1UP Retrospective on Suikoden 1 and why it's awesome.

[Wolf Kanno]

Says it on the tin (http://www.1up.com/features/retrospective-secrets-suikoden-success)

Anyway, this is a Suikoden Thread, so explain why you love Suikoden and why this article is right.

[The Man]

This is basically the best JRPG series ever (if Chrono doesn't count as a series, that is). I should really hook up my PS2 and play all the games after II. And, for that matter, replay the first two; I've forgotten way too much about them.

[Madame Adequate]

Because it's the best god damn series of games ever made and SII is the best game ever made period. That is why I love Suikoden.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well since Milf brought it up, which is your fave Suikoden? Mine is a toss up between the first three but I may give it to Suikoden 1, despite aging the worst of the series, and being the cheesiest. I love McDohl and the story of the Soul Eater Rune, and while other stories have better writing and worlds, Suikoden 1 really did a decent job of separating itself from other sword and sorcery RPGs. It's also my favorite because I tend to get goosebumps whenever a new entry references the game and the biggest part of enjoying Suikoden II was meeting up with all the cast members from Suikoden I, Flik and Victor are so much more entertaining when you played the first game, same with Futch and Siegfried. Not to mention getting McDohl as a hidden character is still possibly my favorite secret in any RPG.

[Madonna]

IV is my favorite; think of all the sailing you get to do.

[Raistlin]

I agree with that article entirely. Suikoden is far and away my favorite RPG series. The story and characters are generally the highlights, but the article was spot-on regarding the clean efficiency of Suikoden I (which would also apply to II, which is maybe ~10 hours longer than I).

Suikoden II is my favorite. I and II both have my favorite stories, but II has my favorite characters. And Suikoden II is just like Suikoden I, but at least slightly better in almost every conceivable way: gameplay (better major battle and rune system), graphics, characters (it's tough to beat Jowy -- and you even can get McDohl again!), etc. But I still do love Suikoden I, III, and V, and they're all really close in my mind. The much-maligned IV is not as good as the others, but still a decent game if enjoyed for what it is and played without expectations (which, to be fair, is difficult for the first play through).

Should I bother asking what everyone's favorite rune is, or will everyone just pick Soul Eater? How about second favorite rune? Other badass runes that come to mind are Blue Gate (maybe not the most useful rune, but the spells always look so imposing) and Jowy's Black Sword Rune.

[Madame Adequate]

I think my favorite rune is actually the Blue Gate rune, I always get excited when I get a hold of one because as Raist says the spells look like serious shit.

[Del Murder]

Is there a cheap way to play SII? or the first one for that matter. Can you get them on PSN at all?

[Wolf Kanno]

You can get Suikoden 1 on PSN but for some reason, Suikoden 2 has not been released yet, and its really pissing me off cause the game is incredibly expensive to find a copy of nowadays, so emulation is probably your next best choice until Konami gets their head out of their ass...

I'm partial to the Shield Rune, not the True Rune version but just the typical Shield Rune like in Suikoden 3. Once you give Aila the Earth and Shield Rune, Geddoe's team is pretty much unstoppable. It's just a practical rune with good healing and defensive spells. The Dragon Star Sword is amusing as well but I guess he wouldn't count. Yet, the Soul Eater is still my fave True Rune.

[Slothy]

I tried to get into Suikoden 1 a few times now since I got it from the PSN a few years ago but just haven't been able to any time I've tried. I want to get through it and like it, but I find my attention inevitably drifts to something else and I don't come back to it. I never played it when it originally came out and it's hard to get into now to be honest. Even for an RPG of the time I don't think the gameplay aged that well from what little I've gotten through.

I've always been more interested in playing Suikoden 2 to be honest though but like Wolf said, if you aren't emulating it then good luck with that.

[Bolivar]

Hmmmm... I've been wanting to play newer RPGs on handheld but I'm thinking Suikoden PSN deserves a download... although Vivi22's post gives me pause.

