Something Italian!
Whew, I finally got a bit of a break here at the flight school, so I'm just sitting down to a break and some really excellent pomegranate green tea. I gots me some RPing to do, but first, a few very random thoughts on Suikoden Tierkreis.
- Overall, I really like it. It's a cute game, and it's fun to play. The artwork is beautiful and the sound is amazing. The music is I DON'T KNOW. Now that I think about it I don't think I've noticed the music at all. It's... there?
- That said, there are several things I don't like about it. I do kinda miss the maturity of the storytelling and characters that the Suikoden series is know for; Tierkreis has a bit of a Lite feel to it in both departments. It definitely feels as if it was aimed for a younger audience. I really don't like the emphasis placed on all the young, spunky characters. I HATE SPUNKY YOUNGSTERS. Well, okay, I don't really, I just don't like it seeing shrewd, intelligent adults standing around doing squat save for praising the precocious youth for their fire and determination to change the future. This conflicts with my impression of the majority of real-life young people and makes my head hurt. It's like, come on, if someone put an Xbox 360 in front of those kids they'd be all over that instead.
- It suffers a bit from the Suikoden Recruitment Curse: that is, you recruit an interesting character, and once they're in your clutches it's like they've DIED. Their storyline halts there and they ghoulishly hang around in your castle instead doing nothing save for lying around on your furniture or tossing off the odd comment if you talk to them. Nnnnnnooooooollercoaster.
- There are some great characters here. Luvais is hands down my favourite. Marica and Lui are cool too. I like the Wanderers in general. And Asad, and Chrodechild, even if I do tend to think of her name as being spelt 'Choadchild', which is all kinds of hilarious wrong. I also love whatshisface, the Suiko Doc this time around. Dr Zahra. YES. It's the manly chest and lab coat combo, along with his passion to DISSECT. HA HA HA. ACHTUNG, DOKTOR!
- There's a bunch of other characters I like, but I can't think of them offhand because I'm writing this while trying to watch someone taxi one of the planes out with no landing light on. This shall be good Entertainment, methinks.
- I also like the Hero character this time around! He's refreshingly angst and indecision-free, even if his voice does makes me want to punch a kitten through a plate glass window.
- Hahahaha, and Moana! I love her, she's great. I love how someone will suggest something bloody dangerous and she'll be like 'THAT'S BADASS.' In maybe not so many words.
- Nice twist on the Manaril/Rizwan relationship! I thought that one was gonna pan out pretty flat and black and white, but it was good to see that even Rizwan had her doubts about the whole business and let her daughter go for a reason. That made her much more than heartless bitch with a crazy haircut in my eyes. Cool.
- DID I SEE... GUNNERS? WITH GERMAN NAMES?! HEIL YES!
- I know I groused about the lack of maturity to the plotline a little further up there, but at the same time I've gotta say, I like the Order of the One True Way, even if they do reek of Black Hattism, ie: an Evil Organisation without depth or any shades of grey to it. I love the idea of an organisation built upon the notion of a predetermined future. That's pretty original! At least, given how so many RPGs before this one have featured villains bent on destroying God or being God or world domination or whatever. Stop pestering God, for christ's sake.
- Man, there is some gorgeous artwork in this game. For about five years I used to paint backgrounds for an animation studio myself (I still shudder to think of Cleo's pink bedroom in Clone High) and these backgrounds are seriously nice, liek dam. The use of perspective and the portrayal of distance is especially amazing. SO GOOD.
- They're a bit TOO good in places. Plot and action will be happening on the screen, and I'll be sitting there gaping at how beautifully some mountains in the background have been rendered. I had this exact same problem when I was first playing Half-Life 2 as well. Back then, I had a bad habit of stopping in the middle of a heart-stopping sequence to gawk at particularly well-rendered geometry. Enemy soldiers would be pinning me down with an effective crossfire and I'd be standing there yelling in astonishment over how good the water looked.
- I'm glad there are no True Runes in this game. I'm kind of getting sick of the damn things.
- Or no Runes in general. Fuck 'em! Books are better for you anyway! Go read a book!
