Suikoden Tierkreis

A Suikoden Gaiden Game for the DS, Suikoden Tierkreis is set in a parallel world unconnected to the main series, though it contains many of the familiar themes mixed with the exploration of fate, destiny and free will. Sieg, an optimistic young warrior from Citro Village whose motto is "You never know until you try!", is out fighting monsters with several of his childhood friends when they witness a strange occurence... that nobody else seems to remember afterwards. However, they also come across the Shining Legacy, a book which seems to help awaken the Starbearers and the magical abilities known as the Mark of the Stars. Their investigation soon leads them into conflict with The Order of the One True Way, a group that preaches that all is decided by fate and everyone's destiny is predetermined.

Slow to start, but Better Than It Sounds, providing a different take on several concepts central to the Suikoden mythos.

Oh, and Tierkreis is German for 'zodiac'.

Tropes used in Suikoden Tierkreis include:
  • 108: Well, it is a Suikoden game, parallel world or not.
  • Action Mom: Selen. More or less a force of nature, actually. Which is rather unsurprising, given her nickname...

Man: The storm! The storm has returned!

  • Aerith and Bob: Since you can rename the main character Bob, if you wish... But in-game, there's Chrodechild, Meruvis... and Roberto.
  • After the End: Most of the world's civilizations consist of the sole survivors of other worlds that were mostly wiped out by The One King, before being merged with the primary game world. Rarohenga in particular is a twisted wasteland with no noticeable signs of life, even before said merge. Rarohenga's state is especially noteworthy, as its twisted wasteland appearance was the product of their efforts to oppose The One King, which backfired so horribly as to actually damage their world's True Chronicle and thus the laws of nature of their world.
  • And Man Grew Proud: The people of Rarohenga had access to incredibly advanced magic and were not only absolutely certain that they could defeat The One King, but that the people of other worlds were too primitive and ignorant to understand them. Observe the above trope to see how well that worked out for them.
  • An Ice Person: Sphiel, being the Snow Fairy, is a literal example.
  • Anti-Villain: Considering their motives, Diadora qualifies. Ditto for Nova and Sophia.
  • The Archer: Marica fits the bill with a cool personality, and her default weapon is a bow. However, she subverts the trope of the bow being a dainty weapon in that she can also wield the bulkiest weapons in the game. The hero can't handle some of those things. Her stats clearly shows where her strengths lie, however.
  • Arc Words: "One World, One Future", "The One True Way" and "the Advent of The One King".
  • The Atoner: Fredegund. Also the Archivists, particularly Sophia as one of her victory quotes shows.
  • Back from the Dead: ...Possibly Zenoa and Orodovic, definitely for Belemuel.
  • Bald Black Leader Guy: Danash VIII isn't entirely bald, but his multiple wives don't seem to think it hurts his masculinity any...
  • Bald of Awesome: Zenoa.
  • Battle Couple: Vaslof and Resno are married. There's also Darrow and Savina, Len Lien and Liu, Bosche and Lathilda, Diulf and Savillah, and Megion and Eusmil. Sieg and Marica may also count, though their relationship is never explicitly shown as being romantic.
  • Because Destiny Says So: So says The Order of the One True Way.
  • BFS: One of the weapon types available is Greatsword.
  • Big Badass Wolf: King Diulf, who doubles as a Warrior King!
  • Big Eater: Lycia and Sieg.
  • Big Ham: Ninulneda loves Chewing the Scenery. Interestingly enough, her channeler is a demure dolphin priestess.
  • Bishie Sparkle: The traditional cooperative attacks "Fancy Lads" (Asad, Meruvis, Icas) and "Pretty Boys" (Shams, Roberto, Yovel) dazzle enemies with gratuitous amounts of bishie sparkles.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Numnu of Porpos-kin may seem cute and friendly, but he also has no qualms to put two groups into a fight when he is bored. Played for Laughs most of the time.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: At least one in every area. They sometimes drop trading items, but the experience points given aren't that big (save for one in an optional area halfway through the game, which can boost your level into 50 in several fights... if you manage to pull through).
  • Brown Note: Ramin's music makes people angry. He finds enjoyment in "making the low-borns dance".
  • Butt Monkey: Poor Yovel.
