Suikoden Club v7!
 

This is the place for all the discussions concerning the Suikoden series. With the recently released Suikoden Tactics, and the upcoming Suikoden V, I'm sure that this thread will be pretty active.

If you have any questions about the series in general, just post them here, and some of the regulars (if they return) will help you out.

Fucker! Beat me to it.

I'm playing V at the moment. It's alright, I guess.

The Japanese version, Generic Badass?

Is the battle system nice?

Yeah, no other version to play.

The battle system is good by Suikoden standards, which means "average, turn-based battle system" for everyone else. The best part of the game would probably the story, even if I don't like it too much.

It's nice to see a bunch of new nations pop up.

I still need to beat the previous 5 (including Suikoden Tactics). I've started all of them, but haven't really beaten or gotten too far in any. I really need to get back to the first one, though.

I don't really like the art and character designs for Suikoden V, but am I the only one that thinks it's awesome that the Suikoden V hero (Marion?) will wear Tir McDohl's outfit? (At least, according to some scans). Does anyone have any information on that -- as to why he's wearing it or where he got it? I'm definitely interested in where he got it, as I've always wondered about Tir's clothes, mostly because you never see anyone else in the game with clothes even remotely like his (as far as I know).

Edit: To further add to my post... I heard the "theme song" for the game, and it's fairly disappointing when compared to awesome songs like "La Mer" (Suikoden IV) and "Exceeding Love" (Suikoden III). I'm hoping the rest of the OST will be as good as IV's, though.

Haha, wow. This is the only place I've seen on the web that wasn't impressed with Suikoden V. Everywhere else generally praises it for at least being better than 3+4. I'm also curious as to what you don't like about the storyline considering every Japanese review and importer who understands a lick of Japanese seems to think it is the most complex/good of the series.

Edit: The hero doesn't have a name... he's nameless like every other hero in the series. He'll probably get an unofficial name somewhere, though, since I'm sure they will make a manga about SuikoV somewhere down the line. I'm pretty surprised you don't like any of the designs, either... since after flipping through the artbook I have to say I was pretty damn impressed with most of the characters. On the same note this game has less 'random characters' and more that are actually intricate to the plot. (So I've heard, anyway) That's definitely a step in the right direction.

The story for Suikoden 5 looks very intriguing.


On another note, I just fairly recently beat Suikoden Tactics and I must say that it is one of the best strategy RPG games that I've ever played. The only downsides I saw to it were that some characters suffered from permadeath which might make you not want to bring them out. Also, I think having situations forcing players to swap characters in/out more would've been good. Loved the music, loved the art, loved the story. I'd like to see more of these gaiden-esque games come to the US in the future.

Oh yeah, another complaint about it.... I can't manage to find any of the art online anywhere for Suikoden Tactics. It's rather frustrating. Everything seems to be watermarked or difficult to find in general.

Every protagonist has been given a name in the novelizations (or manga? I can never recall which). They're unofficial, but the majority use them because it's far more convenient to say "Riou" than "Hero2" and "Lazlo" than "HeroIV". I've seen him (HeroV) called "Marion" by people, so, it's what I assume his unofficial name is. Quite frankly, I think Konami should consider the "unofficial" names as official just because they seem to be so widely used amongst fans -- English fans, at least. Though, names like "Lazlo" and "Marion" are kind of ridiculous sounding.

I never said I didn't like any of the designs. There are a few I like (Bernadete, Hazuki, Josephine, Liu, Lorelai, Rahal, Rania, Risara, Sagiri, Shigure, Silva, Wilhelm), but the art isn't as impressive as Fumi Ishikawa's nor as original. Hence, I am disappointed.

Oh darnit, S4 left me horribly dissapointed and my lack of interest in consoles have kept me from getting S.Tactics yet, but hopefully that'll be fixed before S5 is available.

PS. Suikoden deserved first post ^^

Hmm so Suikoden 5 is out?

As far as i know the suikoden series has been one of those series that gives less inovation on "battle" system and more time with the story, which i might say is very impressive starting from the 1st to the tactics, now i dont know but i havent played suikoden 5 but if i manage to get one, i'll pretty much review it.

I recently just got into the Suikoden crazyness only a couple months ago when I finally got ahold of Suikoden 2. Of course I thought it was awesome like everyone else in the world that played it which only equals like 3 people. I haven't played Suikoden 1 yet but whatever.

I just skipped on to 3 and I find this one the best. It was the first game in a while to keep me hooked for so long, as in 60 hours long. The character development I thought was amazing, none of the main characters were left out, and of course the little side things with other characters were just okay as usual. The plot-twist would have really got me too, but of course it was spoiled. I might have seen it coming anyways, but probably not. Side note for S3 I'll put a spoier just in case:

Suiokden V looks to be shaping up nicely, the only real problems I've heard are it takes 500 seconds to load the battle screen, which doesn't really bother me. Didn't XS2 take 600 seconds. The new duel system actually looks cool this time, I've heard they have different animations for each battle which will be awesome. And the strategy battles moving into real time, I was a bit skepticle at first but after watching a few clips it looks fun as well. If it actually isn't that great, it'll still be heaps better than Suikotrash 4, which I couldn't even bother finishing without a gameshark.

Suikoden V is looking nice, I pre-ordered it yesterday.
Suikoden II is my fave out them all, and III was very enjoyable.
IV was ok, but not the best, and a bit tedious at times, and Tactics was really good, except the story was too simple.

Alot of the staff freaked when I told them I have all the games including II. The first 3 games, 2 ecspecially are rare. The highest price I seen Suikoden II go for on ebay was 500.00!

Anyone who is a fan or interested in the the artbook scans from the Limited Edition can check out most of the characters here:

http://photobucket.com/albums/f210/krichan/

I tried to not look at too many of them since I don't want to be spoiled but the quality of the art from the few I saw is very nice and reminiscent of Suikoden 2 style. Has anyone heard or work at EB or Gamestop if they are going to have any preorder gifts like the OST or artbook? I read on the EB site they were going to have an artbook and soundtrack but now there is nothing.

I can't wait for Suikoden V!

Back to the classic views and battle system. I only hope it has Pesmerga or Yuber.

Keeping with the spoiler:



Wow. This is my first post on the new one....

The Flame Champion:



And thanks for the scans Tyr!

Welcome back Leknaat!

Howdy.

Yo, it's good to be back in the Suikoden loop. I played 1 and 2 back in the day, and just found 3 at EB the other day, so I should be playing it once I finish up with FFX (just got a PS2 a few months ago). The first two were some of my favorite RPGs ever, though, really one of the few RPG series to convey a truly epic feel without resorting to crap like fighting God at the end. I anticipate part 5 greatly.

well i just beat suikoden 4 a few hours ago, i liked the game, not the best rpg i have played, but its good.
this is the first Suikoden game i ever played, im starting tactics to complete the feeling.
anyway, i saw some video from Suikoden 5 and looks good!
the characters look less generic, and the battles are more attractive than 4, at least for my taste

I really didn't like IV, it just didn't have an epic feeling like I, II, and to a certain extent III had. Tactics is a huge improvement IMO, since the beginning already manages to create a much more exciting world with the pirates and all. I'm not that far yet, but I have high hopes, although the battles can be fairly hard if you want to get Rank S for some cool items.

I'm with more than a few on saying that IV wasn't my favourite installment of this series, but I just finished Tactics about an hour ago. Sure, more simple in story than the others, but a great game nonetheless. The ranks sure kept me at a few battles for hours.

III still holds favour in my heart, though. But yes, I've been playing the series since the first installment, and am overjoyed that it still lives on today.

And on a random note, glad to see you, Leknaat. :D

Seems that there aren't many Suikoden fans out there who have actually liked IV. I didn't like it either. The characters had no personality, if I remember 20 Star of Destiny in IV, that's good. And no, I don't have bad memory, I remember all SoD in first and second Suikoden.:p

Thank god Tactics was better, although the story is quite slow. It even has better music than IV!

So what's the deal with Tactics? I've had it since it's release but never actually played it, in fact I think it's still in it's wrapper. Is it worth a play before Suikoden V comes out?

It's a nice pass time, although it borrows heavily from FFT (not as much as Hoshigami though). The story seems a bit forced at some points, but it still manages to entertain me more than IV's. Battles can be hard, although maybe it's just because I'm near the beginning, and it can be frustrating to permanently lose an optional character. As for graphical presentation, I personally love it, except for Kyril's character pic. It's a rather cool game, although I'm sure that people who played further then me could give you much more information.

whoa, you mean that people prefer the original suikoden games?
i wish i played it before, i like this one, damn, why i didnt get it before?
:doh:
:doh:
:doh:
:doh:
:doh:
:doh:

After a slow start--I actually liked IV. Sorry, but I did. Mainly because of the major battles. :) I liked that--and Rita-Pon!

But--let me ask about the ranks. I don't have Tactics yet, so are they anything like III's?

Ranks are ratings you get after the battles. S rank is the highest, and it's only rewarded when you do really good in battle (I only got it a few times myself). you can get some of the mst powerful items in the game by achieving S; or a bunch of medals which raise stats for lower ranks.

The skill system as seen in III also makes a return. After a battle, the entire battle gains skill points, and you can distribute them among your members. The skills can be rather useful, like a bigger moving range, or more attacks.

I have to agree with you on Rita-pon, that game was pretty damn addicting.

Sweet. I liked the skill system in III. Bigger moving range? Like IV's modification of the ships for greater cannon range? Sounds interesting.

The only problem I have with Suikoden 5 is it's loading time is painful... other than that, the game is a true gem with a lot of similarities to 1 and 2.

I don't really remember the bigger cannon range in IV, mostly because naval battles where boring, and didn't you need some rare items for that? The skills I've found out up until this point that could be or interest are attack increasing skills, extra move/jump, treasure hunting for a specific character, and magic improving ones. I'm a bit disappointed with the magic though, effects are bland and it's really not that useful to use a spell for 60 damage when the same character can do 100+ with a normal attack.

Argh, Rita-pon was EVIL >.<

I tried playing that game to earn some potch but it never worked out. Any money-making tips for Suikoden 4 anyone?

When you get a high enough level, you can use the Slash rune on almost any enemy. I usually go for the giant crab on the deserted island, and it gave me enough money in a good hour to get most of the important character's weapon's to max level. If your level isn't high enough, just train with the guy aboard your ship.

I thought that was one of the best ideas in Suikoden. Instead of trying to remember where the tough enemies were, you could level up without ever leaving home--and see the fighting styles of your people to decide who to use.

But it was also a rather cheap way, because iirc you couldn't get a game over if you lost a battle with Reinhold, so you basically didn't have any challenge. It was nice to check out the various characters though, helped me to balance out my party for a bit.

Hey guys, new here to GFF. I was just wondering if any of you would be willing to sell their copy of Suikoden I and II. I'd pay a good price for it e.g. $150 for both? I live in Australia and so yeah, it has to be a PAL version of the game. PM me if you're interested.

By the way, is it true that they are releasing the first 2 series on psp?

They are releasing Suikoden 1&2 for PSP but only in Japan.

Are those ports released yet btw? I'm still interested in seeing how what they changed exactly, since I heard that it wasn't a direct port.

It was released on the 23rd last month, along with V.

All they did was put more onscreen at once to make use of the widescreen format of the PSP. I heard some dungeons were tweaked a little because of that, but that's about it.

I am really hoping that the ship date on EBGames is right, because if so Konami got smart and pushed the date up a week. Good idea I think, because it would have gotten completely overshadowed by KH2. *sigh* Damn game companies are breaking me this month(getting Shadow Hearts next week, Suikoden V the week after that(if that date is right), and KH2 the week after that).

On a somewhat related note, I'm listening to the Suikoden V rip and I am LOVING it!! If the music is this good, I cannot wait to see if the game is just as good.

I've only played the first Suikoden back on the PSX. Got to the point where I was fighting the King (think he transformed into a Golden Dragon?).

But the game got scratched bad and it's been years since I played it. Anyone care to tell me the end in spoiler form?

Also, do the following Suikoden pursue the story or are they spinoff? Worth playing (I did enjoy the first one really).

Kamui:


Suikoden II is DEFINITELY worth playing, one of my personal favourites. It has some hints and returning characters in relation to I, but you can play it without that since you practically finished the first game.

Most Suikodens can be seen as standalone games, but they are all part of some bigger story around the True Runes. It'sa pretty huge universe.

Good lord, you butchered that.

Her name is Windy, the boss is the Golden Hydra, their status went from "deceased" to "missing" (causing the doubt), and Lepant became the president of Toran. They overthrew the Empire and put in a Republic.

Hey, it's been 3 or 4 years since I last played the game, of course I forgot a ton of stuff. Is it officially called the Toran Republic, because in III and Tactics they surely mentioned the Scarlet Moon Empire (I know Tactics is a prequel, but III can't be because of Luc).

Suikoden III, in the one or two times it mentions it, refers to it as Toran (you may be thinking of the Dunan Republic being referred to as Jowston, due to the history book). As for Tactics, it's like you said-- it's a prequel, so it hasn't been overthrown yet.

If you've played III, you might remember when Sheena throws out the idea to meet Lepant, seeing as he's the president. Then Freed spazzes out, saying Toran is just the new face of the Scarlet Moon Empire and should still be their bitter enemy.

Maybe I confused it with that, thanks for the reminder.

