Suikoden IV - What Should Have Been

[SpecialNewb]

Okay, so I think this is the right forum, since it's analysis/critique of the game. Moreover, there were no threads that seemed to be about this.

My question here is, what do you all think should have been changed to make Suikoden IV a better game than it was? I know some at least, feel like I do about it, that it was mediocre but had potential. I know there are a few of you who really liked it, but I'd like to invite you to participate where you think it could have been better. So here's my take, I've already commented on the art style elsewhere so that's a small section.

Art
-Brighter colors
-Make Hero4's eyes smaller, he was creepy!
-The body-types were way too slim
-The costumes should have been more varried or vibrant (maybe that has to do with the colors)

Gameplay
-Go back to a larger party, with 108 characters you need larger parties. Maybe 6 actives and 2 supports even.
-Not enough/bigger naval battles. I'm talking like 10 on 10!
-Land battles as well as naval battles! I loved the S3 system, please bring back something like that (and I suppose mix it with the S2 system since most people seem to love that one to death too)
-More islands/larger landmasses the ocean felt so empty, the islands felt so tiny and it seemed like you could explore the whole world really quickly through the game.

Characters
-More CHARCTER development! I couldn't even remember the names of most of the characters, they seemed just there to fill out the 108 requirement. I understand that this is true of the past games as well, but at least with S3 those characters were more memorable than not.

-Less races! How many races are there in Suikoden? We now have elves, dwarves, kobolds, dragons, mermaids, cat-kobolds, etc. Why couldn't Nay-Kobold have just been a regular old dog village? The kobold characters seemed like such a joke too. Mermaids I suppose I could swallow, but not cat-guys in waistcoats. It really brings down the Gravitas of the world.

Plot
-Kika... what was her purpose? She seemed a big deal at first and then dropped off the map. It could have been a great part of the story if say it had involved conflict between Lino and Kika and the different command styles of a Pirate and a King.
-Was there only one band of pirates in the Island Nations? More pirates = more fun.
-How did Cray make the giant Rune cannon? How did he do it?
-Show us the Gaien mainland, that would have been great if we'd had to repulse some marine assaults on there it seemed like they were just mentioned and forgotten.
-I've always enjoyed the politics of the Suiko world and I'd like to have more of it. Instead we had a fairly standard big-bad empire against little guys deal instead of the empire vs. strong nations of S3, or the small but powerful nation against a fractious group from S2. There was no conflict about getting the islands united, no inter-island differences, c'mon! It felt like anyone could have united them, they didn't seem to need the "Tenkai Star" to do it.

This one is purely mine but I deplore mute heros. It's rather silly when he seems to give inspirational speeches that consist of silence or a sentence.

For all that I think what pains me most is this could have been a GREAT game! It had so much potential, but it seemed rushed and flat. I know some will agree with me. I know some will disagree, but I'd like as many people as can to comment with their own ideas or refute mine.

Thanks!

[Wraith]

A better story could have been good enough to bring the other things back up.That women that wrote the story should be fired.

[Jowy Atreides]

Agreed. A much darker plot should've been used. Vagrant Story is much darker-looking than SIV, and has a plot to match it. Being dark doesn't mean blood splashing everywhere either; Vagrant Story had a little blood here and there, but still managed a Teen rating. I'm sure everyone would agree that the plot of Vagrant Story is second-to-none, keeping you guessing until the end of the final boss. Even then, the answers were not revealed to you. Even after an entire publication relating to the plot was released, there still aren't any clear answers. If you didn't like Suikoden Four, then compare it to Suikoden One. Most of its characters seemed dumb, but after two more Suikodens following it chronologically, you see just how deep the characters really were. Maybe the same would happen for Suikoden Four.

Junko Kawano is the producer for this game. She designed the characters for Suikoden One, helped with the ending theme in S2, and she drew the characters for Suikoden Four as well. Maybe Konami thought that since she worked with Murayama so much, she'd know how to continue his series. Has she done any work before Suikoden Four in a directive capacity?

[Crimson Kage]

I think the main problem for me was the story. It just seemed too short and very predictable. I did like the politics that Suiko1, 2, and 3 included in the story. If there were more areas on the map (and a better way to get to them) the game could've been a lot more interesting. It would've been nice if we could see the mainland, like you said.

Hero4's eyes really were creepy! And I liked the choices you could make in 1 and 2. Not that they made any difference in the story, but you'd get different responses from people. I know people have said it's hard with voice acting and all, but still...

I didn't mind the character artwork, but I didn't like the fact that you could only use so little characters to fight. Especially with the 4-person parties.

[Michael Easton]

Junko Kawano is the producer for this game. She designed the characters for Suikoden One, helped with the ending theme in S2, and she drew the characters for Suikoden Four as well. Maybe Konami thought that since she worked with Murayama so much, she'd know how to continue his series. Has she done any work before Suikoden Four in a directive capacity?

I think that Junko Kawano (who I believe is female by the way) was the director or producer of an early PS2 game called Shadow of Memories, a game that involved time travel and, like the Metal Gear Solid games, you spent more time watching cut-scenes than playing the game itself.

P.S: It's good to hear someone mention Vagrant Story! It was a brilliant game with a top-class story. If only Square-Enix would make a sequel of that game, the ending was perfect for a sequel. It would look great on the PS2 or PS3.

[Jowy Atreides]

Some guy from VS (either director or producer) is part of the team for Final Fantasy XII. So, my fingers are crossed for something slightly resembling VS in FFXII.

On a side note, Kawano is indeed female.

[Michael Easton]

One thing that bugged me about S4 was the enemy, the Kooluk, and how they never really seemed that much of a threat (at least to me) when compared to the other Suikoden games.

