Suikoden… I wonder: am I the only one who tends to
read the name of this game series ‘SuiDoKen’ instead of ‘Suikoden’? I’m not
particularly dyslexic, but this just feels so much more natural, somehow…
With this
disclaimer out of the way, let’s talk a bit about that tongue-twisting series,
shall we? Developed and published by Konami, Suikoden—or Gensou Suikoden
as it is known in Japan—is a loose adaptation of the Chinese novel Shui Hu Zhuan, reprising most notably
its enormous roster of characters and remolding said roster in imaginative and
fanciful ways. The first installment was released in 1995 for the Playstation,
and all entries ever since have taken place in the exact same universe
introduced by that first game. The Suikoden series is most famous for its unflinching narrative continuity: characters return
from one installment to the next and the overarching narrative and mythology of
Suikoden’s world is expanded and
fleshed out as games are released. This makes the series a hard sell for
players who missed the first entries; on the other hand, thanks to dear
internet, it’s always possible to catch up and absorb the knowledge one needs
to understand and enjoy these games to the fullest. The series’ most prominent
feature is undoubtedly the so-called ‘108 Stars of Destiny’: 108 warriors with
various abilities that you can recruit to help you fulfill your quest. As you
may rightfully imagine, recruiting all 108 Stars grants you some bonus and
affects the end of the game in a positive way. Unlike other features of the
series that I won’t enumerate here, the 108 Stars are present in every single Suikoden game ever released, including
the spin-offs.
The
spin-offs, yes. Despite being the kind of series that should normally only
allow for canon entries, Suikoden
actually counts two spin-offs: the
Japan-only Genso Suikoden: Tsumugareshi
Hyakunen no Toki for the PSP and—you guessed it—Suikoden Tierkreis, released in 2008(jp) and 2009(eu/na) for the
Nintendo DS. Suikoden Tierkreis does
not take place in the canon Suikoden
world, but rather in one of the numerous parallel worlds that constitute the multiverse
in which the series takes place. As a result, it features exclusive characters
and does not reintroduce a single face from others games in the series, which
makes it the perfect game for a Suikoden
beginner. Also, ‘Tierkreis’ means ‘Zodiac’ in German, and that’s how I will
refer to that game from now on for the sake of brevity.
I mentioned
not so long ago that I preferred my RPG to be light on the narrative side, and
it’s really like the universe wanted to take the piss out of me by suggesting
me to pick up that game, for Tierkreis
precisely belongs to that modern brand of cutscene-laden, story-driven RPGs
that became the dominant trend in the home console RPG landscape in the last
years. Such games are not exactly favourites of mine: while I don’t outright
dislike them, I usually need a ridiculous amount of time to sink into them and
enjoy them fully. Tierkreis was no
exception, and it took a good eight hours littered with fleeting thoughts about
quitting before I became really engrossed with the game and eager to pursue the
adventure. And dear, don’t I regret my perseverance! Tierkreis is a brilliant game that I absolutely loved. However, I
didn’t love it at all times, nor did I love all of it: in fact, it’s fairer to
say that while I love it to pieces, I still detected a good number of blatant
flaws. This game is the poster child for J-RPGs’ difficult evolution these last
years, as I will profusely show in my next post. For now, let’s focus on Tierkreis’ abundant goodness, which lies
in its epic, awesome narrative—rightfully so for a story-driven RPG.
Tierkreis will make me do something that I don’t usually
indulge in, namely analyze an RPG’s storyline and spoil it profusely while I’m
at it. However, it’s hard to proceed otherwise: not only is Tierkreis’ narrative the game’s
unwavering main focus, but it’s also undoubtedly its greatest strength, as I
mentioned just above. By ‘narrative’, I obviously mean the main storyline, but
also the characters and the whole atmosphere
of the game, which are all craftily woven together to create a encompassing
experience that is mesmerizing and very much worth discovering. Let’s now
explore this most compelling narrative, shall we?
