61 Frames Per Second

Let’s get something out of the way first, to avoid misunderstanding: I love Suikoden. I know that Suikoden II is the best game on the PlayStation, and that it is easily one of the two best games I’ve ever played. I left Suikoden III spinning in my PS2 for hours, and I’m not talking about playing it—I’m talking about letting the attract video repeat over and over just to listen to its score. I played Suikoden Tactics from beginning till end, and so help me, I didn’t hate it.

I’m telling you this because I want you to understand the depth of my meaning when I tell you Suikoden Tierkreis isn’t for me. Sure, it cribs from parts of older Suikodens, and those parts of Tierkreis endeared themselves to me. But I can’t believe that’s anything but a Pavlovian reaction to JRPGs loved and lost (or rather, JRPGs loved and left to gather dust in the closet).

Here’s what is there from older Suikodens: 108 Stars of Destiny to gather, a castle with an elevator, a streamlined and elegant battle system. The series’ legacy of excellent music is upheld impressively as well. It’s what’s not there is a lot more important, and takes a little bit more explanation.

One of the most important elements of the Suikoden franchise is its constant focus on local histories—“local” in that it depicts conflicts between nations, and “history” in that it depicts them in a believable way with little sense of which side is good and which is evil. Those of us who play JRPGs may think it is compelling to wrest dreams of world destruction from the grip of a mad god, but that is nothing compared to maneuvering political webs and enlisting the local citizenry to take a conflict that may or may not be just to its better end. At its best Suikoden provided the latter but it also added personal battles intensified and complicated by the war at hand. An engaging mix that easily trounced the fairy tales of JRPGs it competed against, you never saved the world in Suikoden. Suikoden, for all of its successes and failures, was above saving the world.

So in Suikoden Tierkreis, you save the world from a mad god and the nation of zealots who worship him. Your team of “starbearers” are clearly in the right the whole time, and most of your enemies, with dreams based in selfishness or fanaticism, are clearly in the wrong. The nameless hero, a village boy whose origins are mysterious, is far too simpleminded to engage in political intrigue so the game pays shallow lip service to the concept. His simple nature and devil-may-care attitude also means personal troubles elude him completely. There are glimmers of past brilliance in the story—a handful of villains have complex motivations, for example—but this is largely JRPG 101, complete with horrible voice acting. 

The rest is not horrible, provided JRPG 101 is your thing. Suikoden’s battle system is still a thing of elegant beauty, and it’s sleeker than ever in Tierkreis. The technical presentation is wonderful, though many of the face textures are pretty questionable. The main characters are likable—Tierkreis deserves credit for presenting its dumb, good-natured hick of a protagonist as an actual dumb, good-natured hick, and the rest of the cast falls into place well around him. There’s a lot of things to see and fun to be had, two elements that have not been present in every Suikoden. It’s not the worst Suikoden by a good margin, assuming it’s a Suikoden at all.

Previous Reviews:

The 61FPS Review: Eat Lead - The Return of Matt Hazard
The 61FPS Review: Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop
The 61FPS Review: Resident Evil 5