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[GAME] DS - Suikoden Tierkreis
This game series should need no introduction, but sadly there will be many people who have never experienced this fantastic RPG series. Everyone thinks Final Fantasy when you ask about RPG’s on the Playstation. To the more experienced and hardcore players of the genre, Suikoden 1 & 2 will probably be among their favourite games of all time. This is certainly the case for me, and if you have not been lucky enough to play these originals, you will unfortunately have to pay around £60-£80 per game. They released very few in England and they fetch a very high price on most bidding sites now.
Lucky for you, Suikoden Tierkreis is in many ways very similar to these original games and available at about £30! For those of you who are new to the series then here is a bit of a break down about the game play. Please note that like Final Fantasy games, you do not need to play any of the other games to play the new ones. They are all set in different times, places and with a few exceptions, different characters. Anyway, this is how things in a Suikoden game tend to pan out;
You start out as an ordinary boy who enjoys being with his friends and is a natural leader, quick to act and strong both in the mind and body. While everything seems well in the world you discover you have the ability to use powers that can help save your world from what evil is rising. You have to recruit as many people as possible to join your army and strengthen your very own castle. In every game there are 108 recruit-able characters. Some which join automatically, others which you have to do certain quests and meet criteria to recruit. So to put it simple you have the ability to recruit loads of characters, build your own army and enjoy a great story on the way. A top class RPG in every respect.
So the DS version of Suikoden, from the second you turn it on and watch the opening cut scene you will be blown away, the anime style sequence shows off some of the main characters in the game and will have you dribbling at the lush graphics before you have even pressed start! While the actual game is in a mix of 2-D and 3-D all cut scenes are in the same beautiful artwork that the opening is in. The graphics are among the best I have played on the DS, there are tons of different places you will visit and they all look and have their own unique feel to them. While the massive array of characters and enemies all have their own distinctive image, voice and style. I was really impressed with the graphics and thought it was just one of the great points this game has to offer!
The story runs closely to what I described earlier with it being close to most Suikoden games. Your home town is put under trouble, you discover you have a great new power that will help you defend the ones you love. While doing so you become the leader of your own army and work against the evil beings that threaten to hard the land you live in. While it is a simple plot it does get rather deep and a lot of characters intertwine with each other creating some brilliant depth and some fantastic twists to the story. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends and you even get to recruit some weird and wonderful creatures to aid your army. So Graphics are good and the story is one of the best I have experienced in an RPG as of late. As I am sure you have guessed by now, I really like this game! But wait, there is a lot more I want to tell you about it.
If you enjoy RPG’s then you will have your favourite parts to the game style, I would have to say that mine is the characters and the development of them. I really enjoy creating a team of characters I like and making them really strong with the best equipment. SO imagine my excitement when I have the ability to choose from 108 characters! Not all are playable to fight with but some will aid you in battle by curing you or giving your more experience points. This for me is one of the great stand out features that Suikoden offers, and you could play through the game again several times with new teams and recruiting other people as some are miss-able after certain parts of the game. So while you may only recruit 40 people the first time, you could go through it again and get a different group of people and create a new team with different abilities.
The battle system is the usual system we see in most classic RPG’s, where the characters with the highest speed attack first and you battle it out until the HP of you or the enemy reaches zero! While it is simple, it is a well known battle system that all fans enjoy and sometimes, the simple things are best left alone. If you have played Suikoden games before then you would expect to see “runes” being used by all the characters, this is probably the biggest difference from the DS version to the others. The magic is gained from “chronicles” but the story is heavily based around this and if I delve too deep then it would ruin the enjoyment! But with each new “Chronicle” you will obtain new magic to use, be it offensive or support, it will depend on the character. So even more reason to get more people in your army and level them up. I really find Suikoden to be one of them games where the more you put in to it, the more you will get out of it. If you want to just do a fly by without recruiting characters who do not auto join you will enjoy the story and have some fun, but if you spend the time doing jobs and quests for people, getting new characters and better equipment you will learn more about the world you are playing in and have a much deeper story to go by.
Well without going on for too long you can see that Konami have put together a brilliant little (well it is at least 30 hours long!) RPG. A great handheld game and a must have for fans of the genre and the story. I have been really surprised as of late about how many RPG’s that the DS is getting, but not your standard RPG which you really have no desire to get. I’m talking the big boys of the genre – Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon and loads more. For any RPG nut then I would have to strongly advise picking up a DS, even if your not into the touch screen phenomenon and you really don’t care about the DSi or for that fact any other type of game. Then a second hand DS for £50 would open you up to a world of new and remade RPG’s that are timeless classics. This being one of the new ones with the classic feel but revamped style!