[Slothy]

It could partly be me Bolivar. As I've gotten older my gaming interests have shifted quite a bit from mainly playing RPG's to playing a bit of everything but with a much reduced interest in RPG's. I've played so many that it takes something pretty spectacular to capture my interest, and my tolerance for turn based combat and clunky UI's is not what it used to be.

[Flying Arrow]

Do I have cred here at all? Cause if I do, I'm going to throw it all in the garbage can and just come out and say I've never played any Suikoden games except for the third for about 10 hours and then traded in for... something. This was about 5 or 6 years ago when I was really in a RPG downswing.

Anyway, I've been eyeing S1 on PSN for some time. Worth it?

[Wolf Kanno]

Suikoden is decidedly old school in terms of telling a story, and its more like DQ and early FF than the PS1 RPG genre. It uses a ton of cliches: rebels vs. empire; elves, dwarfs and kobolds; forbidden magic, "chosen hero of destiny", and some of the most narm (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Narm) inducing drama to ever grace an RPG outside of Revelations: Persona. That's not to say the plot doesn't have its strong moments or surprising twists, but if you're an RPG veteran, there is very little in Suikoden's plot that is going to surprise you (the final battle/ending might) let alone escape that sense of "been there, done that". It's a fairly typical fantasy story with some political overtones. The later entries tend to downplay the fantasy elements in favor of focusing on stronger and more dramatic political story telling, which was the better route if you ask me. Still, McDohl's story concerning the True Rune is still one of the better ones in the franchise since the True Runes are usually treated as simple plot devices to start conflicts in the later games and the focus is more political than dealing with magic artifacts that grant demi-god status.

It's big strength is the massive cast and the games clever use of Chrono Trigger's Dual/triple techs so the game gives you major incentive to play around with your party and discover combo attacks. Runes use an FF1/D&D style with different tiers of power and limited casting of each tier of spell so there is some strong item/resource management going on. Deeper customization systems come later in the series but Suikoden 1 is pretty straight about it. Basically think of Suikoden as a really snazzy looking 16-bit RPG. There are some clever gameplay elements, the duels were a novel idea and play a large role in some of the more dramatic moments of the game, war battles are simple, and somewhat based more on luck than I would care for, but I still prefer them over Suikoden 2's system(my least favorite), though I feel Suikoden V has hands down the best army battles in the series. Also, the sheer challenge of getting all 108 stars is more than most of the franchise has tried (though Suikoden V is a close second) as it's very easy to lose story characters through events in the game, and it's very easy to have story characters killed in the war battles (Maximilian is the best example) so trying to get the true ending is a nice challenge. The castle building system itself is a very novel idea though Suikoden 2's castle is still the best in the series imho.

The big thing about Suikoden 1 is that the rest of the series refers back to it and a lot of the emotion in Suikoden II is lost on people who didn't play S1, so its kind of important to play it to understand what is going on when people mention the Toran Republic, or the Harmonia Empire's dealings with the Scarlet Moon Kingdom. A near third of the cast returns in Suikoden 2 and S2 doesn't bother in the slightest to recap their backstories. Seriously, the excitement of seeing Victor and Flik is lost on people who didn't play the first game, not to mention Futch's story. Hell the entire sidequest involving Clyde only unlocks in S2 if you did a minor thing in S1. You really miss out on some of Suikoden 2's most heart wrenching scenes if you don't recruit McDohl. No one who has played both cannot tell me you're heart didn't sink a little when McDohl reunites with Sakura and they discuss the effects of the True Rune's curse and her feelings for him. S1 and S2 are so ingrained with each other for me, it's difficult to talk about one without bringing up the other. The later entries are a bit better about this but one of the most amusing thing about the series is paying attention to name dropping as Suikoden 1 actually mentions the conflict with the nation that is the focal point in the next game, just as Suikoden 2 brings brings up the first taste of the Grasslands where Suikoden III takes place. Really, after playing the new entry, you almost want to play the old entry to discover if they referenced events. The entire plot of Suikoden V is based on the biography info you pick up on Georg Prime in Suikoden II. Suikoden IV brings up references o conflicts mentioned in passing books from Suikoden 1 about the Scarlet Moon Empires history.

