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Platform: PlayStation
2
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Suikoden
Tactics
So,
you’re a game studio, and you have a popular series that has been
getting sequels for a number of years now.
There’s a solid fan base, but at the same time there’s always
that nagging concern that maybe they’ll eventually grow tired of your
game. What do you do?
You spin the series off into a new genre, of course.
We’ve seen it happen with Final Fantasy, Onimusha, and even
Dynasty Warriors, and now Konami is getting in on the act by taking
their long-running Suikoden RPG series, and putting it into a turn-based
strategy RPG setting with Suikoden Tactics.
While
other games going this route have made more or less standalone games
with a bunch of familiar faces, Suikoden Tactics will actually re-visit
the same world seen in Suikoden IV.
Taking place during a timeline that starts slightly before part
four in the RPG series, and ends shortly after the events of that game,
the game stars an adventurer named Kyril who is leading his merry band
of do-gooders on a campaign to expel the scores of monsters who have
been over-running the Island Nations as of late.
If that wasn’t enough, the group is also trying to unlock the
mystery of the Rune Cannons, weapons that have the potential to rid the
islands of these beasts in short order.
As to how battles will play out in this game, it looks like Suikoden Tactics is adopting a battlefield layout very similar to what we have seen in games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Ogre Tactics, and the various Nippon Ichi strategy games to hit the market in the last year or so. |
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But
while the methods of movement, and general presentation of this game may
look familiar to fans of the genre, Konami is making quite a few tweaks
to Suikoden Tactics that will help it be considerably more accessible
that other console strategy games to hit the market as of late.
The first thing players will notice is that the menu system is simplified quite a bit, so that one needn’t dig through sub-category after sub-category to find the command that they need. Another nice thing that has been tackled here is that players won’t be in a continual guessing game |
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when
they move their characters around the battlefield.
In these sorts of games, usually one has to move their character
to a desired area, and hope that the enemy that they wish to fight is in
range when they click on the attack command.
However, much of the time when this happens it becomes quite
apparent that the bad guy is slightly out of range, forcing players to
back pedal, and move their character again, so as to get into attack range.
To help curtail this, Konami has added a simple icon system to
let players know when an enemy is coming into attack range, and when
players are coming into range to be attacked by enemies.
This is done by having a small tear appear over the head of an
enemy when a player brings a character close enough to take a swing at
the guy, and a sword showing up over a player’s character when enemies
are close enough to attack players.
The game will even incorporates a quasi-Aristotelian elemental
system where players can take advantage of the powers of fire, earth,
wind, air, light, and dark as damage modifiers during battle.
Even more interesting is that players can manipulate squares on
the battlefield grid so that they can act as damaging booby traps to
enemies, or beneficial power boosting squares for the good guys by
infusing the square with the powers of these elements.
Players will also see a number of the battle techniques from the
Suikoden RPGs make their way into this game, as party members can still
team up to do special attacks.
Taking
the Suikoden series into the realm of strategy gaming is going to
require a delicate balancing act for Konami in order to get the game
exactly how they want it. They’re
trying to make the game accessible without becoming overly easy at the
same time, and they’re trying to insert a number of elements from the
other Suikoden games that long-time fans of the series will appreciate,
while not alienating newcomers. It’s
no mean feat what Konami is trying to do, and we’ll get to see the
finished result of their effort in about a month from now.
Mr.
Nash October 5, 2005 |
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