108 Stars on the Go

For those of you out of the loop on the Suikoden series, the games are based off of a Chinese book of the same name. They feature 108 characters (known as the 108 stars), and feature grand, sweeping stories. Traditionally a PlayStation franchise, Suikoden Tierkreis marks the series’ first installment on a different platform, bringing this new installment to Nintendo DS.

The debut Famitsu article gives us 4 pages of introduction to this new adventure, detailing a few of the characters and some of the game’s features.

Main Character
The main character of this story is a boy from a small border settlement known as Shetrow Village where he is affiliated with the local militia. Having helped defend the village from marauding bandits and monsters, he has become quite skilled. Despite this, he is rather reckless, often acting before he has thought the situation out fully. In the revealed movie scene, the 108 stars were completely wiped out, but what happened to this young man…?

Jayle
A young man also with Shetrow’s militia, Jayle is a quiet young man that prefers not to interact with people much. However, he treasures those he considers friends, and will often support the main character as if it were nothing.

Marika
The daughter of Shetrow’s Village Chief, Marika is childhood friends with the main character and Jayle. She too joined the village’s militia despite opposition from her parents. However, she didn’t do it for fun or on a whim, and she takes her position very seriously.

Liu
Liu is a young man that wandered into Shetrow Village a few years earlier and took up living there. He quickly became friends with the main character and Jayle, and though he dislikes violence, he joined the village’s militia.

Dirk
Within the militia, Dirk acts in a leadership role, looking after the younger members. He is very popular in the village, and many of the boys in the village idolize him, refering to him as “older brother.” He excels at combat and acts as the main character and Jayle’s field commander.

Suikoden Tierkreis begins with the 108 stars’ final battle. During this battle, each warrior is defeated one after the other until there are only 4 that remain. These last 4 exert their full power and…?

Even though you will be able to recruit 108 different characters throughout the game, one of the main points the article makes is that each character has his or her own unique back story, and the player will be treated with a new scenario for each character that joins up.

The tempo of the battle system is very fast, allowing the player to select either the attack or defense icons as they proceed through battles. As the player becomes accustomed to the battles, an icon is available to leave tactics up to the characters, allowing for even less work. There are also directions available that are brand new to this title that aren’t yet revealed.

It has been revealed that your battle party will be limited to 4 characters in Suikoden Tierkreis. The article mentions that you will be able to have your team made up of the characters you like the most. (Cool, I guess?) There is currently no word on the existence of “support” characters, or what kind of magic is available, but Famitsu promises more articles in the near future.

However, the existence of Cooperative Attacks has been confirmed, allowing special commands in battle when certain characters are present in the active team. Pulling off one of these Cooperative Attacks will increase the characters’ fondness of each other.

The world of Suikoden Tierkreis is vast, taking the hero and his party to various cities, towns, and castles around the world. In one of the shots (2nd page, bottom left corner), a man named Belflayde is interacting with the hero. He is the head of an organization known simply as “The Society.” What kind of role will he play in the hero’s quest?

The Suikoden series traditionally includes many non-human races, such as elves and dwarves, but also a doglike race called the kobalt tribe, a duck tribe, and various others. A new race has been revealed for Tierkries called the porpoise tribe who live in a city floating on the ocean called Septaflose.

The game’s story starts off in the border village of Shetrow. Lying on the border, the village claims allegiance to no country, and its villagers live it peace. One day, the main character and his friends leave the village to hunt monsters as part of the militia detail. They uncover some ruins on the other side of the mountains and begin to explore them. However, as the approach the very top floor, they see a mysterious light. From this, the hero’s fate is set in motion…

The article also shows off various locales from the game that you are welcome to take a look at. It provides names for many of them, but I’m not going to translate all the names as they will inevitably be different in the English version anyway.

(Phew) These 4 page articles sure give a lot of information, but they are quite the translation marathon.

So, anyone stoked for the DS chapter of the Suikoden series?




Thanks to Gamekyo for the cleaner scans.