Like stars in the sky
Like stars in the sky
First comes
the atmosphere. It’s gorgeous, enticing and mesmerizing, and the graphics are
mostly to thank for that. Tierkreis
is the perfect example of a game that uses great graphics not to show off and
pander to the latest visual trends, but rather to craft a beautiful world bound
to make the player gape in awe at every corner—had I followed my impulses, I
would have stopped playing every two minutes to grab my camera and this post
would be littered with dozens of pictures. Tierkreis’
world is not only beautiful but also highly evocative and unique, thanks to a
large degree of stylization. Of course, once again, there is a modicum of
cliché in that game world, which features obligatory areas like a good ol’
desert and a snowy mountain and occasionally recycles some scenery elements;
but that doesn’t detract from the fact that Tierkreis’
world is a highly polished and fleshed out one. Konami went to great lengths to
make sure that this game world felt as real and consistent as possible: for
instance, not only do the characters who join your side can be accessed and
talked to at any given moment, but their lines of dialogue change according to
the latest events. The cardboard cutouts used in most cutscenes are very well
drawn and show a pleasant variety of emotions, and the animated cutscenes are
completely hand-drawn, which gives a lovely old-school feeling to the game.
Next are
the characters. To put it simply, these characters are totally, entirely,
completely endearing and loveable. I've not been that fond of characters in an RPG since I played Avalon Code and had a minor crush on Duran, Nanai, Heath, my faithful Spirits and a couple of others; however, that was only a few characters in a larger cast. In Tierkreis, all the
characters are incredibly endearing, despite being so numerous, and that’s in
no small part due to the fact that they are so carefully and lovingly fleshed out.
To craft such a large roster of characters, each one with their individuality
and distinctive features, is a narrative tour
de force if I ever saw one, and massive kudos must be handed to Konami for
that. Not only do these loveable characters all have their own personality,
backstory and relationships, but they also manage to avoid being complete J-RPG
clichés, which makes them even more loveable. Don’t get me wrong: there is a
modicum of anime/J-RPG tropes there, but they are far less potent than in your
average J-RPG. Take the Hero: instead of being an emo amnesiac with a
ridiculous haircut, he’s a well-grounded young man with generic short hair, who
also happens to be a natural born leader belonging to a small brigade devoted
to defending his village. The obligatory female sidequick does NOT have the
obligatory crush on the said Hero and is not a tsundere trope on legs, but
rather a cheerful young woman who’s also part of the aforementioned defense
brigade. The same thing goes for all characters: they incorporate
ever-so-slight cliché elements (the Hero may not be amnesic, but he was adopted
as an infant and no one knows about his origins, which adds the required dose
of mystery to him) yet manage to stray from them sufficiently to feel fresh and
original—and most importantly, realistic and believable to a certain extent.
This may be the key to their lovability: while it is often hard to relate to an
amnesic character with an emo streak embroiled in a quest that they don’t fully
understand, especially after having met heaps of such characters in countless
J-RPGs, a bunch of determined people from all walks of life trying to save what
they care for is much more likely to strike a sensitive chord in the player,
especially the older one.
The
character goodness doesn’t stop there: not only are Tierkreis’ numerous characters totally loveable just by virtue of
their careful crafting, but most of them can be used in battle, which gives you
even more reasons to love them. Nearly all 108 Stars of Destiny can take part
in fights, either as members of the main team or as support members, which
gives Tierkreis a completion vibe
similar to what you can find in the Pokemon
series. Of course, it’s nearly impossible to enjoy the full cast on a first
playthrough, and many of them have similar abilities, which led to some
criticism: Tierkreis was accused of
trying to artificially inflate itself by throwing heaps of similar and/or
unusable characters at the player’s head. However, I feel there is no reason
for criticism here: collecting the 108 Stars of Destiny is a fixture in the Suikoden series, but it’s not mandatory to complete this game or
any other Suikoden game, so fake
longevity is averted here. I see this as a giant buffet of characters, from
which you can pick up the ones you love the most; and that choice is not all
about abilities, but also about the characters’ personalities, backstories and
looks. Any game that gives you a wide array of choices in any department
without treading on fake longevity territory is good in my book; this is
basically synonymous of huge replay value, and I rejoice in the thought that
I’ll be able to experiment with totally different characters next time I play Tierkreis.
Stellar storyline
Last, but
certainly not least, is the storyline. (And here come the SPOILERS, as you’d expect.)
