[Discussion] Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden IV

[cyra_flome]

The game is too fast... and the plot is not as complicated as its predecessors, there arent many secrets to reveal, and the lack of rune variety. Well, in conclusion, it's too simple for a suikoden game.
But I still think its a great game. Its the first game I have ever played that take place at the sea, using a huuuge ship as the headquarter. That's nice for a change, since the RPGs I've played all take place on the land.
The graphic has improved, although the movement of the characters are still looked stiff, but Konami did a great job with the background pics and the environment.
The musics are still awesome as usual (You should listen to "The Rune of Punishment" ).
There are many interesting characters, and the mini games are also fun.
The endings (especially the bad one) are quite unpredictable too.

[Occam Arkitect]

The game is too fast...

Wow, you are actually the 1st person I heard that said this game was fast. Story-wise, or Gameplay-pace?

[Ted_85]

Personally, I don't think the game is too short. Sure, if you want to, you could probably clear it in like 20 hours or so, but with the minigames, subquests and getting all the 108 characters, the game is long enough.

I also very much disagree to the "the game is too easy"- claims out there. Sure, combat is usually a walk in the park, but have you ever tried getting all 108 stars of destiny WITHOUT USING A WALKTRHOUGH?
It's insanely hard. This goes for all the Suikoden games, and I don't think recruiting in S4 was any easier than in the other games.

(For comparison: - in suikoden 1 I missed Leon and Crowley the first time- getting 106 SoD. In suikoden 4 I missed Warlock, Maxine, The interior-lady, Snowe, Champo, Nalkul and EVERY mermaid except Lilin. Oh, and Gunther.)

Suikoden 4 has a few very strong points, such as (IMO) VERY good voice actors, cool animations in one- on- one, a great world map that you yourself have to explore, tons of minigames and the leveling up of unite attacks.
Sadly, the weakest point in Suikoden 4 is the storyline.
It is a very good idea. the Rune of punishment, with all it's backstory, is more intriguing than any other True rune so far in the series, but the way the storyline plays out, it just becomes lame.
Plus, the hero never really takes charge. He never develops his personality (if he ever had one), he just tags along, while political schemes just play themselves out high, high above his head.

[Eggplant Wizard]

I think the makers of this game were hanging out too much in the cultivation room. Anyway, I still think this game is fun, even if it's not up to par with the other games in the series. Those of you that have an unconditional love for Suikoden know what I'm saying.

[jonathan_priest]

I had a lot of problems with this game really:

1) Generic characters. I think I maybe counted 5 different combat stances. All the archers stood the same, all the heavy sword users, all the spearmen...it was bad enough that you just recruit people to fill bodies, but come on, give a little diversity in how they at least stand in combat. That being said...

2) There were so many characters that were just plain forgetable. The four party groups were a bad thing, but hell, I recruit Axle or Selma and I never use them simply because I forget about them. There was no real depth to the characters.

3) War was too simple. In fact, it was non-existent. No counter offensive, and Kooluk deciding they didn't need to further their plans for southern expansion, just hold Obel, yet sending no support for it.

4) Not enough places to explore. I'd say 7/8 of the entire map was water, one of the biggest islands got taken out in the beginning of the game so there was no exploring it, and when Viki can teleport you to three different locations on the same island, that's a real lack of imagination. There should have been at the very least, 3 more inhabited islands and 1 more treasure hunting island just to make them feel more fleshed out. The Island Nations are supposed to be a significant power in the Suiko world...not from how little territory really existed.

5) Once you recruit Elenor, the game's over. Just recruit the other islands to your cause, with the only real side quest being getting a potion from the elves. Everyone else joined quickly. It was too easy, and Kooluk or Cray Trading didn't try to interfere.

