Now to begin talking about the first game in the classic franchise. I will warn you now, I am not going to be quite as vague as I was in my other threads and blogs, so expect spoilers and way more info dumps. You have been warned.
So let's start this from the beginning. In the mid-90s, Konami got the terrible idea of trying to get into the console market. They wanted to take a stab of the new CD-Rom format and started development which required a few games to be made for the secret project. It was here that Yoshitaka Murayama and Junko Kawano worked together for the first time on a game for the new hardware. When Konami discovered Sony was going to throw it's towel into console market ring. Konami cancelled the project and opted to have the development teams work on the new console instead. The were given a choice between a few select genres to make a game and they opted for an RPG, though Murayama has stated that he would have preferred to make a side-scrolling shooter if he had been given the chance. Murayama was a huge fan of manga and wanted to make a type of story where there was a large supporting cast who got as much spotlight as the main character. He cited Captain Tsubasa as an example of what he meant. But he was worried the higher ups wouldn't quite understand the idea without him having to explain the manga he was reading; so he opted to compare it to the Chinese classic Shui Hu Zhuan (Suikoden in Japanese).
Shui Hu Zhuan, or roughly translated to The Water Margin and All Men are Brothers in English, is one of the four great classical Chinese novels along with Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It was written somewhere between the 14th and 16th century China. The story tells a tale of 108 Stars of Destiny, reincarnated in the Song Dynasty as people of different walks of life who band together in the Liangshan Marshes as bandits to stage a war against a corrupt government body. The story mixes historical events and folk stories to create a powerful fictional work that is a cornerstone of Chinese literature. I've read parts of this book, and it's honestly pretty cool with the first half of the novel largely being the backstory for the majority of these 108 characters. The book is fairly dense and sadly, there is no perfect English translation.
Unfortunately for Murayama, his pitch went a little too well, and the higher ups thought he was actually pitching an idea to make a video game adaption of the novel, so they green lit the project. This caused a bit of a panic with the development team who now found themselves at the helm of a very ambitious undertaking for a company and team new to RPG design. Looking at the 3D animation demos, Murayama and the staff walked away unimpressed with the early 3D design. They opted to stick to Konami's strong point of 2D sprites, though they did utilize some 3D effects in the battle system. Instead of making a 1:1 adaption of the novel, the team opted to tell an original story with an original cast that took inspiration from the novel. Murayama and Kawano decided to add more western fantasy elements to the game to appeal to a wider audience outside of Asia. Meanwhile, Murayama's love for card games served as the inspiration for the Rune magic system, and eventually the True runes themselves since he borrowed the play mechanic from a game he loved to play. Murayama's biggest contribution to the game design side of things was streamlining the process. Anyone who has ever played Suikoden will know that it is not a terribly difficult game, and this was on purpose as Murayama remembers growing up and being frustrated with early cRPGs that often had difficult and obtuse puzzles to figure out. Kawano was tasked with helping to design characters and being the game's main illustrator designing all the characters and overall world design. For music, the team managed to snag the underrated Miki Higashino, best known for her work on the Gradius series, as well as the TMNT arcade game and Contra III soundtracks. Higashino saw the game's setting and character designs and knew she needed to use a blend of world music to properly flesh out the world. Thanks to utilizing simpler 2D sprites and backgrounds, Hihashino was able to make full use of the CD-Rom technology for the musical score, giving the game a richer sound than anything else on the market including several voiced tracks and live instruments. In the final months of 1995, Gensou Suikoden was released on the Sony PlayStation in Japan and the following years in the North American and PAL markets. Being one of a handful of RPGs available for the console before FFVII and the RPG boom it brought, Suikoden managed to garner a lot of praise and fans in both sides of the Pacific, despite the hideous NA boxart.
