Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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daoster
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

Post by daoster »

JiggleBiscuits wrote:For butchering...
Oh. I'm sure the board of directors will find that an adequate reason to fire Komuta! :lol: :lol: :lol:

tiki wrote:it was literally the poorest selling main game of the series

Komuta is primarily responsible for our not having a continuation of Suikoden right now

people always said on these forums "Well, choosing between Tierkreis and no Suikoden at all, I'd take Tierkreis -- it's keeping the series alive!"

but the thing is, it was never a choice, Konami genuinely wanted a new Suikoden game and this guy did everything in his power to prevent us from getting it to make his own game

if anything he has actively worked against the survival of the series and if this upcoming new game does not take place in the main world, it will be a continuation of his screw up

Who cares how much it sold? It garnered a profit, and one big enough for Konami to take another risk at another game that *COULD* be similar to Tierkreis. And Konami themselves stated it was a strong performer in their earnings report!

NOTE: I emphasize the COULD because well, we know nothing about this game right now.

I am definitely disappointed that the game isn't a "main" Suikoden, and hope Komuta has wisen up since Tierkreis, but if he hasn't...then for you and JiggleBiscuits' sake, I almost want this game to sell so well that moving forward, the whole series will be based on the Tierkreis world! The meltdown would certainly be amusing to see.

(though of course, I'd cry a little inside that it won't take place in the original world anymore...call it a bittersweet feeling).
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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I don't care about how much profit it managed to make

Konami were going to make an official Suikoden game

something that could have made an equal or greater profit

we don't have this official game because of him

he is to Suikoden what Hitler was to gay black jewish gypsies

--- if you were offended by the above comment you better not watch the episode 'Let's Kill Hitler' on the child family program Doctor Who or the upcoming episode of House, which both use basically the same g/b/j/g line with regards to someone hating someone else with the the level of Hitler's own hatred

I fear your fragile little hearts may not just be able to take seeing even the name 'Hitler'
Last edited by tiki on Sat Sep 24, 2011 5:41 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Exophase
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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daoster wrote:Who cares how much it sold? It garnered a profit, and one big enough for Konami to take another risk at another game that *COULD* be similar to Tierkreis. And Konami themselves stated it was a strong performer in their earnings report!
How do you know if it earned a profit or not? You don't know how much it cost to develop..

Anyway, earning a profit is great, but if Konami thinks a game will earn more and NOT piss off long time fans I'm sure they'd go with that instead. To prove Komuta's rationale of Suikoden NEEDING to flush the continuity down the toilet the game has to sell more than the worst mainline title. At an absolute minimum. In reality it'd probably have to do better as a mid-life DS title vs an end-of-life PS2 title that was recovering from the backlash its predecessor got. Had Konami released V instead of IV (pretend the IV cameos weren't there) I guarantee it would have sold better, much better it did - probably better than IV and quite possibly better than III too. So selling less than V doesn't really put Tierkreis in the light it needed to be put in.
daoster wrote:NOTE: I emphasize the COULD because well, we know nothing about this game right now.

I am definitely disappointed that the game isn't a "main" Suikoden, and hope Komuta has wisen up since Tierkreis, but if he hasn't...then for you and JiggleBiscuits' sake, I almost want this game to sell so well that moving forward, the whole series will be based on the Tierkreis world! The meltdown would certainly be amusing to see.
Come on, at least give us the chance that Komuta MAY not be directing this :/ And please don't wish my favorite series to death just to spite some angry forum posters.
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

Post by JiggleBiscuits »

daoster wrote:I am definitely disappointed that the game isn't a "main" Suikoden, and hope Komuta has wisen up since Tierkreis, but if he hasn't...then for you and JiggleBiscuits' sake, I almost want this game to sell so well that moving forward, the whole series will be based on the Tierkreis world! The meltdown would certainly be amusing to see.
Now you're just being a troll.
tiki wrote:I don't care about how much profit it managed to make

Konami were going to make an official Suikoden game

something that could have made an equal or greater profit

we don't have this official game because of him

he is to Suikoden what Hitler was to gay black jewish gypsies
This is 100% exactly correct.
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

Post by daoster »

tiki wrote:he is to Suikoden what Hitler was to gay black jewish gypsies
Well, this is where I tell you to chill out and watch what you say. If I didn't know better, he killed your first born son or something! This is only a video game series, there are many others that you can pick up and play and grow unhealthy attachments to. Comparing Komuta to Hitler is a bit much and taking it to a level that is quite disturbing, but from what I've read from you regarding this new direction...par for the course!