So I know what you are all thinking, there must be some bad points in this game or else I would have it by now!?! Well there are a few minor issues that will affect some people more than others. Many people have not been impressed with the voice acting. I for one found it acceptable and was happy to actually have voices on a handheld RPG. But the way they speak is very rushed, with little grammar and feeling, so this has been an issue for a few people. I know non RPG fans can find this one a bit intense, with a lot of talking, then moving on, fighting for a duration, then more speaking. While there are frequent save points and plenty of opportunities to go off recruiting people or doing as you wish this is no real problem but can become a bit of an annoyance for some. Final bad point, probably the amount of Magic that is in the game, I found there to be a lot of spells that were too similar and too many characters had the same spell list. It was a shame that you didn’t have the classic fire spell that got stronger, then someone else having water. It was all a bit mixed and with too little variety in that department. So not perfect but still a must buy!
A game that I have enjoyed no end and actually only ever put down when I have had no other choice. I think you will be hard pushed to find a better RPG at the moment;
9.5/10
This game series should need no introduction, but sadly there will be many people who have never experienced this fantastic RPG series. Everyone thinks Final Fantasy when you ask about RPG’s on the Playstation. To the more experienced and hardcore players of the genre, Suikoden 1 & 2 will probably be among their favourite games of all time. This is certainly the case for me, and if you have not been lucky enough to play these originals, you will unfortunately have to pay around £60-£80 per game. They released very few in England and they fetch a very high price on most bidding sites now.
Lucky for you, Suikoden Tierkreis is in many ways very similar to these original games and available at about £30! For those of you who are new to the series then here is a bit of a break down about the game play. Please note that like Final Fantasy games, you do not need to play any of the other games to play the new ones. They are all set in different times, places and with a few exceptions, different characters. Anyway, this is how things in a Suikoden game tend to pan out;
You start out as an ordinary boy who enjoys being with his friends and is a natural leader, quick to act and strong both in the mind and body. While everything seems well in the world you discover you have the ability to use powers that can help save your world from what evil is rising. You have to recruit as many people as possible to join your army and strengthen your very own castle. In every game there are 108 recruit-able characters. Some which join automatically, others which you have to do certain quests and meet criteria to recruit. So to put it simple you have the ability to recruit loads of characters, build your own army and enjoy a great story on the way. A top class RPG in every respect.
So the DS version of Suikoden, from the second you turn it on and watch the opening cut scene you will be blown away, the anime style sequence shows off some of the main characters in the game and will have you dribbling at the lush graphics before you have even pressed start! While the actual game is in a mix of 2-D and 3-D all cut scenes are in the same beautiful artwork that the opening is in. The graphics are among the best I have played on the DS, there are tons of different places you will visit and they all look and have their own unique feel to them. While the massive array of characters and enemies all have their own distinctive image, voice and style. I was really impressed with the graphics and thought it was just one of the great points this game has to offer!
The story runs closely to what I described earlier with it being close to most Suikoden games. Your home town is put under trouble, you discover you have a great new power that will help you defend the ones you love. While doing so you become the leader of your own army and work against the evil beings that threaten to hard the land you live in. While it is a simple plot it does get rather deep and a lot of characters intertwine with each other creating some brilliant depth and some fantastic twists to the story. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends and you even get to recruit some weird and wonderful creatures to aid your army. So Graphics are good and the story is one of the best I have experienced in an RPG as of late. As I am sure you have guessed by now, I really like this game! But wait, there is a lot more I want to tell you about it.
If you enjoy RPG’s then you will have your favourite parts to the game style, I would have to say that mine is the characters and the development of them. I really enjoy creating a team of characters I like and making them really strong with the best equipment. SO imagine my excitement when I have the ability to choose from 108 characters! Not all are playable to fight with but some will aid you in battle by curing you or giving your more experience points. This for me is one of the great stand out features that Suikoden offers, and you could play through the game again several times with new teams and recruiting other people as some are miss-able after certain parts of the game. So while you may only recruit 40 people the first time, you could go through it again and get a different group of people and create a new team with different abilities.