The Story
Gensou Suikoden is set in the Toran region of the main continent where the Scarlet Moon Empire resides. Originally a part of the Holy Kingdom of Harmonia, the region broke free from the empire during the Harmonian Civil War and in a bloodless coup, became it's own kingdom in Solar Year 230 thanks to the noble Kranach Rugner, the Scarlet Moon Knight, and the brilliant tactician Julian Silverberg. Taking the Sovereign Rune as the royal treasure of his family, Karnach renamed the former capital Rupanda as Gregminister and started his dynasty. Seven years prior to the game's start, a Succession crisis occurred. The previous emperor had passed over his eldest son Geil Rugner and chose his younger son Michelan to be his heir. When Michelan passed away, Geil took advantage of his nephew the crowned prince Barbarossa of being away to fight off the City-States of Jowston, to have the royal council declare him the rightful heir of the kingdom. Using his influence among the nobility and taking advantage of Barbarossa's loyal generals all being being far away from the capital, Geil set up his new government and tried to have Barbarossa killed when he returned. Barbarossa managed to escape the attempt, but his beloved wife Claudia was killed in the escape. Regrouping in Pannu Yakuta south of the capital region, Barbarossa regrouped with his famed Six Generals and with the help of the Mathiu and Leon Silverberg, started a major counter-offense to retake the throne. Gregminister was devastated in the battle to retake the capital, and the war ended when Barbarossa slayed his uncle on the steps of the royal palace.
In the time of the countries rebuilding, the City-States of Jowston attempted another seizure of territory from the bruised empire. Barbarossa did not wish to see this happen, but found it difficult to rally the war ravaged country into another conflict. His top strategist Leon Silverberg suggested a false flag operation to rile up the people by having members of the Royal Elite Guard dress up as Jowston soldier and burn the city of Kalekka to the ground. Many members of Barbarossa's inner circle objected including Mathiu Silverberg and several of his Six Generals. Eventually Leon's plan was approved and proved to be effective in rallying the people to repel the invading forces. Unfortunately this incident caused the resignation of several people within Barbarossa's inner circle and military forces. Combined with the growing corruption within the nobility and imperial bureaucracy, dissatisfaction began to grow beneath the surface of the empire despite Barbarossa's success in defending the realm and rebuilding the empire. The capital truly started to change when the imperial court assigned a new Court Magician named Windy. A mysterious and powerful woman who bared a striking resemblance to Barbarossa's late wife Claudia.
Our story finally begins with Tir McDohl, the son of Teo McDohl who is one of the Six Great Generals and head of the Armored Calvary. Tir has come of age and his father brings him to the palace so he can be formally introduced to Barbarossa before starting his new career within the Royal Guard. Tir starts his first day accompanied by Teo's retainers who all serve as bodyguards for Tir. Pahn is a martial artist who once served Geil Rugner and lost a duel with Teo in the Succession Wars, Teo saw his promise and spared his life earning Pahn's complete devotion. Cleo is a smart and talented mage who served as a lieutenant in Teo's Calvary unit. Gremio was a soldier who served under Teo after he took him in when his family was killed by Jowston soldiers. Gremio practically raised Tir and is almost a surrogate father to him. Finally, Ted is a boy about the same age as Tir that Teo found wandering in a battlefield. He took him in but Ted lived in a different house than the other retainers, but he became very close to Tir and serves as his best friend.
Tir is is put under the command of Captain Kraze, a self-serving bureaucrat who holds a grudge against Tir for gaining his position through nepotism, despite the fact he earned his by brown-nosing. His first mission is to go to Seer Island to receive the astrological charts from the blind Seer Leknaat. He meets the Dragon Knight apprentice Futch and his dragon Black who are used to ferry them to the island. They are accosted by Leknaat's grumpy and mischievous apprentice Luc before they finally meet the seer who tells Tir that a heavy destiny awaits him. With the first mission accomplished they are next tasked with going to the town of Rockland to collect the regions late taxes. They are accompanied on this mission by the Vice Captain Kanaan who is a cowardly glory seeker that is also brown noising his way to the top. What the group find in Rockland is a village in misery due to a choke hold by the corrupt administrator Grady. His troops regularly beat the locals for protesting his methods. Grady claims the taxes are late because they were stolen by mountain bandits from Mt. Seifu named Varkas and Sydonia. The group travel there only to encounter a powerful Ant Queen monster that nearly overwhelms the team. Ted then steps forward and reveals a mysterious rune he's in possession of that instantly obliterates the monster. Swearing to explain later, the group meet the bandits and capture them. they return to Rockland, where the bandits reveal that Grady is embezzling the taxes for himself and his troops. This falls on deaf ears as the groups argue and Grady bribes Kanaan to keep the incident quiet. When the group returns to Gregminister, Kanaan lets the group go home without reporting back to Kraze so he can get all the credit. Kanaan only asks for Ted to come with him as he knows someone who wants to meet him.