What I would have loved to have seen is a little more fleshed out story. What if Elenor was married to Cray, thus her son died because Cray cut off his hand. He became obsessed with the Rune of Punishment and that's why she was an alcoholic. And, I didn't buy Ted being on the ship as the reason for why he aged. He was supposed to be imortal on that ship, how'd he age? What I was really hoping for was Ted lost the Soul Eater to the main boss, and joined to get it back. Imagine fighting the Soul Eater in the last battle rather than that tree.

Those are just what I wished were worked on...

[xnostalgiax]

A few things i did not like

1. Random battles were WAY too common.
if you view the world map, and exited, it
would appear to trigger a random battle.

2. You cant access all 108 stars
for equipment, runes or sharpening of weapons.
instead, you have to take 4 at a time.

3. It feels like a completely
different game. The only
thing that generally relates
to the series in general is the
108 stars.


All in all, the worst of the Suikodens.

[noble_gases]

2nd post haha...
When I heard that this game was released, I was eager to buy it...
So I wasn't able to buy, so I borrowed it from my friend.

The hero has a stupid annoying 3d face.
The graphics were blocky
The hero runs as if he needs to go to the bathroom
Weird conversations. I mean, I don't think I saw any formality stuff there.
Travelling with the ship is SLOW.
I couldn't get the story of it.

I think, the worst Suikoden I've played and I really didn't enjoy it...

[Ness the Mess]

Being able to relate this game only to Suikoden III (in terms of Suikoden games) the following is my response/review.

Playing this game one realizes that Konami took the unfortunate sales of Suikoden III to heart (Suikoden III was a critical success, but no continent broke 400,000 sales iirc). Konami must have thought that something was broken with the Suikoden franchise because of poor sales, and decided changes had to be made. Where they went very, very wrong was changing the wrong things.

Positive Aspects:
The character of Snowe was well written, and if anything, deserved more exploration. Of course, every character in Suikoden could be explored better, but Snowe already had so much effort put into him that really more was required to satisfy his transformation. Too often in our lives we are proud despite our ignorances, and Snowe shows us where that path can take us.
Something I took as positive from this game was the move towards a realistic art style. When comparing to Suikoden III, V, and Tactics (Rhapsodia) one can see how IV sticks out; faces and bodies are more proportionate, duller ('more realistic') colours, and attention to realism in terrain and enemy design was much higher. Now, let me explain. I love cel-shaded games, cartoony games, etc. I own a Wii and a DS and am happy that I do. However, Suikoden is a breed apart from most jRPG's. It is supposed to be gritty and real. The themes and characters are supposed to be relatable, real, and emotionally provocative. A realistic art style, I believe, suits this series well. Zelda: Windwaker can be our cel-shaded game of choice, ok? (speaking of Windwaker ...)

Negative Aspects:
The game is short, but I'll be darned if it isn't too long. Let me explain. If you are not using a guide, and not familiar with the Suikoden franchise, this game can be outrageous. I spent 15 hours sailing, trying to discover what to do next on the map, only to realize that I needed to enter the right room or speak with the right person on my ship. This is not good game design; there should be a clear indication to the player that there is a purpose and place to go. I detest using guides on first runthroughs but was driven to it by countless wasted hours. Also on that note, 5 seconds to load a battle isn't horrible, but when there is such a high encounter rate and you are, eventually, getting no experience and just 'Releasing' the groups, 5 seconds is too much.
Silent protagonist? My word. What a poor, poor idea, especially when the main character's decisions and personality were at the heart of the plot. Now, if you're making a platformer, fine, do as you will. But a game that prides itself on narrative complexity? Unforgivable.

I think this game suffers very much from assuming the player knows where to go next, and this, ultimately, was the single most outstanding fact for me. If I can't pick up a game and beat it in the next two weeks without getting frustrated, there is something wrong. I think Konami needs to realise that it is not because of poor design that Suikoden III 'failed,' but because of poor polish and poor advertising.