The battle system is the usual system we see in most classic RPG’s, where the characters with the highest speed attack first and you battle it out until the HP of you or the enemy reaches zero! While it is simple, it is a well known battle system that all fans enjoy and sometimes, the simple things are best left alone. If you have played Suikoden games before then you would expect to see “runes” being used by all the characters, this is probably the biggest difference from the DS version to the others. The magic is gained from “chronicles” but the story is heavily based around this and if I delve too deep then it would ruin the enjoyment! But with each new “Chronicle” you will obtain new magic to use, be it offensive or support, it will depend on the character. So even more reason to get more people in your army and level them up. I really find Suikoden to be one of them games where the more you put in to it, the more you will get out of it. If you want to just do a fly by without recruiting characters who do not auto join you will enjoy the story and have some fun, but if you spend the time doing jobs and quests for people, getting new characters and better equipment you will learn more about the world you are playing in and have a much deeper story to go by.
Well without going on for too long you can see that Konami have put together a brilliant little (well it is at least 30 hours long!) RPG. A great handheld game and a must have for fans of the genre and the story. I have been really surprised as of late about how many RPG’s that the DS is getting, but not your standard RPG which you really have no desire to get. I’m talking the big boys of the genre – Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon and loads more. For any RPG nut then I would have to strongly advise picking up a DS, even if your not into the touch screen phenomenon and you really don’t care about the DSi or for that fact any other type of game. Then a second hand DS for £50 would open you up to a world of new and remade RPG’s that are timeless classics. This being one of the new ones with the classic feel but revamped style!
So I know what you are all thinking, there must be some bad points in this game or else I would have it by now!?! Well there are a few minor issues that will affect some people more than others. Many people have not been impressed with the voice acting. I for one found it acceptable and was happy to actually have voices on a handheld RPG. But the way they speak is very rushed, with little grammar and feeling, so this has been an issue for a few people. I know non RPG fans can find this one a bit intense, with a lot of talking, then moving on, fighting for a duration, then more speaking. While there are frequent save points and plenty of opportunities to go off recruiting people or doing as you wish this is no real problem but can become a bit of an annoyance for some. Final bad point, probably the amount of Magic that is in the game, I found there to be a lot of spells that were too similar and too many characters had the same spell list. It was a shame that you didn’t have the classic fire spell that got stronger, then someone else having water. It was all a bit mixed and with too little variety in that department. So not perfect but still a must buy!
A game that I have enjoyed no end and actually only ever put down when I have had no other choice. I think you will be hard pushed to find a better RPG at the moment;
9.5/10
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[GAME] DS - Suikoden Tierkreis
This game series should need no introduction, but sadly there will be many people who have never experienced this fantastic RPG series. Everyone thinks Final Fantasy when you ask about RPG’s on the Playstation. To the more experienced and hardcore players of the genre, Suikoden 1 & 2 will probably be among their favourite games of all time. This is certainly the case for me, and if you have not been lucky enough to play these originals, you will unfortunately have to pay around £60-£80 per game. They released very few in England and they fetch a very high price on most bidding sites now.
Lucky for you, Suikoden Tierkreis is in many ways very similar to these original games and available at about £30! For those of you who are new to the series then here is a bit of a break down about the game play. Please note that like Final Fantasy games, you do not need to play any of the other games to play the new ones. They are all set in different times, places and with a few exceptions, different characters. Anyway, this is how things in a Suikoden game tend to pan out;
You start out as an ordinary boy who enjoys being with his friends and is a natural leader, quick to act and strong both in the mind and body. While everything seems well in the world you discover you have the ability to use powers that can help save your world from what evil is rising. You have to recruit as many people as possible to join your army and strengthen your very own castle. In every game there are 108 recruit-able characters. Some which join automatically, others which you have to do certain quests and meet criteria to recruit. So to put it simple you have the ability to recruit loads of characters, build your own army and enjoy a great story on the way. A top class RPG in every respect.
So the DS version of Suikoden, from the second you turn it on and watch the opening cut scene you will be blown away, the anime style sequence shows off some of the main characters in the game and will have you dribbling at the lush graphics before you have even pressed start! While the actual game is in a mix of 2-D and 3-D all cut scenes are in the same beautiful artwork that the opening is in. The graphics are among the best I have played on the DS, there are tons of different places you will visit and they all look and have their own unique feel to them. While the massive array of characters and enemies all have their own distinctive image, voice and style. I was really impressed with the graphics and thought it was just one of the great points this game has to offer!
The story runs closely to what I described earlier with it being close to most Suikoden games. Your home town is put under trouble, you discover you have a great new power that will help you defend the ones you love. While doing so you become the leader of your own army and work against the evil beings that threaten to hard the land you live in. While it is a simple plot it does get rather deep and a lot of characters intertwine with each other creating some brilliant depth and some fantastic twists to the story. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends and you even get to recruit some weird and wonderful creatures to aid your army. So Graphics are good and the story is one of the best I have experienced in an RPG as of late. As I am sure you have guessed by now, I really like this game! But wait, there is a lot more I want to tell you about it.