Hours go by and a terrible storm hits the capital. The group lament how there is no glory in the Royal Guard and when Tir goes down stairs to see if Ted has returned, he finds his friend by the front door and nearly dead from a magical attack. Rushing him to bed to recoup, Ted comes to long enough to reveal that he knows the Court Magician Windy and she and the Royal Guard are after him. He reveals to the group that his rune is the Soul Eater, one of the True Runes, and that Ted has been running from Windy for over 300 years. The Royal Guard break into the house to arrest Ted having been informed by Pahn of his whereabouts since Pahn didn't want Teo for getting in trouble for protecting a fugitive. Ted gives Tir the Soul Eater in secret and gives himself up so that the group can escape. With Pahn and Ted both gone, Tir, Gremio, and Cleo find themselves made into fugitives overnight. They encounter a rough and boisterous traveler named Viktor who helps the group escape Gregminister and takes them to the city of Lenankamp where he reveals he's a member of the Toran Liberation Army led by Odessa Silverberg. Here they meet a former bureaucrat named Sanchez, the aloof former soldier of the Elite Guard named Humphrey Mintz, and Odessa's lover and second-in-command Flik. Though Gremio is against having Tir associate with the group, their situation makes it the only safe avenue for them so Tir agrees to help Odessa on a mission to deliver plans for a secret weapon called the Fire Spears to the Liberation Army's secret factory. On their journey to the rendezvous point, Tir and Odessa strike up a fast friendship as they bond over being former aristocracy who saw the corruption of the empire from the inside. When the group returns to Lenankamp, they find that their headquarters had somehow been discovered by the imperials and was in the midst of a raid. Flik, Sanchez, and Humphrey had already fled but while looking for survivors with Viktor and the others, Odessa takes an arrow for a child who stayed with the group. Dying, Odessa gives Tir her earring and tells him to seek out her brother Mathiu. She then orders them to throw her body into the underground river so that neither the imperials or liberation army will know she's actually dead.
From here, Tir, Viktor, Cleo, and Gremio flee and head south to Seika where Tir meets the Mathiu Silverberg, the retired strategist of Kasim Hazel, Odessa's brother, and now a pacifist living his days in a small village as a school teacher. Initially against the idea of helping his dead sister keep the Liberation army alive, he is later accosted by soldier from his former command who try to force him back into service. Realizing his sister was right, Mathiu finally takes Tir's offer and helps him to establish the new Toran Liberation Army with Tir as the new leader. From here, Tir retakes the abandoned Toran Lake Castle from monsters to serve as their new base of operations. Tir and Mathiu then set off to battle each of the five remaining Six Generals who serve as magistrates in each of the Scarlet Moon Empire's regions. What unfolds after this is actually a powerful drama that touches on the realities of war such as genocide, the lost of close friends, greed, forgiveness, and questions about loyalty. While two of the generals are under the command of Windy through a special rune she uses to control them, the others have absolute loyalty to either Barbarossa or each other. Tir also begins to see the burden of being the bearer of the most cursed rune. In a brilliant move of gameplay and story integration, the Soul Eater gains a new spell with the death of a major character of which the game is marked with four of them. We also get a moment where the party travels through the memories of the past (perhaps the Soul Eater's memory?) to witness Windy destroying Ted's home village of the Hidden Rune and see how Ted came to bear the rune himself. The world itself aslo expands as we learn more about the Kelekka incident and events from the Succession War, both of which have left deep scars within the country and its people.