I don't believe this. Look at this message board, the people here that love the series haven't forgotten about it and if you tasked this forum to write the next Suikoden game I think you'd get a pretty good result out of it. Suikoden V had lots of attention to in-world detail, not only to the Suikoden universe but in particular to events tying to the first two. Konami definitely knew what they were doing and I was convinced that nothing was technically inhibiting them from making a Suikoden VI. What might be a bigger problem is that Konami knows that I and II have the biggest following today (hence re-releasing them and not the later ones) and they may well think that all fans want in the Suikoden is recurring characters, more than continuing plotlines (and they may be right to an extent). A game after Suikoden III would be further away from opportunity to do this, so they focused on a more immediate prequel for V. IV was developed practically alongside V and was more set off in the side to not interfere, I don't really know what the gist was exactly.

So yeah, I do have faith that Konami could do a Suikoden VI that did the series justice, I'm just not sure they ever wanted to after Murayama left. I hope I'm wrong, but like most of us I'd be happy with something furthering the established world.. there are a ton of interesting historical events to center a game around that aren't necessarily sequel material.

Yeah sure, if Konami wants to sell the series to the 3000 or so people who make up this board and the couple other thousand who make up SuikoX. We remember the stories and all the little particulars because we're hardcore Suikoden fans. What about the average joe who just wants to play an RPG? OR hell, even a Suikoden fan who's not as hardcore as we are? Or somebody who started with V? Making prequels that cater to the Suikoden II crowd is all fine and dandy, but I doubt it'll sell well enough for Konami. Oh yes, YOU'LL buy the game, and I imagine most of the people on this board will, but they're going to need a lot more people than THAT.

Then again, Kingdom Hearts games still sell gang busters, and I doubt many people remember the story from the original game. But Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters are usually a guaranteed sell...it's a shame that Suikoden won't have any Disney characters! :oops:

How do you know if it earned a profit or not? You don't know how much it cost to develop..

Anyway, earning a profit is great, but if Konami thinks a game will earn more and NOT piss off long time fans I'm sure they'd go with that instead. To prove Komuta's rationale of Suikoden NEEDING to flush the continuity down the toilet the game has to sell more than the worst mainline title. At an absolute minimum. In reality it'd probably have to do better as a mid-life DS title vs an end-of-life PS2 title that was recovering from the backlash its predecessor got. Had Konami released V instead of IV (pretend the IV cameos weren't there) I guarantee it would have sold better, much better it did - probably better than IV and quite possibly better than III too. So selling less than V doesn't really put Tierkreis in the light it needed to be put in.
You're right, I don't know if the game earned Konami a profit, so my mistake. I do know that Konami cited the game as a strong performer. And has green lighted another Suikoden for the PSP. For some reason, people are assuming that it's Tiekres 2, so let's assume that.

Also, I don't know how much it cost to develop, but I have to imagine a game that hardly pushed the boundary of a hardware system that was about as strong as an N64 has to be much cheaper than producing one for the PS2.
Now you're just being a troll.
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

Post by tiki »

daoster wrote:
tiki wrote:he is to Suikoden what Hitler was to gay black jewish gypsies
Well, this is where I tell you to chill out and watch what you say. If I didn't know better, he killed your first born son or something! This is only a video game series, there are many others that you can pick up and play and grow unhealthy attachments to. Comparing Komuta to Hitler is a bit much and taking it to a level that is quite disturbing, but from what I've read from you regarding this new direction...par for the course!
it is an altered quote from Doctor Who