  • Casanova Wannabe: Icas won't join your party unless you send a group of pretty girls to recruit him. He'll continue to hit on anyone and anything with two X chromosomes whenever you talk to him.
  • Cassandra Truth: Starbearers get to remember the world changing. Trying to explain these changes to others is difficult to pull off without sounding insane.
  • Catch Phrase: Sieg's "We never know until we try" and the Order of the One True Way's "One World, One Future". You may even get bored listening to the former.
  • Character Development: Plenty; one notable case is Sieg himself, as he comes to terms with the sheer scope of what he faces...
  • Cherry Tapping: Averted. Even if you CAN take what the Hopeless Boss Fight is dishing out, the fight will end after a few rounds. Even if you were, by all rights, beating the boss, the game still says you got your ass kicked.
  • Chess Motifs: The robotic enemies that start appearing after your Hopeless Boss Fight with Valfred at Rarohenga are all named after chess pieces, and they all are minions of The One King...
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Maybelle, who also overlaps with the trope below. Morrin's probably this too, but she's got every right to be one.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Due to the way recruiting the 108 Stars works, a lot of them can come across as this to "normal" people, at least until they're actually recruited. Special mention goes to Sphiel, who keeps trying to feed people snow. By throwing it at them.
  • Combat Medic: Several, the earliest example is Marica.
  • Crutch Character: Dirk
  • Cuteness Proximity: The normally composed Felecca goes nuts over Ridiculously Cute Critters such as the Porpos-kin and the Moe Manaril.
  • Cute Shotaro Boy: Nhazu. If demihumans count, Autar also qualifies.
  • Dark-Skinned Blond: Many, many examples: Rizwan, Kureyah, Shams, Nakil...
  • Dark-Skinned Redhead: Asad.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Zenoa.
  • Death by Newbery Medal: Cougar.
  • Defector From Decadence: More than a few Starbearers used to be members of the Order of the One True Way, though the 'decadence' aspect of this is... subjective.
  • Demonic Divine Possession: Priestess Neira's body is taken by Sea God Ninulneda on several occasions, complete with the background music change.
  • Divided We Fall: The Magedom of Janam.
  • Dual Boss: Fergus and Conon, Sophia and Nova, Vaslof and Resno.
  • Duel Boss: Several, most notably Selen (fought with Jale) and Dirk, fought with Sieg.
  • An Economy Is You: Averted. Trade goods exist, like cloth, food and the like.
  • Expy:
    • Roberto may remind Suikoden fans of the way Flik acted in the first game...
    • Nomno, who always sleeps even while fighting, is a reminiscent of a certain Suikoden III character.
    • Does Erin remind you of Luserina Barows?
  • Face Heel Turn: Oh, Dirk...
  • Figure It Out Yourself: Like Luc and Zerase before her, Zenoa just loves being condescending towards those who don't already share her 'vast knowledge'.
  • Fish People: The Porpos-kin, darling little anthropomorphic dolphins which provide the customary 'five Stars with Theme Naming'.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Yula. During her recruitment scene, it is said that her skill is on par with Chrodechild. Statistically Speaking, however...
  • Goldfish Poop Gang: The Archivists, especially Fergus and Conon. They're pretty evil and seriously dangerous the first few times you meet them, however.
  • Groundhog Day Loop: In The One King's world, each individual repeats the best day on his/her life for eternity.
  • Guide Dang It: Have fun recruiting all of the Starbearers without one.
  • Handsome Lech: Icas.
  • Heel Face Turn: Fairly common in the series, this game being no exception. Most notably Diadora, Sophia and Nova.
  • Hello, Insert Name Here: Sieg, which can be funny if you change his name to Guy or Gai, as that's what the voiceovers use to substitute his name.
  • Hello, Nurse!: Eunice, Zahra's long-suffering assistant.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: Too many to count. Suffice to say, if your attacks are only doing double digit damage, and they normally do triple digits, don't bother using any items. A number of the Dual Boss fights are this way.
  • Hot-Blooded: Sieg, Asad and arguably Otherworld Marica. Normal Marica can also be like this sometimes.
  • Hot Librarian: Diadora.
  • Hot Shounen Mom: Selen, Rizwan, Kureyah...