It's the cohesive world that the numbered Suikoden games have built that makes the series so freaking awesome. Suikoden I has not aged well compared to the glorious Suikoden II or the underrated and groundbreaking Suikoden III but it's still a decent RPG romp that sets up one of the best and overlooked RPG franchises in gaming history.

[black orb]

>>> Looks like the link is broken.
Anyways Suikoden 1 has always been my fav, is hard to explain I guess the story was more epic than the others. Also Tir, Gremio and Ted are my fav characters from the series..
Suikoden 2 was great too but it lost a bit of the magic, it was indeed more flashy than 1 so most of the people like this one.
Suikoden 3, 4 and 5 are good too but not even close to the first 2 games, (honorable mention to 4 for bringing back Ted)..:luca:

>>> My fav True Rune? making Soul eater aside I guess the "Punishment" one, I really like that rune`s design.

[Raistlin]

The Rune of Punishment sounds great in theory, but was absolutely worthless for most of the game, at least in IV (it did became badass in Tactics). SIV was so easy that it never mattered, but it's (lack of) usefulness is only rivaled by the V's Dawn Rune, where the first spell is... a group antidote.

I also agree with WK's last post almost completely... but how is II's major battle system your LEAST favorite? :mad2: It is better than I's and at least involves some strategy. I might even rank it ahead of IV's because it reminds me of having to sail around the world map for half of the game.

[Wolf Kanno]

The Rune of Punishment sounds great in theory, but was absolutely worthless for most of the game, at least in IV (it did became badass in Tactics). SIV was so easy that it never mattered, but it's (lack of) usefulness is only rivaled by the V's Dawn Rune, where the first spell is... a group antidote.

The Punishment Rune wasn't so bad as a last resort rune, it got really useful when you collected all 108 Characters and removed it's negative effects. I mean Hero, Snowe, Ted, and Kika was a pretty unstoppable end game party and being able to double team the Final boss with the Rune of Punishment and Soul Eater was pretty fun.

I'll agree the Dawn Rune was pretty lame, but considering you also get the Dusk and Star True Runes kind of made up for it. It's reminiscent of how useless the True Water Rune is in Suikoden III if Chris gets it, since her magic ability is abysmal, you would only see the Level 4 Spell if you if you chose Chris as the hero and it was given to Hugo, or by hacking the game, or by exploiting the difficult Lv. 99 farming technique in her first chapter.


I also agree with WK's last post almost completely... but how is II's major battle system your LEAST favorite? :mad2: It is better than I's and at least involves some strategy. I might even rank it ahead of IV's because it reminds me of having to sail around the world map for half of the game.

It's poorly explained, the unit building is limited, and once Harmonia/Grasslanders show up, the rules of engagement work like Tetra Master, where victory is based more on the "Will of the Random Number Generator Gods" than actual careful planning. It tries to be like Ogre Battle, but Ogre Battle itself is more like the Rock/Paper/Scissors mechanics that the first game had, whereas SII doesn't work that way and its about random number crunching. Let's not forget that a good chunk of them are scripted so strategy is not much of a factor, most of the time your strategy is simply "avoid Luca Blight". It's just the least fun element of the game and I feel it's descendents did a much better job of making this part more fun.

[Raistlin]

The negative effects of the Rune of Punishment weren't even that bad, considering the game was so obnoxiously easy (even compared to I and II). It just wasn't very powerful compared to other options. And the Dawn Rune's last spell was actually fairly powerful, but the problem was that it didn't become useful until late-game, and by that time you had all the upper-level runes and weapons you could want.

And yeah, True Water was useless in Chris's hands in III, but its level 4 spells wasn't very important anyway. Who needs more damage when you've already got True Lightning and the True Rune of Self-Immolation?


It's poorly explained, the unit building is limited, and once Harmonia/Grasslanders show up, the rules of engagement work like Tetra Master, where victory is based more on the "Will of the Random Number Generator Gods" than actual careful planning.