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Exophase
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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daoster wrote:Yeah sure, if Konami wants to sell the series to the 3000 or so people who make up this board and the couple other thousand who make up SuikoX. We remember the stories and all the little particulars because we're hardcore Suikoden fans. What about the average joe who just wants to play an RPG? OR hell, even a Suikoden fan who's not as hardcore as we are? Or somebody who started with V? Making prequels that cater to the Suikoden II crowd is all fine and dandy, but I doubt it'll sell well enough for Konami. Oh yes, YOU'LL buy the game, and I imagine most of the people on this board will, but they're going to need a lot more people than THAT.
If this is how the "average Joe" feels they can go play one of the many other RPGs still coming out. What exactly would appeal to them about a Suikoden game to begin with? If you're going to make a game that sheds most of what made the series interesting I don't see why you'd want to make it part of the same series. That's a waste of IP. I think you're missing the point in saying that most people wouldn't get all the little details - that doesn't mean they don't remember anything of the story and don't want it to continue. How many Suikoden fans do you really think fall into that category, of not caring about the story being continued? You can count the number of people here and at Suikox but you can't count the number of real Suikoden fans, especially not when Suikoden has always sold more in Japan and these aren't even Japanese message boards.

You seem to be repeating the argument that we thought Konami was making, that a game like Tierkreis will sell more than a proper entry in the series. This argument never made the slightest bit of sense to me. How is making an RPG more generic and, if you ask me, just all around worse, going to make it sell better? You think people are actually intimidated by a game with a backstory? How many Suikoden series reviews have you read that said "good game, but you really need to have played the others to enjoy it"? I've never read one, probably because that's never how the games have been designed. But if someone is going to see a game from a franchise they recognize but have never played and throw their hands up saying they're not going to play this one either they would have done the exact same thing with Tierkreis.

This argument never made sense to me, and now we're learning that it was just a myth. And what was the result? Tierkreis selling worse than V despite being sold under much more favorable conditions, and btw, a late PS2 game would have made much more profit per sale than a DS game, especially considering the high media/licensing cost for DS carts. Sure, Tierkreis would have had a smaller budget, but somehow I think Konami could get away with selling a mainline game with a more conservative budget, but maybe Konami doesn't realize this.

Look at it this way, Tierkreis made almost all of its Japanese sales within its first month of availability, then dropped like a rock. Why do you think this is? My feeling is that a lot of hardcore fans swiped it up as soon as it was out, then word got out what the game was actually like. Let's see if anyone makes THAT mistake again.

Anyway, I don't get how you can claim that mainline Suikoden games don't sell enough copies then turn around and say Tierkreis did just fine when it did worse. Are you just being defensive because you liked the game or something?
daoster wrote:Then again, Kingdom Hearts games still sell gang busters, and I doubt many people remember the story from the original game. But Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters are usually a guaranteed sell...it's a shame that Suikoden won't have any Disney characters! :oops:
You really don't think much of RPG gamers, do you..
daoster wrote:You're right, I don't know if the game earned Konami a profit, so my mistake. I do know that Konami cited the game as a strong performer. And has green lighted another Suikoden for the PSP. For some reason, people are assuming that it's Tiekres 2, so let's assume that.
I don't know who Konami thinks they're kidding if they really think Tierkreis was a "strong performer" - maybe they decided that a little too quickly after a strong start. If Tierkreis was such a success then Konami greenlit the wrong game - they should be making a second DS game or maybe 3DS game instead. Think about it - if Tierkreis was supposed to appeal to a new crowd instead of long time RPG fans was it really reaching out to the type that by and large owns both a DS and a PSP?

