Suikoden III

"The Suikoden series continues to shine."

Almost 5 years later from the second installment, Konami released Suikoden III; without a doubt the RPG of the year for 2002.

Storyline: Suikoden III takes place 15 years after Suikoden II. Two mainlands, the Grasslands and Zexen are always having disputes with each other. When a certain event occurs before peace negoations are complete, war once again begins. Whose fault is it exactly that created the chaos blah blah blah? The beginning of Suikoden III sounds pretty much exactly like the second one. However, the story becomes deeper and deeper once you get around the middle of the game. Even if the story does sound the same, the Trinity Sight System makes the story much better. You have the option to play one of three main characters, viewing their point of view during the events. The cool thing about this is that if you watch an event that involves two main characters and you wonder why “this person did that” or “how did this happen?” , you will find out by playing the other character’s storyline. Only playing all three character’s storylines gets you the full story of Suikoden III (it’s also required to beat the game..). So, even with a very cliched story (at least in the beginning), Konami keeps the story fresh by giving you the option to view the story by three different point of views. Kudos to them on that. (Rating: 9.0)

Characters: There are three main characters in Suikoden III. They are:

Chris- The Silver Maiden. A noble knight of Zexen, she is extremely loyal to her homeland. She always questions her responsibilities and duties with her ethics. Chris isn’t too interesting, because I think she doesn’t really get developed. She’s usually cold and icy 90% of the time. Well, at least they have a female to be a main character.

Geddoe – Leader of a group of merceneries that are under contract by Harmonia. Geddoe doesn’t really say anything at all except during important moments. He’s pretty much an enigma, so he’s a pretty interesting character. His silence is made up by his group of mercs, all who have different personalities making things humorous and interesting. You’ll probably wonder who Geddoe is throughout the story.

Hugo – Hugo is the son of the Karayan Chief, Lucia. I think Hugo was probably the worst main character out of the three because I’m tired of seeing cliched teenager heroes. Oddly enough, he gets the most char. development. But I guess it all comes down to opinions.

As you see, all three main characters belong to a different region. Which makes the game quite interesting since you’re playing from each side/alliance during the war. Having three main characters also makes you get to know a lot more supporting characters since everyone is not in the same party (like in most RPGs). This is a very good and clever way for you to use more of the 108 Stars of Destiny rather than just staying with a party of 6 throughout the whole game. The Trinity Sight System FORCES you to play with others.

Not many characters return from Suikoden II. Most characters are related to the main characters from the past games (like they’re their daughters or grandsons, etc.). What makes me wonder is why Viktor and Flik didn’t even show an appearance to the game. I figured they would be some type of tradition since they were in the last two games. Most of the new characters are fairly uniteresting but that is made up with all the support characters that hang around with Hugo/Geddoe/Chris. At least we get much more char. development than the last games. Oh and one final note, this game’s evil character is quite interesting. I would’ve never guessed. (Rating: 9.0)

Gameplay: Konami decided to completely change most of the battle systems this time around. A risky move, but they pulled it off. As usual, there are 3 battle systems.

The main battle system has completely changed. It reminds me of Grandia’s battle system. No longer are the medium, short, and long range attackers. Everyone is set up in pairs. When it comes to items, you can’t heal someone that isn’t in your pair. Now, when you heal someone, you don’t just heal one person, you heal the pair. Also, to get unite attacks (now called combination attacks), you must pair up the members that are involved in the attack together. The bad thing about the pair system is that you can’t assign commands to just one person. For example, if you want to attack, you can only use one battle command per pair. So if you select attack, both people in that pair are going to attack, even if you don’t want both to go up there. This can be really frustrating when it comes to boss battles. Say one of your guys is almost dead and you want to heal them. You’re going to have to basically sacrifice your pair’s turn just to heal that person.Spells take time to cast and it varies by your skill on that certain element (skills will be explained later). When you attack, your party will run up to the enemy, and depending how far they are, they might not even attack on that turn. There is no “hit the enemy and run back to where you were” attacks, now you run up to the enemy, attack them and stay there. This involves a bit more strategy to the game (since there are spells that affect certain areas in the battle field. In the end, since I love Grandia’s battle system, Suikoden III’s new battle system didn’t take too long to get used to it. At first, it will feel odd and maybe you might think it sucks but you will get adjusted to it after awhile.

The major battle system has completely changed as well. Instead of controlling huge armies, you place your characters into several groups. The movement is a bit like Suikoden II’s. When you now attack someone, you are warped into a regular battle, and begin to view the fight (you don’t control your party’s actions). Levels, skill levels, equipment, and weapon level are now factors in major battles. If you bring some low level character who has crappy equipment into a battle with decent/hard enemies, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they will not survive. This makes you think twice when it comes to leveling up other people instead of just using 6 super powerful characters and not leveling anyone else up. A great change, IMO.

The duel system has only had one change. There’s now a “duel guage”. If you sucuessfully pull off an attack, your enemy will have a disadvange, and the guage will head towards them. So even if you do a despserate attack when they defend, you might still be able it off since you have the advantage. It’s not that huge of a deal so I basically say the duel system hasn’t changed at all.

Nor has the rune system.

There is now a skill system. Skills are quite essential to the game. Each character has certain skills, like Parry or Charge Attack. Leveling up these skills grades require skill points; which you get for defeating enemies. The higher the grade, the better you are at with that skill. For example, if your Swing skill level is really high (like an A or an S), you will then swing your weapon more than one time, maybe even three times. If you have a high Water Magic skill level, you will be able to cast Water spells much quicker and the effect will be greater. The skill system allows great customization to your characters which is always a good thing.

On a small note, you now can have a support character along with your usual 6 party members. Support characters can have nifty little skills that help you along the way such as paying less in stores or getting healed after battles.

In the end, even though Suikoden III’s gameplay has changed drastically, it still is just as good as the previous games. And, unlike both games, Suikoden III takes A LOT more time playing to beat the game (it personally took me 72 hours). With 3 different endings, this game should keep one busy for awhile.Note: The mini-games are even more addicting (mostly the theatre). (Rating: 9.8)

Graphics: Suikoden III has a great anime intro. I love watching it over and over again. Now the game jumps into 3D. Even though the characters look a bit deformed, they still look quite well because of the various facial expressions that they make and their movements. The graphics are very nice but they’re obviously no FFX. Some of the backgrounds are plain and boring..something they should improve on. In other words, the graphics are pretty good, but nothing spectacular. (Rating: 8.5)

Audio: For the most part, the soundtrack of the game is very well. I love most of the music that plays in towns and fields (Brass Castle is the weirdest music for a town). There are some memorable tracks, but it’s no Suikoden or Sukoden II. The huge disappointment was the battle music. Is it just me or do they sound all kiddy like? The regular battle music pisses me off to no end. It sounds like a bunch of 5 year olds are going to take on some big bully rather than a serious battle over life. In the end, the soundtrack is still done very well but it lost it’s Suikoden touch along the way. A shame. (Rating: 8.5)

The Suikoden series still is running strongly. Hopefully, Konami will continue this wonderful RPG series. Until Suikoden IV (hopefully).

Storyline: 9.0
Characters: 9.0
Gameplay: 9.8
Graphics: 8.5
Audio: 8.5

Overall: 9.0

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/22/03, Updated 04/22/03