If you enjoy RPG’s then you will have your favourite parts to the game style, I would have to say that mine is the characters and the development of them. I really enjoy creating a team of characters I like and making them really strong with the best equipment. SO imagine my excitement when I have the ability to choose from 108 characters! Not all are playable to fight with but some will aid you in battle by curing you or giving your more experience points. This for me is one of the great stand out features that Suikoden offers, and you could play through the game again several times with new teams and recruiting other people as some are miss-able after certain parts of the game. So while you may only recruit 40 people the first time, you could go through it again and get a different group of people and create a new team with different abilities.
The battle system is the usual system we see in most classic RPG’s, where the characters with the highest speed attack first and you battle it out until the HP of you or the enemy reaches zero! While it is simple, it is a well known battle system that all fans enjoy and sometimes, the simple things are best left alone. If you have played Suikoden games before then you would expect to see “runes” being used by all the characters, this is probably the biggest difference from the DS version to the others. The magic is gained from “chronicles” but the story is heavily based around this and if I delve too deep then it would ruin the enjoyment! But with each new “Chronicle” you will obtain new magic to use, be it offensive or support, it will depend on the character. So even more reason to get more people in your army and level them up. I really find Suikoden to be one of them games where the more you put in to it, the more you will get out of it. If you want to just do a fly by without recruiting characters who do not auto join you will enjoy the story and have some fun, but if you spend the time doing jobs and quests for people, getting new characters and better equipment you will learn more about the world you are playing in and have a much deeper story to go by.
Well without going on for too long you can see that Konami have put together a brilliant little (well it is at least 30 hours long!) RPG. A great handheld game and a must have for fans of the genre and the story. I have been really surprised as of late about how many RPG’s that the DS is getting, but not your standard RPG which you really have no desire to get. I’m talking the big boys of the genre – Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon and loads more. For any RPG nut then I would have to strongly advise picking up a DS, even if your not into the touch screen phenomenon and you really don’t care about the DSi or for that fact any other type of game. Then a second hand DS for £50 would open you up to a world of new and remade RPG’s that are timeless classics. This being one of the new ones with the classic feel but revamped style!
So I know what you are all thinking, there must be some bad points in this game or else I would have it by now!?! Well there are a few minor issues that will affect some people more than others. Many people have not been impressed with the voice acting. I for one found it acceptable and was happy to actually have voices on a handheld RPG. But the way they speak is very rushed, with little grammar and feeling, so this has been an issue for a few people. I know non RPG fans can find this one a bit intense, with a lot of talking, then moving on, fighting for a duration, then more speaking. While there are frequent save points and plenty of opportunities to go off recruiting people or doing as you wish this is no real problem but can become a bit of an annoyance for some. Final bad point, probably the amount of Magic that is in the game, I found there to be a lot of spells that were too similar and too many characters had the same spell list. It was a shame that you didn’t have the classic fire spell that got stronger, then someone else having water. It was all a bit mixed and with too little variety in that department. So not perfect but still a must buy!
A game that I have enjoyed no end and actually only ever put down when I have had no other choice. I think you will be hard pushed to find a better RPG at the moment;
9.5/10
This game series should need no introduction, but sadly there will be many people who have never experienced this fantastic RPG series. Everyone thinks Final Fantasy when you ask about RPG’s on the Playstation. To the more experienced and hardcore players of the genre, Suikoden 1 & 2 will probably be among their favourite games of all time. This is certainly the case for me, and if you have not been lucky enough to play these originals, you will unfortunately have to pay around £60-£80 per game. They released very few in England and they fetch a very high price on most bidding sites now.
Lucky for you, Suikoden Tierkreis is in many ways very similar to these original games and available at about £30! For those of you who are new to the series then here is a bit of a break down about the game play. Please note that like Final Fantasy games, you do not need to play any of the other games to play the new ones. They are all set in different times, places and with a few exceptions, different characters. Anyway, this is how things in a Suikoden game tend to pan out;
You start out as an ordinary boy who enjoys being with his friends and is a natural leader, quick to act and strong both in the mind and body. While everything seems well in the world you discover you have the ability to use powers that can help save your world from what evil is rising. You have to recruit as many people as possible to join your army and strengthen your very own castle. In every game there are 108 recruit-able characters. Some which join automatically, others which you have to do certain quests and meet criteria to recruit. So to put it simple you have the ability to recruit loads of characters, build your own army and enjoy a great story on the way. A top class RPG in every respect.
