The Latest in my random antics! Playthrough of Suikodens 1-3 + SuikoGaiden!

[Wolf Kanno]

SIV's main redeeming feature is that it's quick and easy. True, the world map is unbearable to traverse, and the writing is near nonsensical at times, but the gameplay is fairly enjoyable, and it's the easiest game in the series. Almost absurdly so, between how ridiculously powerful some characters are and the support characters which can basically auto-heal your party after every battle. And up until the final dungeon, the largest dungeon in the game is like 3 screens and takes all of 2 minutes to traverse (though it is annoying if you have to go through it 4 times in a row for a certain character...).

It's still a decent game by itself, but it certainly deserves its reputation for being the worst in the series.

This game has lots of issues that bar it from greatness. The story is told poorly, with lots of quick away shots to a character who says one line and the story sequence itself feels really jumpy. Its almost like before the game was released some crazy editor walked in and hacked out a third of the story sequence because it really does seem like you just jump from one plot point to another. This is really just disappointing because the background of the Island Nations and the story of the Rune of Punishment are all really great concepts and the game certainly has its moments but overall, the weak execution of the story just prevents the game from achieving its potential.

The characters are also poorly fleshed out which is really noticeable coming off of Suikoden III which did an excellent job fleshing out a majority of the 108 stars. Even characters who feel like they should be important, like your friends who leave the academy to help you, seem more like background characters than people who held any significant attachment to the main character. Most of the stars are eccentric but few are interesting beyond that. I daresay that recruiting Ted is probably one of the few highlights of the game for me simply for the nostalgia. Troy, in the beginning is presented as a major figure in the game but much like Seifer from FFVIII, he ends up meandering into a background stooge whose later appearances often feel more like the writers throwing him in for the hell of it because they kept forgetting he's there, as opposed to really fleshing them out and allowing him to take center stage. The whole final battle with him feels like the writer tying up a loose end and makes little sense in context.

The gameplay is also a step back, not even considering the downgrade of six man parties to a four member team, the game drastically reduces the amount of runes you have and really cuts down most character specific runes with only Reinbach III, Kika, Ted, and the Hero having unique runes with more colorful animations. The world is easily the smallest of all the games and the encounter rate is ridiculously high for the series which makes traveling without using Viki a total chore.

Still, to not be a total Negative Nancy, the new item crafting system certainly breathed life into both the trade system and the usefulness of the Blacksmith and new tailor character. I also love that IV took III's equipment sets idea and really ran with it with the major draw of customization being the acquisition of materials to build the complete armor sets to get the fancy bonuses. I really love equipment setups like this and its one of the few high points of the games design.

[Raistlin]

I completely agree with you about the jumpy, contrived story. I distinctly remember being in awe at just how forced some of the plot points were, especially on your first visit to Obel. Between the convenient ruins that you explore for no specific reason and the suggestion to start recruiting people just for the hell of it (presumably to have more people at your poker games), it's really like some one high school writer decided to write a Suikoden script and then they realized after-the-fact that certain things were never explained -- so they just added in a random line or two.

A lot of the background characters were definitely done poorly. The silent protagonist can be a powerful literary tool when done well, when there are sufficiently developed characters close to the Hero who can essentially speak for him. This was demonstrated very capably in S1 and S2, where Gremio, et al and Nanami respectively were very well developed -- and through them, the Hero. But Lazlo's friends were never really developed and never given sufficient screen time to speak for him.

It is very interesting to see how the series developed, as S4 had pretty much scrapped everything S3 had done right.

Suikoden I: Completely new series, great potential, but lacked polish.
Suikoden II: Developers obviously learned, as this took everything S1 did and made it at least a little better.
Suikoden III: New platform (PS2 and 3D), so tried a lot of new things. Very strong writing and characters, but lacked polish.
Suikoden IV: Instead of improving on S3, decided to revert all of its advancements, and tried entirely different new things. Most of them flopped, and it still lacked polish.
Suikoden V: What S4 should have been, it took everything good about S2 and combined it with everything good about S3, while polishing up S3's new concepts.

If only other development teams were so capable of learning from mistakes and building on previous advancements.

[Wolf Kanno]

I feel the reason for the erratic jump in quality in the series comes from background elements. Supposedly the series creator originally penned the plot of Suikoden II first but since it was his first time making a JRPG, he wanted to do it right so he gambled by writing a prequel story that eventually became the original Suikoden. I find it interesting how much love this game actually gets, since almost every game has some major shout-out to the first game. Overall, its unpolished because it was a team working on new territory for themselves.

Suikoden II was good because it was the creator's original vision of the game and he learned from his mistakes and player feedback, which is why the game is more solid than the first installment though certainly a bit more buggy. Suikoden III was the team's first foray into a 3D RPG and I daresay they really did some interesting experiments and I felt they approached the concept of what 3D could do for an RPG better than some of the genres peers. The creator also left the company towards the end of the games production which is probably why it does have some polishing issues, and why the last two chapters feel a bit neutral compared to the starting chapters. It has been noted that he left the company on good terms and simply left because he vowed only to work for Konami for a set period of time and then would move on. It just happened that date came around the end of SIII's production.