Fortunately we don't know this is Tierkreis 2, I'm NOT going to be assuming that, and it doesn't sound like you'd care to either so how about we don't?
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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Exophase wrote:You seem to be repeating the argument that we thought Konami was making, that a game like Tierkreis will sell more than a proper entry in the series.
I can't believe we honestly thought that's what Konami was thinking, that the old series was too bloated for them to make a game in and they had to make Tierkreis to appeal to the mainstream, the only way we could get a genuine Suikoden game was to endure Tierkreis

how did it never occur to us that it was too bloated for the new director to make his game in

it was never about Konami or Suikoden, it was always what he wanted, the series, the company, the fanbase and everyone else be damned

they wanted him to make a game in the Suikoden world and he refused

god damnit
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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If he is finding it hard to build upon the existing continuity, then just hire one or more of those fanfiction writers or something. They THRIVE on exploiting elements created by other artists.

At this point, this fanbase would easily prefer fanfiction materials to another unconnected story set a far, far off parallel world tucked away amongst the Infinite Million Worlds.
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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patapi wrote:If he is finding it hard to build upon the existing continuity, then just hire one or more of those fanfiction writers or something. They THRIVE on exploiting elements created by other artists.

At this point, this fanbase would easily prefer fanfiction materials to another unconnected story set a far, far off parallel world tucked away amongst the Infinite Million Worlds.
Or just look at these boards and this website once in a while. Or e-mail Vextor and Raww.
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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patapi wrote:If he is finding it hard to build upon the existing continuity, then just hire one or more of those fanfiction writers or something. They THRIVE on exploiting elements created by other artists.

At this point, this fanbase would easily prefer fanfiction materials to another unconnected story set a far, far off parallel world tucked away amongst the Infinite Million Worlds.
Well, except that planning for new characters without making them Game Breakers or Joke Characters is kind of hard, and even then the fanfic writers find it very easy to create Mary Sues because there isn't much information about the two ends of the main series time spectrum to work around with.

The First Fire Bringer War and the Succession Wars, for example. We already know what happened to the Flame Champion and Barbarossa, but the information we have about the exploits are so vague that speculations are left to, yep, you guessed it, fanfic writers.

On the other hand, we do want to have a post-Suikoden III game, but where to set that game actually? We haven't explored pretty much every continent in the Suikoverse just yet, there are still too many TRs and mysteries to be solved (Jeane, Viki, Leknaat, Pes and Yuber, Hikusaak), and there are Crackpot Theories abound.
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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ninjaluc79 wrote:On the other hand, we do want to have a post-Suikoden III game, but where to set that game actually? We haven't explored pretty much every continent in the Suikoverse just yet, there are still too many TRs and mysteries to be solved (Jeane, Viki, Leknaat, Pes and Yuber, Hikusaak), and there are Crackpot Theories abound.
Harmonia

tie up Hikusaak and everything else

there's no reason not to
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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This obsession with Harmonia is rather unhealthy. They were used as the setting for selected Gaiden chapters, as well as one of the three used for Suikoden III.
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

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Hikusaak is in Harmonia and has yet to be seen

Harmonia is extremely interested in collecting True Runes, most of the unfound True Runes could be in Harmonia and it stands to reason that our various heroes would eventually find their way there due to Harmonia's potentially hunting down True Runebearers to steal their runes

it's the logical endgame of the series and a viable excuse for all our favorite True Runebearers to appear in one single game due to either Harmonian kidnapping or trying to investigate who exactly is targeting them

you could have Harmonia going throughout the world, burning down towns and attacking cities trying to force True Runebearers out of hiding to flush them out, leading to the necessity of uniting an army and various lands against them to bring them down

I guess reading through LotR and wanting Sam and Frodo to get to Mordor already is an obsession too, huh
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Re: Osamu Komuta as the man behind new direction

Post by Vextor »

A few people (including me) have already posted some messages via twitter to @genso573 and the #genso hash mark discussion group in twitter. Hopefully more will follow to make sure voices are heard by people who are involved. The @genso573 includes other Konami employees among the followers, so it seems like a fairly good venue if the volume can get big enough.

Perhaps it will help if I write some Japanese phrase to identify the cause, such as "We want a sequel to 1~5!"

幻想水滸伝1~5の正当な続編を!

It's also fairly powerful to mention your nationality.
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