As for my status on Tactics, I'm currently just before the battle in Haruna, where you have to save some mage. The game can get incredibly frustrating sometimes, especially in the Ruins of Obel. The fifth level is incredibly hard if you get unlucky with the number of Golems, and the wrong elements on characters. I've spent hours on getting through it, only to be kicked out, and it seems that I have to start from the beginning again. It's still a higly enjoyable game though, and it was rather rewarding when I finally got past that level.

Ona a somewhat related note:

JEANE!

*POUNCE*

LEKKY MY LOVE! :D

The lost Atreides siblings are together again! I forget, am I Bubba or Gunther?
(To all that are wondering what the hell I'm talking about, don't ask, ya don't wanna know :))

God--I was going to write "Bubba and Gunther together again." too. That's freaky....

I can't remember who was who. I think I was Bubba since I live in Ohio...LOL

And to paraphrase Jeane--"You don't wanna know."

I miss you guy's signatures done with the runes of the suikoden games. Some of those were great.

So it says here the game comes out on 3/21/06. Thats good, I havent been following this game like I did IV. It seems like it took a longer wait for IV (from when III came out) then it does with V. Word on if theres actually a castle? Or does the group travel in a big wagon that magically gets bigger with the more people you get? (Cmon the whole ship homebase was stupid)

Your permanent base is an upgradable area in some Sindar Ruins. Your first base (which you don't have for too long) is on a ship, though.

Hey guys, give me attention.

I found an emulator that dumps raw (.bin instead of .bmp) vram. So I'm spriting Suikoden II.

It's going well so far. I found some sprites I don't think are used anywhere, but I'll reserve judgement until I beat the game. What I want now, other than praise and glory, is some identification. I found some characters whose names I don't know.

Unknown Man 1 is found in the meeting hall in your castle.

Unknown Man 2 is found in Gregminster's castle.

Unknown Woman is found in the forest village that you recruit Ayda and Feather in. I don't know for sure if it's a woman, but I think so. Also, she's not Elza.

Jeane and Nanami are in there because I like Jeane and Nanami.

I believe Unknown man 2 is Tesla, who had a small role in the first Suikoden.

Unknown woman never had a name, I think she was the female that was told to dress up like Elza to fool Clive.

They're both right for those, and Unknown Man appears to be Amada. You might have found him in the Meeting Hall because of the plot-point where you need a skilled seaman to take you to Two River.

I love Suikoden. Period. I only played a couple of hours of IV.. Can someobdy give me a good excuse to play all the way through? So far I hadn't really been impressed.

It'll explain a lot in Suikoden V, and you'll be able to get some nice little references in it.

Not to mention it's almost a must if you're going to play Suikoden Tactics, which is a pretty good game.

I got Suikoden Tactics the other day although I'm putting off playing it until I finish SMT. I hope they'll release S1 and 2 on the PSP in Europe too, if only so by buying them I can persuade Konami to keep releasing Suikoden games in Europe.

Once the next gen of consoles gets into it's stride and the current lot plummet in price, I'm gonna import a PS2 just to play Suikoden 3. Bastards.

Lurker, have you checked out rpg-icons.com? Could help with identifying stuff if nothing else.

Shin: rpg-icons has been immeasureably helpful for this.

To the rest of you: You're right. The sprites of Amada I had already ripped were of him drinking, so that's why I didn't recognize him - plus also not paying attention, I guess. There were sprites of Clive and Elza in the Forest Village, but I never completed his subquest so I'll take your word on that girl. And Tesla sounds right; I found his name in a list of NPCs somewhere, although there was no associated sprites.

Fun fact: the hero's default name is Suikoden.

Happy to hear a revival of the Suikoden Club! Albeit, 7.

I hope V is a huge, huge leap from IV. IV, literally, left me heartbroken from the series, having had such a tremendous impact with II. However, hearing these mixed reviews on V, I'm unsure if the series regained it's power as it used to have (before IV). I wouldn't know until I've played it.

I'd agree that IV was a big step down from the awesomeness of II (I've never had a chance to play III). The 108 characters were all too easy to find and all to damn similar. It didn't seem like they used more than six basic character models then just dressed them up. In the first two games, I always used to take a pretty varied party where possible and there was a sense of each character being different in some way. In IV, I felt no need to bother with most of the PCs as they were all so samey. Where were the novelty comedy characters? ('Sup chef attack?).

Also, the story in IV seemed to lack the epc scope of the first two, there were no truly emotional bits and most of all, sailing across featureless ocean fighting the same four monsters for hours gets old really fast...

So yeah, I'm hoping for a return to form for V. Don't get me wrong, I loved IV but it was poor compared with Suikoden I and II.

Are there any plot spoilers for V yet?

Thought i would post a couple updates. Both of which are good news. First EBGames and Gamestop both have advertised the artbook and limited edition soundtrack cd as their preorder gift for Suikoden V today. I believe some people have already picked theirs up in store so you might want to check if you have an order. And second Blue Moon has posted his review of the game on his Suikox.com site, but unfortunately he seems to be having some server issues. But he posted in gamefaqs the entirety of his review and thought I would paste it for the fans here. Most have probably heard of him over the years and his opinions, while no different than others, is a subjective and knowledgeable person with the series and has posted fair reviews in the past.

Here it is...

Welcome back, Suikoden!

Yes, Suikoden is back, folks... and it is decked out with a full slew of goodies.

However, before I get into the good stuff, let me complain about Suikoden V's weakest point: controls.

The game's response to your input from the control pad is not very stellar. I originally thought my control pad may have gotten worn out, so I changed it to a new one, but the problem persisted. This is particularly the case when you're trying to speak with townspeople, open chests, or open the status menu--you often don't get the desired response. When speaking to townspeople, you seem to have to be at a very specific location to get a response; otherwise, you are completely ignored. The same is true with treasure chests, which can get frustrating because there are some random background images that look like treasure chests. I've wasted some good time trying to open these fake chests thinking that it must be the bad response giving me a hard time.

Calling up the status menu seems to be a hit/miss deal as well. Even if you are clearly pressing the button, sometimes the menu doesn't open at all. The game also loads for about 1 or 2 seconds when you pull up the menu, which may possibly frustrate some people; it didn't bother me. In a similar vein, the controls within the item menu are somewhat awkward because they ask you for confirmation every time you use an item. What was bothersome for me is that the default setting is "don't use," which required that I move the cursor and then press on "yes" before I can finally use the "medicine 1" to heal 100 HP for one of my poorly beaten characters. In previous games, these extra steps were not needed. This was most frustrating when I was in a tight situation in dungeons, slamming the buttons and realizing that I actually didn't use my "mega medicine."

Let’s also talk about load time. Load time tends to be on the longer side for Suikoden V. The load time it takes before every battle is a good 8 to 10 seconds long. However, Konami does a very fine job making this look shorter by using a rather nice transition with graphics and tension-building music. However, the load time after battle is not given equal care, and we also have the vile and evil load screen interfering during event cut-scenes.

On a similar issue, the game seems to use a lot of processing power because when there are many characters in one screen, the game slows down noticeably. The worst case is that one particular rune spell animation can actually cause the game to freeze (but this is probably for older PS2 models, because I have never experienced this myself). Make sure you save often!

Now that I got all of my complaints out of my system, let me get to the good stuff.

Again, let me say:

Welcome back, Suikoden!

Let me start with the music. I often don't review music because my taste is very strange. However, in the case of Suikoden V, I can say that they did an incredible job. Not only do they have a good soundtrack, they make very good use of music to enliven the mood of the plot. They obviously took great care in making sure music is used to enhance the emotional quality of each event. Now, that is Suikoden (at least for me).

The battle engine is superb, to say the least. The regular battles have increased 10-fold in terms of its tactical complexity compared to Suikoden IV. The battles are noticeably harder (unless you power your characters up ridiculously), and pressing buttons like a monkey won't get you very far.

Battle formations are a new feature from Suikoden V, but this really gives grater depth to your tactical options. What is great is that this will allow you to make whatever parties you like.

For example, in Suikoden 2, you were pretty much limited to having 3 members with the attack range of S. In Suikoden V, depending on your formation you can even use 6 members with range S attacks (without any penalties!). You can choose more defensive formations as well, so that your long range attacks have enhanced defenses while one tank takes all of the attacks, etc. The possibilities are viryually limitless.

The skill system is also back, but has also been overhauled. Gone are skills such as "Swing" and "Fire Magic" but instead you have skills such as "Agility" and "Magic." Let me explain how this works-- basically, increasing skills increase your stats. For example, increasing "Agility" increases your "Speed" stats as well as "Evade." It also increases your chances of multiple attacks and your chances to attack multiple enemies. Previously, this was handled by multiple skills, but the new system successfully consolidates these skills into one. Also, skills that increase magical affinities, such as "Lightning Magic" have been eliminated, and have been replaced by individual elemental affinities, much like Suikoden 2 (although you can actually see the affinities in Suikoden V). Your elemental affinities can be marginally modified by wearing certain types of armor, but they are largely static, which means you need to be careful what runes you give to whom.

This all sounds fabulous, but one downside is that you must equip skills. Even if you are trained in the skills "Attack" "Defense" and "Agility" to skill level A, you can only equip two of these at the same time. You can switch them out any time during the game, but the number of skills you can have on your character never increases from 2. However, as you progress in the game, advanced skills become available. One of the highest skill (which I'll translate as "The Royal Way") increases every single skill, but is also very hard to get and not everyone can use it. Overall, the regular battle system along with all the stats makes Suikoden V a number-cruncher's dream. People who liked messing around with stats and theorizing maximum damage, etc will have a lot of fun.

The one-on-one duel system has been a staple for the Suikoden series, but it has gone through a minor change in Suikoden V: you're now given a time-limit to make your choice. Otherwise, it is basically the same as how it was in Suikoden 1 and 2. However, this small change makes duels a lot more challenging and fun, you just gotta try it. I was also pretty happy to see that battle animations of your hero changes depending on your opponent. The choreography is really quite something. I can't find anything bad about duels at all, and you do have a fair number of them (and some duels don't involve the hero as well).

Now, the major battles: boy, THIS has changed! For one thing, the major battles are real-time, meaning all of your units move simultaneously. However, besides the real-time aspect, the major battle system basically takes the good parts of past battle systems and combines it together, and they do a fine job at that. Basically, you can have an upwards of around 10 regiments, and each regiment can be led by up to 3 characters. There's various regiment types, including naval units. Some battles are purely naval or conventional, but many battles involve a mix, which further complicates the strategy. Like Suikoden 2, some characters have special skills, such as "Charge" or "Water Magic" which add to your tactical options. Generally, the major battles are challenging, and you're given a lot of freedom in terms of what you can do. Unlike in Suikoden 2, where you had almost no freedom in some battles, most all major battles in Suikoden V lets you do whatever you wish. Also, depending on how well you do, you're given rewards! One problem with major battles is that you're not given much time to think because it is real-time. One tip I can give you is that all units stop moving when you are choosing the destination of one of your units, that's when you can have time to think, but otherwise you'd need a lot of dexterity with your control pad.

Now going onto better stuff: Characters.

In short, the characters in Suikoden V are superb. The development team obviously heard complaints about the lack of character depth in Suikoden IV and made major improvements in this regard for Suikoden V. Almost every single character in Suikoden V has a reason for joining the hero, and you sure do get certain types or archetypes that are essential for Suikoden to be Suikoden: charlatans, bandits, thieves, corrupt government officials, scheming aristocrats, silent swordsmen, mercenaries, along with a scantly-clad rune sage and ditzy teleport mage.

The characters are given an amazing amount of back-story as well, creating a pretty complex web of relations between characters you wouldn't think have anything to do with each other. Along with your private investigator's investigation, comment box entries, and bathhouse events, it'll probably take a very long time for anybody to learn everything about the characters. Not only that, every character is given a pretty wide range of emotion, which you can see through their facial expressions and gestures; which is a pretty huge improvement from Suikoden IV (especially because the hero had only one facial expression).

Characters that are heavily involved in the plot are developed very well, and are given compelling and believable reasons for doing what they do. This not only involves your side, but your enemy as well; however, as director Sakiyama said, there is less "gray area" for the enemies--your enemies are decidedly more "evil" than the "good side." The effect of this is actually pretty good, because it makes you feel pretty good when you defeat your enemies, and also lets you really dislike your foe and aids in building up your emotions.

However, the greatest job they did in terms of character is for the hero. The prince is a "silent hero," but even then you can see how he grows during the game. Depending on the choices you make, he can be serious or comical but never bland. The range of emotion he displays is pretty amazing, and the development team does a good job making you forget that he's a "silent hero."

And the plot; I don't know how to describe how the plot of Suikoden V surpasses the plot of all other Suikodens, especially in terms of its complexity. More than once was I shocked to learn of why certain things happened, especially because I assumed the truth to be different. The politics within the plot is quite intense, and it is possible that some of it might go over the head of some people.

In the same vein as politics, military strategy is also an important aspect in the Suikoden series, but Suikoden V doesn't disappoint in terms of that. Not only your own strategist, but in various other parts of the plot will you see brilliant and brutal strategy used by enemies and yourself alike. You have manipulation, betrayal, foreign intervention, old-fashioned loyalty, and unlikely allies, which all make Suikoden what it should be.

Also, Suikoden V does a very good job at throwing you down into the abyss. You will be pitted against incredible adversity--adversity so overpowering that you'll likely feel pretty unhappy. However, adversities are overcome in ways that are entirely Suikoden: through brilliant strategy of your strategist and the heroic acts of the hero and his comrades. The end result is a story that creates a rapturous feeling, the very feeling that was missing (for me) in Suikoden IV. So yes, Suikoden V does have the "Suikoden feel."