For example, in Suikoden II the Highland army were very aggressive and you felt their presence constantly in the game, such as the burning down of Ryube, Toto and the Mercenaries Fortress, as well as taking control of South Window, Greenhill, Radat etc. at various points.

In S4 the Kooluk invaded a few islands (granted there weren't many) and destroyed one (with a poorly implemented "doomsday" device) - which didn't give the impression of a particularly fearsome enemy. Am i alone in feeling this or did anyone else feel the Kooluk weren't an impressive enemy?

[Jowy Atreides]

Yes, the invasions were badly done. Most of the invasion forces consisted of two or three ships; not exactly much of an invasion, is it? Even worse, nobody can seem to defend against two or three ships. To me, this was a badly done sea version of the City-states of Jowston. The ending, in which Lino re-names the coalition the Island Nations Federation is pretty much the same thing that happened in Suikoden Two. Everyone unites, and forms one big group to defend against further attacks on the Islands. Of course, with so many different plots in the Suikoden world, there's almost nothing more they can do that hasn't already been done. But, the possibilities are endless, and I'm sure if they took their time they could come up with something amazing.

[Xavier_ the_wanderer]

I agree.

It felt alittle like FFX. You get really excited about the game because of how good the others are, you see teaser art, and read articles on it. Then it comes out and you get kinda disapointed.

I think they should have gone alittle more into what harmonia was doing 300 years before the first game. They get mentioned but then you don't hear about them again. Wasn't hikusaak alive around then?It might have been nice for him to make a cameo talking with the kooluk leaders or something. It was alittle strange to me that they didn't go into harmonia very much in S4, as in all three other games harmonia is somehow linked to the enemy and has alittle more depth. In S1 wasn't the scarlet moon empire a colony of harmony? or am i wrong?I'm not sure. However, i'm sure highland was, infact highland recieved the beast rune from harmonia as a gift, and reinforcement later. Then in three harmonia plays a much larger role.

I think they also should have shed more light on ted and his doings. We know how he got the rune and such, but we don't know alot of what happened on his travels.

[Michael Easton]

I think they also should have shed more light on ted and his doings. We know how he got the rune and such, but we don't know alot of what happened on his travels.

That's the great thing about the Suikoden series and the True Runes, because if the bearers can live forever (death or giving up the True Rune notwithstanding) then Konami can make spin-off games based on these characters, just like Square-Enix are doing with Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus and Vincent Valentine. If Konami ever get really stuck for future storylines they can take an existing character and flesh them out with games of their own. I would personally love to see what Ted gets up to in the period leading up to his death in a game of his own.

Then again, there's always room for abuse in situations like this such as producing crap attatched to a well established name (FIFA Street anyone?)

[Joveeno]

Characters
-More CHARCTER development! I couldn't even remember the names of most of the characters, they seemed just there to fill out the 108 requirement. I understand that this is true of the past games as well, but at least with S3 those characters were more memorable than not.

This is exactly what Suikoden IV lacks of. The plot is too easy to be guessed and too shallow. There's no more character development as previous ones did.

[trgl]

Seeing Snowe 's get cut off would be nice . I made a whole different save just to see what happen if you choose to kill him and there 's no blood.

[Id]

I don't know why, but it seems Suikoden's jump to 3D drained quality from the storyline. I have no idea why this happened.
Suikoden 4 looks like a big company gave a crappy team of flakes a lot of advertising money and flash in the pan it was.

Snowe - Snowe was a little panzy fairy traitor for no reason, other than he wanted to "save" his people or whatever, but it wasn't even developed, he just betrayed the hero, and he becomes less than a hidden character.. He hates the hero for no reason, he was separated from the hero like jowy, but given no interesting plotlines, he was just a little puss. There was no background on their friendship at all, and then they weren't friends anymore. There were no dramatic scenes of revenge or forgivness, just utterly crappy ingame scenes of him on his little raft.

Troy - He was built up in that speech from Glenn, and then he turned out to be a dud, he did NOTHING in the game. He just stood in his ship the whole game and then sunk. Where they trying to be poetic with that last scene of him sinking, or are they just terrible writers? Did he even say more than three words in the whole game? Were they trying to make another Luca?

Cray and Elenor - What the hell was this? Was this a storyline? I can't believe people were entertained or intrigued by this game. Does Konami think they can have a character with gray eyes and a character named silverburgh and its instant classic Suikoden? Was Cray's hand metal, or just a glove or was he elenors apprentice, and if so, then at what? I'm not sure. Was Elenor even a strategist? I didn't think so, she was just an old lady. I didn't need her, I just needed to be shown which runes beat which, and I won every battle without any losses. What was her purpose other than being a silverburgh? they went out of their way to make it all not clear to me.

The Hero - Well.....His design sucked my opinion. Since he doesn't talk, i can't insult his script. But i wasn't sure why he was in Razril, Is this some amazing mystery polt twist the writers came up with, that he's possibly Lino's son? WOW, intriguing, I really gave a shoot about that after playing through the most bland game in history., if I hadn't been told in the intrsuctions that he was adopted by the vingerhuts, I would have thought he was just some guy. Mabye that would have been better, so I wouldn't have shat myself at how bad the snowe Storyline was.

[Stallion]

Art
-Brighter colors
-Make Hero4's eyes smaller, he was creepy!
-The body-types were way too slim
-The costumes should have been more varried or vibrant (maybe that has to do with the colors)

The costumes and colors are blander than the later Suikodens for a purpose. The timeline. Complex clothing designs and patterns were not invented then.

[Jowy Atreides]

Seeing that other nations in the Suikoden world borrow from real-life cultures, it seems like clothing styles aren't invented by the Suikoden populace of a particular region but more like the person who decides these sorts of things just chooses a culture that has cool-looking clothes to them.