Suikoden's plot is an interesting beast. On the one hand, it is a bit of an RPG/fantasy cliche storm with the usual elves/dwarves tension, rebels vs. and evil empire, one chapter is basically the RPG equivalent of Castlevania, and one death scene that is both strangely very powerful and incredibly gnarmy when you stop to think about it. On the other hand, the game deals with a lot of these cliches with a level of maturity not seen in the genre at the time. The very collapse of the empire has nothing really to do with world domination as is usual. We still have a power hungry individual pulling the strings, but the details are unique to these types of story. The game goes back and forth between being generic gnarm charm to being something incredibly compelling. Even to this day I find it hard to put into words. Because objectively, I can see how a detractor may point out how tropey and cliche the plot is, especially compared to later installments. Yet there is something about the game that has endeared itself to the fanbase and even people who play the series for the first time. It certainly has left an impression of the development team because despite the universal praise of the second installment, this is the entry that tends to get the most callbacks and reference throughout the series. In a lot of ways, it feels a bit like Final Fantasy IV to me, another game that is kind of laughable in hindsight, but somehow manages to tell a story with characters that really speak to people in a way that's easy to look past the flaws.
On the gameplay front, Suikoden is weird beast as it continues this idea of ''generic but compelling'' aspect to the whole project. The game allows up to six characters to play in a party in a standard turn based combat system. Characters are separated by weapon range. Short range fighters (mostly swords, axes and wands) can only attack enemies in the front row when they are positioned there. If you put a short range fighter in the back row, they can't attack anything. Medium range fighters can attack the enemy front row and back row when placed in their units front row, but can only attack the front enemy row when placed in the back row. Long Range fighters can hit any enemy in any row from any place in their own formation. This does create some interesting dilemma's because short range fighters tend to be beefier and wear heavier armor, but you're only allowed to have three on your team at a time as additional units will be useless unless using rune magic or techs. Medium fighters have the best balance being decently strong but also decently armored. Sadly, medium range fighters also tend to be average at best lacking the physical power of short and long range fighters but also missing out on armor options and back row protection without nerfing their range. Long Range tend to hit hard but are frail in battle. Of course everything I just said has many exceptions. Tir for instance gets main character boosts and is actually a serious powerhouse overall despite his medium range build and lack of heavy armor use. Cleo and later Lorelai are long range fighters that can actually wear some heavier armor than is usual for the bow class users. Finally most mages use staffs which are short range weapons but they are restricted to light armor only making it a bad idea to put them on the front row.
Another fun thing about the playable cast of characters is the development team's somewhat realistic take on a character's effectiveness in battle. Rule of thumb is this: if a character has a history as a soldier, adventurer, or mage, they are going to be pretty good in battle. If their profession is aloof scientist, little kid, senior citizen doctor, then they fight as effectively as you would think they would, which is not very well. It can be annoying when the game requires you to use said characters, but I do appreciate the idea that not all of your recruits are useful for combat even if they ask to be. Suikoden 1 has the largest playable cast in the game, technically Suikoden II beats it but not all of the cast is obtainable in a playthrough so it still stands. Of course it means not everyone would be super useful for adventuring. What does the inventor of the elevator know about slaying Siren's in the sewers of Shasazarade?