One possible problem with the plot, though, is that the plot feels a small bit rushed towards the end, and can possibly make people wonder what the heck is going on. However, this isn't that big of a problem because an explanation is given in the end.

Lastly concerning plot, you as the playr have a certain latitude over how the plot progress. Although the main storyline is pretty much linear (although with multiple endings), there are a number of parts that branch out. The decisions you make can have a pretty large impact on your playthrough. Some of these branch-points are pretty minor, and some are quite siginficant. The result is that everyone would likely have a different experience. It is basically impossible to see every possible event in two or three playthroughs.

In terms of mini-games, there are plenty of addictive mini-games, although there is no cook-off (many people ask this question, so I just want to make sure). Not only are many of these mini-games addictive, but they tend to be a good way to make money.

Lastly, the graphics have improved especially in terms of character modeling. They don't re-use the same action for every model during battles like they did in Suikoden V, and they don't have ugly textures for faces; each character has facial parts that move naturally. Konami must have put in a lot of effort in this regards! In terms of maps, the birds-eye-view overworld map is back, and the screen inside towns and dungeons are set to a diagonal "quarter-view" perspective, and allows you to see a pretty wide field. Although this makes it hard for you to see things around tall buildings, a lot of times the camera compensates by automatically shifting its perspective. One problem is that you don't get to see the character models close-up unless you're in a cut-scene. It's a shame because the character models are done so well. Also, there are some hidden treasure chests in places you can't see; these tend to contain pretty important (non-plot related) items, too. Battle actions are quite superbly done and fluid, and unite attack actions are done very well and are fun to watch. Graphics involving rune magic is still not quite up to Suikoden 2's standards, but they execute quickly and aren't horrible either. The character profile images (which will undoubtedly be transformed into many message board avatars!) are exceptional, and many characters are given multiple profiles depending on their emotion and also depending on the clothing they wear.

Overall, Suikoden V makes you feel like Konami really tried hard to understand the question, "what makes Suikoden, Suikoden." Opinions on installations following Suikoden 2 have always been a divisive topic, and Suikoden IV scored pretty low in many reviews. Undoubtedly, these facts make Konami think long and hard about what they should do in Suikoden V, and the result is a truly remarkable comeback. Unfortunately, Suikoden V's sales are not too stellar in Japan, but that doesn't reflect the quality of the game itself. Suikoden V is truly an epic, and if you have ever liked Suikoden (and abandoned the series because you didn't like Suikoden 3 or Suikoden IV), it's a must-play.

Suikoden is back, folks!

The ship in IV was big to begin with--it didn't magically grow. LOL

And, to be honest, at first, I thought you'd return to Razril and take over the Hall of Knights. But, the ship was kind of fun--especially fishing.

And the some of my sigs should return after I'm done with this RGB sig.

Awesome news!

Konami have announced a PAL version of Suikoden V, due out in autumn (That's fall for those of you reading in NTSC). That means I'll only have to avoid this thread for six months or so as opposed to the years I had to wait in the past!

This now means only S3 is missing from the PAL collection. Hopefully they'll get round to releasing that someday, maybe on the PSP or something.

That would be some task, producing S3 for the psp. The machine can barely even handle Ys for gods sake.

Just import a PS2 and SuikoIII, it'll be well worth it. I loved SuikoIII quite a bit more than the average Suikoden fan though...

Don't talk to Deni, I believe he hates III. It's one of the better Suikoden games, imo, with an interesting story, an awesome bonus for getting the 108 stars and nice character designs. The battle system will take some time getting used to though, as will the Trinity System.

The bonus to getting all 108 characters was the only redeeming factor. God awful battle system, terrible characters (I need a talking duck in a helmet like I need a kick in the teeth) and an atrocious story. However, a great soundtrack.

I pre-ordered Suikoden V at EB today and I got a cool little art book thing. It's always nice when you get an extra with a pre-order.

But...Sgt. Joe was irresistible to the female ducks...LOL

Although, I'll admit, everytime ANY of the ducks walked, I kept thinking of the scene with the geese in Aristocats.

Sergeant Joe is the best Suikoden character ever. Ok not really. He was helpful though...as a character. Early on he was the hard hitter for Hugo's team. I was disappointed with some of the SoD though...adding those two ducks in duck village was just stupid. Gotta love that there are always at least 10 stars of destiny...that can be used in fighting parties but have pathetically bad stats.

I don't care about their stats or how useful they were, they're just bloody lame. I can't enjoy using a character I think just looks/acts terrible. What fun is it to control someone in a fantasy and they just blow?

The Packaging for Suikoden V:

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8453/suikov2ha.th.jpg

It looks a lot better than the Tactics packaging, but not as good as IV, imo, it's a bit too cluttered.

Oh man, after reading the review on Suikox.com, I'm dying to get this game. But since I don't have enough money to spare right now, I'm gonna have to wait.:doh: And since I live in Finland, the shipping from US takes time, so maybe I'll have the game in May. Or maybe not, but the wait is too long anyways.

Is it me or are the games getting weaker as far as games go? Here's the order I played them in: 2, 1, 3, 4. I found 3 to be very entertaining despite the cartooney graphics and almost kiddie musical score, and I'm buying the manga too. IV on the other hand is kind of drab graphically, musically, AND plotwise so far.

Plus it's about naval battles.

It's like seeing Raiden for the first time all over again. Sure it kicks ass, but it's just not what I've come to expect.

I dont think they are lacking...we are just giving them high expectations because of how much we have overrated 1 and 2. I picked up 1 because I had 20$ to spare about 7 years ago and loved it. Shortly after...II came out and I figured what the hell...I will give it a shot and loved it also. Eventually because the game was somewhat simple in graphics (compared to other hit rpgs at the time ..FF8, Legend of Dragoon..lol and Star Ocean II) but the story and gameplay mechanics made it great. We had a long wait from II to III so we played II again and made it almost immortal in our minds. III was a great game (Id go on record and say it was better then FFX) and the cartoon graphics fit the game in my opinion.

Suikoden has only had a few games out but because of how well perceived I and II are...when a new Suikoden game comes out...we tend to hold Suikoden II up on a pedastal and compare it to the game coming out. Now...I admit IV did simply suck...but I think Tactics managed to provide a pick me up for the series.

Ok fellow Suikoden Clubbers, Suikoden V is upon us. In honor of it's release, I am proposing another Suikoden Week(the first one went over pretty well, yet the second one never even took off). Suikoden avs and sigs and spreading much Suikoden love around the boards. Anyone up for it? Or are all of you going to ignore it again this year? ;)

I'm not the biggest supporter of V, but I'd do it.

I've already got my av/sig combo.

Well, with the improved features over the lackluster IV. This game has to be really good. Because you certainly can't go wrong with that 6 man/woman party. And that like with FFX, you can switch out the characters and bring the benched characters into attack. Making a total of a 10 active party member combat.

I'll do it, despite the release date for V over here not being for about six months...

A Suikoden week, eh? Okay then, here's my Suikoden II set, I'll celebrate the chance for me to order V tomorrow:p

I need to find me a suikoden avatar...and a sig too.

I got the game today along with a fancy little Limited Edition Suikoden V artwork cell. Its not too shabby although I would of preferred a NICE artbook (IV's sucked). Its pretty funny really because I went to pick it up yesterday but i didnt have it preordered. Gamecrazy didnt have it yet but he said I could pay for it now and hed call me when it comes in. So I did, so that was considered a pre-order so I got the cell.

I havent played or read about the game too much. Is...the prince (main hero) supposed to be a guy? Because if he is...thats the girliest looking guy ever.

I just played it for about 6 hours today, and I'm happy to say Suikoden is back. I really hated the fourth game. Even though I love the series, Suikoden 4 is one of the worst games I've ever played. Most of that probably due to the fact that I was expecting a game as good as the first three.

Luckily the fifith is great. It feels just like the first two games in the series, and I couldn't be happier. Massive political backstabbings building up to a huge war. The way it's supposed to be. I'm so happy I could cry. My favorite series returns to its former glory T.T

If I had a av/sig combo I'd definitely join in. Actually, I should have the av. I'll make it in a bit.

I got an artbook and a music CD as a preorder bonus.

I admit it, I've lapsed considerably in my love of the Suikoden series. I simply couldn't stand the change from 2d to the 3d that they employed in the PS2 games. It didn't help that they screwed with the battle system and the classic music that was present in parts I and II. However, I just read the IGN review and they made it very clear that V returns to the roots of the series, big time. This will be the first Suikoden game I have purchased since II.

I'm still concerned about the soundtrack, and I don't feel that any Suikoden game can be truly Suikoden without the presence of Ms. Higashino.

I'll be getting the game soon, but I first want to finish the new Shadow Hearts (which I've only just started), I'm really anticipating this one.

In other news, I recently finished Suikoden Tactics, and I've taken the liberty to review it:


I'd be more than happy to participate in the Suikoden week, if any would be kind enough to provide me with a ava/sig set.

Having played this for the last 4 hours I don't see where the load issues were such a major detraction from the game. I mean if you are playing blazing fast FPS and action games all the time I am sure its noticeable. But they aren't nearly as annoying and terrible as I've seen most of these reviewers make them out to be. Few seconds here and there at most. Magna Carta had load issues. Shadow Hearts:Covenant wasn't exactly blazing fast either.

So far the game is everything i expected it to be. While some might feel antsy about the slow pacing I find it very nice to get to know the characters you are going to spend hours playing. Alot of foreshadowing and backstory on events can be found everywhere if you take the time to talk to NPC's and characters. If anything it excites me to really play the adventure once the reins are let loose.

Damnit! I forgot to pre-order Suikoden V. No pre-order bonus for me. I can't wait to play this game - alas, it will have to wait until after finals. Yay to the return of the 6 person party!

Yeah, I don't understand the load time complaints at all. They're normal speed for any RPG. I think the problem was that while in most RPGs you just go to a black screen, this game says loading. So you notice it. Reviewers overreacting again.

It does a really good job of building up to the crap hitting the fan so to speak. It's not until like 6 hours in that it all goes down. Makes it much more personal since by that time you know these characters pretty well.

It is good to see the positive outlook on Suiko 5 so far :)

Although I don't have much time for console RPGs lately (grr WoW taking all my gaming time!), I think I might try to make a good effort to play this when I pick it up. I too was disapointed in 4, although I liked 1-3. I agree with how I played Suiko 2 so much that it became immortal to me, but then that's why a good game keeps you coming back again and again :)

That's like going on record as saying that one plus one equals two. You're not exactly going out on a limb there.

I only got to play SuikoV for a few minutes last night, between work and a fantasy baseball draft after work, but I fully intend on getting some serious play time in tonight. The battles {all five of them that I fought} already reminded me of SuikoII, and that's a good thing.

III is an underrated game. When FFX and Suikoden III came out...more copies of FF were available....Suikoden 3 I had to search for to find it...and I know alot of people who considered FFX to be the end all of rpgs (im talking of course about 2002-2003 era of games). Alot of people came down hard on Suikoden III because they felt it should of been voiced ...and I admit there were parts that looked like it should of been but I still find it to be a great game.

Suikoden III is underrated eh? It's about as underrated as the value of a gallon of gasoline is in the US right now.

When Final Fantasy X came out, more copies were available because clearly, Square had the power to make more copies. Suikoden has always been a mixed bag with Konami, as they've focused more on things like MGS and such in the states.

No one came down hard on Suikoden III because it had no voices, they came down hard on it because it was mindless and repetitive garbage. Going through the same areas 500 times every chapter, having "treasure bosses" as your only means of getting anything valuable, and the god awful war battles that played more like a board game. The soundtrack also clearly proved that Michiru Yamane needs to stay under Castlevania instead of trying to spread out.

The story/lore is the only thing that saved Suikoden III's ass even a little bit.

Just walk into your nearest Gamestop or EB, and tell them you pre-ordered the game (even if you didn't) to receive your free artbook set. Most local locations received more copies of the artbook set than they did games, so you won't be cheating anyone.

I don't get why Suikoden 3 catches so much flak. I thought it was a great game. Yeah it had some problems, especially when compared to Suikoden 2, but it was far better than FFX. And I'm not a Square basher either. I liked FFX, but Suikoden 3 was far superior.

People come down hard on Suikoden 3 because it wasn't Suikoden 2. If it had come out after Suikoden 4 then it would be nowhere near as maligned. My only problem with the game was that the main conflict wasn't really a war. It was a minor skirmish between the Grasslands and Luc's forces. Harmonia was only your enemy for like 2 battles (both of which you have to retreat from, which is really no surprise considering it is Harmonia).

Suikoden III catches so much flak because the gameplay itself is no good. It has nothing to do with it "not being Suikoden II" or anything of the sort. Regardless of the order it released at, the things I outlined still exists. This has little to do with comparisons to FFX or even Suikoden II.

The "minor skirmish" would have also led to...

As for your spoiler, that's not what I meant at all. I was refering to the actual amount of military action. Obviously a RPG isn't going to be minor in that sense, that's just being silly. I like the focus to be on politics and armies, not on Luc's plan. I can get that kind of plot in almost all other RPGs. It's why I liked the first half of the game more than the second. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that, thought it was kind of obvious...