This is the
perfect transition to the refreshingly simple metaphysics of Tierkreis. Unlike other J-RPGs that
feel forced to create twisted metaphysical concepts from scratch and give them
the weirdest possible names for good measure, Tierkreis bases its whole narrative and universe on a couple of
concepts that are incredibly simple to grasp and yet pave the way for some
mind-boggling developments. The first one is the “Infinity”, which postulates
the existence of an infinite number of parallel universes, each one containing
its own version of our heroes. The second is the existence of the so-called “Stars
of Destiny”, a group of powerful warriors who can wield a form of magic
unavailable to mere mortals and have a more important function that is revealed
in the game. Last are the “Chronicles”, which are books that compile the whole
history of every single of the parallel worlds; they are infused with the power
to awaken the dormant potential of the Stars of Destiny, who can then modify
their content under certain conditions. From these simple concepts, Tierkreis weaves a story that is so
incredibly complex yet implacably logical and well-articulated that my mind
still reels when thinking of it. Sure, there may be a few plot holes here and
there, but as a whole, it’s just brilliant. Tierkreis’
story belongs to this rare brand of storytelling that prompts you to replay the
whole game immediately in order to see everything in light of what you’ve
learned in the later stages of the game. As a matter of fact, I did exactly
that, and was shocked to discover that one of the very first events of the game
takes place in a decayed version of the very tower in which you fight the One
King at the very end of the storyline, which rose even more mind-boggling
questions.
But there is more: if you want to get the whole picture and fully
understand the story in all its spinning complexity, you have to witness all
the possible endings. Fortunately, there are only three of them: the Good
Ending, the Bad Ending and the Perfect Ending, which you get when you recruit
all 108 Stars. The Bad Ending is triggered by one particular choice at one
point in the story and is incredibly brief, but it’s nonetheless crucial as far
as the narrative is concerned, for—drums rolling— it reveals the true nature of
the One King! This is actually a shiver-inducing moment that left me struck and
gaping as everything fell in place in my head and the whole story took a
totally different turn. The Good Ending and Perfect Ending both give hints
about what the One King is and how they come to life, but only the Bad Ending
lets you witness the full process in all its devastating glory, leaving no
doubt about the heartbreaking nature of the One King. Konami could have played
it nasty by saving the big final explanation for the Perfect Ending, but thankfully,
they abstained from such roguishness and delivered said explanation in the Good Ending as well. The Perfect Ending only adds a cutscene containing
a couple of minor narrative elements—nothing that a quick visit on Youtube can’t
provide quickly and efficiently, saving you the chore of painstakingly collecting
all 108 Stars only to get a disappointing extra cutscene as your sole reward.
Will you have a bit of brain-racking?
That being
said, it’s worth noting that not all the questions raised during a playthrough
of Tierkreis are bound to be answered
at the end of the game, even with all the possible endings in hand. Konami
conveniently paved the way for future installments related to the Tierkreis narrative arc by leaving many
of them opened, preserving thus a lot of potential material and large avenues
for future storytelling. From what I’ve read here and there on the internet,
this way of leaving many questions opened and lingering seems to be entirely
intentional and a fixture in the Suikoden
series; the folks at Konami visibly want to craft a complex and compelling
fantasy soap-opera, using as many entries as necessary to develop their huge, overarching narrative. However, and that’s where the genius of
the narrative—and Konami itself— lies, it’s perfectly possible to guess how
things may have unfolded in the past and
led to Tierkreis’ events—and to
extrapolate how they may unfold in the future, for that matter—based on
elements provided in the game. Even more interesting, Tierkreis actually offers several possible explanations to what
happened over the course of the game, which are all plausible and logical; it’s
thus up to the player to pick up the one they prefer, until a hypothetical
future installment brings extra elements to the fold and clears matters for
good—or not, since Tierkreis is
already eight years old and no trace of a sequel can be found, not even as a
vague innuendo from someone at Konami’s. Oh, well. At any rate, I’ll keep my
own interpretation of Tierkreis’
events shelved until I clear my second playthrough; there are still a couple of
elements that are murky to me and that I would like to clarify before
delivering my vision of the story. I will edit that post if need be; for now,
let’s move on!
