Don't know what to tell you Shauna. I had a hard time remembering who was who in Tales of Vesperia that wasn't the main cast. Like the guy who had the um.. dungeon thing going on, I could never remember who he was or where he was position wise, or even what his name was vs other political figures, so it got really confusing when they were talking about like "such and such did this" and I didn't know who they were talking about or what impact it would have. Don't really know what else to say

6. Suikoden V (PlayStation 2)
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Suikoden V follows the Prince of Falena and his family and knights. A large part of the game is the Sacred Games event, in which people compete against each other in a gladiator style competition to find out who will marry our hero's little sister and become King and leader of the Knights. Unfortunately two of the favoured winners is pretty skeezy opposing political factions, and pretty soon the Prince and his family have some pretty intense things to deal with.

This game is played similar to most Suikoden games. You have to try to recruit the 108 Stars of Destiny and you get your own headquarters, where you can participate in mini games and such depending on who is recruited, as well as shop and do other things. Magic takes the form of Runes which can be equipped on characters. There are also duel and war battles that kind of operate like rock-paper-scissors. This game has 75 characters usable in battle including non-stars of destiny and guests, with parties consisting of 6 members at a time.


General impressions:
It was really hard deciding between this one and Suikoden II. They're pretty close to even for me, but this one beat it out by a tiny bit. I love the story, I love the characters, the headquarters was beautiful, it was well told, and the game was a lot of fun to play. It had some very intense moments to it that left me on the edge of my seat and the world was absolutely beautiful. My main complaints would be that the pacing near the beginning is very slow and it takes a while to really get going (although that does help set the stage pretty well) and it's not the best for beginners because it's one of the harder ones (if not the hardest) as far as character recruitment goes.

Story:
Excellent story. It's quite long but because of that you can really feel things building and changing as you go. This game did a better job of keeping me guessing as to what was going on and where I was storywise than the others. In the others I always knew when the betrayal would happen and when I would get my headquarters, but this one changed things up quite a bit as far as pacing. The story itself had some amazingly touching moments, a lot of suspense, and it did a great job of setting the tone for how things were doing. Amazing story.

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She mad

Gameplay:
The gameplay is pretty good. It's very Suikoden so if you like that style of gameplay, you'll like this one too. I liked how the big war battles took place on both sea and land and I enjoyed managing those more than in most of the other games. The game overall was quite easy, but the recruiting as I mentioned is one of the harder ones and some of the characters can be downright frustrating to get if you missed some simple little step at some point. The mini-games weren't as fun, but overall this game was really good.


World:
Beautiful. My favourite Suikoden world and one of my favourite video game world overall. It might help that so many places were near water. I can't really think of one area I disliked, even the grey stone wall places still had beautiful surroundings. There was even a town made up of like joined little boats. The whole world was absolutely gorgeous, ranging from beautiful city to mountain town. Loved it. I can't even think of a favourite spot there were just so many good ones.


Characters:
This game had a very strong core cast that really made me feel for them and what they were going through. Some of the background characters didn't stick out as much and could be pretty forgettable, but overall a really strong cast and fun to use.

Favourite character: Miakis KrMU9Wg.jpg
Honourable mentions: Luserina, Haswar, Lyon GmGjl8t.jpgDlgQjdZ.jpgQw0WqX4.jpg

Miakis was just an adorable badass who was awesome at her job of being a body guard, while also remaining bright and upbeat. Which made her sad moments that much more touching. Luserina was a sweetheart who wasn't afraid to stand up for herself. Haswar was a sweet lady and kind of like the family member I wish I had but never did. Lyon was loyal and strong and courageous, so it was hard not to like her.

Overall an awesome game and a great example of the series. Fun to play, strong story, great central cast of characters, and absolutely stunning world to explore. Beware the recruitment though, they didn't make it easy this time around.