And your outlined problems, were not problems at all to me. I never even noticed them while playing the game. I was never playing the game and found myself going "Damn, wish I could get something other than what's in these treasure chests!" I will add another flaw though. The amount of retreating and holding out you had to do in the war battles. I think they only let you fight back in like one of them.

The politics focused more on Harmonia's overall plan to acquire all the runes, which died out once Luc decided he'd had enough. Neither Suikoden III or Suikoden IV were in the traditional sense "Suikoden" style games, but were required to convey that part of the lore. Without that, you have an incomplete puzzle when it comes to explaining further Suikoden games.

You must like repetition a lot then, having to run through the same areas so many times with so many different characters and setups. It's like you were replaying the game three different times on the same playthrough. The way the story progressed walking into Chapter 4 earned the most disdain from me though.

Suiko V came out in Japan already, right? Are there any spoiler plot summaries online yet?

It came out in the US this week too lurky. We only had to wait like a month after it came out in Japan for an English version. GOD, don't you know anything? =p

I wish more companies would take a hint and begin localization during the game's development so we don't have to wait as long. As for the game itself, I'm enjoying ti so far. It does have odd pacing and a slow start but it all gets much better 6 or so hours into the game.

Then it should be easier to make with the spoilers you homo fox.

Oddly enough, there hasn't been much in the way of information on the game-- a full guide for recruitment didn't come out until just recently, in fact. Fucking hard as hell to try to recruit characters when you have to go of off hearsay.

You can't get the damn game spoiled even if you search. Except--


This is a really major spoiler, so I don't recommend reading it unless you've beaten the game and/or don't care.

It has a new game+ so I'm not worried about getting them all in my first playthrough.

I've been a big fan of the Suikoden series, but I've fallen out of the loop since 4. Then low and behold, I stop by my EBGames (to pick Guitar Hero >_>) and see that there's another one out.

Probably should've payed more attention to those gaming sites. I've been browsing some of the last posts in the thread and it looks like the response to the new game has been positive. But it looks like it'll be a game that I might wait to buy, just because I have other games to play at the moment =/

So far I like the game. I like how the battle view is similiar to that of 1 and 2...yet still maintains its updated graphics. I also enjoy how the spell effects actually look good instead of the bland spells we got in 4.

I love the characters so far, I am not far into it but...



Anyway, I was looking through some of my Suiko-Stuff....I have a lame strategy guide for S1, the official one for 2...a printed out one for III (LOL) and the one for 4...plus the artbook...so...

Does anyone else have the artbook that came with 4? If so...have you been able to identify all of the runes on that big page with them? Shit I know all of the true ones listed but only about 1/3 of the others. I wanna get this scanned...so I can label them.

Never saw what the big deal with Richard was. You give anybody a Fury/Double-Strike/Violence/Boost (pick any two or three) combo, and they're going to stomp the piss out of people. Shit, I gave Zerase a Boost Rune and she was doing as much damage as Dinn while I was on my way to Sable.

The person I'm finding to be quite useful is Yahr. Sure, his portrait is goofy as hell, but replacing Belcoot with him as my one front-liner seems to be working out. His Angry Dragon doesn't do as much as Belcoot's Falcon, but the trade-off is that Yahr isn't Unbalanced by his personal rune. He also gets level 4 magic, which I don't think Belcoot can get even if he's level 99.

But they won't be able to parry and avoid as much as Richard does... it's his 3xx technique stat that makes him godly.

Well, when you have heavy armor equipped, what's the big difference between dodging and having a character with 350 HP take 3-15 damage?

I just started it and my god its good, but the problem is the whole sound effects aint working out for me (i mean sound effects in menus and such) i would have loved it if they brought back old sounds from Suikoden 2.

Im more than likely getting V, this weekend.

Alot of the reviews say the loading times are bad, and ign's review said something about framerate being an issue?

I loved Suikoden I & II, III was okay.. but disliked 4. I hear V is better than 4, and up to par with II?

How long is the game, other than the new game plus.. is there any other sidequests? I know about recuirting the 108 stars.. thats standard suikoden. :)

I think my mind is already made up. Ill get it this weekend, after I go through Kingdom Hearts II.

I wish people would stop comparing every game with the word "Suikoden" in it, to Suikoden II. Yeah we get it, Suikoden II was great ...but why ruin a great game by comparing it to something completly different? Ive read peoples opinions of this and have gathered that...people dislike this game because it does not have a "cook off minigame". Are you kidding me? First of all that mini game was not all that great...and secondly how can you judge a game completly based off of its mini games?

Now granted I do rank the games in the series as favorite to worst. Clearly IV is the worst...the best is indeclared until I beat Suikoden V. Im not going to sit there and play the game and say "oh well it should of been like this because thats how they did it in Suikoden II".

I think Suikoden V is fantastic so far. It has characters that I actually can get used to much like the previous Suikoden's did. Suikoden IV being the exception because the characters for that game were dull, boring, and bland. Much like the storyline. To top it off...you spent more time sailing than you did anything else. Suikoden V has great characters and I am not even 1/4th way through the game yet. The story is fantastic and complex...which goes along with the music...which is also great.

I have recognized a few themes from previous Suikoden games (The music during when you name the main character, the music during the stategic battles and one other that I wont say because its a spoiler). I think all Suikoden games have incredible music, well except for IV...that seems to be the black sheep of Suikoden games.

Its also alarming how many people I have seen upset over the fact that Yuber or Pesmerga are not in this game. Who freaking cares? Pesmerga had like 5 lines total in all the games and really did not do much of anything. Yuber wasnt all that great either and became more pathetic when he showed up in that ridiculous outfit in Suikoden III.

Im not sure how many Suikoden games there will be, I have heard 7, maybe even 6 and if that were the case...if they make the game as good as this one I will be content. I would rather them stop the series when its good...instead of letting it become a Final Fantasy series. However the immortal difference between Suikoden and Final Fantasy will be that Suikoden has wonderful mythology to it and great backstory. Final Fantasy gives us Moogles...oh yay.

Of course it's going to get compared to the best game in the series. It's not something completely different. They're not comparing it to Metal Gear Solid or something. It's being compared to a game in the same series. Also, everything I've heard about the comparisons, is good. It's not "Oh man, it's not like II!" it's more like "Wow, this game is great. It reminds me of when I played II." In fact many people think it's better than II. I'll reserve that judgement for the ending credits.
What morons said that? I loved the cook offs as much as the next guy, but damn. They weren't THAT good.
A lot of that stems from the fact that the creators stated that Yuber and Pesmerga's relationship is a major part of the overall storyline, and will end with the last game in the series. So people just want to see more of it. I'd like to see more myself. Though what I really want more info on is Harmonia and Hikusaak. I'd really like one of the games to take place inside Harmonia.

I'm about 30 hours in now, and the game is most excellent. I really liked the scene where For a silent hero, the Prince shows a lot of emotion. It's very well done.

Yeah I actually think the Silent hero bit works alot better then it did in IV. In IV it just always seemed awkward that he never said anything, but with the Prince...its hardly noticible (except during cutscenes when you see your name in text and they skip over it).

I think the dialogue is really well done in this game as well as there are alot of scenes so far that I think are memorable.

I actually wasnt comparing, BUT i really wanted the menu SFX for suikoden 2 to be used on suikoden 5, its just more easy on the ears.

Suikoden IV is good too, it was a little dissapointing (too short) but as people said, Suikoden is Suikoden it means that story is actually good, too bad most people thought it was bland :(

Yeah, and I think the addition of Lyon also lessens the awkward effect of a silent hero. It actually seems to be her main purpose is to sort of act as an emotional translator when needed which is an excellent and creative way to do so while keeping with the Suikoden tradition.


Personally, I am really enjoying Suikoden V as well. It really does seem like Konomi took a step back and listened to the fans and critics of the last two games when making this one. I think the major appeal I found in Suikoden I&II was the great job it did in making the hero(you) feel like a celebrity in the game. NPCs always had a lot to say about your status, performance, and in game character with comments mostly directed at you rather than the common random things/people NPCs tend to talk about in other RPGs. Suikoden V brings this back in a very good way. I spend so much time in this game just walking around towns to see the kinds of things NPCs might comment on about the Hero.

Bring back the more Asian themed towns and using a lot of Asian instruments in the music is also something I'm appreciating as I always considered it a major part of Suikoden as well. I'm loving the personalities of the main players in this one as well. Queen Arshetat ended up having a totally different personality than what I was expecting by watching the intro.


There are technical problems with V though. The load times are a little excessive, but what is worse is the interface just feels very unresponsive to the point where it does take some of the enjoyment out of the game. The encounter rate, while not as bad as Suikoden IV it still way too high. The excessive load time into battle just makes this issue worse than it is.

On that same scene:



There are soundsets in the game like in Suikoden II, but I haven't reached the point where I can use them. Who knows, they might have a classic sound set that you can change it to later on.

From what I've been hearing, the comparisons are very favorable.

Also, it's a grievous sin that there's no cookoff, but I doubt that in and of itself is the reason why people don't like the game. god, you suck at reading.

and fuck you, yuber was awesome in III

Got to the part where Hero and gang will go back to

Well i'm quite okay with this game so far, i mean the camera angles takes time to getting used to and the battle rate is still high, Oh and dungeons still seems small but its okay, I love the VA for Lyon, oh i just wanted if someone from the previous suikoden will come back except Viki,jeane,Killey,Lorenta (Sorry if the name is wrong)

The voice work quality is superb in S5, especially the girls'. Miakis, Lyon and Lun's VA carried out their personalities, KONAMI finally did something right for once.

I just got this game today however I had to plow through a mob of KHII fans just to get to the game rack -.-. Really releasing this game on almost the same day as KHII was IMO a horrible decision. I read the manuel some..Konami went all out in this game. I don't expect an emulated suikoden II experience, but something far better. It is like all systems they've used from all games have been tuned up and placed into this one game - I really look forward to dueling.
Fixed.

The game was released a week before KH2. Konami doesn't give a shit about Suikoden fans anyways, so it's not surprising about the release date.

Actually it's okay, The fans will decide if they will buy Kh2 or Suikoden V, Well for me i started playing Suikoden V first (I have finished kh2 in japanese already)

And as for the game only one complaint, Character recruitment is hard for some unknown reason in this game, When i'm in Rainwall and i wanted to use one of my "Comrades" i cant find him in the list, i dont know what happened but it seems i can only bring the guy that i officialy "Befriended" but still i'm wondering how the hell can i use lady Sialeeds and Goerg again.

When you are in Rainwall Georg becomes unavailable with his various missions but you shouldn't have any issues using Sialeeds. I am not sure what point in the story there you are at but talking to Barrows daughter allows you to add and switch in the members you have. Which at that point isn't very many in the beginning parts. But yeah you can only use the stars that you befriend or join you for a specific story sequence.

Oh, well i just came back from the trip from Lordlake so and might go to agate prison so yeah does this mean at this point i can only use the peoeple who have been officially "Befriended"?

Double Post:
Is it normal to be at least 8 hours and still in Rainwall (Lord barrow and shit)?

Oh yangxu is that your guide on gamefaqs? its pretty usefull as i said earlier recruiting stars in this game is pretty hard because of the npc, looking the same as others.

Yes, basically only those that befriended with you are useable at this moment... (excluding some of the reserved positions during certain events, ie. Sialeeds). It's normal if you are 8 hours into the game and are still at Rainwall. The game will pick up its pace once you get your tactician.

And yes, I wrote that character recruitment guide on gamefaqs, thanks for your encouragement :) I just feel that a guide dedicated solely to recruitment is needed so that people can get the info they want at a glance.

well, im almost done with KH2. I hope I can pick this up tomorrow! I hope its still around.. I like how Konami prints like "not enough copies"

Btw how many hours does it take to finish this game? I love how even sword swingers can be placed on the back and can still unlike (unlike Suikoden 2) by the way,

Am I the only one who REALLY LIKES the bird's-eye camera view? I think it makes navigation so much easier than if they were to try the same camera as they did with, say, Suikoden IV.

Right now, I know that I'm nearing the end, and I'm really liking this. This is clearly the best one on this system, and I have to wait until the "fanboyism" passes, but I'm pretty sure this is my favorite in the series.

For the first time with a Suikoden game, rather than wanting to play the "old ones", I really want to restart this game right away. This is a good sign.

If it weren't for the excessive load times and slightly bland exploration graphics (zooming all the way in shows how little detail they put in the backgrounds... Cutscene graphics were decent, though) the game would be my favorite without a doubt. As it stands, it still has the best story (with a slightly "blah" ending) in the series. At least IMO.

woot! found the last copy at the gamestore. gonna read the manual, and start playing.

how long is the story about?

The game lasts about 50 hours, story itself is around 5 hours if you just keep on reading the script....

anyone else having framerate problems? hasnt really done it in cutscenes.. but when several chars on screen(sun palace) it bogs down.

just wondering if its my ps2 or its the game

It's the game, I get that even loading the game from my HD-Loader. Too many models onscreen at once and the PS2's processor is too weak to handle it effectively, I'm sure. It's not that bad, though. Try to zoom in once or twice if it bothers you too much.

Oh yeah is it me or is it one or does it have one of the best openings ever? And i like how Moonlit night theme is back <3, the game is awesome just finished going to raftfleet and i must say i like the "army battles" this time around, too bad i found them short.

Double Post:
Hey Yangxu

The choice between those two has no bearing on other characters. You can choose either, and still get all 108 Stars of Destiny.