All literal
interpretations of the story aside, Tierkreis’ narrative very graciously lends itself to other types of interpretations, which is utterly pleasant and makes that already splendid narrative even more excellent and fascinating, if that was possible. The story can be seen from different analytic angles and provides fascinating conclusions for each one, as
I’ll demonstrate right now:
—The political philosophy angle: Tierkreis
brilliantly illustrates the dangers inherent to any form of leadership. The Bad Ending, and
by extension the genesis process of the One King, show that a kind leader with
excellent intentions can still lead his troops to a complete disaster by taking
just a couple of bad decisions. The Stars of Destiny relinquish their freedom
and power of decision to follow the one of them who’s a natural-born leader,
and that renouncement alone is dangerous, since it’s the first step on a trail
that can ultimately lead to the birth of a brand-new One King. If the Stars
remained totally independent, the One King simply couldn’t exist: its mere
existence is a warning against the mirage of an encompassing positive
leadership that could bring happiness to everyone and the illusion that
sacrificing members of the group can lead to a greater good. The only way to
save the world in Tierkreis is to let
all the Stars follow their own way and fight their own part of the final
showdown, after which everyone go back to their land and duties. Tierkreis teaches us that good
leadership is bound to be temporary and must respect the individualities of
every member of the group, lest a new twisted dictator be born before
everyone can say ‘One King’.
—The
metaphysical angle: Tierkreis
postulates a universe of unlimited freedom, full to the brim with an infinity of potential developments and outcomes. This freedom
is embodied by the Stars of Destiny, who are powerful individuals that can have
enough influence on their environment to steer the course of events in a
certain direction—or, to be more precise, a portion
of the course of events. The more Stars are awakened and active, the more
diversified and vibrant the future will become; reduce the numbers of Stars,
and the future will slowly merge into a more unified thread, until it becomes
still and encompassing under the dominion of the One King. Interestingly, this recoups quantum physics notions
about the interdependence of mind and matter and their reciprocal influence on
one another: as some Stars disappear, so do the worlds that they
could have helped molding. It also gives a whole new meaning to the Hero’s motto, the deceptively cliché “You’ll never know unless you try”. This sentence that seems to be pure bromide at first sight, copy-pasted from any generic J-RPG under the gaming sun, reveals an unexpected depth upon further inspection and conveys a fundamental truth about Tierkreis’ world: this is literally a world in which the Stars of Destiny (such a perfectly fitting name, indeed) must take action in order to allow for a potential future to materialize.
—The moral angle: This is maybe the most cliché of them,
because it reprises the old J-RPG credo of “I will decide my own destiny!”
However, it’s more palatable in Tierkreis
because it’s backed up and fed by the other possible interpretations of the
narrative. Following one’s free will, especially if one happens to be a Star of
Destiny, is highly recommended in Tierkreis;
but unlike in many J-RPGS, it’s not recommended only on the superficial ground
that freedom is more alluring and glamorous than submission. It’s recommended
first and foremost because not doing it can have devastating consequences:
there is a moral imperative at work there, and Stars have the responsibility to
follow their own way in order to preserve as many parallel universes as
possible, and thus as many lives as possible. Freedom in Tierkreis does not equate roaming the world with no worries, but
rather fulfilling your duties and remaining faithful to the path that only you can
walk. From that angle, Tierkreis' storyline can be seen as a bildungsroman of sorts, a tale of spiritual growth in which the Stars of Destiny slowly discover their own tremendous power and the important responsibilities it entails.
When all is
said and done, Tierkreis is the kind
of game that makes you think. It
doesn’t simply offer you a stellar narrative with compelling characters and an
enchanting atmosphere, which would already be great; it also offers you the
possibility to draw your own conclusions and interpret its storyline the way
that suits you. This is quite rare in the gaming world and must be enjoyed to
the fullest, and I can’t recommend enough Tierkreis’
stellar, shining gem of a narrative. There are other elements in that game that
I wouldn’t warmly recommend, though, and that will be the subject of my next
post, along with a plea for a much-needed different approach to story-driven J-RPGs. Thanks
for reading, and be my guest anytime!
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