Suikoden

"A rare, but simply required RPG for any fan of the genre."

An underappreciated classic.

My first experience with this series was Suikoden III. To sum it up, it was just not…enjoyable. Even though I wasn't the one playing, it just looked bland and uninteresting.

A few years later, a friend of mine recommended this and Suikoden II to me, and after much effort put into searching, I finally acquired those two games. I had been out of the RPG loop for quite some time, and well… let's just say this game got me playing again.

After booting up the game, it was your standard “new game” or “continue” screen. Upon selecting new game, you are asked to put in a name for your main character. There is no default name, although I believe he is commonly referred to as “Tir.” So put in whatever you'd like, I'll be referring to him as Tir from now on.

[Graphics] [9/10]
Some people may complain about the graphics. This was created in the Playstation era, and many other RPGs had made the transition to 3D graphics. This game, and its “sequel,” do not make that move. Personally, for the time, I would've preferred nice, clean sprites over blocky 3D models, but some may argue against that. Anyway, this game has fairly nice sprites (larger than those of older RPG's), and despite limited resolution, are fairly smoothly colored, and are pleasing to the eye. The shading and color palettes are quite effective.

Now, the backgrounds are very well done. The tiles in the first scene are nicely detailed, and the sprites have precise and clean reflections. The doors show very nice texture, and the stone “brick” walls are realistic as well. Props such as suits of armor and candles are not as good, but still very detailed. Shadows are well-done for a pixelated world.

Character portraits are a hit or miss. Some fit the character well and show much effort in drawing, while others…are pretty much an eyesore.

Overall, very nice.

[Story] [8/10]
The story starts out in a castle. You'll find out that this is the capital of the empire. You have immediate control of Tir, and start off talking to the person nearest to you. This is your father, Teo McDohl, one of the five generals, and the two of you are seeing the Emperor, Barbarosa. You find out your father is going off on a mission, and soon enough, after regaining control and going on for a bit, find out you will start working for the Imperial Guard.

After meeting several characters and doing several missions, you begin to see the dark side of the empire. Soon enough, you meet the Liberation Army and its leader. The Liberation Army is a coalition of “rebels” or rather people working against the evil empire and its acts. At this point, it is quite small and feeble. Your meeting was really them sort of rescuing you from Imperial soldiers who believe you committed treason, and while you may consider joining the Liberation Army's cause, your comrades remind you your father is an Imperial General, what would he think, etc.

Eventually, they believe that what you want to do is what they should follow, since your father ordered them to protect you, and due to a wild series of twists, you end up in command of the Liberation Army…

Overall, a semi-cliched plot, but is still a good one. It started off slow for me, and I played in bursts, but when I started playing, the story kept me going for a while…

[Sound, music, etc.] [8/10]
I liked the somewhat wide variety of sound effects for weapons and attacks in battle. Some of them are questionable (a rod making a slashing noise?!) though. Overall, sound does a good job of what it's expected to do, nothing outstanding though.

Now, the music…wow. While it may not be the best, it's very well done. Field music gave a nice and powerful feeling, contrary to the slow paced and calm of that of other games'. Battle music was a little low in the mix, but does a decent job of giving that feeling of strife and energy. The melancholic songs for those tear-jerking moments were very well done to give off that emotion, and had a great effect on the player for the scenes they were played in. Instead of just being all orchestrated music, Suikoden put a little spin and used some classical guitar, which surprised me but was just as good as orchestrated, maybe better.

[Gameplay, mechanics, etc.] [9/10]
This is one of the strongest parts of this game.

In Suikoden, you play an “avatar character,” which simply means, while Tir may have a pre-developed relationship with other characters at the start, he is meant to be you. You select what he says in certain points, otherwise he has basically no speech (“!!!” doesn't really count). While most of those choices are forced, meaning if you select the “wrong one” and progress will cease unless you select the “right one” or it doesn't matter which one you pick, some choices will have in an impact on your game, for example, choosing whether or not to forgive a character.

One thing I liked was the six person party. Most RPG's had the three or four person party, and I liked the spin on this one. The random battle system is your standard “walk on a map until you encounter an enemy.” Experience and leveling out is pretty standard; each battle will give you X amount of experience depending on your level, and when you reach 1000 total experience, you level up. This lets it so you can usually never be underleveled or overleveled.