Runes are the setting's system for magic and techniques and they come in many forms from simple elemental magic spells, to unique technique runes, and finally as support abilities like 2x XP or raising a characters critical hit %. The main issue with Runes is that you're only allowed to have one per character, and some people like Tir and Pahn have their runes permanently equipped to them, meaning less customization options. Granted, most characters with a permanent rune usually work best with said rune but I know some people get annoyed when options get stripped from them. Magic Runes get four spells per rune and are cast using a Vanacian magic point system like FFI and III. It sounds very limiting but magic is pretty potent in this game and the overall difficulty isn't so great to really require the extra fire power. What is interesting is that elemental magic runes have upgraded incarnations you can also acquire. So there is Luc's Wind Rune, but you can find and replace it with a Cyclone rune if you wish. The upgraded runes has the second spell or their weaker counterpart be their Lv. 1 spell and then gain an additional new fourth tier spell. Another interesting feature of magic is Unite Spells. This requires two characters using with similar speed ratings casting their Lv. 4 spell at the same time to create a combo spell. It is a challenging but super beneficial system as some of these Unite Magic spells are devastatingly powerful with the Water/Lightning Rune combo of Thor having the best damage potential of any spell in the game, which also revives and heals tour whole party. Technique Runes vary in quality and often exist to add flavor to a character. The main strength is that they can let a powerful character cause some major damage but often they are left unbalanced after use making the character defenseless and unusable for a round. There are exceptions to this rule and it's a large part of why characters like Valerie are well regarded in the game as her Falcon Rune let's her do 3x her normal damage with no fear of the unbalance status so she can honestly use this rune every round with no consequence. Tech runes are unfortunately rare in this entry with only six in the game. Of which only two can be farmed and they are limited to only specific characters. Though it says something about how all the characters with tech runes are often some of the more outstanding and memorable party members. Passive runes are the next most common behind magic. These do the usual things seen RPGs like status defense, and doubling the amount of XP or Potch you get in the game. Others raise percentage of a character's attribute like critical hits, dodging and countering. Unlike other RPGs, countering is something anyone can do if their stats are high enough and the Counter rune raises the likelihood of it happening. The most interesting rune, and one you have to seriously go looking for as its a rare drop, is the Phero rune. You see characters that have a strong connection to each other in battle have the ability to sometimes shield one another in combat. Gremio for instance will sometimes shield Tir from an attack and Hix will do the same for Tengar. The Phero Rune raises the chance someone will block for them, but unlike the above examples, it will be any party member of the opposite sex in the party. It's an interesting idea that sadly doesn't see a lot of use in the later entries.
Unite Attacks are the other main draw of combat. These pretty much work like Chrono Trigger's dual and triple techs except the larger party dynamic means you can get up four characters participating in a Unite attack. Like tech runes though these powerful skills can sometimes leave participants unbalanced so you have to be careful. Despite the massive cast, there are only twenty five Unite attacks in the game, which is the lowest in the whole series, but hey we're just trying to figure this stuff out. Sadly most players will only remember the Master Pupil Attack between Tir and Kai since it arrives very early in the game and is the best unite attack for random encounters bar none. It was so popular that almost every game has a variation of it with Suikoden III being the lone entry out. The fun thing about Unite attacks is that is makes it fun to experiment more with party configurations and some unites attacks are between some unconventional figures. The two most interesting of these being Humphrey (a stoic war veteran) and Krin (a simple and greedy thief) which is mainly weird because these two never actually have a story scene together. The other is the series comical staple of Flash Attack, which involves Liuken (an elderly doctor), Fukien (a humble spell casting monk), and Kai (Tir's Bo staff instructor). In this case, the obvious connection is that they are all bald and their attack involves them combining their shiny scalps to blind the enemy. It's funny as hell and again, involves a team that feels unconventional.
There are two other battle modes in the game as well. War battles are big event battles that play like Rock Paper Scissors with Calvary beating Archers, Archers beating mages, and mages beating Calvary. You and the opposing army get to choose which to go with and see afterwards who chose wisely. Though collecting the rest of the SoD will help immensely. Between choosing rounds of choosing your offense, you can use some of your supporting units to help you. Strategist power up the attack of cavalry, Ninja's and Thieves can spy on the enemy and tell you what their next move is, and merchant's can bribe enemy soldiers to switch sides. There are also special units like the Dragon Knights that can cause untold damage to the enemy. The big danger of these battles is that a sizeable chunk of your 108 Star recruits can sometimes be killed if you make the wrong move. Maximillain is the example most people will often see since he seems to be flagged for death more than any other character. It can be pretty shocking to see them die and see how it affects some of the cast during the battle. The other game mode are duels, of which Suikoden 1 has only three, but they do sure leave a big impact. Duels work just like army battles in that it's a rock/paper/scissor type deal. Attack beats defend, defend beats critical, critical beats attack. Though it's a bit wonkier in this entry as you can technically lose even by following the rules if your character is under-leveled and poorly geared. It's a shame there isn't more of them in this entry, but later installments will fix this oversight.