Suikoden IV was then helmed by the series creators long time friend and collaborator, whose major involvement in the series really goes back to the first game, which is why I feel SIV has so many elements from S1 in it. She was never a major part of the gameplay side so I felt that might be part of the issue of SIV's drop in quality. The game was also one of the first to really be built around using progressive scan TVs and the series finally addressed the issue of the really stiff character models but I'm afraid the use of motion capture actors tends to make some of the character movements fall into uncanny valley from time to time. Not to mention that Hollywood camera techniques tend to hide slow some action movements really are. The game was doing some interesting things but I feel this was an issue of having lost the series visionary along with an inexperienced new head and experimenting with new technology just wreaked havoc on the project. I've heard Suikoden Tactics is a vast improvement and I will find out myself because its next in my own playthrough. I've never played past the first few chapters because I wanted to go through SIV so the world and characters would still be fresh in my mind.

Suikoden V is the odd one. Because as far as my research can tell, it was made with no real input from any of the series major players. Its akin to a new team that isn't the Quest/Ivalice team making a sequel to FFTactics that's debatably better than the original. I think part of the reason for the success was because it was originally meant to be a Suikoden Gaiden game not directly related to the main series and only after it reached a certain point in development did the team and higher ups feel it was worthy of being a true sequel. From what I gathered Suikoden V is pretty much the Suikoden equivalent of FFIX because the game was suppose to be a bit of a throwback title and it really did take the best elements of the last three installments and built them into something great. In a way, what Konami did with Suikoden V is kind of what I wish Squenix would do with FF. A game that looks back and sees what worked in the old installments, bring them together, improve all of them, and wrap them in a brand new story world and add in a bunch of new elements that builds off what made some of the good elements work. Granted SV has its issues like the satellite camera view, and the god awful load times, but I daresay its political plot is superior to even SII and its gameplay is certainly one of the best in the series. Its actually been the game I'm looking forward to playing the most right now but I need to finish SIV (almost at the end, getting ready to liberate Razril) and finally play through Suikoden Tactics before I can touch this game again.

[Raistlin]

How the hell do you know all this trout? xD Do you do background research on every game's development?

Despite S5's polish, it's not surprising that original creators weren't involved. It just lacked some of the emotionally-gripping characters that S1-3 all had, which is the only reason I still enjoy S2 more. But S5 certainly had a very strong overplot, great gameplay mechanics, a radically revamped and in-depth major battle system, and a rich and massive world. I don't think I've ever played another RPG with a traditional world map that felt so vast.

[NeoCracker]

70% of Wolfs gaming experience is digging through reports and stories of any game he is playing.

Yes, this means he spends more time doing that then actually playing games.

[Wolf Kanno]

How the hell do you know all this trout? xD Do you do background research on every game's development?

Despite S5's polish, it's not surprising that original creators weren't involved. It just lacked some of the emotionally-gripping characters that S1-3 all had, which is the only reason I still enjoy S2 more. But S5 certainly had a very strong overplot, great gameplay mechanics, a radically revamped and in-depth major battle system, and a rich and massive world. I don't think I've ever played another RPG with a traditional world map that felt so vast.

70% of Wolfs gaming experience is digging through reports and stories of any game he is playing.

Yes, this means he spends more time doing that then actually playing games.

This is a pretty accurate statement. I'm fascinated by the production side of things, and I couldn't tell you how I probably do know more about some games and movies I've only seen maybe once that a fan probably wouldn't know.

As for SII Vs SV, I can't say for now. My memory of SV is a bit foggy as I only ever played it once and I only remember really enjoying the game so I can't make too many comments on that. I do remember the game being really long though, like finally reaching the point of recruiting characters and being nearly 20 hours in, kind of long.

[black orb]

>>> Hey NeoCracker, dont listen to these guys. Suikoden IV is awesome you get some of this

suik4012.jpg

in your party ..

[NeoCracker]

Yeah, I have played IV before, for about 4 hours. It was my first Suikoden technically. :P

...And yeah, didn't get that into it.

[Wolf Kanno]

Finally finished Suikoden IV and have entered Suikoden Tactics. ST has proven to be a real interesting game so far. The story still has some pacing issues but it has brought some much needed background information to SIV including fleshing out several characters and finally explaining what was up with SIV's final boss. The gameplay is an odd mix of FFTactics/Tactics Ogre and bit of Fire Emblem (permanent character death) all utilizing the Suikoden gameplay mechanics (Unite Attacks, Rune Slots, MP System, collecting lots of characters) the elemental field mechanics is largely what really sets this game apart from other games of the genre, as it really makes controlling your environment very important. I'm not terribly far in but so far this game has been a vast improvement over SIV. I'm even beginning to wonder about the game's origins and if SIV's development was marred by more issues than people first thought.

[Shauna]

I am currently about 4 main story battles away from finishing Tactics. It is pretty good and I think that if I wasn't so determined to do everything I'd enjoy it more. But, as a completionist, I've had to do all the quests. To do certain quests I've had to *grind* for items.

Grinding. In a strategy RPG. Is actually the worst thing. Ever.

Also I accidentally cancelled out of a quest. That quest happened to be the one for recruiting Jeane. It has never reappeared. I think everything is ruined.

My motivation to keep on this game has dwindled hugely over the months. xD I go back to it every now and again, and maybe do one or two battles. I just can't do it for any length of time, strategy lethargy.

[Wolf Kanno]

I'm hoping I finish it myself, SRPGs have slowly become one of the genres I can't really commit to anymore. I get easily fatigued by the systems and I've noticed that if anything remotely bothers me about the game, I'll never get around to finishing them anymore. I still haven't finished Valkyria Chronicles or Disgaea 3 because of certain aspects of the games. The real issue is that I'm really wanting to move forward and get into Suikoden V but I feel a bit guilty that I'm ditching a game I never finished for one I already have. I've been trying not to do that so I can finally tackle my backlog but I just get in the mood to replay certain games again.