[StalkerPizza]

Bad things about this game:
1. War is easy
2. Only 4 people teams
3. Characters weren't that interesting
4. Characters weren't very good
5. The world map movement took too long even with R2(I think)

Good things about this game:
1. Ted was in it
2. The rune was interesting
3. The plot was interesting

[Bill Cutting]

This game is pretty damn painful. The main issue is the boat. I tried playing through it the first time, and missed Viki so I had to bloody sail everywhere. And this made me *angry*. The fact that the enemies never improve according to your level gets annoying since you encounter them every two seconds. It makes me sit there and wish there were more islands, more areas to go to, and maybe even boat encounters on the high seas. If there are pirates, why don't they attack you? Jeez. This game could have used a little inspiration from Sid Meier's Pirates! Which makes sailing around in a boat fun.

Graphics are half assed. The Dauntless (or as I named it the Liberator) is too big which is fine I guess and I don't know anything about boats but I would think a boat that size would need more than two masts. Main issue with the graphics is that everything is pretty dull looking, lots of gray. I don't understand this dedication to realism in a FANTASY game but it really is pretty stinko. I guess when most of the map is empty ocean you've already decided to take a half-assed approach to graphics. Nay is possibly one of the ugliest places, and the fact that it and Razril are both abundantly gray doesn't help much. Middleport could have used some zazz but it looked pretty decent. Obel and Na-Nal look pretty good, course the elf tree on Na-Nal is like the crowning achievement of the general rushed feeling of this entire game. And lets just assume that the fact that there's like less than 10 locations and a lot of empty sea is because they rushed this game. Character design has ups and downs, Kika's probably the best looking out of the bunch. What I always liked about Suikoden is that the costumes don't look overdesigned like what has been going on in Final Fantasy since about 8 and hit it's awful overcooked zenith in 10.

Characters are underdeveloped. After having actual *characters* as main characters in 3. Having a silent hero in a voice acted game is pretty weak. At least he was pretty cool with the twin swords and the fact that he was absolutely the best fighter in the game. I just kind of pretended he was a smarty pants that had relations with pretty much every female on the boat.

As far as the other characters go, it's like, well. Everything about this game screams "half-assed." Kika was absolutely awesome though, and it would have been nice if they spotlighted her a lot more, but that came in parts of Tactics, which I'll mention later. Perhaps my fondness for her was because she was voiced by the same woman that voices Major Kusanagi in GitS but still, hot lady pirate = awesome. I liked Keneth for some reason, even though he was underdeveloped. Snowe's story was decent, but could have used fleshing out. The other pirates were cool (well other than Dario, I'll get to that later), I liked Hervey even though he comes out as a character more in Tactics.

Elenor Silverberg was probably the most developed character in the whole game, since everyone else seems like a rush job or they realized late in production that they needed 108 characters instead of the 10 or 15 this game seems to care about. Setsu is annoying and makes you wonder why Lino trusts him, Dario seems to be a monstrous idiot and would have benefited from maybe a storyline that involved him and Louise and the fact that Nalleo is her son. The thing is, all this is done in the comment box which is just...tacked on. One of the things that was nice about the other games esp. 3 is that you're forced to use a bunch of characters, this game basically had your core 4: Mine for most of the game were Jesus (hero), Kika, Jeane, Keneth who was replaced with Ted once I got him. Speaking of Ted, the pseudo homosexual relationship between him and Aldo could have used a spotlight. This is getting tired. Every character in this game needed more development. Plus, most of the time I'm wondering what these characters *do*. Is Oskar actually necessary or is he just to fill out the 108 star requirement?

I guess when the map is as small and ugly as this one is then they can't really do much with it but I guess more EFFORT was required on this game. Which should be a pretty standard refrain by now. Snowe's story seemed entirely too rushed, and there needed to be a lot more development after you recruited him because there's no real reason Laszlo shouldn't have cut off the turd's head other than the fact that their combo is absolutely devastating and makes the last boss a piece of cake even in the 50s. Well Ted helps with that too and so does Jeane with the Thunder rune but you know, whateva.

