Suikoden Tactics is lots of people.
So if you haven’t heard, a translation patch was released a few weeks ago for the oft-overlooked game Der Langrisser. DL is my one of my favorite SNES games, about even with Earthbound and Chrono Trigger. Branching paths and an enjoyable battle system, fun plot and now a good translation. For more info, look at my vl blog because I’m too lazy to write more here.
I have also gotten further in Genso Sangokushi 2 / Fantasy Sango 2. Believe it or not, I’m still playing it – it’s a good long game. So far I still more or less understand the plot, and the battle system, plot, and graphical style are growing on me. The music is excellent, too – I’m glad I got the soundtracks with the game. Usually not very fast-paced, but perfectly themed for the game.
I started Suikoden Tactics and am about 10 hours into the game. I already have 25-ish characters. The most I’ve been able to use in battle is 8, so this seems a bit much like overkill. One thing I don’t get, though – story characters can’t die. Non-story characters can (and in fact every time I’ve had one beaten, they have died). I wouldn’t mind this as much if the enemy didn’t seem to target my killable characters, get a critical hit, and kill them without me being able to do anything about it. I’ve now stopped playing for the third time just because that happened halfway through a battle.
Besides, Pablo should be a story character, damn it. Kika is one, and she’s had less to do with the story and has shown no reason to research rune cannons specifically. Pablo has a vested interest, seeing as he was the only apprentice to the only rune cannon maker ever, and still doesn’t know how the damn things work. I would think academic curiosity alone would’ve made Pablo a story character, but nooo…
Otherwise, the story has so far been pretty good for the beginning being depressing and Yohn being depressing. And the fact that the game said “resting makes your characters talk to each other” but so far it’s “resting makes Kyril sit by a fire while Yohn sits there being depressing”.
Lord Yuan Shu Said,
June 23, 2007 @ 11:55 am
I read the DL text is bigger than most books and basically any 16 bit game. That’s pretty impressive.
So Pablo keeps dying huh? He was a good rune user in 4. You’ve got me mildly interested in this game but the 8 characters per battle thing is a little disconcerting when there are 108 characters (or do you not get all 108 in tactics)?
niahak Said,
June 23, 2007 @ 2:37 pm
Yeah, Pablo’s a wuss. I’ll probably switch him out for a better caster or find some equipment to make him better soon.
You get 50-60ish characters in ST, from what I’ve heard. You can load S4 data in, and if you have all 108 you can get a “secret character” (I bet you can’t tell who!) who actually has a voice and personality in this one… and kicks butt.