If there are two gripes I have with Suikoden's combat, one would be the game's terrible inventory system. There is no shared item bag you can use from the menu and your restricted to the ten slots each character has. 60 slots sounds like a lot until you discover that a character's equipment takes up space so that's now only 30 slots for item and even less if your character can equip a shield. There is a warehouse that can open in your castle that can hold a ridiculous amount of gear, but it can't be accessed outside of the castle and any extra loot or treasure you find in the field will have to be lost or come back to if all your inventory is full. Another annoying aspect of this is that some character's will leave your party for story reasons and they will take all their gear, runes, and items with them. My biggest PSA for this game is to make sure that Tir always has the Blinking Mirror. This the item that let's you fast travel back to your HQ and it will make traveling so much easier if you don't hand it off to Viktor or Flik who have a bad habit of wandering off from the plot. The other major issue with the game is how often the story restricts your party for you. It is surprisingly not the worst example (I'm looking at you SIV) but it is a glaring issue for sure. In a game with such a massive cast and so many party combinations, you almost never have a scenario where a story sequence let's you control who the other five members of your entourage is going to be. The most egregious example is the final dungeon where half of your final party is determined for you. Gremio is especially annoying because he'll always insist on being with Tir for half of the game. Gremio is a decent starter character but his stats are mediocre until near the end of the game so he begins to feel a bit like dead weight compared to other characters. The Kwanda Rosman chapter is another annoying example as all but one of your character slots will be filled with a story-centric character for this chapter and even worse, the last one if a short range fighter who joins you in the middle of a battle and take ups your sixth party slot and is utterly useless in the proceeding battle since he can't attack from the back row and the game won;t allow you to change your formation to correct this. The real reason this gets annoying is that some recruits in the game require specific party members and you may end up having to backtrack to them when it's possible to bring the right people along.
Speaking of, Suikoden's most relished gameplay mechanics is the recruiting of the 108 Stars of Destiny and the advancement of your HQ. While a good half of your forces will likely join you through the plot, the other half of your army needs to be met in the various locations in the world and convinced to join your cause. The methods can vary from person to person. Some simply need to be talked to like Kai, others need to be beaten by some mini-game, others need specific recruits to be in your party. Some need you to be a certain level while others want your army to be a certain size. It's honestly the biggest challenge in the game to recruit everyone without a guide and even some can still be frustrating with a guide.
The castle is another fun aspect of the game as your recruits start filling up the halls and fixing the place up. Not all recruits are soldiers, several actual serve various functions at the HQ such as opening up shops, a warehouse, a blacksmith and spots for the game's various mini-games. Eventually it becomes a major castle town for the player and it's satisfying seeing some of the recruits mingle with each other. My favorite being the Narcissist corner started by Milich Oppenheimer. The castle serves as hub and expanding it gives a nice sense of progress throughout the game. It feels really unique compared to other RPGs that have large casts and gives a sense of camaraderie among them for the player. It's also just so nice when you beat that game and the game starts telling you what happens to each of them after the war.
Musically, Suikoden has never been the RPG musical powerhouse that Square was pumping out at the time, but Konami is no slouch when it comes to musical muscle. Miki Higashino may not be a major name among RPG enthusiasts but her work on Konami's arcade scene speaks for itself. With that said, the music she composed along with Tappi Iwase, Taniguchi Hirofumi, Mayuko Kagetrouta and Hiroshi Tamawari for Suikoden is actually quite impressive if underrated. Tracks like Name Entry, Into a World of Illusion, and Theme of a Moonless Night are all impressive and memorable themes that get musical callbacks throughout the series even after most of the team left. What's truly impressive is how well they established the tone of the series. Choosing to pull from several genres found throughout the world, the Suikoden OSTs can often sound like a musical travel guide around the world as they pull from Moroccan, European classical, Asian period drama, and even rock and roll to create a beautiful musical tapestry that is pleasant to the ears and brings the various locations of the game to life. The biggest boon to her score is the fact that the game was able to make the most of the CD-Rom discs space to incorporate more orchestral music instead of using MIDI all the time. MIDI is till certainly here in the game but it's use is less obvious than games like Final Fantasy VII. The game was able to make use of vocal tracks that really bring out the cultural influence of the piece and leave a lasting impression as you hear the haunting ending theme, Aventunerio Antes Lance Mao. Again it's an underappreciated score, but one that doesn't really have a bad track if you ask me and it's nice to listen to some good music from outside the powerhouse of Square-Enix.