To be fair, I's major battle system did not involve much in the way of "careful planning" either. Use your ninjas and thieves first and any other bonuses, and then just guess. I agree that the randomness of II was sometimes annoying, especially when a spell didn't do damage for 5 or 6 straight attempts, but I think even the limited unit building and veneer of battle strategy was a step in the right direction. Unless you choose the Yuber fight which can take forever because you NEVER DAMAGE HIM ARGH (and he only got more annoying in III).

[Wolf Kanno]

I'll agree it was a step in the right direction for the series, but in terms of having a fun experience, I liked Suikoden 1's system over Suikoden 2's. The dialogue options and getting the different special units made the battles fun, whereas the SRPG battles of II just felt flat and had some annoying hang-ups. Though as I said, I feel Suikoden V easily had the best war battle system, by going with a simplified RTS set-up.

As for Yuber in Suikoden III, Geddoe is his Achilles heel, for some reason, Geddoe seems to get bonuses for parry/counters against Yuber and I've seen him one-shot that asshole on enough occasions to make it seem like it's not an actual fluke. It's why I wasn't surprised when the manga adaption of Suikoden III kept having the two of them square off and become rivals throughout the books. Speaking of which, I really wished Konami had translated the novel adaptions for Suikoden I and II, they fill in quite a few gaps in the story and helped flesh out some of the minor 108 stars. Hell, I guess while I'm making pointless wishes, I wish they would finally translate the Suikoden Gaiden games so more fans can experience the awesomness of Nash, or hell, maybe just finally release Suikoden II onto PSN outside of Japan...:shifty:

[Raistlin]

I had no idea about Geddoe and Yuber. I'll have to keep that in mind for my next playthrough, as Yuber really is a pain in the ass in that game.

And I concur in the desire for a Suikogaiden translation, as Nash is badass.

[NeoCracker]

My first Suikoden was IV.

God I hated that game.

I played a bit of V, and it was enjoyable, though I hadn't played enough to judge it properly. Liked what I saw though.

Same for II, originally I emulated it, though my Laptop pretty much crapped itself before any real progress could be made. Did enjoy that one though.

I figured I wouldn't let IV sully the name of the other games, every series has it's hic ups.

Planning to get II if it ever comes to PSN so I can finally see the hub ub. I'll probably get the first when I have some spare cash to download it.

[Raistlin]

Suikoden IV's existence is justified if only because of The High Seas livejournal group, which... I just discovered that the archive of it is now gone. :( :( :( :( It used to be located here (http://www9.brinkster.com/miluda/journals/index.html), but now I get a 404. Do you know, WK?

It was on Live Journal, where a group of people made accounts in the names of IV's characters and acted as if they all have LJs. It was one of the funniest things I've seen on the internet, and if it is gone forever I will cry.

[Wolf Kanno]

It looks like it's gone for good... :(

Suikoden IV is definetly a step back for the franchise but it does have it's strong points. The Trading system is actually deceptively deep as trading materials back and forth begins to unlock better materials for more profit, where this gets interesting is that the game also allowed you to use these materials to craft armor, so it's kind of the secret to better stuff. The Ship was also a pretty good castle replacement (I love the confessional and playing mah-jong) and Kika (Voiced by the lovely Mary Elizabeth McGlynn) is pretty badass, not to mention the emotional pull of being able to see and use Ted again. Granted Ted kind of breaks the game (just needs a Flowing Rune) but oh well... Suikoden IV also jumps into the better Suikoden Tactics, and the history of the Island Nations actually flows right into Suikoden V since you get to deal with them a little and get some pretty powerful characters from there (Bernadette anyone?). It's still the weakest entry though and you kind of need to play Suikoden I to get several of the references in the game to the rest of the series.

I'd recommend giving the series another shot, I'm actually playing through Suikoden I and while it definetly has its narm moments and some awful translation issues, the game has held up pretty well. I've completely forgot about stuff like the Kelekka Incident and how robust (for it's time) it gives background info about things. I'm just getting into Milich's Territory and have to find Luiken. I'm prepping Pahn for his fateful encounter with Teo as well.

[Madonna]

There appears to be a wanker drifting on my seas.