So the DS version of Suikoden, from the second you turn it on and watch the opening cut scene you will be blown away, the anime style sequence shows off some of the main characters in the game and will have you dribbling at the lush graphics before you have even pressed start! While the actual game is in a mix of 2-D and 3-D all cut scenes are in the same beautiful artwork that the opening is in. The graphics are among the best I have played on the DS, there are tons of different places you will visit and they all look and have their own unique feel to them. While the massive array of characters and enemies all have their own distinctive image, voice and style. I was really impressed with the graphics and thought it was just one of the great points this game has to offer!
The story runs closely to what I described earlier with it being close to most Suikoden games. Your home town is put under trouble, you discover you have a great new power that will help you defend the ones you love. While doing so you become the leader of your own army and work against the evil beings that threaten to hard the land you live in. While it is a simple plot it does get rather deep and a lot of characters intertwine with each other creating some brilliant depth and some fantastic twists to the story. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends and you even get to recruit some weird and wonderful creatures to aid your army. So Graphics are good and the story is one of the best I have experienced in an RPG as of late. As I am sure you have guessed by now, I really like this game! But wait, there is a lot more I want to tell you about it.
If you enjoy RPG’s then you will have your favourite parts to the game style, I would have to say that mine is the characters and the development of them. I really enjoy creating a team of characters I like and making them really strong with the best equipment. SO imagine my excitement when I have the ability to choose from 108 characters! Not all are playable to fight with but some will aid you in battle by curing you or giving your more experience points. This for me is one of the great stand out features that Suikoden offers, and you could play through the game again several times with new teams and recruiting other people as some are miss-able after certain parts of the game. So while you may only recruit 40 people the first time, you could go through it again and get a different group of people and create a new team with different abilities.
The battle system is the usual system we see in most classic RPG’s, where the characters with the highest speed attack first and you battle it out until the HP of you or the enemy reaches zero! While it is simple, it is a well known battle system that all fans enjoy and sometimes, the simple things are best left alone. If you have played Suikoden games before then you would expect to see “runes” being used by all the characters, this is probably the biggest difference from the DS version to the others. The magic is gained from “chronicles” but the story is heavily based around this and if I delve too deep then it would ruin the enjoyment! But with each new “Chronicle” you will obtain new magic to use, be it offensive or support, it will depend on the character. So even more reason to get more people in your army and level them up. I really find Suikoden to be one of them games where the more you put in to it, the more you will get out of it. If you want to just do a fly by without recruiting characters who do not auto join you will enjoy the story and have some fun, but if you spend the time doing jobs and quests for people, getting new characters and better equipment you will learn more about the world you are playing in and have a much deeper story to go by.
Well without going on for too long you can see that Konami have put together a brilliant little (well it is at least 30 hours long!) RPG. A great handheld game and a must have for fans of the genre and the story. I have been really surprised as of late about how many RPG’s that the DS is getting, but not your standard RPG which you really have no desire to get. I’m talking the big boys of the genre – Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Dragon Quest, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon and loads more. For any RPG nut then I would have to strongly advise picking up a DS, even if your not into the touch screen phenomenon and you really don’t care about the DSi or for that fact any other type of game. Then a second hand DS for £50 would open you up to a world of new and remade RPG’s that are timeless classics. This being one of the new ones with the classic feel but revamped style!
So I know what you are all thinking, there must be some bad points in this game or else I would have it by now!?! Well there are a few minor issues that will affect some people more than others. Many people have not been impressed with the voice acting. I for one found it acceptable and was happy to actually have voices on a handheld RPG. But the way they speak is very rushed, with little grammar and feeling, so this has been an issue for a few people. I know non RPG fans can find this one a bit intense, with a lot of talking, then moving on, fighting for a duration, then more speaking. While there are frequent save points and plenty of opportunities to go off recruiting people or doing as you wish this is no real problem but can become a bit of an annoyance for some. Final bad point, probably the amount of Magic that is in the game, I found there to be a lot of spells that were too similar and too many characters had the same spell list. It was a shame that you didn’t have the classic fire spell that got stronger, then someone else having water. It was all a bit mixed and with too little variety in that department. So not perfect but still a must buy!
A game that I have enjoyed no end and actually only ever put down when I have had no other choice. I think you will be hard pushed to find a better RPG at the moment;
9.5/10