Suikoden III

"My 60+ hrs. Worth It?"

I'm not a big, big fan of RPGs. Certain ones have caught my eye such as Final Fantasy and Suikoden, but I often find RPGs tedious and frustrating. Why should I spend 20 minutes to travel from point A to point B and fight random battles? Why would I want to fight battles when the place I'm trying to get to is only an inch away? Suikoden somewhat relates to that.

The graphics are cute and very nice, yet not up to par with games like Final Fantasy. Just imagine Anime characters in 3-D and rounded heads. Sometimes the graphics may be a bit sluggish because of the framerate. You know when your computer is about to freeze and starts acting slower than usual? It's not that bad, but it gives the game a dated feeling. Most of the spells, however, look very nice. Although many of them could have been better, they run very smoothily. Textures are decent.

The character designs (108 characters in all) could have been better as well, some (like Nicholas and Louis) are too simple and lack personality. Other than a few, they all look well-designed and distinguishable from one another. This cannot be said the same for all the character's running. Even the main woman, Chris, runs like the guys.

The angle at which you move the character deals with the aforementioned ''random battles'' problem. When you're moving, the camera angle will often jump to a different position. Nothing too far from the original angle, but it just jumps there. If you're planning to move in a certain direction, pay attention to where you're moving - you may end up somewhere else. That's obvious for many games, but another problem is where the camera angle even starts out. Don't you hate it when you run into a room, and you accidentally go back into the room you came from? That happens often in Suikoden III. You're moving up to enter the room, you enter, game loads, and you're in a new room, the angle is completely backwards, you're stilling holding the up button, BOOM, you're back where you started. It happens pretty often. Thank God there's no timed missions in the game. Although this may be worked around by NOT HOLDING THE SAME DIRECTIONAL BUTTON, but it is a habit for most RPG players. Get rid of that habit.

Another habit we all develop when playing Suikoden is expecting wonderful music during sad, bad, and happy skits in the game. It's been almost a tradition to have similar music, unfortunately, Suikoden lacks the dramatic music of its previous installments. Music is supposed to match the mood, right? Suikoden III's music does that. But it doesn't ENHANCE the mood. There's nothing heart pumping about the music during stressful, dangerous parts of the game; there's no tear-jerking piano loop during sad parts of the game; and there's no energetic, bright beats to liven you up during happy-pappy parts of the game. The music isn't at all memorable. Plus, there's no voices to show the characters' emotion when there is no music. Sometimes, there isn't even any music! It can be somewhat bothersome, especially with the overly simplistic, repetitive few in number sound effects.

Other than the transfer from 2-D to 3-D, the gameplay wasn't affected. Other than the camera angle problems, manuevering your character in Suikoden III is like any other game. Instead of a map to travel around inbetween cities, you travel through plains and caves to get where you want to go. But that means too much battles. It takes to long to get better means of transportation, that when it does come, it seems too late.

The new buddy fighting system is very similar to the older Suikodens. As always, you have 6 characters in your party. In the buddy system, however, 2 characters must be paired up. You can only choose one action for each pair. If you decide to heal with one character in a pair, that character can only heal him/herself and/or his/her partner, and the partner must simply attack a random opponent by default. Sometimes it can be stressful because you want to heal ALL the characters, but tough, you can't (unless you have an item or a spell that can). The new fighting system can result in some strategy, but nothing new.

The war system (as found in previous installments of Suikoden) is re-done as well. The units are all placed on a map. There are points (represented by big colorful dots) on the map that are connected. Somewhat like:

O - O - O - O

Of course, they can go in all directions: up, left, right diagonal. A unit (which consists of your actual characters and sometimes soldiers) consists of 5 people. When you move a unit onto the same space of an opposing unit, you attack. When you attack (or defend for that matter) it appears as if a normal party battle. You choose either attack, defend, or run (one decision for the entire party). All the characters get three moves before you get to make the same decision again. One 3 total turns are up, the battle ends (unless someone runs away). Overall, it involved some strategy, but it was too simplistic.

One-on-One Duels are brought back. They're pretty much the same, so there's no worth mentioning. But a brief description: as it's name implies this is a one-on-one duel. However, you get only 3 options: Attack, Defend, or Wild Attack. Attack is a normal attack, and you exchange blows (if the opponent doesn't defend). Wild Attack is a much stronger attack, the catch is, if the opponent defends, he may counterattack with a stronger attack. Life is represented by life bars.

The mini-games, unlike the previous installments, are very few, and not as fun. There's a horse running mini-game where you simply run around a track a couple times to get better time than, well, yourself. There's several card games, but no Chinchirorin! Too bad, that mini-game itself was a Suikoden tradition. The bathhouse is back, but there's no watching characters bathe. The ornaments for the bathroom room simply sit there or change the water color. Speaking of ornaments, the plants and urns you collect around the world are used to direct walls and tablestands around the house. Other than collecting recipes for your cook (sorry, no cooking game), collecting books, antiques, etc., there isn't much replay value in the game like the previous installments.

What shines the most is the story. The Trinity Sight System allows you to see the story through the eyes of 3 characters: 2 of which are at war, and 1 who happens to be around at the war. Utilizing this to perfection, the story is filled with depth and description, allowing you to understand the story to the fullest, leaving you completely satisfied in the end. Some may ask, ''Do I have to play I & II to understand III?'' the answer is: no. There may be a couple of references to the previous games, but nothing that will leave you puzzled. But I recommend playing the previous games anyways. Even MORE understanding and grasping of the story.

The game is fun, but the story is best. I'd say that the story is up there with the Final Fantasy's. The fighting is nice to watch, but where they attempt strategy, they fail. However, the gameplay is nice enough to keep you going and continuing the great story. I consider this a must-buy for all Suikoden fans, and a damn good recommendation for newcomers.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/22/02, Updated 12/22/02