So now it's time to ask the main question here:Why should you play Suikoden? I'm going to list five reasons you should and as a contrast (because I love playing Devil's advocate) I am also going to list five reasons you might want to avoid it. Let's get the negative out of the way first:
5. The game is fairly basic - Even for its time frame, Suikoden isn't really doing anything interesting for the genre, and if you're a serious RPG vet, then this game will likely have a heavy ''been there done that'' feel to it. The plot is tropey and the gameplay is mostly basic turn based with some combo attacks and only one slot for special abilities. Unless you have a nostalgia for early to mid 90s JRPGs, this game is likely not going impress you.
4. The meat of the game's setup is hidden behind supplement material - All of that backstory about the Succession War I posted above, that's almost all from supplement materials that were thankfully translated by some fans for the wiki and even then good luck finding the primary sources. Suikoden 1's plot feels more epic when you have the full context but outside of some snippets here and there from NPCs and characters, you're not going to get much info about the Succession War and even the Kalekka Incident has more info than what is presented in the game. I am generally not the type who promotes reading supplement material to understand a game's plot. I feel all the relevant info should be right there in the game. Suikoden gives you a glimpse of what is there but it's shame the real juicy stuff is hidden off-screen including some backstory stuff like Gremio and Pahn's backstories or fun bonding stuff between Ted and Tir while training with Kai. Hell Odessa alone gets hit hard with this because her whole backstory is in this stuff and it;s actually pretty awesome and I can see why Flik was enamored with her.
3. The game is very tropey - I'm willing to give the devs slack here because it was a first attempt at an RPG by a company that usually doesn't make many of them. The development team was also pretty new to the genre so it;s no surprise they rely heavily on tropes to get them through the writer's block portion of the development, but it does make some parts of the game cringe worthy. The Kwanda Rosman chapter is a personal pet peeve of mine since I've never been big on the fantasy trope of fantastic racism among the Tolkien races. Even the opening portions of the game can feel more gnarm than charm as the bad guys are all hamtastically evil. I mean Barbarossa or any one of real authority just needs to walk down the hall of the throne room and eavesdrop for a few minutes to see how unqualified and evil most of the nobility and bureaucracy are in Gregminister. Speaking of...
2. The Neclord Chapter feels really out of place in the game - I get that it was likely meant to be a palette cleanser after the one-two punch that was the Milich Oppenheimer and Teo McDohl chapters, but this particular chapter does feel a little out of place in the game. In fact Neclord in general feels out of place in the series but obviously someone on the development team loves vampires because they get story focus for three games. While some might say this is likely Castlevania's influence on the team, his chapter feels more like a stealth shout out to Vampire Hunter D with Neclord feeling more like Magnus Lee in both motive and design. I don't mind the chapter, but I know some who do hate it. Not helped that Neclord is the most challenging boss in the game.
1. It's too easy to get screwed out of the Golden Ending - I'm not generally opposed to making the best ending easy to acquire, nor do I feel its cheating to make it almost require a guide to do so, but I know a lot of people who would see this as a major flaw of the game's design. I know I screwed myself out of the Golden Ending in my first playthrough and only was able to do so because of reading a guide. Still, I feel the first game is a little more malicious in tripping the player up in this regard. It;s easy to not get all the Stars in the first playthrough. Hell there are four other Stars I didn't mention above the designers lay sinister traps that will lock you out of the best ending if you make the wrong choices or do the wrong thing. I feel it gives the game fun replay value but some gamers will call it a guide book trap. Course guides for a 26 year old RPG are easy to come by these days.
