We've had Persona VS Persona, but now we have Suikoden 2 VS Suikoden 5. I have heard great things about Suikoden 2, but not much about the 5th one. Will this be an easy victory for Suikoden 2? Or will Suikoden 5 come and surprise us all?
Second to last round before the Semis !~!
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VS
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*Closes in 24 hours !*
Sorry to those who originally voted for Suki 5.... but the game looks ....awful. :stare:
I heard 5 is pretty frickin’ phenomenal, but I’ve only played up to II, so I voted that
I'm voting for Luca.
Another series I've never really played. Starting to feel like I'm missing something in my gaming education. Well, one of my friends was somewhat obsessed with the series back then. They insisted that I sit down and play two for a bit, and I don't remember disliking it, so we'll go with that one.
5. Everybody always praises 2 and I have to wonder if 5 just got screwed by the lackluster 4, causing people to lose interest in the series.
This is so easy it's a joke. I liked Suikoden V, but it was also so transparently an attempt to recapture the greatness of Suikoden II to the point of blatantly copying some of the beats from Suikoden II in a much more forced and unconvincing fashion (Sialeeds is a poor man's Jowy). If I'm sounding too harsh, I'll pull back a bit and say I think Suikoden V is the second best in the series and has the best war battles of the series. In comparison to the best non-FF game though, there's just no contest.
While the original is my favorite title, 2 is . . . kind of hard to top, and while 5 was completely solid it really didn't match the second game in any ways that weren't Raven's letters or the just mentioned War system.
While I know this one is a foregone conclusion from the moment I saw the lineup, I'll stick up for Suikoden V since it was one of the games I nominated.
I feel the two areas where Suikoden V is better than Suikoden II is gameplay and dealing with political ideology.
Gameplay is largely a no-brainer here, Suikoden II has a really nice combat system and while it offers much more in terms of character customization, it's still barely a step up from FF/DQ IV in terms of depth whereas SV's gameplay has the skill system, larger selection of runes, party formation abilities, and a more conscious effort to make the playable cast members feel distinct from each other with unique skills and runes that work towards specific roles in combat that are more than just: Heavy Melee, Magic Knight, and Mage. Not to mention that SV just has a lot of fun characters to use, whereas SII is a title where I tend to play heavy on favorites because some units are just flat out more useful than others. In SV, I don't mind Georg being removed from my team because he's such a game breaker and it allows me to really use other team members, whereas I get annoyed in SII when I can't use both Viktor and Flik because I love both of them and they are pretty standout party members on top of that.
The actual duels in SV are some of the best, with more graphical variety, more duels in general, and a timer that makes it more hectic since you now no longer have all the time in the world to either decipher what their tell is or just quickly Google the answer. The fact more characters than just the MC gets a turn is really nice as well.
As has been mentioned, SV has the best War Battles in the series, being a simplistic RTS that uses the series standard Rock, Paper, Scissors mechanics whereas I feel SII has the worst in the series because the rules are poorly explained and the RNG factors in way too much. In SV, you actually have to learn how to flank troops or lead the enemy into ambushes all in real time which keeps you on your toes, whereas SII has too many instances where your high level unit suffers a devastating critical hit, from a units whose stats say they had no chance in winning.
The only area where I would agree that SII is better on the gameplay front is that SV is super easy, in a series that was always pretty easy to begin with. In fact it's the only entry in the series where you can finish off the final boss without ever taking damage if you bring the right people and use the right formation.
On the political ideology front, I appreciate the fact that we get to really explore the political faction element of a failing government, because this is usually the real cause of government's turning into despots. SII has some interesting politics going on, but it is really only with the City-States you get to see true political dysfunction. Highland is a typical evil empire with a power hungry King, his ax-crazy son, and even when the powers change to a moderate, they basically decide to continue the former evil people's policies because they've lost hope in lasting peace. Granted, supplement material proved that he was right in a way, but in a series where genocide is often frowned upon, even being right about everything doesn't make you morally right in this case.
Watching the Godwins and Barrows factions plot against each other and the Queendom is interesting, and it shows off the type of self-centered extremism that often permeates real governments. How much their rivalry plays out in the game's backstory adds several layers to the political issues that are hurting Falena. In essence, SII's politics can be summarized as the hero trying to get a squabbling group of kids to work together to beat a common bully, which in essence is kind of the plot of most of the series as SIII and IV don't really stray far from that formula, and even V has a lot of elements to it as well. SV's political narrative is akin to a a person with terminal cancer that they can't seem to get rid of and the plot being about trying to get rid of something they've dealt with for years that now has a real chance to kill the whole body once and for all. Even in the aftermath of SV, despite both factions losing a lot of their political clout, it's not like they are gone for good.
Granted, with all this said, Suikoden II is a fantastic entry in the series, but I feel SV is a worthy successor that's often overlooked.
Suki 2 is through.
Farewell to Suki 5.
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*closed*
I gotta disagree with you on SII's being the worst in the series. I actually think they're the second best, but the worst is easily Suikoden III for me. The war battles in SIII play like a dumbed down version of the regular battle system. It's awful. As much as I hate Suikoden IV, I'll even take their version of the paper rock scissors approach over SIII's. Also, Suikoden II might have a lot of RNG factor, but it's not completely random. It's largely based on army stats, which you can influence by customization of your units. Crits might happen on occasion, but generally the stats influence the outcome of most skirmishes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
The crits happen too often that they tend to undermine stats, not to mention SII is pretty notorious for throwing you into unwinnable situations until Shu finally joins you. Even with good stats, nothing is more frustrating than watching what should have been a sure thing turn into a total route because the computer can be a cheating bastard with the RNG. Throw in the fact that battles are painfully slow with the boring movements and waiting a round to even get into your first battle; and that the battles tend to be glitched removing music, and it's honestly the biggest eye sore of an otherwise perfect game. SII's War Battles sound nice on paper but they're honestly my least favorite part of the game and the one thing I would love to change about it. I would even take the first games overly simplistic Rock/Paper/Scissor nonsense over SII's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord GolbezI gotta disagree with you on SII's being the worst in the series. I actually think they're the second best, but the worst is easily Suikoden III for me. The war battles in SIII play like a dumbed down version of the regular battle system. It's awful. As much as I hate Suikoden IV, I'll even take their version of the paper rock scissors approach over SIII's. Also, Suikoden II might have a lot of RNG factor, but it's not completely random. It's largely based on army stats, which you can influence by customization of your units. Crits might happen on occasion, but generally the stats influence the outcome of most skirmishes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno
I actually feel the ship battles in SIV are the second best war battles in the series and largely the only thing the game gets right. As for SIII, I honestly like the War Battles because it promotes making you actually developing your recruits. This is because as long as you're not in the early game dealing with generics, and even then those fights are painfully scripted much like SII's early war battles, then your units are based on how much you actually bothered to outfit your units or develop them. Which is nice for a series that tends to give you loads and loads of characters. Of anything, once the game actually lets you have real control over the war battles, they tend to go by real fast and easier since you can easily throw in some high level and well armed team mates into the battle. Yuber becomes a joke when you have him up against a Parry God like Hugo or Augustine. So even with the FFVI Coliseum thing going on for the individual battles, I appreciate that I have far more control on how they plan out and don't have to really deal with awkward and poorly explianed mechanics.
I haven’t played beyond II yet, but the war battles in that game were God-awful