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This Week in Games - Suikoden Returns


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psh_fun



Joined: 22 Oct 2023
Posts: 117
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 5:30 am Reply with quote
I like the art style of Suikoden: STAR LEAP and hopefully the gameplay lives up to past titles. I hope you can just play through the story without spending money like with Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail.
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Fluwm



Joined: 28 Jul 2009
Posts: 1127
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 6:35 am Reply with quote
What really makes Star Leap sting all the more infuriating is just how good the I&II remaster is -- apart from some legitimately baffling decisions (capping the resolution at 1440p, forgetting to include a way to exit the game, etc.) it's one of the best remasters of a classic game I've ever seen. And by no small amount! I'd rank it right up there with the Jak & Daxter Collection (currently stuck in PS3 Prison) and FFXII's The Zodiac Age remaster. It's just that good.

psh_fun wrote:
I like the art style of Suikoden: STAR LEAP and hopefully the gameplay lives up to past titles. I hope you can just play through the story without spending money like with Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail.


I would be utterly flabbergasted and shocked if that were the case. But even if it were, we run into the same (fatal) problem of all mobile games: extreme obsolescence. Eventually, soon, they'll be taking those servers offline, rendering the game forever unplayable; and even if it were a conventional game bereft of microtransactions or online elements, it would still eventually, inevitably find itself bricked by some new iOS update or another.

It's a mess from a consumer perspective, and doubly so from a preservationist perspective. The whole platform is a nightmare even before getting into the nitty-gritty of the games-as-a-service dynamics.

Like as bland and forgettable as it was, at least Tierkreis still exists, and can still be played, with little to no exceptional effort required.
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invalidname
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Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 2504
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 7:57 am Reply with quote
Quote:
I don't like to think of it either, but Fate/Grand Order and Fire Emblem Heroes are guaranteed to go dark someday.

I think everyone was surprised by just how quickly Love Live! collapsed on mobile, after having been such a big deal for so long.
Quote:
Sega has released their plans for the next fiscal year: invest in fewer new games, while circling the wagons around Persona, Sonic and Like A Dragon. Not sure I like the sound of that. Remember when Sega made Ristar?

Part of Sega’s identity has been an ability and a willingness to do lots of very different things at once. Playing it safe and resting on their laurels is not a good sign, especially because no matter what they do with the next Sonic game, no one will be happy with it.
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SaneSavantElla



Joined: 25 Jan 2013
Posts: 261
Location: Philippines
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 9:02 am Reply with quote
A Suikoden anime announcement is NOT in my bingo card this year, but I'll take it! It's interesting though they're starting with Suikoden II (granted it's the most popular and the best written in the whole franchise). If it looks anything like the animated opening for Suikoden III, it will be something to look forward too definitely!
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6466
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 9:33 am Reply with quote
invalidname wrote:

Part of Sega’s identity has been an ability and a willingness to do lots of very different things at once.


That very thing is part of the reason they no longer make gaming hardware.
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Cho_Desu



Joined: 27 Dec 2022
Posts: 252
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 11:55 am Reply with quote
Not quite sure why we're thinking Sega is only going to have Like a Dragon, Sonic, and Persona from now on. There have been a bunch of upcoming throwbacks to classic series announced, including Virtua Fighter, Shinobi, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and so on. Atlus's recent Metaphor (a new IP) was a big hit, and the latest Super Monkey Ball was well-received.

Even the complaint about "all Sonic fans complaining about every game" isn't true, as Shadow Generations seemed to impress most everyone across the board, small nitpicks here and there aside.
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AiddonValentine



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2423
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 1:55 pm Reply with quote
-Suikoden: Ah, finally getting Suikoden after such a long time. The anime was quite the surprise so we'll see how that turns out. Whoever plays Luca Blight has their work cut out for them.

-Level-5: God, that blog post they made was hilarious in that it comes just short of saying "It was all Inafune's fault and things were such a mess we had to soft reboot to salvage it." It definitely explains why it suddenly went multiplatform to the point where physical editions were canceled outside of Japan. This latest debacle with Inafune makes me wonder about his history even before Mighty No. 9's flameout. You'd think they would have expected to be skeptical of Inafune after that and maybe not put him on a big project immediately, but apparently they weren't thinking. Seriously, Inafune, the only reason you're not the worst producer of the last few years is because Yuji Naka has that by default due to being found guilty of insider trading.

The past decade has been brutal for Level-5. Around 2017 things just fell apart for them. Yo-Kai Watch tanked, Professor Layton stalled due to the death of their puzzle master Akira Tago (though they should have prepared for that since even when the series started he was in his 80s), and they haven't been able to make a big hitter since. Everyone likes a comeback story, but Level-5 has their work cut out for them.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6466
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 2:15 pm Reply with quote
Cho_Desu wrote:
Not quite sure why we're thinking Sega is only going to have Like a Dragon, Sonic, and Persona from now on. There have been a bunch of upcoming throwbacks to classic series announced, including Virtua Fighter, Shinobi, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage,


Cursory glance at Streets Of Rage 4’s wiki page and parsing what info exists on Art Of Vengeance reveals nothing about Sega’s involvement in the publishing of either game. Only thing we can assume is they’re licensing these games out to punishers and developers.

