Suikoden

"A highly overlooked RPG"

Suikoden is one of those, underrated and overlooked type of RPGs. At first glance, it didn’t look like anything too special but after playing it for a while, my opinion changed quite a bit.

Storyline: You are “Enter your hero’s name here” McDohl, son of the famous Teo McDohl, one of the famous generals in the Scarlet Moon Empire (From now on, I’m just going to say Empire since it’s shorter). Since you are expected to be just as great as your father, you decide to work for the Empire and begin to do several tasks for them. Eventually, you realize how crappy and corrupt the Empire is and you end up joining the Liberation Army, the “good guys” who want to destroy the Empire to build a new, cleaner nation. There are several twists in the game, but none of them are very surprising if you’re a veteran RPGer. The plot is quite a cliché too… rebelling against the evil government! It’s happened too many times and Suikoden doesn’t really present it in a creative way. This is probably one of the low points of this game. (Rating: 7.0)

Characters: As Suikoden proves, quantity isn’t always better than quality. Sure ya got 108 characters (not all of them are playable in battle though), but what good is a bunch of characters when there is no character development? You can literally just identify some of them as the “super pissed off knight guy” or the “the chick that washes the clothes” or “the chef”. Only a handful of your 108 recruits get char. Development. Most of those characters are with you since the very beginning! Yeah I know it would take forever to get EVERYONE involved in the game some way or another but at least try Konami! Well, I can’t bitch about this too much since this is their first RPG. I do like the fact that there is a crapload of variety when it comes to picking your allies for battle. (Rating: 6.5)

Gameplay: Suikoden has 3 different battle systems. The first one is, the regular battle system.

In Suikoden, you can have up to a whopping amount of 6 characters in a battle. Each character has their own attack range, respectively being short, medium, and long distance. Obviously the short-range attackers can only attack in the first row, while the large distance can still attack from the back row while the middle dudes have the best of both worlds. So no, you can’t bring a crapload of short ranged guys into battle unless you just want to control half of them during the fight. The magic in this game comes from runes. Think materia. Most runes can be equipped by any character, you just have to go to a rune shop and have them attach it for you. Oh and there are different types of runes too, there’s either what I call the “combat” runes or the “magic” runes. Combat runes enhance your attacks, but usually leave you “unbalanced” (not being able to attack for the next round). Magic runes contain well…magic. There are 4 levels of it, and you get more access to the rune’s power as your level increases. Makes sense no? The stronger you get, the better spells you can use. The amount of spells you can use is limited (say you can only use the level 1 Water Rune spell 4 times and that’s it) which annihilates the reason to have MP.

And finally (yes I will shut up soon), we have the unite attacks. Unite attacks are special attacks that involve more than one character. They’re kinda like the Duo/Tripe techs in Chrono Trigger but they don’t take any types of points to use. However, like some combat runes, there are some type of unites that can leave some of your characters unbalanced. Overall, the regular battle system is quite nice. I like the fact that if you combine certain characters together, you can perform some nifty moves. There are some that are kinda cheap and make you breeze along the game (no, I’m not going to say which one.).

The second battle system is the major battle system. Eventually, your army is going to have to take on other armies. The way you duke it out is quite odd. It’s pretty much a rock-paper-scissors game. You have the option to attack, bow attack, or magic attack. Attack beats bow attack; magic beats attack, archer beats magic, etc. Now you understand why I compare it to a kid’s game. Sure you can do some other special command, but I didn’t really use that stuff. The crazy thing is about major battles is that you can have some of your characters die if you’re not too careful. Yes, a character dying is not a good thing so I usually restart the game if that happens. I also noticed that their attacks are 100% predictable by doing this. They rarely change at all. So yeah, I didn’t like this system too much.

The final battle system is the one-on-one duel system. Basically it’s your hero against some important evil guy in the game. You have life bars (representing your HP) and you have three options: Attack, Defend, or Wild Attack. This is kinda like the major battle system but it has more of a twist to it. You have to predict on what the enemy is going to do by reading what he says. So for example, if the guy you’re fighting is saying “Arghh!!!! Prepare to die you scum!!!!” odds are he’s going to do a wild attack. If he says “Hm…maybe I better back off.” he’s probably going to defend. Now the enemy’s quotes aren’t THAT obvious (though some are) but you get the idea. It’s kinda like the major battle system since defend beats wild attack but that’s pretty much the only advantage. I kinda liked this battle system because it was pretty unique and different. I don’t see much duels like that in RPG. Oh yes, if you do lose, it’s Game Over. Boo hoo indeed.

Overall, the battle systems were pretty damn good, the only flaw was the major battle system. Oh and to get the best ending in the game, you must run around, recruiting all 108 stars before your final showdown. Some you can get just by talking to them, others can be annoying and you end up having to do some task or paying them cash. Still, it’s pretty fun running around looking for all your recruits. It’s kinda like a big sub-quest. (Rating: 9.0)

Graphics: Suikoden’s graphics aren’t really special. Hell, it looks like SNES graphics. That’s not a bad thing now. Most 2D RPGs are pretty good. It gave me an “old-school” feeling to it (this game is probably considered old school now if you ask me). The magic attacks were nothing special either. Graphics don’t make the game though. Even though Suikoden’s graphics were pretty below average (this is a Playstation game we’re talking about), I liked the fact that there are still some good 2D RPG games out there. (Rating: 6.0)

Audio: The soundtrack of this game was nothing what I was expecting it to be. I was expecting your average, mediocre soundtrack. Instead, I get one of the nicest soundtracks I have heard in an RPG. The music sounds all Eastern like for the most part and it fits the game perfectly. The orchestra pieces kick ass as well. This is one of those things that you have to experience and play the game to know what I’m talking about. There are quite a bit of memorable tracks. I also like the fact that music changes if you’re winning a major battle or not =D. (Rating: 9.5)

The game has its ups and downs but in the end, Konami did a pretty good job with their first RPG. Till the next Suikoden...

Storyline: 7.0
Characters: 6.5
Gameplay: 9.0
Graphics: 6.0
Audio: 9.5

Overall: 7.6 which rounds up to an 8 for GameFAQs.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/22/03, Updated 04/22/03