The whole game is half assed, that's what it feels like. And when you play Tactics, and more development occurs between characters in game, it makes you wonder if it's almost an apology for how completely rushed and storyless IV is. It almost feels like they should have been put together. Like it was one idea that was split into two different games, making both feel kind of lame and incomplete.

Ok so there should be positives right? Uh. Well. Um...Final boss is cool looking even if you don't ever understand why you have to kill it or what it's there for unless you play Tactics (see the above paragraph). Kika is a huge positive, Ted showing up is pretty cool. Elenor. Fishing with Ugetsu is pretty fun. Ummm, Ritapon is pretty fun. Wow that's about it. Really.

Final parties:
vs. Cray
Kika, Lino, Maxine (Cyclone rune owns), Fredrica.

vs. Tree
Hero (Jesus), Jeane, Ted, Snowe. downed it in like 7 turns. which to me is not a negative. I hate final bosses which have billions of hp and all this crap to make it even more powerful and it takes you like an hour to kill it. Hello Final Fantasy I'm talking to you.

[Bill Cutting]

Personally, I don't think the game is too short. Sure, if you want to, you could probably clear it in like 20 hours or so, but with the minigames, subquests and getting all the 108 characters, the game is long enough.

Yeah. but the actual story is rushed. Like it's just a breeze through once Elenor shows up and you liberate islands without much fuss at all. It's just kind of...like the first half is well paced but the last half just blows by and before you even know it, you're fighting Cray, some giant tree thing, and Troy.

I think recruiting is actually harder on this game since there's so many points you can totally lose chracters and never be able to recruit them. I was missing about half the stars the first playthrough, I thought there was more story to go through. I mean I usually get most of the 108 just by playing it and exploring and stuff but this game makes exploring BORING because half of it is ocean and most of the towns are ugly and have nothing of interest in them.

Suikoden 4 has a few very strong points a great world map that you yourself have to explore

THERE'S NOTHING IN IT.

[BlinkingMirror]

As far as the other characters go, it's like, well. Everything about this game screams "half-assed." Kika was absolutely awesome though, and it would have been nice if they spotlighted her a lot more, but that came in parts of Tactics, which I'll mention later. Perhaps my fondness for her was because she was voiced by the same woman that voices Major Kusanagi in GitS but still, hot lady pirate = awesome. I liked Keneth for some reason, even though he was underdeveloped. Snowe's story was decent, but could have used fleshing out. The other pirates were cool (well other than Dario, I'll get to that later), I liked Hervey even though he comes out as a character more in Tactics.

I agree! One of my favourite characters or parts about Suikoden IV was Kika! Great in battle and an awesome character as you mentioned! Not to mention very pretty!

And, you are a Major Motoko Kusanagi fan too! I usually prefer the Japanese voices in anime. But, I agree with you the english voice actress for Kusanagi has a sexy voice!
She is also a vocalist. I believe she sings some of the Silent Hill songs.

I'm one who isn't a fan of Snowe. I just don't like that type of rival character. I've seen it too often in anime. And, I was and am bored by that type of storyline. That doesn't mean I think his character wasn't developed. I just don't like that type of character. They annoy me. hehe

I would have to say my favourite characters overall in Suikoden are Jeanne and Viki.
I liked the confessionals in SIV as well.

Anyways, overall SIV was an okay RPG. Nothing overly special. But, not horrible either. I've played RPGs that are a lot worse for sure. I just think when you are a part of a series. The fans of the series demand a sequel that amazes them. Anytime they get something that is not spectacular they will be letdown. It happens all the time with movie series for another example.