Another thing to remember is the last few entries in some of the above series were not good Beast Rider was terrible. And the remaster of 5 while probably fine on gameplay side of things had some ugly redone character models.
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 28 Oct 2018
Posts: 703
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 3:11 pm Reply with quote
invalidname wrote:
Quote:
I don't like to think of it either, but Fate/Grand Order and Fire Emblem Heroes are guaranteed to go dark someday.

I think everyone was surprised by just how quickly Love Live! collapsed on mobile, after having been such a big deal for so long.


Love Live! 2's greatest claim to fame will always be having its EOS announced in the same post as its launch announcement. A mere six months, if I recall correctly.
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EmeraldSaucer



Joined: 31 Jan 2025
Posts: 61
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 4:25 pm Reply with quote
Fluwm wrote:
Like as bland and forgettable as it was, at least Tierkreis still exists, and can still be played, with little to no exceptional effort required.


Not to mention that Tierkreis and Woven Web of Centuries might be mediocre, but at least they're off in their own separate worlds where you don't have to think about them if you don't want to. Star Leap is in the world of the main games, Viki and Flik are right there in the trailer, this gacha game that probably won't last long and then disappear will forever be a part of Murayama's Suikoden
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Nate148



Joined: 24 May 2012
Posts: 544
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 4:42 pm Reply with quote
red ninja was also Kenichiro Takaki first game directing
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FireChick
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Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 2543
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 5:31 pm Reply with quote
This past week, Key's visual novel Air was released on Steam. Hopefully that gets covered in the next article. Super happy about this in particular.
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Uchay



Joined: 27 Nov 2016
Posts: 91
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 6:33 pm Reply with quote
EmeraldSaucer wrote:


Not to mention that Tierkreis and Woven Web of Centuries might be mediocre, but at least they're off in their own separate worlds where you don't have to think about them if you don't want to. Star Leap is in the world of the main games, Viki and Flik are right there in the trailer, this gacha game that probably won't last long and then disappear will forever be a part of Murayama's Suikoden


That's my biggest issue with it---anyone wanting to play the game with intentions to connect the dots of the Suikoden world and canon needs to do so before the game goes offline (and it will, believe me). This almost feels like FOMO for fans of the franchise, and I'm not even elaborating on how exactly story updates will work in that game. The whole narrative should suffer, since they need to keep the playerbase engaged, and the best way to do that is to cut off the story into pieces and slowly add them as updates, as all live service RPGs do. Maybe a few character's intros/backstory will be tied to time limited events, why not? Genshin already does this---a bunch of important events to the story cannot be played through anymore.

Once they are done milking the game and see no reason in keeping the servers online? welp, too bad for anyone who couldn't play earlier/only learned of Suikoden at a later date. Sorry, not even the high seas can preserve this game, best you can do is open the wikia and watch a playthrough. Tough luck, buddy.

So yeah, the monetization, while awful (and boy, do they have plenty opportunity to make it awful with a game like suikoden), is the least of my concerns with this game.
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Fluwm



Joined: 28 Jul 2009
Posts: 1127
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 6:59 pm Reply with quote
I very much doubt there's be any *meaningful* character, plot or setting stuff in the game. I could be wrong, but typically these sorts of mobile RPGs are all about a steady stream of inconsequential and pretty dull episodic chapters. Just enough to make it feel like you're getting something to chew on, but never enough to satiate your appetite -- they gotta keep you munching forever, after all.

Though it's not completely impossible that this might see an offline version made later on down the road (as has happened a handful of times for other online RPGs (DQX), other mobile games (Fantasian), and even other free-to-play games built on microtransactions (Pocket Camp). It'd be extremely unlikely, approaching very closely to impossibility... but it wouldn't be completely unprecedented.
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b-dragon



Joined: 21 Apr 2021
Posts: 516
PostPosted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 8:25 pm Reply with quote
Fluwm wrote:
I very much doubt there's be any *meaningful* character, plot or setting stuff in the game. I could be wrong, but typically these sorts of mobile RPGs are all about a steady stream of inconsequential and pretty dull episodic chapters. Just enough to make it feel like you're getting something to chew on, but never enough to satiate your appetite -- they gotta keep you munching forever, after all.

Though it's not completely impossible that this might see an offline version made later on down the road (as has happened a handful of times for other online RPGs (DQX), other mobile games (Fantasian), and even other free-to-play games built on microtransactions (Pocket Camp). It'd be extremely unlikely, approaching very closely to impossibility... but it wouldn't be completely unprecedented.


The marketing blurb, iirc, mentions one of the 27 True Runes as the big focus of Star Leap. The True Runes being the big background lore element tying all the games together. So its definitely advertising that lore importance anyway. And I really wouldn't put it past Konami to alienate some of their audience in order to better milk a smaller percentage.
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