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Thanks to the Order's actions, the Porpos-kin (and later, the Furious Roar) perceived humans in this way early on. Before Sieg patched things up for them, of course.
  • Internal Reformist: Erin works in the corrupt Order of the One True Way, which shocks her father until she tells him and the main characters that she is actually working to bring it down from the inside.
  • Jerkass Facade: Rizwan. While it is hard to forgive her abusive treatment toward Manaril, it becomes slightly more understandable when the player learns the truth behind the tension among Danash VIII's wives. Her last moments show that she cares for her daughter all along.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Minen.
  • Kill It with Water: Unlike previous Suikoden games, water spells are treated differently from ice spells. Have fun cleaning up Fort Arc during its second siege without somebody with water-based spells (or a certain physical skill).
  • The Klutz: If you talk to Selen when you returned to the castle after thrown into Ravine of Infinity by Diadora, it is revealed that Jale temporarily became one while Sieg, Liu and Chrodechild went missing.
  • Lady of War: Chrodechild and her sister Fredegund.
  • Large Ham: Whoever played Macoute loved his job.
  • Like a Son to Me: Sieg and his friends to Elder Rajim. And later, Atrie to the man who is heavily hinted to be Sieg's father.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: With 108 characters to recruit, how could there not be?
  • Love Makes You Evil: Possibly what drives Valfred's actions in the first place, since his family was erased in a world fusion that occurred a long time ago.
  • Luck Stat: Some of the quests require high Luck stat to succeed.
  • Mad Scientist: Zahra and Khemia.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Turns out the tension between Danash VIII's wives wasn't unforeseen...
  • Meganekko:
    • 'Moana the Matchmaker'.
    • The Wanderers seem to be a Megane(kko) race.
  • Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate: Zahra, a talented physician... who openly wishes for his patients to suffer worse injuries and more exotic diseases, and regularly asks to dissect defeated enemies.
  • Motor Mouth: Sieg in the English dub, there's even a video about it.
  • Mountain Man: Dogha, a gruff loner who lives in tune with the Ch'ouli Mountains. That is, until a Cosmic Retcon wipes most of them off the map, setting up a Tear Jerker moment between him and his self-proclaimed apprentice later on.
  • Mysterious Waif: Manaril, who's also a bit of a Oracular Urchin.
  • Mythology Gag: Parallel world or not, Tierkreis makes lots of references to the main series. Such as the suggestions offered when you're naming your company...
  • The Napoleon: Hina.
  • Nice Hat: There are too many nice hats to list.
  • The Nicknamer: Sieg, perhaps Lampshading the Loads and Loads of Characters aspect.
  • No Indoor Voice: Gorno. Sieg lampshades this during a quest.
  • Nonstandard Game Over: The bad ending.
  • No Pronunciation Guide: Causes an Inconsistent Dub: how do you pronounce some of those names? Some are just unintuitive ("Rizwan" is pronounced "Lizlan", apparently), but others are all over the place (Kureyah is sometimes pronounced "Claire", and Shairah/Shailah practically alternates every time she's mentioned).
  • No Sense of Personal Space: Tsaubern, apparently.
  • Oblivious to Love: Chrodechild. Poor Asad. There may still be hope, however.
  • Ocular Gushers: Lubberkin does this constantly. Though he is a bit high-strung after spending twenty years stuck in a dimensional rift. The fact that he was treated badly by people he met in said dimension doesn't help.
  • Older Than They Look: Hina, due to her height.
  • One-Winged Angel:
    • Characters with Chronicles implanted inside them can turn into hideous, and powerful, monsters.
    • During the final battle, The One King transforms into a giant version of himself and then into a giant armored dragon.
  • Parental Substitute: Mubal can be seen as one for Manaril.
  • Path of Inspiration: The Order of the One True Way.
  • Proud Warrior Race: The Auster-folk and the Furious Roar.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: And how. Sieg even lampshades this after recruiting Mourgent, where he notes that people he meets from time to time gets weirder.
  • Random Encounters: Not as bad as Suikoden IV, but still quite annoying.
  • Redemption Equals Death: The entire Magedom of Janam, but particularly Rizwan. Also Dirk.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Most Auster Folk have red eyes. They're also among the strongest races in the game.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Asad and Meruvis.
