Suikoden Reminiscence BGM ripped off in Beyond the Future

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dragonmasterx
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Suikoden Reminiscence BGM ripped off in Beyond the Future

Post by dragonmasterx »

I passed on Beyond the Future because it got pretty shoddy reviews, but seeing the LE Edition sealed for 2500 yen, I decided to give it a shot. It's alright so far, I think the people who play visual novels are used to super high quality stories, so their expectations are really high. The story here isn't too shabby compared to the average rpg from what I've played so far.

Anyway, this REALLY familiar song came up after the first boss encounter, after a minute, it came to me -- Suikoden 2. Googling revealed this link:

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm17056946

The guy who posted the video contacted 5pb on why the song was so similar to the song in Suikoden 2. 5bp's response:
Regarding your inquiry, we consulted the matter with the development staff for "Beyond the Future - Fix the Time Arrows". Being big fans of Suikoden 2, and the "Reminiscence" song in particular, they felt that there were many rpg elements similar to Suikoden 2 in this game and -- despite the genre of this game being different(visual novel targeted at female audience) -- wanted to use this opportunity to pay homage. We hope this answers your question and look forward to your continued interest in 5pb products.
---
Comments on the niconico video are among the following:
WTF! You call this a homage? This is a ripoff!
KONAMI, sue them!
Boycotting 5pb. You guys are the worst!
Suikoden fans would recognize this in a second. Why'd they use this?
Unforgivable!
---
If this visual novel was a huge hit, like Stein's Gate, who know, maybe Konami might have sued? (Maybe they can still sue and use that money to make Suikoden 6...) Or another possibility is that the some members of each team know each other (maybe drinking buddies, a big thing in Japan) and talked about this beforehand.
------
And here's a review in English of the PSP LE version of the game complaining about the same issue:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/review/RSDKKLIDNSOHB
Last edited by dragonmasterx on Mon Nov 26, 2012 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Antimatzist
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Re: Suikoden Remembrance BGM ripped off in Beyond the Future

Post by Antimatzist »

WOW this is REALLY a rip-off. You can't even say it's only inspired by the original but it's really the same (maybe 99% the same? But still enough). Maybe the original composer gets some money from that, if not SUE THEM!
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patapi
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Re: Suikoden Remembrance BGM ripped off in Beyond the Future

Post by patapi »

Let's see if Konami still cares about this IP.
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bluemask
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Re: Suikoden Remembrance BGM ripped off in Beyond the Future

Post by bluemask »

This is barely homage. Tuning the tone a bit and some little tweaks here and there is no homage! Man, if they want to pay homage, they should credit the game or the original composer properly or, use some familiar elements from S2 whilst the music is playing which is proper referencing. But that game clearly didn't had any of it, only the same music.This is clearly a case of plagiarism.
patapi wrote:Let's see if Konami still cares about this IP.
Hope they do. Some people seem to think of the main series as a dead series (no source, but that's what I believe). They should ought to do some action now.
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dragonmasterx
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Re: Suikoden Remembrance BGM ripped off in Beyond the Future

Post by dragonmasterx »

I contacted Konami Japan, explaining I've translated some stuff for Suikoden fans abroad. Their response was along the lines of:
Thank you for your passion and dedication to the Suikoden series. I have contacted the involved parties regarding the use of the Reminiscence song. But please understand that we cannot reveal any details of whatever action we may take, if at all.

We greatly appreciate your concern regarding this matter, so we sincerely apologize about this.

But of course, it is because you truly love the Suikoden series that you would notify us of this matter, and we cannot be thankful enough for that.

Please feel free to contact us with any further questions or comments, and we look forward to your continued support of Konami products.
Last edited by dragonmasterx on Mon Nov 26, 2012 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
s21
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Re: Suikoden Remembrance BGM ripped off in Beyond the Future

Post by s21 »

At least something suikoden-related is actually happening outside the fanbase
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bluemask
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Re: Suikoden Remembrance BGM ripped off in Beyond the Future

Post by bluemask »

s21 wrote:At least something suikoden-related is actually happening outside the fanbase
I'm not sure if you're happy with that or not. The problem is, the very idea of Suikoden is being stolen without proper acknowledgement even though it's only music. While this is only the beginning, we can never tell what would happen to the series next once they realize they can get away with this.
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Re: Suikoden Reminiscence BGM ripped off in Beyond the Futur

Post by Runemaster »

They seriously thought that no one who has played Suikoden 2 would get to play the game? Reminiscene is one of the more famous(and memorable) tracks of the series! Even if this was agreed upon by Konami, it's disappointing that the beauty of the game would be accredited by players to another game. It tarnishes Suikoden's integrity, if I may say.

And although it is admittedly a nice "version", better than some versions released on the saga's soundtracks, it should not be for this game. Shame.
I will bring Lordlake's fate... to the entire Suikoden World! weeeeeeh!
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Re: Suikoden Reminiscence BGM ripped off in Beyond the Futur

Post by BadPotato »

At some point, it could be interesting to see if Konami would simply consider to sell the Suikoden brand to some random compagny. This is something that we already saw in the past for some game.

Also, I believe that these day, the konami structure became way to big and complex to make a good suikoden game anyway. Now you can't just give a project to a "single" suikoden team and expect to get something good enough, you need a huge amount of people. I mean, today if a big compagny such as Konami want to make a suikoden game for an non-portative console, they got no choice, but to aim for something that could be competive with the actual market such as the final fantasy. The reason for this is that all suikoden game alway used the limit of the hardware efficiently.

In other word, I think the suikoden serie need some fresh idea from a startup compagny instead of been under Konami, where Kojima wouldn't want give some real credit to RPG anyway.
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