Okay thanks, i was getting confused. but who seems more usefulll? Is it Euram or Eresh?

Sorry for the late reply, Liquid, but yeah, like the posters above me said, those two have nothing to do with other characters' recruitments... and stats-wise, Eresh is the second best mage next to Zerase. On the other hand,

Another thing i wanted to ask is how the fuck can i recruit Genoh, I've checked out Faq's guides and such, but i can never recruit him. :(

how far am i?

At least 1/4 or 1/2 i dont know, but i'm already finish through that part, but collecting SoDs this time is hecka harder :( too much time consuming IMO.

Who did you bring in your party to recruit it? The safest person to take with you is Levi, which means you might have to wait before getting Levi. Genoh won't join you if the old member in your active party is 2 or 3 levels lower than your Hero... you can try Alhazred, but make sure he's around the same level as all the other guys in your party. Genoh is not a missable character, so you shouldn't worry about getting it so soon, the only thing you need to worry about is getting Byakuren... but as long as you don't head over to the hanging bridge in your HQ without Levi or Genoh in your SoD, it's not a problem.

I used the book guy, you said 2 levels but he doesnt appear when you talk to genoh, :(

That happened to me too when I brought Alhazred who was 2 levels lower than hero, I just raised his level the same as hero's.

can you not get a fullscreen map? I just got the SoD, and he gave me a map of falena(finally) and all i get is still a minimap at the bottom right.

Try what Tir said:

I havent got richard yet, so I'm quite scared that i might not get him.

How far are you in the game?

Richard isn't missable so don't worry about him.

Am I the only one who thinks that it is kind of strange that arguably the best fighter on the game is a meek little swordsman whose sword looks like it could be bent like flimsy wire?

Edited posts by:

yangxu
Generic Badass

To everyone else as well, please be careful about marking spoilers from this point on.

You... you can't be serious. How is the mini-map a spoiler?

I won't actually argue to have the edit undone, but I fail to see the reasoning.

I just finished

Ha ha ha... You ruined the whole game for me Generic. I don't even have the desire to beat it now that I know the map is slightly more

*spoilers*
-
-
-
-
detailed when you recruit Takamu. O:

I think i got spoilt to death, while reading some things on suiko source

I waited only four days to pick up the game and by the time I had the copy in my hands I had already had all three endings spoiled for me and just about every plot twist spoiled, too. The sad part is that a good 75% of it was spoiled because people are rude with their topic titles and/or don't mark spoilers at all. Still, a little bit of it I ruined on my own by highlighting spoilers I knew I really shouldn't have. Ah well. Hearing/reading about it isn't as satisfying as seeing it for yourself anyway, so having it ruined for me wasn't really that bad. I still enjoyed seeing how and why the events unfolded.

Hmm, i'm on 3/4 of the game and i think i clocked in 43 hours, this game is incredibly long, i plan to finish it within the span of 2 days, As i was planning to finish Final Fantasy 12 after this, but it seems i was wrong.

My god that place is the most annoying shit ever, Oh and i like how i'm at the 3/4 of the game,awesome game.

Until the end? Definitely.

cool.. is it just me, or is the music bad ass in this game? Im close to buying the OST now. :P

<3

I'm doing it right now, I want to finish all my RPGs before starting FFXII.
I like it so far, beside the waiting time to really "start" the game (nearly 3 hours), and the loading time before the fights. The story is appealing, and it's pretty cool they took back the old fight system with few more features. The 3D isometric view is far better than the crappy and empty full 3D graphics they did for the two previous episodes. It would have been better if they put more details and eye candy stuff in the background, but hey, it's a Suikoden after all, and we certainly don't enjoy the Suikoden series for its graphics. ;)

The more you play the more you'll get used to the excessive and lengthy load times. The only spot in the entire game where it was actually irritating me was the Twilight Forest area. Freaking mazes with hidden paths are annoying. Doubly so with such a crazy encounter rate.

You did bring Jeane along, right?

i do.. you just have to equip the right attrbutes each skill needs(under skills menu) like one needs attk/stamina A rank.. im still on C rank on everything.

It's gonna take a while to get enough skill points, but as long as you fight every battle you encounter, points should accumlate fast.

Im 42hours in the game.. i dont want this to end.. im hoping i have a few hours left :P How far is Dalacrrat in the game? sorry i keep asking this, i just love this game alot.. despite the load times.

Okay there are 6 starts that are missing :(

We have no idea which Stars you're missing, so we can't exactly offer any hints. You should give the names of the Stars (like Chikai, Chibi) if you want help.

Well just completed, thanks for the help though. I guess i'm in the last part i dont want to end this game too bad i have tons of rpg to play, anyway i like how my characters used that formation skill and did 9999 damage, AWESOME

Hey, dude, I don't think he knows that much about the ending. I think a yes or no answer would have been better.

Its Miakis, Oh and i'm at the final battle :) awesome!

oh.. i knew i spelled her name wrong. :P

Finished it last night, the ending was very touching and heart warming

Yes indeedy.

Yeah that was my ending and my god it took me tons of hours. =(

btw, hows III? I loved 1 & 2.. sorry but 4 sucked to me. 5 is right up there with 2. I have 3, just havent gotten into it yet.. suikoden 3 that is. That whole chapter thing work?

It only took me 40 hours to beat V, I did miss some SoD, but not alot...

It really depends on the person, many people liked the trinity system, while others hated it... also, the whole paired-party battle system just didn't work well for many Suikoden fans, so you really have experience it yourself in order to get a feel of what it's like. 3's story is quite compelling, you may find yourself emotinally attached to many characters, not just the protagonists. Also, being the first 3D Suikoden game, it's quite successful. (Although I still prefer it to be a 2D game... =/)

i just finished the game myself. quite a remarkable 'comeback' for the series since the disappointments of III and IV, IMO. i find recruiting ppl more realistic as opposed to annoying (you don't expect ppl to join you the first time you ask them). having multiple endings is also a key factor to this game's appeal.

btw, i was less convinced that the hero of V is male...he looks so feminine

At first when I saw the trailers, I thought so too. But after playing the game a bit and really looking the hero close up, I began to see him as a pretty bishounen, very feminine of course, but still male.

I like this hero very much, i must admit Konami did pretty well on giving him some "Attitude" and "Feelings" Its amazing they can do that on a silent hero type.

bring some info on suikoden 6! i hear rumors, its gonna be on the ps3.. darn.

so expsensive. . lol

i couldn't agree more with the enhancement in hero's character. hopefully the next series will add his/her voice to the dialogues the player choose :lolsign:

The underlings do not have to be defeated to win the battle, no.

I am 40 hours in the game and so far it looks like Suikoden II will be a distant memory.(Yea I know it's not fair to compare every suikoden game to Suikoden II but really.. IV will do that too you.).

I need help in suikoden V, I am trying to get all 108 stars and I think i may be stuck... it is Dongo the dwarf in the Dwarf camp. I know that after you give the silver hammer to him and sharpen your weapons a bit he will join you (he did on the first time i played through) however.....



So is there ANY way I can recurit Dongo in this situation? other then Shoon, he is the only character left for me to get.

Double Post:
nevermind.... i solved it.

Suikoden to Suikoden 2
 

Is it really necessary to finish Suikoden 1 in order to fully understand Suikoden 2? I read in reviews that it is a true sequel so the storylines are directly connected. The thing is, I've tried to play Suikoden 1 three times now and each time I get bored about 7 hours into it. I don't know why, but it just gets really old really quick. A friend of mine says Suikoden 2 is tons better than 1 so I really want to give it a try, but I don't know if I should play it before finishing the first one. Should I just go read a plot synopsis for 1 and play 2? Blargh

Suiko I some characters carry over into Suiko II.

If you get bored with Suiko I, I'm guessing it was a little before your time or something? No offense, but folks who chimed into RPGs around FFVII or FFX refuse to touch anything prior to it.

Suiko I is very good. Suiko II is leaps and bounds better simply because they focus a little more on character development. Flik & Victor (two heroes from Suiko I) are big-time main characters in Suiko I. If you play the first from beginning to end, there is continuation data that opens up some storyline sequences.

But Suiko II itself is over $100 on most places. Hope you have the ability to burn and run a game.

Bottom-line advice? Toughen it out through Suiko I. Dropping an RPG 7 hours into it might be a little too quick at times...

But Grandia III deserved it, Tails!!! :(

Alright I'll give it a try. It actually wan't before my time. My first RPG was Chrono Trigger so I'm not a true RPG veteran in hardcore RPG fans' eyes, but I was playing RPGs before Suikoden came out. I don't know why I haven't been able to finish this one though. I'll keep at it though since I've heard it's not even that long (20 hours maybe? If I don't go searching for all 108 stars). Anyways, thanks for the input.

And I have no problem acquiring the games since my friend who's a die hard Suikoden fan has them so he just lets me borrow.

If you want all the goodies and such from Suiko II unlocked, get all 108 stars and leave a save file before you enter the final town on foot (last place where the last boss is). You need to save at that point for the save data to be good in #2.

Oh. Good. You're not some FFVII Cloud-whore ;D You will enjoy Suiko II, though =) Just get through #1. It's quite good if you get further into it.

It's 20 hours with all 108 characters acquired. And your friend must really trust you to let you borrow his Suikodens. But yeah, in my first attempt to play through Suikoden {back in like 99 maybe}, I stopped at around the six hour mark, then came back to it a couple months later and got into it and seriously enjoyed it greatly.

I've always thought the Suikoden series was good enough at providing enough good swerves in the storylines that were good enough at keeping them from getting boring. The pacing is generally excellent.

Just curious: At what point were you when you stopped Suikoden 1?

I really dunno if someone who didn't care for the original Suikoden would really like 2 a great deal. Seven hours into 1 a lot of stuff happens...Seven hours into 2, you're JUST getting to the start of the good part(s). Both games are at their strongest from the mid-point and on, IMO.

But as for storylines, the only real thing you'd have to worry about from skipping 1 and going to 2 are some recurring characters and an event that happens late in the game to tie the two games together.

I am at the point where I'm supposed to find Liukan (sp?). I just got the old man to give me the engine for my boat so that I can get passed the river rapids in the world map.

Uh. If you don't like Suikoden 1, I don't see how you'd enjoy Suikoden 2 all that much. I mean, sure, it is better all around, but it's pretty much the same "game."

Anyway. I started with Suikoden 2. It's only a sequel in the sense that the events take place after the first one, so it's not like because of something that happened before, Suikoden 2 happened.

To be fair, Suikoden 2 is a vastly superior game to 1. Basically it's the first game, but with most of the sucky parts ironed out. I could see how someone would find the first game a little boring. The followup in Suikoden 2 is worth the trip, though.

Spike, a suggestion? Hit Gamefaqs for a guide to the 108 stars. There's a few that are perilously easy to miss if you don't know how to get them. If you're not past that part yet, make sure to upgrade the hell out of Parn's weapon.

It gets better after this. For the first time playing it, you are bored for several hours. I'll admit it--and I'm a huge fan. But, I bought my game, and I was going to finish it. And I was glad I did. The story picks up right after this.

Merged the thread asking the question with the main Suikoden Club thread.

Just finished Suikoden V last night and got the same ending others in the thread got when they didn't have all 108.

This is definitely the best Suikoden I have played since the second one, and at the same time it's in a league of its own that doesn't compete with 2 since they both have certain qualities and scenes that will always stand out in my mind. Definitely among my top favorites in the Suikoden series. I'm looking forward to playing through it again :)

Finished Suikoden V a few nights ago.

It's been a long time since I saw an ending that made me cry...and this was the HAPPY, all living 108 S.o.D. ending.

I doubt I've enjoyed an RPG this much in YEARS.

All right, fine. I fucking buckled. I hope you're all happy. I now own Tactics and V and I'll be tearing into them tomorrow. These better be substantially stronger games than III and IV or I'll cut all your balls (or respective lady bits) off.

Tactics is just a Suikoden IV spin off and it is better than Suikoden IV. You shall not be dissappointed. Suikoden V may come off like a mere suikoden II rip off but just ignore the references. The game outshines all the suikoden games in my opinion for a reason that sticks out - the amazing line-up of recruitable characters.

Enjoy.

The character designs in V look exquisite. And I'll take those beavers over a bunch of lousy fucking ducks any day.

This is pretty much blasphemy, but whatever.

Suikoden V was pretty great, although it's marred by some technical issues (load times, clunky-ass menus). The recruiting is as obscure as ever, though, probably worse than 1 and 2 in that regard.

Agreed. I thought that with some of those characters where you need to bug them about 5 times before they join you that I instead had to build up a sort of friendly rep with them first before they'd decide to join me. So I missed some characters on my first playthrough just because I wasn't a nagging, annoying little brat.

The ducks wore Kaiser helmets and waddled. If you can't understand why that is lame, you're a mental fucking defective.

Wow, sounds like you're taking this too seriously. I like Sgt. Joe. I think he turned out to be a solid mentor character in spite of his ridiculous appearance. That's all.

Not really. I make a point of not using the term "mental defective" in serious discussions. Also, I could never stay mad at someone with that avatar.

And you did? Really? I found Joe so irritating. Then again, I flat out hated III.

Fair enough.

I'm guessing that you really liked the first two and then soured on the series as it went on? Dunno how you'd feel about V if so. It does have technical issues like loading times and a bad menu system, but it also has a much stronger story than the others.

See, my problem with III and IV WAS the story. I just felt they really dropped off in terms of quality.