  • Religion of Evil: The Order of the One True Way definitely has elements of this. NightmareFuelish elements, in fact—such as when their leader predicts a lightning strike will hit the crowded town square during his speech, it happens... and nobody runs. Even though somebody was hit and fried to death in their midst. Squick...
    • Later in the game, he redirects a fusion of worlds that would likely have been relatively harmless, and kills over a million people. And shows no remorse about it to speak of.
    • Their final goal basically puts everyone in Cynas into a Lotus Eater Machine. Those who aren't are turned into monsters.
  • Rewriting Reality: Turns out The One King has rewritten the True Chronicles of many worlds, eventually leading to his appearances in said worlds and destroy them.
  • The Rival: Dirk became this to Sieg. Megion was one to Diulf. Also Lycia and Chein. Servillah and Eusmil take this to new heights as they compete on who gives birth first...
  • Save the Princess: Played straight with Manaril; Subverted by Chrodechild.
  • Scary Black Man: The Auster-folk are more or less the "black people" here, and some of them played this trope straight and some subverted it.
  • Screw Destiny: Sieg's rallying cry.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The bad ending, where Sieg uses the lives of the other Stars of Destiny to kill the One King, only to become the new One King.
  • Sickeningly Sweethearts: Dear God, Darrow and Savina...
  • Stripperiffic:
    • Shairah; Sieg can Lampshade this at one point.
    • Among the Starbearers, Felecca undoubtedly takes the prize.
    • Lathilda.
    • Marica, to an extent, also qualifies.
  • Take Your Time: Despite having "season" system, which changes every 30 days, it only affects several characters' recruitment and the appearance of Boss in Mook Clothing in several areas. You can spend as many years as you want without affecting the storyline.
  • Team Mom: Sisuca is a self-proclaimed example. Selen is an actual mom, but doesn't do much mommy business.
  • Tenchi Solution: Invoked by Danash VIII, and Deconstructed; to say there's tension between his wives would be putting it quite mildly...
  • Tragic Monster: Dust Sophia. She gets better though, followed by a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
    • During the ending, it is revealed that The One King is a former Tenkai Star who used the lives of his allies to kill the previous One King (a method that was considered, but rejected by Sieg). Presumably, he continues to destroy worlds in hopes that a Tenkai Star will be able to kill him using another method.
  • Tron Lines: The Scribes and Liu, when he gains the Tatau Council Chronicle and becomes the new Elder Scribe.
  • Tsundere:
    • Roberto, especially because even the Character Guide says so.
    • Morrin, although considering who her love interest is, she has every right to be.
    • Marica.
    • Minen is a subversion. The reason why she's so abrasive at first and then mellows out is because the main character has the Chronicle of Ritterschild, he's not coughing it up, and she doesn't believe he can defend it properly (understandably, remember that as badass as he grows to be, Sieg is still a kid with no real previous military training besides village patrol against wildlife, while Minen is a trained soldier), and thinks Geschutz is being foolish in trusting Sieg. When it becomes clear Sieg IS, in fact, competent enough to do the job, she starts respecting and trusting him, but it has nothing to do with being tsundere, just with her appreciating his making a honest effort to keep the promise he made them to defend their Chronicle.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Tower of the Way is set up as one from rather early on. However, when you enter it for the last time, you find that The One King has turned it into a giant statue of himself, like the very first dungeon.
  • Victorious Childhood Friend: Len-Lien and Liu.
  • Warrior Prince: So many to say.
  • Weapon of Choice: All your fighters have multiple weapons of choice, actually. Some have specific weapons they use in their unity attacks, however. The beast race also wields only claws and fists.
  • Where Are They Now? Epilogue: While the credits roll, the bottom screen tells you what each of your party members has been up to.
  • White-Haired Pretty Girl: Manaril.
  • The Wise Prince: Prince Shams.
  • Woman Scorned: Variation; Danash VIII's multiple wives aren't exactly fond of each other...
  • Worthy Opponent: Vaslof.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: Central to The Order of the One True Way.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Sphiel, Resno; Taj also has lavender hair.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Marica, Minen.
    This article is issued from Allthetropes. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.