[lechaflan]

hmm as a game by itself, this game isn't bad. i'd probably call it decent. as a suikoden, no way sir.

i'd like to start with one point about snowe. people say he has such an interesting storyline but i feel like S4 just didn't deliver it. as someone else said, it was rushed. i felt the story there but i just couldn't get myself to really see the effort to show it. it would've been tons more interesting if you actually go through a dungeon with him being the enemy Commander and pirate. you only approach him in i think war battles, read a few lines of text, attempt to feel sorry for him since he can't join you at this point, and realize he's really not that interesting a character. even the scene with him and Lazlo right outside lazlo's room before the final war battle is just straight up uninteresting and shows no signs of snowe being a 'true friend' to lazlo. and after really thinking about it, he's basically a different approach to jowy from S2. think about it. best friend of the hero who believes the reasoning to his methods are justified. both are jealous of how the hero is gentle and are well loved by everyone around him. the only difference is snowe actually despises him for it while jowy is more concerned for riou to stop being a leader to protect him which shows how much of a better friend jowy is. anyway.

war battles = non-existent. if they're that easy, they should've never existed in the first place. interesting approach with rune cannons with ships and all but it would've been so much better if the war battle maps included like rocks to block movement/attacks and allow special attacks like the punishment rune or whatnot. this is severely the blandest war battle system in history.

not enough islands. sure the idea of a vast sea/ocean/whatever makes you really feel like you're sailing but man it just doesn't compensate for how such a short game this is and how you're forced to revisit islands for like 30 minutes each just to complete a simple task to make the story go on. seriously, this game needed more territory to go through and hell, even having the option to explore other lands besides JUST the island nations would've been fun. suikoden 2 had toran, suikoden 3 allowed to somewhat see harmonia, suikoden 5 allowed island nations. basically put, EXPLORATION IS DULL.

despite having unite attacks and rune magic, the battle system is not suikoden at all. it feels like a non-suikoden rpg and that's a pretty bad thing to say about this game. bringing back the S,M,L range system would've been interesting. having more than 4 characters would've been at least acceptable. man, a unite attack with lazlo, snowe, tal, keneth, paula, and jewel would've been pretty kickass but instead unite attacks are basically useless. the only ones i used were ninja and true friendship attacks.

lazlo is a completely dull leader and the only time you'll figure he's interesting or even worthy of being a leader at all is near the end when you can assume that he's lino's son. you find out so late in the game that you wish his character development would've been hinted at earlier in the game besides the vague hint being the protection from lazlo's mom during brandeau's use of the rune killing his assassin friend and lazlo's crew.

not enough enemy variety. i felt like i kept seeing rock crabs, mosquitoes, and like 3 other species throughout the whole game.

i don't even want to list the positives because they're severely outweighed by the quantity and quality of the negatives.

considering everything especially the fact that it's a suikoden game, i'd rate this a 4.5/10. if it weren't a suikoden, i'd give it a 6/10

[Holywhippet]

I also very much disagree to the "the game is too easy"- claims out there. Sure, combat is usually a walk in the park, but have you ever tried getting all 108 stars of destiny WITHOUT USING A WALKTRHOUGH?
It's insanely hard. This goes for all the Suikoden games, and I don't think recruiting in S4 was any easier than in the other games.

This is one of my gripes with the Suikoden series as well as a number of other RPGs. Getting 100% completion is really only possible when consulting a walkthrough or buying a guidebook. Some of the 108 stars are amazing obscure or difficult to acquire. I think S3 took the cake though - firstly you had Landis who would just insert himself into a vacant party slot (assuming you had one). The real kicker was small Viki - I generally don't take Viki as a party member so I wouldn't normally be travelling with her.

S4 keeps up this time honoured tradition - the two Nay-Kobolds who only appear if you walk out of their village along with Chiepoo after a certain point in the game. Gau the random encounter. The mermaid who you pick up by happening to net fish along a certain route.

[patapi]

Forgetting the walking in-game recruitment guide, are we? It might not be as direct or specific, but characters like Richmond, Kidd and Oboro provides indication of who you can recruit at any one time. Deborah unfortunately lacks a listing, but she serves the same purpose. The only one without a dependable clue system was Suikoden, and it still had a pretty decent amount of hints in the form of Old Books.

100% completion is normally impossible without a guide (item drops, ftl!), but gathering all the 108 Stars certainly is not.