew to
buy the thing back when it came
out. That's just silly, and not
helping the series in any way.
No one is forcing old fans to
buy the new game, and trying to
ruin others' enjoyment of it
makes no sense. Glad to hear it
sold well enough.
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Now, the bad news is that they took this
chance and flubbed it up with
the PSP installment, which was clearly
rushed to try to beat out the
end of the PSP life and the beginning of the
Vita, which is a real
shame. The game is really confused as to
whether it wants to be low budget RPG (a
really common complaint on Japanese review
sites is that
the game was "not an RPG, but a Visual Novel
and a puppet play (a
literal translation, they are complaining
that the game uses a lot of
cheap machima scenes for their storytelling)
or a high budget blowout because they hired
rather famous VAs for the game, including
IIRC Norio
Wakamoto (who's a rather popular meme-ish
VA), Tomokazu Sugita (Kyon
from Haruhi) and Kikuko Inoue (Belldandy
from AMG). Unless those guys
are working for bananas nowadays, that's a
really bad mismanagement of
funds.
Wheels
It
seems odd to rush it out like
that, especially considering as
we've seen the Vita hasn't
exactly flown off the shelves,
and the title would be backwards
compatible digitally on the Vita
anyway. So why rush it? There's
still plenty of big PSP titles
coming out in Japan.
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It would only take way too long to list out
all of the game's flaws, so
I think the quickest summary is that the
game feels very obviously a
beta. Tierkreis
gameplay
system was basically a simplified version of
the main series, PSP Suiko
decided it wanted to revamp
the entire gameplay from the ground up but
clearly didn't finish it.
Wheels
That
does not sound very good. I mean
the team that worked on the new
games is new right? Why do a
total revamp so quickly? Sounds
like a lot of mistakes were made
in the planning stages for this
one.
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There's a class system, but none of the
classes are differentiated from
each other except for the 1 class that
heals. You have only 18
permanent character (and quite a lot of
temps/Jeigans), but it doesn't
matter anyway with that last sentence.
Multi-classing is only unlocked
like 1 dungeon before the end, and each
character can only specifically
multi-class to one specific other
class.There's a formation system, but
no one in the Japanese community seems to
know what it does and the
generally accepted answer is that it's
broken. There's a resource
management system where spells need reagants
to cast and you produce
them at HQ, but normal gameplay gives you
like hundreds of these
things. The camera goes nuts whenever you're
too close to the walls and
the automap is zoomed too close to be of any
use in in-door areas.
Wheels
Yikes,
sounds like a complete and utter
mess. I think for once it will
be a good thing that this game
is highly unlikely to get a
domestic release. Good ideas for
sure, if done right it would
have been an interesting take on
the series. Oh well, hopefully
it's not the last Suikoden
game.
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The only thing that saves it from being a
complete failure in every way
is that the writing is generally considered
better than Tierkreis and more in line
with the
original series and the aesthetics
(music/graphics) are above average.
Don't feel too sad about this game not
coming to the English market,
because it's considered pretty terrible
amongst the Japanese, hovering
at around 2 stars out of 5 at Amazon.
-Davzz
Wheels
Just
when I thought I would be
perfectly fine with it not
coming here, you mention that
the writing is better. Perhaps
they could clean the game up and
release it on Vita or PS3 or
something? Oh well, thank you
for the information! While I
have you could you perhaps tell
me how the SaGa
series has been perceived over
there post Unlimited
Saga? Also did the
Japanese also hate Dawn
of Mana as much as we
did?
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Hey Wheels,
Our back and forth questioning is slowly
becoming another hobby of
mine, as if I didn't have enough.
Wheels
That
is good to hear! I've quite
enjoyed it. To keep this going I
will be sure to find some more
questions to ask you.
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Did I run into any technical issues with Suikoden IV?
No, not that I can
remember. I ran into a lot of random
encounters, that's for sure.
Wheels
Ah
so it's one of those with a high
encounter rate then? That's a
shame. The first two games had a
nice low encounter rate that
spaced out battles quite well.
That coupled with very quick
battles made for a smooth flow
to the game. Not a huge deal of
course.
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It's funny how TwinBahamut and I have very
different feelings towards III, IV and
Tierkreis.
I get where he is coming
from with Suikoden
IV.
Compared to many other RPGs from the PS2
era, the graphics were quite
bland. Seeing as I am a person who finds
graphics the least important
facet of RPGs, I really didn't have any
issues with it. I mean, I
prefer anything pre-PS3/X360, so... I
personally think music brings
more atmosphere to the table than graphics
do, and I thought the music
in Suikoden
IV really fit the
overall theme very well.
Wheels
I
don't mind graphics too much
either, so that won't be an
issue for me. I mean, as great
as most of the sprite work is in
the original Suikoden,
it's far from perfect, so I'm
prepared for such issues. Heck,
I can still play the black and
white SaGa games so
I'm sure I won't be bothered
either.
