Suikoden IV preview (at E3)

[Knight-Dragon]

Sounds good.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/suikoden4/preview_6098142.html

While at Konami’s E3 booth, we got to grab some hands-on time with Suikoden IV, the newest title in the increasingly epic Suikoden series. This fourth installment is set in an island chain south of the nation of Toran, giving it a very different flavor than previous games with their mountainous lands and great, sweeping plains well-suited for momentous battles. The portion of the game that we got to play was divided between time spent on a sea-going vessel, and time spent wandering the white-sanded beaches and shrubby shores of a small island.

The game gave us control of a party of four, one of our members being Jeane, an alluring user of rune magic that fans of Suikoden will instantly recognize from previous installments. Two other members of our party were Keneth, a pony-tailed young man, and Jewel, a slightly built youth (we think she’s a girl, but portrait art is sometimes disturbingly ambiguous). Our main character, a young man with a bowl-cut and a bandanna, bore the rune of punishment, one of the 27 true runes. Using this rune in battle would inflict damage on not only our enemies, but on our character as well. Apparently, this is the curse of the rune of punishment—it will drain the life of the one who uses it.

The battle system seems to have moved from the traditional arrangement where you could use 6 characters at a time, replacing that with a 4-character party. This game also does away with the “paired” attack system used by Suikoden III, allowing each character to select moves and act independently of their fellows. Otherwise, most all the battle options are classic Suikoden; you can choose to perform a melee attack, use an equipped rune to cast a spell, or even perform a combined move with another member of your party.

We got little insight into the game’s story from the portion we played. We initially were placed on the deck of a ship, where we were suddenly attacked by a water dragon that rose out of the ocean. Upon the defeat of the monster, we washed up on the shores of a nearby island, apparently deserted. Suddenly, a mermaid—who, interestingly enough, seemed to have both fins and legs—popped out of the surf in front of our party. She spoke a bunch of seeming gibberish about the “master” not liking cats, how he would attack the cat, how she hated the master, and how she wanted us to defeat him. She then pointed into the hills and swam off. As we had nothing better to do, we set off over the dunes and into the grassy areas of the island, where we encountered a cat-like character being set upon by crabs. We were then faced with an especially large crab, who we had to battle.

Character art is very reminiscent of Suikoden III, but in this game the character models move far more naturally. The battle animations were also very smooth, including those of the ever-popular combo attacks. The environments we saw were simple in design, and the island was quartered off into discrete areas for us to explore. Considering the scope of the previous games, we’re sure that there’s going to be a wide, diverse world to roam.

Suikoden IV is currently scheduled for release on the PlayStation 2 late this year. For more information on this title, please check out GameSpot’s previous coverage.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Bard's Tale sounds good too...

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/thebardstale/preview_6098387.html

We visited with inXile Entertainment, creator of the upcoming console and PC role-playing game The Bard's Tale, and its lead designer Brian Fargo, at E3 2004. Fargo and previous collaborator Michael Cranford created the Bard's Tale series many years ago for home computers, and years later, a new game will finally be added to the series.

Fargo ran us through an early area of the game that demonstrated the titular bard hero's one and only special ability--playing a song that summons a single rat, then playing the song again to dispel it. According to Fargo, the bard has used this song in the past to frighten bartenders (and barmaids) into giving him a free beer or a place to put up for the night--this has essentially been the height of his ambition, since the bard's primary interests are women and money (followed by booze). Unfortunately for the bard, he meets a really fine-looking young lady with lots of cash and gets suckered into a larger story that may end with him saving the world--or not.

As Fargo explained, the bard won't be any kind of "chosen," prophesied hero born to battle some 2,000-year-old evil. He'll be a coarse, imperfect, and emotional character who will occasionally screw up and be laughed out of town, and will storm off into the countryside in anger. The game will attempt to both get rid of as many standard role-playing conventions as possible while adding as much personality and humor as possible. For instance, the bard will not only find numerous side-quests; he'll also find off-topic asides that may simply be there for the sake of having a bit of fun. In one scene, the bard enters a tavern presided over by a scantily-clad barmaid and a small throng of drunks. After conversing with the barmaid (and having considerable trouble looking her in the eye), the bard then spoke to the nearby drunks, who all began singing a loud, drunken ode to beer and the fine, upstanding fellow who must have invented it some time ago. Drunken hangers-on chimec in from all corners of the snug tavern, and the ridiculous song itself went on, and on, and on...not to provide any kind of cryptic clues as to where to find the blue key to open the blue door, but simply to provide comic relief.

However, Fargo insists that The Bard's Tale will also be a true role-playing game with as much depth as any other--the game will have character creation, ability scores, experience levels, and so on. Fargo went on to demonstrate the game's grouping system, by which the bard is joined by spirits summoned through song. By discovering new tunes, the bard may find himself accompanied by a fat-bodied lout that lives only to absorb arrows and other missiles meant for the bard himself, or by a rock-throwing giant, or by a fierce fire elemental. Yet even these characters will have as much personality as Fargo and his team can ascribe to them.

The Bard's Tale is scheduled for release later this year on the PS2 and the Xbox, to be followed by a PC release.

 

[Silverflame]

I really feel odd saying this to a mod, but this really should have been in the E3 2004 thread...

That's actually all I have to say, since I don't have a PS2...

 

[Dabomb18359]

PS2s. I have one but I think playing Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds free over the internet as much as I want FREE with like 200 others at a time with like Tons of cool scens. rox.