This game is also very different in that there are a total of 108 possible characters to recruit. While this eliminates a lot of in-depth relationships and character, there are main characters that have those. You are not required to recruit all of them, although there is a reward if you do. While most of these characters have no more than an attack and item command, there is still reason to use different characters. For example, variation in stats, arms type, etc. All these characters appear in a castle that you capture to make as headquarters for the Liberation Army.

I loved how this game didn't make you buy new weapons. Instead, you “sharpened” them at blacksmiths which increased attack power and luck. The max level of sharpening is 16. Also at blacksmiths are the ability to attach rune shards to your weapon to give yourself an elemental attack.

Runes are a nice touch, although not groundbreaking. In this game, you find “[whatever] crystals,” which you can append to your characters at a Runemaster. These either give you special abilities (Ability to dash, increased critical hit rate, etc.) or give you skills/magic. One thing I did not like was that you needed someone in your party with a certain rune just to dash. Thankfully, this was removed in later games in the series.

Another thing I did not like was the “each person has his/her own inventory and these inventories are quite small.” I think there was like ten items per person. Just to make it worse, this includes your equipment, which can take up to a total of five slots alone. No pooled inventory makes me sad.
You will run into antique items along your adventure. These are denoted by the name “? [vase/painting/etc.]” These items must be identified at an appraiser in most towns, and can either be placed in your bath (if you get it, but useless anyway in my opinion), or sold for money.

Going along with the six person party, the battlefield is setup as two rows of three people. Arms (weapons) are divided into three types: S (short), M (medium), and L (long). The way they work is that S type characters must be in the front row or else they will not attack, M type characters can go anywhere, and L type characters must be in the back row or else they will not attack. Typically, the front row is usually the only row attacked; this is not the case in attacks against your whole party or a handful of enemies.
A nice little feature is the “unite” command. This is for when you have certain characters in your party. The first person in the possible attack has the ability to use the unite command, and if done, the other persons involved will lose their turn. When all the commands go out, the name of the unison attack is showed and performed. Many of them are very useful, such as attacking all enemies or a very powerful attack one on enemy.

Two pretty innovative modes, major battle and duel, add to this game's experience. As a game about the conflict between two large armies, major battles are a battle in large scale. Each side has thousands of soldiers at the start of each battle. You pick a command, charge, arrows, or magic, and pick a team of character to carry out that action. Typically, your “strong characters” who are in a team generally have a higher attack power and therefore have more killing potential. The three commands are like rock, paper, scissor; charge is effective against arrows, arrows effective against magic, and magic effective against charge. There are also “other” commands, such as a tactical talk to boost charge attack power, additional attacks like dragon knights, ninjas and thieves to see your opponent's next plan, and much more.

The duel is for when two characters decide to fight on a much more personal level. Your HP, stats, level, and equipment play a role here. Like the major battle, there are three commands: attack, defend, and desperate attack. The three commands are as follows: attack effective against defend, defend effective against desperate attack, and desperate attack effective against attack. Defend is pretty versatile, but isn't generally recommended to use a lot. Your opponent's speech can help you read their next move. Defending or attacking will sometimes let you parry or dodge your opponent's move and counter. Overall, this mode adds to the medieval mood and personal struggle theme of the game.

Controls are fairly simple, I don't believe the shoulder buttons did anything. For some reason, they change the cancel command in later games, so enjoy this perfect control while you can.

There are countless little gameplay features, making Suikoden's battle system and overall gaming experience a fun and innovative one.

In Conclusion
My first run through, using little to no FAQs, and just asking for advice from that friend was about 30 hours. However, I only got 97/108 possible characters. While it is possible to get every single character on your first playthrough, it is not recommended to stress yourself over doing so. That's for your second time.

In addition, finished game data for Suikoden can be loaded to affect your playthrough of Suikoden II.

I had fun with this game. It got me back into playing RPG's again, and was a nearly flawless game.

I strongly recommend this game to any RPG fan who has not played it, and even to any gamer, regardless if they're a fan of the genre or not.

Good luck finding it!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/05