I haven’t played my DS in over a month and a half. Honestly, I just haven’t been in the gaming mood. However, I finally received my pre-ordered copy of Konami’s Suikoden Tierkreis for the DS and that broke my anti-gaming mood. Suikoden Tierkreis is the newest instalment in the series — a spin-off of some sort, making it drastically different from its console counterparts — but it still retains some similarities from the main series.

Having just played it for over an hour, I decided to get away from it to blog about my first impressions on the game. After I untangled my earphones, I started the game and watched the gorgeous anime-style opening. I remained rather apathetic through it, but when the name-your-hero screen and the familiar theme song came on, I literally screamed my head off in my room, followed with some fangirlish giggles. I bet my parents and my neighbours thought I was being murdered or something.

For the next hour, I immersed myself into the familiar yet different gaming world. As a fan of the series, I was a bit apprehensive about this game, but now I think I can relax. This game, so far, exceeds my expectations! I mean, heck, the familiar battle system is back (albeit it’s four players instead of its customary six), the gorgeous music and graphics is welcomed as a sensory overload, and the English voice acting is actually decent for a change.

If there are any flaws, I have yet to find them. Oh, wait, I found some. Why can’t I save on the map?! The 3-D rendering of the characters could be better. The instruction manual was utter crap. How come I have to trade to make money instead of winning them in battles? The character movement on the screen is way too slow — where’s the dash function or at least this game’s version of the True Holy Rune? And where are my Flik and Viktor?! (Okay, the last complaint is me being a prat on purpose.)

Despite that though, I am loving this game so far. With all the gushing I’ve been doing, it’s almost fair to say that I believe this is definitely one of the best turn-based handheld RPGs out there for the DS. Squenix’s games are great, don’t get me wrong, but I think I will always prefer the Suikoden series over a lot of Squenix’s stuff.

Anyway, time for me to go back to Ubi (my DS) and spend some quality time with it. Happy Gaming Time!