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However, it is definitely not the most
forgotten
Suikoden game of all. That honor
will probably go to the Suikoden
Slot Machine, which
funnily enough is ALSO based on Suikoden
IV... Someone at Konami REALLY
loved Suikoden
IV, at least.
Wheels
What
in the heck? I don't even know
what to say about that one. That
is probably the strangest Suikoden
based thing I've ever
seen. I guess just like Capcom's
apparent love for the
low-selling but fantastic Mega
Man Legends series,
Konami loves the underdog entry.
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Also, can't really agree with him on how Suikoden
I
has aged. I think it's
still great, but again... Not too high on
graphics, so not too bothered
by that. It's also still has THE best
soundtrack of all Suikodens.
Wheels
I
didn't agree either really. 2D
PS1 games still look quite good,
especially on a PSP. If it were
a 3D game I'd agree, but Suikoden
I still looks just
fine, especially for a cheap
download on PSN.
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But to wrap it up; Suikoden IV
was definitely nowhere near as good as
either I
or II,
but I really
enjoyed it in its own right, and I actually
liked the fact that it
wasn't the same thing done once more.
Wheels
Good
to know. I'm going to save it
until after I finally play Suikoden
III, but I'm not going
to ignore it. Hopefully I will
enjoy as much as you did.
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Anyhoo, I wasn't trying to tease you with
the Gaiden
story, but what has been
going on has not exactly been sanctioned by
Konami, and I am not sure
if “modding” and “emulating” talk is
appreciated on RPGamer, so I
didn't go into it too much. I suggest just
searching for it on the net
and you will find it soon enough. Teehee.
Wheels
I'm
sure it's fine given that Gaiden
will never see the light of day
in the US. Feel free to discuss
it! I want to know more.
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Oh, by the way, I don't think the bugs were
the reason that Suikoden II hasn't shown
on PSN
yet. If I recall correctly, the EU version
didn't have the music
glitch, at least.
Wheels
Really?
Well whatever the reason it
needs to get up there. I doubt
most are as crazy as me and
willing to buy the game for
$120.
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But I will leave the Suikoden
discussion for now, my time is better spent
actually playing the games
and finishing Suikoden II,
finally!!! I also still need to finish Final Fantasy
VI. I blame ADD.
Wheels
Oh
dear me, you have to finish Final
Fantasy VI! Go play it
now. I'll wait...
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Now onto a hot topic, will Elder
Scrolls do anything new to the MMO
genre? Probably not. MMOs
have been so incredibly stagnant, and nobody
dares to be different in
fear of not becoming popular. I really,
really dislike MMOs personally
for it. I mean, you can say the same thing
for many genres, including
regular RPGs, but at least those have an
engrossing story that is
always interesting to unfold. MMOs are
really just fecth quest after
fetch quest and a lot of annoying folk with
stupid names spamming you
with messages trying to sell their phat
lewt. But I suppose that is
what MMOs are about... To each his own I
suppose. Definitely not my
thing though...
Now where was I?
Wheels
Not
my thing either, for that very
reason. Some of them I've found
interesting, but World
of Warcraft is the only
one that has drawn me in for
extended amounts of time. Being
such risky ventures I guess
developers are afraid of rocking
the MMO boat too much, which is
a shame. The genre has a lot of
untapped potential.
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Have you played Last Story? I
am still thinking about picking it up... but
I haven't touched my Wii
in ages. Funny that I can actually play
it... The way you guys feel
right now, is how we Eurogamers have felt
for many ages.
Cheers,
Daniel
Wheels
I
know, I suppose we deserve this
after being lucky for so long? I
did import it and have quite
enjoyed what I've played so far.
It's a fast paced and relatively
simple action RPG, with some of
the best music Uematsu has
produced in some time. It isn't
long or full of any kind of
exploration, and leans on the
easy side, but still quite fun.
I would recommend it, as long as
you aren't expecting something
like Xenoblade or Final
Fantasy.
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Oh, and in case you are curious, here is the
website to the Suikogaiden
Translation.
Wheels
Thank
you sir! I'm going to check it
out and will leave the link here
for others to take a look.
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You asked about how old the novel Water
Margin is, so here's the answer.
Water
Margin
(AKA Shuihu Zhuan in Chinese, Suikoden
in Japanese) is from the 14th century,
written during the Ming Dynasty
of China. It is one of the four novels of
that era that are considered
to be the four greatest and most influential
works of classical China,
alongside Journey
to the West, Romance of the
Three Kingdoms, and Dream of
the Red Chamber. The novel is
attributed to someone named Shi
Nai'an, though this is heavily disputed.
Some even claim that it was
actually written by the same person who
wrote Romance
of the Three Kingdoms.
Wheels
That
is some fine company right
there. Not that I've actually
read any of them, but I know of
the influence at least of Journey
to the West and Romance
of the Three Kingdoms,
mostly due to games related to
them.
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The novel really is interesting, and it if
you read it a lot of
similarities to the games really stand out.