There is nothing lame about Kaiser helmuts, dipsuck.

Also, how ELSE is a duck going to walk? He certainly can't trot.

Has anyone recruited all 108 SoD's in any of the Suikoden's without the use of a guide? I know that I haven't. Suikoden I and IV I remember being the most plausible in terms of accomplishing.

Suikoden V however I do not believe that any one person could manage it. :) Wayyy too many obscurities and stricter windows of opportunity for recruitments.

Exactly, inherently lame you fucking lesbian.


Also, I pulled all 108 stars in Suikoden I, II, and III without a guide. Though II took me a second play through.

I've done 1-3 and they weren't too bad (especially 3, except maybe Landis). Some of 4's are really weird, but 5 has some ridiculously obscure stars and a lot of them are picky about joining.

It's a good thing they weren't chilling in Jowston, because Luca is famous for his love of fois gras.

can I get any gayer? Let's find out.

suikoden 1 was a great game with a beautiful storyline, when SUI2 was released i was surprised it surpassed SUI1 in every way.SUI3-4 wasnt that great but i kept playing till i finished them.i just hope SUI5 will be more of a challenge to me.

Challenge in what way? Because Suikoden 5 is dead easy, even to my friends who didn't bother with the annoyingass recruiting.

None of the Suikoden's have been much of a challenge but that suits me just fine. Well the combat phase anyways.. recruitment can be a real biatch. :)

With you on Suik 3 and 4 not being as good but played through them anyways. I am sure you will like 5. The concensus is that it that it compares to the first 2 titles. I myself would go as far as to say 5 could be the best one in the series. Nostalgia is what's keeping me back from saying so, and could be the opinion of others as well.

has anyone gotten Suikoden V to work with HDA 3.0 or swap magic? cant seem to get it to work.

Having finished the wonderful latest installment, I've written a review that no one cares about!

I have. Although I hardly played, I did get past the cinematics and other cutscenes without any problems. I did have to use a PPF patch, but I just read up on it, and it seems that the game still randomly freezes sometime. Apparently the patch was only to make the game playable.

HDLoader 0.7e apparently has it fixed, but I'm not too sure. I'll attach both the PPF patch and the new HDLoader ELFs. Play around with it if you want.

Kudos to whoever compiled this. >>


Oh, and I don't know about swap magic.

I applied the patch and have played for about 5 hours and it seems fine so far, lets hope it continues to be =]. Thanks man

The thing is.. Suikoden *needs* evangelism. It's not a FFXXX which sells itself through brand name alone. I mean, if you took the exact same FF8 game - stuck another name on the title how much would it of sold? ;)
If Suikoden doesn't sell enough, Konami will stop making them. :/ I don't know how profitable 3, 4 and 5 were.

How is Suikoden tactics? Being a fairly serious Suikoden fan, the first 3-4 maps/plot/dialogue thus far is making me sleepy. Does it get better?

There's also the persistent universe that is a huge appeal to me. It's great being able to find interconnections and mingling plot lines from Games 1-5.
I thought Georg Prime was a ho-hum nobody in Suikoden II but he's so bad ass in V.

Having played through V, the Richmond investigations are pretty cool in II and Konami's detail in keeping track of characters across games.

Georg
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Secret 1:
Name: Georg Prime
Age: 41
From: Unknown
Position: Infantry Captain
Note: Formerly 1 of the 6 Generals of the Scarlet Moon Empire.

Secret 2:
"He's got a hell of a history. In the Scarlet Moon Empire, he was 1 of the 6
Generals. In the Grasslands, he was an Ebony Moon Knight, and in Falena he was
a Royal Knight. He just threw it all away."

Secret 3:
"You'd never know by looking at him, but that old man loves sweets. I watched
him put away 3 pieces of cheesecake in about 5 minutes..."

Secret 4:


Everytime Georg rejoins your party in V, he has cheesecake in his inventory heh.

With you there. Konami has EXCELLENT VA production values in Suik V. Makes it much easier to identify with the characters. Also the mute hero needs to stop. It's getting weirder when every person is talking but you.


I am ok with it so far, but I wonder if people would tire eventually of the Hero deals with a rune, you recruit 108 people and build up a headquarters scenario. I guess these ARE the themes central to Suikoden but it'd be really hard if not impossible to break from that mold.

Yeah Suikoden V was so good that I played it back to back. First time just trying to recruit what Stars I could and just playing through the game to enjoy it. I missed like probably 40 stars. Those are HARD to get.

Overall I like your review, maybe consider posting it on Gamefaqs?

Thanks for the comments! I've posted a review for Tactics somewhere in this thread, or in my journal if you're interested.

I can see your point about the lack of innovation in the basic concept of the game, but this is exactly what makes the series "Suikoden". Sure, it's always the same, but I fear that if they changed it too much, it would only disappoint the fans (I for one would be rather sceptic against a new concept that doesn't have the 108 stars, or some true runes).

I already posted it on gamefaqs btw.

Tony>Suikoden Tactics is not that great. It's a yawnfest all the way through. The tactics basically consist of "get on a matching elemental square and kill stuff". And the story never really picked up either.

uggg.. how lame. I might slug through it anyways just ::because:: its Suikoden but it just seems to have low production values. I guess in general people give it ok->favorable reviews and I'd really like to know why.

Cool. Will check it out. We see pretty much eye to eye on things Suikoden.

Hopefully there will be some serious shakeup going on. Maybe in Suikoden VI they would have former stars of destiny battle each other. They do this in some sense like Jowston versus Leon Silverburg and regional battles between Republic of Tinto -> Grasslands -> Toran Republic

Any guesses where Suikoden VI might take place? I've also heard the Suikoden 4 team is working on it. <cry>

Ah, Suikoden V. Still playing it. This game is just incredibly long, but pretty damn good if you ask me. I'm a big fan of the new Naval/Ground battle system combination, I think it's a lot of fun.

I wasn't a big fan of Suikoden IV, and the people who did Suikoden IV is going to do Suikoden VI? Wonderful -_-.

I don't know if it's mentioned here, but Lucretia Merces of Suikoden V, reminds me of Zhuge Liang of Dynasty Warriors. I thought it was funny.

This time last week, I was 30 hours into the game. I'm now finished my initial runthrough, am standing at a cool 64 hours total and I'm ready to get serious about tracking down the rest of those damn stars.

Just an amazing game...I always thought in the back of my head it could surpass the first two, but I didn't think it would do it so convincingly. So many "holy shit" moments, I was mentally exhausted by the time I got to the end.

I have to say, Miakis is my favorite character overall...Cute and she has some hilarious stuff ("Here Prince...Put this wig on!"), but still completely deadly and can put on her serious face in a heartbeat. A very "complete" character, though the same can be said for all of the main cast members (plus several others...Roy started out annoying, but earned my respect later on, especially from "the scene")

Warning: Spoilers:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DU2ct0cENbA& … ikoden%20V

And I second the sentiment of the Suikoden IV guys possibly doing VI...Ugh. At the very least, they need to go back to six-man parties and ditch the boat.

Last thing: Great review Enkidu, but I actually thought the opening music was the best in the series.

Save for the lead art director, the core development staff for Suikoden IV is the Suikoden V staff. They made a lot switches to the Suikoden development team for V and many of the people who worked on IV were let go. But for arguments sake, the Suikoden IV and V production teams are the same staff.

So I would not worry. For the most part the team responsible for V should be making VI. I doubt they brought in the people from IV to work on it.

I'm actually surprised, since Suikoden V is so...elaborate, yet there was a really short gap between it and IV (plus Rhapsodia/Suikoden Tactics). I assumed it was similar to how Square was able to pump out FF8-9-10-X2 in successive years, by using different teams.

And don't forget Norikazu Miura as well, who composed part of IV and all of Rhapsodia and V (save for the opening). Suikoden 1 is still my favorite score from the series, but Miura's V work makes it easier to let Miki Higashino enjoy retirement. I hope they bring him back for VI...The quality of his work jumped a lot from IV/Rhapsodia -> V.

Well development for Suikoden IV and V were actually pretty far apart. We usually just don't get the localized versions until a year+ after the Japanese release. Suikoden V was localized VERY quickly. Actually, if I recall the dub recording for the English version started at the same time as the Japanese dub started and they were already in the process of translating the script before the game has even gone into the alpha phase of development.

Yeah and I wouldn't mind Norikazu Miura returning for VI. Life or Death and Determination -Tragic Battle have become two of my all time favorite battle tracks. There are quite a few other memorable tracks as well like Counteroffensive really sticks out in my mind. He did a really nice job capturing some of the Asian music style I loved about Suikoden I/II as well.

Thanks for sharing that link. It's definently one of top 3 dramatic Suikoden movements across all games. Luca Blight's die pig is #1 for sure. heh I explored that alternate path for my New Game+, second play through. The thing is..



Do you have a source for this? It's been mentioned repeatedly on the Suikosource and Suikox forums that they are two development teams for the Suikoden series - one made 4 and the other made 5.

I would be happy if I were wrong and the same team from Suikoden V was working on VI. After Suik 3/4, 5 is the one that says "Suikoden is BACK"

There are (or at least were) two development teams. The team that did Suikoden III was busy with OZ when IV was in development, and if V's team was the same as IV's, then that means III's team is still missing.

And I must be the only person here who didn't think V was all that great. Solid, but not up to my standards for the series.

Maybe...I figured several things before I made the choice:



Heh, I'll definitely admit it has its' flaws...The loading, for one, was painful. Stars are kind of hard to find. The "playable opening" is far too long. Not enough instances of normal battles and boss battles normally centered around putting on shades and casting spells (sup Zerase!). The Brady Games guide has quite a few errors in it. But everything else more than made up for them...The characters, the story, the pacing, the scenarios, the large-scale battles, battle-prep options, graphics, music, voice-acting, attention to detail, the castle design...All top-notch, I thought.

Yeah the loading is painful, everyone complains about it but its hard to blame a technical limitation right? Suikoden V looks amazing and still fit 6 member parties. Suikoden V in standard resolution is better looking than IV in progressive scan.

The Stars are a big pain in the ass with some of them having limited recruitment opportunities and previous character dependencies.

Yeah, I used the Brady Guide in conjunction with
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/f...ar_recruit.txt
to get the 108 Stars. This guide actually helps you get some of the Stars sooner than when the Brady guide tells you.

I agree with the top notch assessments. It easily compares with the first two in the series. I'm just wondering where VI will come from since sales were not that good and the PS3 is gonna be one expensive gargantuan of a console. :/

Suikoden was in the top 2 when it was released in Japan selling over 200,000 and it has sold over 50,000 in the US. That's actually pretty good for a low profile game. And not all PS3 projects require millions of dollars to make(assuming this is what you mean by expensive.)

Let me see if I can dig up the development list for Suikoden V again. But yes there were two Suikoden teams, the main Suikoden Team and the Suikogaiden team. Most of the Suikogaiden team was brought over to the main team after the mass exodus during the development of III. What was left of the main Suikoden and the Suikogaiden team was then officially merged to work on IV, and finally the team for IV was re-organized and some new people were brought in for V.

I was mainly thinking the console cost of the PS3. No idea how much market penetration it will achieve with a 600 dollar cost. Also glad you brought up the software portion. Yeah Suikoden doesn't have to be a multi million project but it would have to still look next gen. :( Graphics is not the most important part of a RPG but review sites and casual fans make a big deal out of it. Yes the story has to be good but it HAS TO HAVE GREAT GRAPHICS!

Suikogaiden team? Exodus? What is this nonsense you speak of, sir?

I remember hearing something about that awhile back...The lead designer quit in the middle of 3 or something of that ilk? Any stray details you can spare, please...

I started Suikoden V recently - it's great. This game is so much better than IV. It's definitely one of the top 3 in the series (II and III being my other two favorites).

That's just one guy; Yoshitaka Murayama. An exodus involves many people, which I've never heard before.

Also, he actually quit right when they were wrapping up Suikoden III.

Him and a bunch of the development team. And he quit when they were just finishing the primary development, but for the most part his work in his position would have normally been finished. Actual coding of the game had not started yet. So they brought in Tomonori Matsugawa, who was the producer of the Suikogaiden to oversee final completion of III.

Also by development team, I'm referring to programmers, artists and modelers. They lost a lot of these types during the late phase of III so the Suikogaiden was used to rebuild the Suikoden Team for IV, that's why people tend to think Suikoden IV was developed by 'the other Suikoden team.' And the team for V was built off the team of IV. They just brought in a new scenario writer (guy from Sky's of Arcadia) and the new art director. The two of them are still with the team so I imagine they will both be working on Suikoden VI.

As the result of all of the shuffling, there aren't two independent Suikoden Teams anymore so as I was saying, I don't think there is a "Suikoden IV" team to work on Suikoden VI at this point. For the most part it will be the same people that made Suikoden V unless they fired/hired people again. I hope that at least makes some sense.

This doesn't factor in OZ, which was being developed at the same time as Suikoden IV.

Yeah it does. What was left of the Suikoden III team worked on OZ. None of those people are considered to be on the Suikoden team anymore and have not been reinstated to the team for IV or V.

But you said the "remnants" of the III team were merged with the Suikogaiden team to make the IV team. Now you're saying that no one from the development of III is around, and that the current team is entirely new (made up of Suikogaiden's or whatever)? That doesn't make any sense.

