Hi! Sorry I didn’t post anything last night, but my computer was locked up at the office and the security keypad at the entrance wouldn’t work. Tragic! But now we’ve been reunited, and it feels so good that I’ve posted a Suikoden retrospective. It will take you longer to read this article than it would take you to complete Suikoden. Ah, I miss the days when games were a reasonable length.
“…it’s the product of the squares of the first three whole numbers multiplied…”
I’m only posting this to save anyone else’s brain from frying – it’s not the product of the squares, it’s the product of the numbers to the power of themselves. 1^1 x 2^2 x 3^3=108.
All I have to say at this moment is
4,8,15,16,23,42
”Ah, I miss the days when games were a reasonable length.”
Amen, brother.
Incidentally, I downloaded Suikoden ages ago from PSN (remember PSN?), but never got around to playing it, partially out of a fear of not being able to carry saves over to the nonexistent-on-PSN sequel. So, twofold question: how important is the data carryover to Suikoden II, and, in a semi-related query, at what point exactly does the series begin to tumble into mediocrity? Because I tried Suikoden III once a few years ago, and found it execrable. Any thoughts?
Suikoden III has a good story, but the gameplay takes a very long time before it gets better. Just read the manga if you want to know what happens.
Suikoden IV has good music and better graphics than III, but otherwise is pointless and has far, far too many random battles and overall sucks. Also avoid Tactics, a sequel to IV.
Suikoden V is very similar to Suikoden II in many ways and is the best of the PS2 Suikodens. However, it takes a long time for the story to get going and the load times (especially into battles) are really long. Worth playing, though.
If you have the option (and it may be slightly more difficult to obtain the necessary hardware at this point), use HDLoader to play Suikoden V. It helps the loading times tremendously.
ronnie bell, clive, pesmerga, and kage? fucking awesome party there =)
Big suikoden fan. It’s nice playing a JRPG that revolves around a semi believeable conflict instead or a save the world or destroy god story. I also like the levelling system that lets you use any character no matter howlow their level. Even if your character is level 45 and you brinf a level 1 character they should be keeping pace with the rest of the party after 2 or 3 battles.
It’s a pity the direction the series seems to be taking especially after the fantastic SuikodenV. Suikoden will always be special to me. It was the first game I imported, by the time I got a PS1 the game was impossible to find in Ireland so had to get it from ebay. Also Suikoden 2 was the first game that slapped me out of my ‘ZOMG FFVII is the best game ever!’ phase and was my favourite game for a long time. It was pretty much the starting point of when my taste in gaming started to mature.
Ah, this is the game that got me back on the RPG train, as, sentimental fool that I am, I really cared for these little people and what was going on in their war. Poor Ted. Here’s hoping VI gets made so the Yuber/Pesmerga situation finally gains some resolution.
Maybe my memory is faulty, maybe it’s that the only time I played it was for a few hours on a friend’s 13″ crappy TV back in 2002 on a swelteringly hot night, but I don’t remember Suikoden looking that good.
Also, Suikoden III is grossly underrated as a PS2 RPG, though I can’t speak to its proper place in the series since it’s (shame!) the only one in the series I played all the way through.
Suikoden Tactics, though, is garbage.