A lot of major recurring
plot points from the games, like how the
main character often only
takes charge of the 108 stars after the
death of a previous leader,
come directly from the novel. The characters
in the novel often do
things like recruit the generals of the
armies that they defeat, and as
I alluded to in my last letter there even is
a giant tablet with the
names of all of the 108 Stars on it.
Naturally, a major location of the
novel is the fortress the main character use
as a base for their
banditry. Several games characters are very
strongly based on the novel
characters as well, such as how Luc shares
the same star as a (Taoist?)
priest who commands powerful magic, the True
Holy Rune people are based
on a guy who can run through the sky and
across the length of China in
less than a day, the pair of colorful
knights (like Camus and Miklotov)
are based on a pair of skilled generals who
were sent by the Chinese
Emperor to defeat the bandits, or how the
gunner Clive is based on a
warrior who defeats nearly every major
character with his incredible
skill at throwing rocks.
Wheels
Excuse
me, I need to go on Amazon and
try and track down a copy of
this novel...
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Of course, as I mentioned last time, the
characters of the novel can be
pretty psychotic. They are bandits after
all. Even the guy who shares
the same star as the main characters of the
videogames begins his
misadventures by killing his wife and goes
on to command his bandits to
commit all manner of gruesome deeds. Various
other scenes involve the
murder of innocent children and a rather
excessive amount of
cannibalism. There are several cases where
the bandits deliberately
ruin a guys's life and frames him for crimes
he didn't commit just
because they admire his skill and want him
to leave his honest life
behind to come work for them.
Wheels
OK
then again maybe not. I guess in
that regard it is a far cry from
the games. Might still be worth
a read but now it sounds far
more disturbing than I
originally thought. It would be
interesting if someone made a
game based on the book where you
actually play the group of
bandits...
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You know, talking about what the original
novel was like has reminded
me a bit about our conversation about Suikoden
Tierkreis and the fan outcry
against it. People complained that
it really isn't a Suikoden
game, or even that it should have a
different title, but I think that's
a bit silly. It may have dropped the True
Rune plot and it lacks some
of the fun mechanics from the earlier games
(we all miss the military
battles), but it still keeps the 108 Stars
story, and that is the one
thing that the games really took from the
original novel. In fact,
Tierkreis builds upon that concept far more
than any previous Suikoden game, and in
doing so it
brings in more ideas from the original novel
that weren't seen in the
earlier games. It may not work perfectly as
a sequel to the previous
games, but it works just as well or even
better as a game inspired by Water Margin.
-TwinBahamut
Wheels
That
seems a fair point. You know how
fans of games can be (certainly
based on my own reaction). I'm
at peace with Tierkreis
and wouldn't mind more games
like it if that's the way the
series is going to continue. One
think we can all agree on, more
Suikoden is
not a bad thing!
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The Q&A Ends With This
Letter
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Dear Wheels,
I know I don't normally send a letter this
soon after I already sent
one, but you asked a question, so I shall
answer.
What system do I think a The World
Ends With You sequel should be one,
and how can it be further
innovated? As for the system, while this may
not be original, I think
the 3DS would be a fine fit. I imagine many
DS owners have gotten 3DSes
by now. Not only does it have many of the
features the original had
(two screens, touch screen, microphone
wireless and wifi capabilities),
but the 3DS has an accelerometer, a
gyroscope, and cameras. Just
imagine the sort of psychs that can be
pulled off with these.
StreetPass and SpotPass could both be used
to exchange information or
to mingle far more effectively than in the
original. As you can
see, I'm not good at coming up with details,
but surely the folks at
Square Enix and Jupiter can.
Wheels
You know I really didn't think about
the different possibilities that the
developers could accomplish with the
various features of the 3DS. I was
mostly imagining how they could
potentially do a console The
World Ends with You game.
The WiiU's gamepad would make things
interesting.
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What I think would be really cool is that
rather than a direct sequel
(though the old characters could certainly
appear in the game, even if
just as cameos), it could take place in
another district of Tokyo:
Aoyama, Shinjuku, or perhaps most
appropriately, Harajuku. As I recall,
the Reaper games are played different for
certain (or perhaps all)
cities or specific areas of cities. This
could certainly explain any
major changes to the battle system. Heck,
they could completely change
it.
Wheels
I think that's their best bet. Have
the cameos for fans of the original,
but make a new cast to bring in new
fans as well. Another district of
Tokyo would be interesting, but
maybe go even further and make it
take place in a European city? Or
perhaps America? Not specifically as
something to attract Western games,
just as a way to shake up the
setting.
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Now then, if I may ask something: How do you
think the 3DS's new
features could be used for a potential TWEWY
sequel? Do you perhaps think
another system would be a better fit for
such a game?
-Strawberry Eggs
Wheels
I think the 3DS would be best
equipped for a sequel now that
you've brought up the idea of using
the gyroscope and the other
features. I'm not sure how exactly
they would use them, but it could be
interesting! We'll have to see,
hopefully if they are doing a sequel
we'll hear something soon.
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That's it for this week folks, go see Brave!
-Wheels
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