I gave up on the last boss(suikoden V) ;/

It shouldn't be that hard, Zerase and Levi could take care of it easily if you have Magic Absorb Runes equipped on them, just keep casting level 4 spells (combo if you want) and it should go down. Lyon and Prince's Twilight/Dawn Rune combos deal crazy damage to the boss and heal your entire party, so the battle shouldn't take more than 10 turns to finish.

If it helps any, my characters were at level 59-60, and I kept using Zerase's Star rune, Jeane's magic, and the Dawn+Twilight runes whenever my party needed to be healed. Also, I had several Sacrificial Buddhas equipped to each character.

Otherwise, I was able to win the battle by using physical attacks during each turn. The co-op skill involving the Prince and Lyon helped during that battle since their attacks were high.

It does if you understand the common game development process. Development teams can pretty much be broken into the creative staff and the software development staff and much of the time some or all of the creative staff will start a new project before the last one is complete. Here is the basic timeline of Suikoden since III:

Yoshitaka Murayama + some software development staff leaves ->
Tomonori Matsugawa + other software development staff moved in to oversee finish of Suikoden III project ->
Suikoden III released ->
Entire Suikogaiden creative (small) and development staff (large) merged with Suikoden III creative staff (large) and development staff (small) ->
Suikoden IV creative phase project starts ->
Suikoden IV development phase starts + staff size increased ->
Former Suikoden III creative staff leave Suikoden IV project and start OZ project (note this is normal, their work for the most part on the project was complete) Tomonori Matsugawa takes the lead of this project as well as continuing GSIV work->
New development staff established for OZ (maybe some from the Suikoden IV project, who knows)->
Suikoden IV Released ->
OZ Released ->
Suikoden IV staff hires new art director and scenario writer to replace loss of Suikoden III creative staff
Suikoden V starts development ->
Suikoden V released.


I have no idea where the OZ / Suikoden III staff currently is. Are some of them working on VI? Dunno, maybe. But anyway the entire point was a large amount of people that worked on IV also worked on V including the same lead producer which is important. It shows that even though IV seemed to have been a failed experiment, he showed us with V that he has a good understanding of what people loved about Yoshitaka Murayama's Suikoden I-III. I think it also shows that the fears of Suikoden VI "being developed by the Suikoden IV team" isn't anything to worry about at this point.

He's not bad...Just make sure you can take magic hits, since he'll use the spinning thing every other turn (and then some). I didn't know what to expect, so I went in with a balanced party (in other words, not one prepared to deal with him). I had my two main fighters (Goesch and Miakis) beat up one of the arms, so I could see what he would do after losing one and sometimes Hero and Lyon would join in with a combo...It was almost worth making him waste turns regenerating them. Bernadette and Zerase were in the back, firing "hit everyone" spells, plus I used a Shield Rune on Lyon and she boosted everyone's magic attack several times (my normal strategy the entire game). I think I swapped Sharmista in for Lyon at some point to get more magic attack attacks in and I also had Viki ready with another offensive spell rune, plus Miakis had an offensive spell rune on her as well that I used, since I wasn't getting combo attacks out of her (don't remeber specifics, since I started my New Game+. I beat him with 5 members alive on the first try.

I had more problems with the Zweig/Georg boss earlier on (the Lyon/Hero bosses were pretty easy). That came down to one all-or-nothing blow, since I had all my weak members in that team (I didn't know I'd need 18+ characters...I had two dragons in that party).

Cetra: Thanks for the info. I would indeed say the new producer was a huge fan of the earlier games.

Final Boss Strat

Some of the times you have listed directly contradict what Junko Kawano has said in the past, so a source for this would be appreciated. A source for this staff exodus would be nice as well, as Murayama's departure is generally thought to've been a personal matter; not some sort of group walk-out.

Fun little scare last night with Killey...(are recruitment issues considered spoilers?)

Freed him from Agate Prison, then exited the castle to meet with him, then showed him the ruins, then he leaves. The Brady Games guide says if you do these things PRIOR to the Twilight Forest Ruins, he'll join you. So I think I did something wrong when he ran off and didn't join (even consulted with Oboro, who gleefully reports Killey has apparently disappeared from the planet...:aargh: ). One quick (and desperate) check to Yangxu's (excellent) character FAQ later and I learn he will join AT the Twilight Forest Ruins (as opposed to at your castle) if you've done everything. So I'm still running clear. Thank you Brady Games for making my heart come to a sudden stop.

Other minor scare was when I almost couldn't find the window maker in the Dwarf Camp...That little blue guy is hard to see.

And best part of all at this point was Lun's response to Subala being her "boyfriend". Those two sure didn't hold anything back...Makes fishing all the more fun watching them and Logg going back and forth.

Umm that's Zunda. And she's a woman. ;)

I didn't have much trouble finding her in the Dwarf Camp. But when I had to figure out which window to show her, that took me a little more time.

Just finished in few mins ago after 95h of playing time. I didn't expect it shouldn't last that long but I put this one on the episodes I& II level of excellency. My dream team was Tiger formation, in the head of the arrow Georg, followed by Richard and Miakis, hero in the middle and Killey and Zerase in the back.
Now what is left to do for the VI is excellent graphics and it'll be the perfect game.

Wow, was that one playthrough or two? I'm 87 into a New Game+ and just reaching the halfway point again.

Yeah, the Tiger formation is my new favorite this time around. It's really versatile and S-characters don't seem to lose a thing in the second row back (despite reading otherwise) I'm trying to use characters I missed the first time or didn't use primarily, so no Goesch, Zerase, Georg or Bernadette this time around...Miakis was my favorite character, so she'll stay and so will Lyon probably (though it's rare for both to be in the party at the same time). Faylen is great with a Power Rune and she can handle magic duties well enough, Shigure is currently in the lead slot (combo-machine), Sagiri is the same deal as Faylen (minus any magic potential) and Roy is a good Mid-Ranger with Magic, plus a combo with the Prince. Plus, I have Viki and Jeanne in the entourage, armed with Lightning/Rage Runes and magic powering orbs when needed (not too useful with auto-battle), plus Zegai (I'm amazed he was a mid-ranger). I'm going to go a little ways and try Belcoot in either Shigure or Roy's spot, since I'll still need about a dozen more battle-ready characters soon. Choices, choices...THIS is why six-man parties are such a great thing.

I'm actually happy with the graphics in this one...The changes I would make for Suikoden VI would be:

-more voice acting...I'm not an advocate for fully-voiced games, but every VA in this game was great and most were only given a few lines. Boz, Toma Fuwalafuwalu, Bernadette, Euram, Guisu, Childerich, Roy, Faylen, even Miakis...They all needed to talk more.
-Maybe go for more cut-scenes, instead of the group-speaking parts...The ones in here were great as is. Again, I'm not a fan of massive amounts of cut-scenes, but if they're going to be the same quality as the Roy one I linked to before or the ones with the Barows clan or the ones near the end...Gimme! There's probably enough here for a 100-episode anime series.
-more dynamic camera shots, especially during battles.
-Make the game harder.
-More military battles. Seriously, these deserve an entire game of their own.
-Maybe button-timed blow during duels.

That was one playthrough, let's just say I took my time. ;)

Considering the organizing part :



The graphics were ok for me too, I only need a little bit more eye candy and less monotonous backgrounds. If they keep this 3D isometric view in the next game, I'd prefer it too look like Tales of Legendia or instance, colorful and detailed graphics. I would also like that they do something bout the (unecessary) loading screens... :cow:
I agree about a strategy game of its own, this should be a really nice addition to the rich universe of Suikoden.

I'm in love with Moroon w/ Crazed Orb, Nikea with Boar Rune and her critical hit skills maxed out (2500-3000 damage per shot) and Faylen/Urda w/Double Edge Orb and Power Orb (plus Jizos...will probably need to change these for the final encounter, but it cleans up random encounters nicely). I alternated Shigure with Nikea, since I already maxed out Shigure's combo and attack skills...Moroon is very similar (good power, lot's of combos) and I dig him for the music change and its' just cool having a beaver in the party. Too bad Faylen and Urda only have 1 extra skills slot.

Richard is almost...cheap. I used him as soon as I got him and he just did pretty much everything right (similar to Georg and Zerase). He's not that interesting a character, so I figured I'd just rather use Moroon instead. It's fun creating good, wacky teams that kick some ass...That's always been the best part of any Suikoden game, late in the game with so many characters to play around with (I remember using Shiro/Kinnison and Hix/Tengaar in Suikoden 2). This game seriously needed an uber-tough bonus dungeon. I almost want to use Byakuren, but I don't want to give up two slots.

At this rate, I should have 18 characters prime to go for the final. And if all else fails, I have Viki, Jeane, Nelis and Norma lined up with all of my major attack-magic runes in the entourage.

Well, cronies, I just finished Sukoden Tactics, and I have to say, not overly impressed. The game itself was fun, but the ending was fairly lack-luster. I never enjoy perma-death, and a lot of the sidequests were just boring as hell (Trek through the Obel Ruins a hundred times to get eggs, k?) I hope V is substantially better. I'm off to that, now.

Suikoden V is great. The biggest problem you may encounter is that it takes a good 5-7 hours before the story really starts to pick up. I didn't mind this as it felt like I was just enjoying a chapter of my favorite book in the evenings for an hour or two before I would go to bed. But Game Informer made it out to sound like it was the most boring experience that they were ever forced to play through (one reason why I take magazine reviews with a grain of salt when I know the game is good). Just give it time, and once five's story really kicks in you'll be having a blast :)

Let's also not forgot: Game Informer also spent half of that very review comparing Suikoden 5 to Final Fantasy VII. I'm sure anyone looking for good S5 info was thrilled about reading a review that was 50 percent talking about FFVII and 25 percent whining about how long the first couple of hours were.

I loved most of the intro (ESPECIALLY the Barrows intro scene...I would love to see that one Youtubed) but the second half of the Sacred Games and the events right after that kind of dragged on before...BAM! The good stuff hits. Oh well, at least Logg and Lun were entertaining enough. I think I enjoyed them more than any of the mindless zombies I've seen in S4 thus far...

Heh...(thinking out loud)

Lun: "Geez pop, this game really sucks."
Logg: "Hahaha, yer old man's gonna make this game a lot more excitin'...Hold on everyone!"
+99 Speed Boost for the Boat from Suikoden IV.
Whole S4 Cast: "Ugh...(barf)"
Lun: "Nice goin', pop, you dumb-ass. You made 'em all seasick and stuff!"
Logg: "S'all right...Most of 'em look constipidated anywho! Specially that hero guy..."

Just recently started V. So far so good. Much, MUCH better than IV so far.

Does anyone have any good scans of V characters or a website that does? These designs are rockin'.

Good place to start is
http://www.suikosource.com

Pictures everywhere and forums have links to other areas.

Yea, I'm about 25 hours into the game, and I'm loving it. I just got my castle, and I've run around recruiting people. Though apparently I didn't do well enough in my last battle to get two rather picky generals in Raftfleet. Bastards.

And........this keeps people(generally) from replaying the game, like me. Seriously that part of the game was intensly boring. Once that was over, I milked my battles to death. Suikoden V's strongest point IMO is it's battles. Very addicting and when you get those superhuman characters(Raven, Richard, etc) you really start kicking ass without stopping.

Have Viki in your party and I believe they will join you.

I'm officially an idiot. Where on that site do they store pics? I click Suikoden V and it takes me to a page with two links, both not picture related. :?

I recall something about Wilhelm and Mueller refusing to join if you get a lot of your generals killed in battle. I think that's what he's talking about.

Not generals, just if you allow a few troops to die. I never lose generals. And yea, having Viki in your party along with Lyon is a guaranteed sign up.

It's there but not in it's original form. No idea why they took it out of the pic thread. Anyway the OP provided this link.

Slight warning; even though they are pictures, they could be spoilers :o.

Well, if you're in need of a strategy, baiting always works. The AI's not smart enough to attack in groups, so you can lure one unit away from the pack and then hit it with its weakness or arrow volleys.

With some careful planning and healing abilities, you can wrap up most battles with less than 100 soldiers killed.

Is there any additional dialogue if you have Viki with you and go to recruit Mueller/Wilhelm? I was able to get them without her (think I lost between 200-300 troops...forget which battle it was) and I got the one where Wilhelm asks Mueller and Mueller replies they have no reason to turn down the offer to join.

Also, what do they say if you didn't meet the requirements?

Heh. If your REALLY patient you can win every battle with 0 losses, it's that easy. All you need is the rest or the other ability, I think it was nourish. They are the abilities that restore health when your standing still.

The only drawback is that this will take ages and you won't get a victory+ because it takes too long, but in some missions its quite handy. My good old dependable beaver units both had rest.

No no, I know that. I just clicked the wrong button and baited three ships instead of the two I wanted in the attack on EVIL DAM CITY PLACE WITH OMINOUS SOUNDING NAME. No biggie.

Goldfish, Mueller just says "I don't care." My issue was that I didn't have Viki in the party.

I just got V. I know--late. Problems getting it, you see. (Are ANY of the previous complete sentences?!)

And I'm loving it.

All the Suikoden games start off slow. (Suikoden II especially pops into mind. Long-ass intro and then all the recruiting...sheesh...) But, when you commit yourself to playing this game, you're in for a treat.

And V definitely brings back the Suikoden "feel." And it does sailing right! Let the AI handle it! No battles.

And although I liked IV's Rune Cannons, these water battles are more fun.

I love Suikoden V's opening, all eight hours of it. Less battles, more character development. Because the load times were so long, I dreaded every battle (and the battle system were never a strong point of the series to begin with).