So with that said, let's look at the best reasons to play this game:
5. The foreshadowing is superb - Something that may not be noticed on a first playthrough, but certainly noticeable on second playthroughs of the series is a lot of the foreshadowing of the grander world inhabiting the series. Suikoden name drops places and people that feel inconsequential when you play the first game by itself, but coming back to this entry with some of the other games under your belt, you don't realize how early the series was really laying down the roots of the greater world Murayama and Kawano had envisioned. The fact the game is short makes a second playthrough a breeze too.
4. It is incredibly user-friendly and noob friendly - If you're only here to play games for character and plot then Suikoden is definitely the series for you. the game was designed to be pretty streamlined and noob friendly, which is likely why it helped a generation be prepared to get their minds blown by Final Fantasy VII two years later. Two of the best features the game has is that XP is handed out based on the level difference of the enemy and the character, so low level characters will have their levels skyrocket if brought to harder areas and leveling up the game's 78 characters becomes a breeze. the fact the best characters are introduced at the end isn't an issue with this system in place. The other great feature is that walking in a straight line will reduce the encounter rate. This way it makes exploring easier and less frustrating for players.
3. Recruiting the 108 Stars is fun - Forget what I said about the top five annoying people, the rest of the cast is fun to recruit and see what is up with them. Honestly the recruiting aspect of the game is one of the major draws of the series and gives it a bit of a Pokemon style ''Gotta Catch em' all'' factor that makes the games pretty fun to play.
2. The characters are pretty awesome - I'm not going to lie, of the 108 Stars, maybe a fifth of them stay relevant throughout the whole game, but the ones that stick around are generally superb and fun. They help make the drama of the plot work despite the tropes and while Viktor and Flik are stuck in your final party, I bet most players would have taken them anyway since they are both great characters on and off the battlefield. Even the less plot relevant characters are surprisingly affable and memorable most of the time.
1. Golden Emperor Barbarossa - It's going to be hard to talk about this without spoiling stuff but here we go. Suikoden is a series that goes back and forth with its villains. Most of them are either well-intention extremist or figurative(sometimes literal) monsters, or they fall somewhere in between like Windy. Windy is certainly the game's main villain but Barbarossa is the figurative main antagonist over her and yet he manages to be unique above all the villains in the series. The man only appears in three scenes in the entire game, and yet manages to leave such a lasting impression on the player in all of his scenes. What helps is hearing the way people talk about him. The man is spoken of as the greatest friend you can ever have and even when his own allies defect to the Liberation Army, it's always with a sense of regret on their part. This is a man who deserves to be admired because he really was once a great and just ruler. Things just changed for him and at the end of the day he's more tragic figure than some typical big bad. The fact his story manages to change Windy's more generic evil story into something greater is also a testament to his character. Suikoden is a series that often strives to keep their villains more on the morally grey side and I don't think they ever hit such a success as they did with Barbarossa. Course you'll have to play the game to see what I mean.
In conclusion, Suikoden was a game that has stayed with me for a long time, even today I have the blasphemous opinion that I like it more than it's better recieved sequel. It's why I combo the two together in my Top 100 List because the idea of this game being lower on the list didn't sit well for me. My nostalgia for this entry is very strong, which is surprising because I didn't play the game until either 98 or 99. Deep into the RPG renaissance of the era, and yet it has stayed with me so strongly. I think part of it is because I didn't think I was going to lik this game at all and for a while in my first playthrough I was not impressed, but somewhere, somehow, it won me over before I got to the end, and considering my judgmental ass, that's impressive. Hell I'm replaying it right now and having a blast. I'm hoping some of you will now also play it, whether for the first time or doing a replay. Its a pretty fun opening to a great series.
Next time: "My friend and I seal our thoughts here. We deeply regret that we could not make them one."
Last edited by Wolf Kanno; 02-05-2022 at 08:39 PM.
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