- Oh my god, I need food or something. Okay, time to hit up some other stuff. More latah!
- Overall, I really like it. It's a cute game, and it's fun to play. The artwork is beautiful and the sound is amazing. The music is I DON'T KNOW. Now that I think about it I don't think I've noticed the music at all. It's... there?
- That said, there are several things I don't like about it. I do kinda miss the maturity of the storytelling and characters that the Suikoden series is know for; Tierkreis has a bit of a Lite feel to it in both departments. It definitely feels as if it was aimed for a younger audience. I really don't like the emphasis placed on all the young, spunky characters. I HATE SPUNKY YOUNGSTERS. Well, okay, I don't really, I just don't like it seeing shrewd, intelligent adults standing around doing squat save for praising the precocious youth for their fire and determination to change the future. This conflicts with my impression of the majority of real-life young people and makes my head hurt. It's like, come on, if someone put an Xbox 360 in front of those kids they'd be all over that instead.
- It suffers a bit from the Suikoden Recruitment Curse: that is, you recruit an interesting character, and once they're in your clutches it's like they've DIED. Their storyline halts there and they ghoulishly hang around in your castle instead doing nothing save for lying around on your furniture or tossing off the odd comment if you talk to them. Nnnnnnooooooollercoaster.
- There are some great characters here. Luvais is hands down my favourite. Marica and Lui are cool too. I like the Wanderers in general. And Asad, and Chrodechild, even if I do tend to think of her name as being spelt 'Choadchild', which is all kinds of hilarious wrong. I also love whatshisface, the Suiko Doc this time around. Dr Zahra. YES. It's the manly chest and lab coat combo, along with his passion to DISSECT. HA HA HA. ACHTUNG, DOKTOR!
- There's a bunch of other characters I like, but I can't think of them offhand because I'm writing this while trying to watch someone taxi one of the planes out with no landing light on. This shall be good Entertainment, methinks.
- I also like the Hero character this time around! He's refreshingly angst and indecision-free, even if his voice does makes me want to punch a kitten through a plate glass window.
- Hahahaha, and Moana! I love her, she's great. I love how someone will suggest something bloody dangerous and she'll be like 'THAT'S BADASS.' In maybe not so many words.
- Nice twist on the Manaril/Rizwan relationship! I thought that one was gonna pan out pretty flat and black and white, but it was good to see that even Rizwan had her doubts about the whole business and let her daughter go for a reason. That made her much more than heartless bitch with a crazy haircut in my eyes. Cool.
- DID I SEE... GUNNERS? WITH GERMAN NAMES?! HEIL YES!
- I know I groused about the lack of maturity to the plotline a little further up there, but at the same time I've gotta say, I like the Order of the One True Way, even if they do reek of Black Hattism, ie: an Evil Organisation without depth or any shades of grey to it. I love the idea of an organisation built upon the notion of a predetermined future. That's pretty original! At least, given how so many RPGs before this one have featured villains bent on destroying God or being God or world domination or whatever. Stop pestering God, for christ's sake.
- Man, there is some gorgeous artwork in this game. For about five years I used to paint backgrounds for an animation studio myself (I still shudder to think of Cleo's pink bedroom in Clone High) and these backgrounds are seriously nice, liek dam. The use of perspective and the portrayal of distance is especially amazing. SO GOOD.
- They're a bit TOO good in places. Plot and action will be happening on the screen, and I'll be sitting there gaping at how beautifully some mountains in the background have been rendered. I had this exact same problem when I was first playing Half-Life 2 as well. Back then, I had a bad habit of stopping in the middle of a heart-stopping sequence to gawk at particularly well-rendered geometry. Enemy soldiers would be pinning me down with an effective crossfire and I'd be standing there yelling in astonishment over how good the water looked.
- I'm glad there are no True Runes in this game. I'm kind of getting sick of the damn things.
- Or no Runes in general. Fuck 'em! Books are better for you anyway! Go read a book!
- Oh my god, I need food or something. Okay, time to hit up some other stuff. More latah!