Whoa... what? You liked IV's rune cannons? IV's tactical battles were so easy I could've done it with my eyes closed. =p V's definitely harkens back to the classics, which I really enjoy!

I finished V (finally!) with both the complete and incomplete endings. Just in time for school too. In short, I adored it. Great game. :)

Yes. I LIKED the rune cannons. Not the actual battles, but the idea of the cannons themselves.

And, these battles are more fun. I think I like "Don't let 'em get away!" as my favorite battle cry.....lol

Apparently the game was discontinued(this isn't confirmed though). I don't see it at EB anymore either as a brand new game. Should it be true that is was, lucky find... I see Suikoden V being much more expensive to get than the Suikoden II is.

I loved V and like jct said, the load times were well...heh. Big emphasis on female fighters in this game than any other.

Actually, if it's any indication, the used price for S3 has jumped to $40 (from $27) at Gamestop. And S4 seems to have dried up entirely, though that may be for the better. Plenty of Suikoden Tactics though...

I didn't see S5 available the last time I went to Gamestop either. Hmm...

No, I had ordered it online, but I never got it (someone stole it), and I was lucky to find a new copy at the local EB. I called them and they held it for me.

And, yes, the load times are a bit long, but I like Viki's screen....

im playing suikoden V, its great!!!
i love the differente ending according to your choices!
i got more than 1 game over by that, hehehe
love the character and the art too.
i read some people dont like the art, but i prefer it over IV which where rather simple.
anyway, i wonder how many ending this have??
i think im near the end, i have to recapture sable and lordlake

Double Post:
oh BTW i have 72 hours
its my first game to achive this record of time, since FFVII

Holy shit it's MrSatan. Don't hack GFF ok.

Anyways, now playing Suiko5, and first 8 hours was boring as fuck. But so far I'm loving the game. Hopefully I'll be able to finish this, since I wasn't able to finish 2, don't have 3, 4 was crap, and don't know if Tactics is worth trying.

Amazon.com said that Suikoden V has been discontinued...so uh...I'm going to go get it while it's still $40 as it sounds like an extremely good game.

hackk???
anyway, that game its good, i already beat it. 88 hours!!!
love it, and i advice people to play it, it good!!!

Ryuu:

Get it, you will love it!!!
later you wont find it

Alrighty then. Buying it tomorrow - even though I don't have a PS2 with me at college.

Ugh, why is this game not out yet in Australia? The first release date was late September (the 29th to be exact) and then October 6th...13th (?)...20th...25th! I went to my local game outlet today and they said their shipment still hasn't arrived. I was tempted to import from the UK around the start of the month, but I'm just so gullible when it comes to release dates. /rabble

Does anyone else in Australia have this game? Or am I just really unlucky? :(

^^ got it now. It really lives up to the hype, I think. Very Suikoden I&2-ish. I don't even think the load times are that big a deal. The only problem I do have is the towns, they are humongous. I've gotten lost in Sol-Falena several times.

The storyline's great; the graphics are wonderful, I believe, much better than it's predecessor's. And the soundtrack that accompanies the game is one of the best I've heard in a while. Good job, Konami.

I agree, the load times where not as bad as the reviews make it out to be... you get used to them.

I remember the only thing that sort of annoyed me about the load times was when I had just finished (or ran away from) one battle, and then suddenly it felt like I had taken all of two steps and was being thrown into another one. That just gave me the dreaded, "it's a battle......again" feeling.

Okay, I'm bumping this thread up to ask if anyone has heard anything about Suikoden VI?

Last month, Suikoden-producer Takahiro Sakiyama mentioned that developement op Suikoden 6 had already begun and that the game may have ties to other games in the series. No additional info has been released at this point .

Well, that sucks. I hope they stick with the style of Suikoden V.

This game got all the elements right.

I really hope I've come to the right place posting this...Anyhow, I picked up my Suikoden II playing, and when I sat there in the fight against the Silver Fox, I first remembered why I stopped playing (since I'm getting slaughtered by that thing) and soon I understood that I don't remember anything about what I need in order to kill it and how to fight it. Anyone who wants to help?

Silver Wolf... the final boss, right? There's not much to it, if I recall correctly. Just keep whacking the paws until the Rune weakens on its heads, then pummel them.

Or was it hit the heads until the Rune weakens? I dunno, just keep hitting the damn thing. There's no gimmick to the boss.

Just try to whack the arm/paw with the healing effect, since it would be an ass if it kept on regenerating.

Train up a powerhouse, such as Killey (who gets three rune slots and has a double attack). Put a Fury rune, Double-beat rune and a Double-strike rune and watch him pwn the battlefield. You could even add a Violence rune if you're patient enough (After losing half their HP, the user becomes Violent. Damage x5.)

As you can see I prefer a powerful physical fighter rather than a powerful magic fighter.

I may as well post about Suikoden V while I'm in this thread. I really liked it; good graphics, great music, great (as usual) gameplay and an awesome storyline. It's one of the best stories I've ever played through, with it being filled with such poignant scenes and plot twists (I loved the whole "Queen's Campaign" thing). My only nit-pick isn't regarding loading times but the frequency of the battles. It just got a bit out of hand sometimes. It would have been convenient if there were a character who had a skill which, say, halved the total encounters. Maybe Konami can do better on that next time.

Another thing which I found annoying was the difficulty of the same. I found it to be incredibly easy. Not a single game over in the whole playthrough, and I was sorely disappointed at the simplicity of the final battle. If I go back to playing it again, I think I'll use some mediocre characters in hope of a greater challenge.

Overall: 9/10

II>V>I>III>IV

I have played and finished only 4 Jap RPG's in my life. FFX,DDS1 and 2 and now SuikodenV.

SuikodenV anime looks theme,setting got me attracted at first but i never knew it will hook me up so much.

This game simply has best story of this year. Strong characters,each oozing out with respective personas, all welldesigned.

Agent to find about history of characters , one on one brawl/duels , melodious music and tight script etc all interweaved into a Great Story Epic.

Where other hated the long initial building of story,with only running from town to town and fewer fights, i loved it on other hand.


All 108 stars have more story/background than MGS3 cobraunit bosses(pun intended).

What i most found amamzing about story is that Betrayals ,Deaths and manipulations kicked in where i was least expecting. Took me off guard sometimes, and thus shocking.
These elements are placed perfectly on right character and righttime.

Cons

I found loading times really bad, specially in room to room, inside buildings.

Where environments are very artistic, there is no camera control to explore them totally. You only get one complete view when you first visit them and in cutscene,also its for few places not all.

That is true about the camera...I liked the overhead view well enough, but the world is so pretty, it would have been nice to see it from various angles. A couple towns pan around when you first enter though.

How about that...Something positive SIV has that V doesn't. Nevermind SIV's camera controls were annoying as all hell though and the enclosed, claustrophobic areas kind of defeated the purpose at times.

It's been awhile since I've played this and I can recall much of the adventure quite well and fondly. I really would love to see this entry get it's own anime, even it's just a cheap cash-in retelling of everything.

My brother and I finally completed IV tactics, and for me, it thoroughly brought my opinions on IV even lower.

I don't think I'll bother writing a full fledged review on a yawnfest, but here's a rundown on bad points.

Story: What? Who? When? WHO CARES. It was terrible. I remember this stretch where I just fell asleep when my brother was playing. I missed out on something with Lino, but no one really cares. The ending was

Gameplay: The battles were long and arduous, where each progressive battle resulted in your party being badly outnumbered. It wasn't exactly difficult, just annoying. Enemies will pop up, they will throw more elemental changes, yadda yadda. It was slow too, and it was hell of annoying to start over when someone dies permanently.

Sound: The voices were HORRIBLE. For me to say that they are as bad as Wild Arms 4 is stretching it, but it's pretty bad. Think about VAs reading dialogue in the most slow, boring tone of voice they can muster. The music is the same five battle songs over and over. And the chanting spell mutterance? What the heck is that?

Overall, bad game. Short game if not for the long arduous battles. Terrible voices. And it doesn't add ANY value to the Suikoden series, especially IV.

I also agree with you. I think the only weakness of the game is the easy battle. I don't train my party much but I can defeat the final boss not too difficult

Not to put a damper before anything officially has been stated but RPGFan ran a headline today saying Konami terminated development on several next-gen games including the rpg's it was working on. Suikoden VI I have a feeling might have gotten the axe since it was announced earlier in the year it was in development. I honestly hope that didn't happen but it wouldn't shock me as the sales in Japan for V were terrible. Thanks mostly in part to the unfortunate black sheep of the series being IV.

No, the series has always been a low-seller in every region, and had nothing to do with the quality of IV. Konami continues to develop them because it's the only RPG series that they have had any success establishing, and it's always a good idea for jack-of-all-trade developers to have flagship series for as many genres as possible.

That said, I'm fairly certain that VI is still alive and well. The producers have talked about their plans for the series in the long-term for way too long to have it axed.

That's if we were to assume that Suikoden VI is for the PS3. But, even if it were, I doubt Konami would stop making its most popular series. The company would be overrun with Suikoden zealots.....demanding to know the Yuber/Pesmerga story!

Is it fact or fiction that the series has usually sold better outside of Japan than inside of it? I heard that one time, but never really knew how concrete of a statement that was.

I am almost sure they never even announced what platform it would be made on. I think everyone assumed it would be PS3 or at worst PS2. Maybe they are taking everyones discontent with the series at heart about the loss of 2d sprites and going to develop it on something like the DS. It requires alot of money to develop now on the next gen and it hasn't ever felt comfortable in 3d. We'll see how it goes. It seems unbelievable they would terminate a series without something ala Xenosaga Episode 3 to finish the story.

MGS4 is taking all of Konami's money.
I have purchased Suikoden 3 and 4, and can't wait for suikden6.

Havent started playing it, comparitively how is the story of part 3 and 4.

Dude, 3 and 4 are the weak points of the series. SERIOUSLY WEAK POINTS.

Suikoden 3 is really bad. But i think the Suikoden 4 is good at the story, the music and the characters too. 4 is the series i like the most after 5.

Good news

Update : Konami announces officially on its Internet site that this information is erroneous, only the play Coded Arms: Assault was cancelled. The other listed plays do not have simply yet a date of exit. Famitsu also confirmed the error in its turn.

The other titles include new RPG and new Action/Adv. game for PS3. Also Grandia PS3,

I agree with the music part, Suikoden IV had really good OST compared to the III's OST. And the story wasn't that bad in IV, I agree. But for the characters, well... Most of the recruitable characters were faceless to me. It's like they were trying to fill all the places in SoD, and they had few hours to do so. Of course there were few memorable characters, like the first female Silverburg strategist, and Lino en Kuldes. It's just that I can hardly remember all of the IV's characters, compared to that fact that I can name all of the characters in other games in this series without thinking too much.

You mean Gradius PS3. Grandia is Game Arts.

Basically, all this means for Suikoden fans is that "Unnamed RPG (PS3)" and "Unnamed RPG (Wii)" are still in development, and either could be Suikoden VI. Maybe neither. Who knows.

I like Suikoden 3 over 4, however they both rank below 5 in terms over quality. I only like 3 more so than 4 because:

1. It actually got really good once I started to get into it. The story, and fairly good characters helped save other bad aspects like the robotic animations and sketchy music.

2. 3 kept me interested long enough to complete it.

With Suikoden 4, it felt like the story lost all of its focus after the first few hours. The SoD that I was recruiting in the game didn't seem like they had a real purpose for being there. Lastly, I got really tired of the crappy sea travel, which is where the entire game is based for the most part. Overall, Suikoden 4 just didn't have a lasting impression on me.

I actually liked 4 over 3. Even after all me bitching about the sea travel--it was fun when I got the hang of it. And I loved the Rune Cannon battles. They were actually fun. (I haven't played Tactics yet--so NO spoilers for me, 'kay?)

Granted, many of the SoDs seemed to be there just to fill the slots, but I think that can be said for all the games as well. I mean, did we really need Maximillian in both I and II? He was a source of continuity, to be sure, but I don't think he was necessary. And that continuity was carried in III, IV, and V.

Read it Lek.

I read reviews at IGN and they are praising Suikoden3 story like mad.
Trinity system and blah blah.
Suikoden 5 SoDs had really nice backgrounds, not all of them ofcourse ,tackling 108 characters is big deal but even if 50 characers are rightly made with good meaty profile, i would be satisfied.

Generic badass: Yeah it should be Gradius, i copied the translation from french site, Jeux-france.

Which one? IV? or Tactics? I mentioned both, so I'm not sure, but I'll hedge my bets and say IV.

Can't really say I blame you there. In fact, I kind of agree with you.

No, no. Tactical RPG. Suiko Tactics. It's fucking awful.

My review on SIV Tactics on the previous page is proof. I even fell asleep during it once.

Absolutely horrid, I couldn't agree more.

Also, my decision about whether or not to buy into the next gen hinges largely on the fabled Suikoden VI. If it looks promising, I might pick up a (I imagine it will be here) Sony PS3, and if it looks like shit, I'm walking.

I don't know if I can put down $500 and then $40-$50 for Suikoden VI. Just for Suikoden VI. I'd much rather rent (do they still do that?) both the PS3 and the game. Too expensive! Any hope with emulating it (psh)?

Hey guys, you think Konami will ever try producing a Suikoden spinoff for the PSP?

Haha, I actually had no idea it was the last boss...Thanks anyway!