[Discussion] Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden IV

[Holywhippet]

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.

What about Suikoden 2? I was under the impression that certain characters can only be recruited within a window of opportunities during the game. By the time you get your detective/old books its too late for some of them. I seem to recall reading that to recruit one star you need to injure, but not kill his unit during one of the early battles.

[amelia108]

not really anything new or deep from me, but i just get bothered that this gets tossed around as the "bad egg" within the series. i hate to be a fangirl or something, but if you didn't like this game you probably didn't much like the first suikoden, which it really reminds me of, and that game is probably my favorite game ever. yes, nostalgia does bias me, but still, without suikoden we'd have no ii, iii, v (whichever is your favorite) + all the other side games.

okay, so maybe you could like 1 and still hate iv, but that's how i see it... and i'm probably preaching to choir for posting this at a suikoden fan forum anyway. so... oh well.

i just love this game. it has many flaws. but i love it.

[Captain Tenneal]

I was really excited about this game ... until I started playing it. The music is subpar, really boring. Even the victory music for random battles sounds tired and weak compared to it's presecessor in Suikoden II. And like has already been mentioned, the boat is horrible. Having three "random" battles just from turning the ship 90 degrees is torture, not to mention how slow it is. Also, the decision to leave out the main character's voice, from what I've seen so far, already failed. This was successfully done in Persona 3, but Suikoden IV made it really awkward. I also like how characters pose questions to the main character but you don't get to choose a response...

I loved Suikoden I, II and III. But I also acknowledge that Suikoden I is 14 years old. There's no reason that the music should sound that dated or that the graphics should look like a first generation PS2 title. Comparing IV to III, I felt IV was a leap backward in production value. I'll definitely be rushing through this one with a guide just because I'll probably still find it charming enough to give it attention. I have to admit, I was very relieved to hear about Viki so I could cut down on the lousy boat travel.

[Blutiger Engel]

I was really excited about this game ... until I started playing it. The music is subpar, really boring. Even the victory music for random battles sounds tired and weak compared to it's presecessor in Suikoden II. And like has already been mentioned, the boat is horrible. Having three "random" battles just from turning the ship 90 degrees is torture, not to mention how slow it is. Also, the decision to leave out the main character's voice, from what I've seen so far, already failed. This was successfully done in Persona 3, but Suikoden IV made it really awkward. I also like how characters pose questions to the main character but you don't get to choose a response...

I loved Suikoden I, II and III. But I also acknowledge that Suikoden I is 14 years old. There's no reason that the music should sound that dated or that the graphics should look like a first generation PS2 title. Comparing IV to III, I felt IV was a leap backward in production value. I'll definitely be rushing through this one with a guide just because I'll probably still find it charming enough to give it attention. I have to admit, I was very relieved to hear about Viki so I could cut down on the lousy boat travel.

If you hold R1 the boat goes a lot faster. You can hold it while walking too, and you run super fast. I'm surprised to hear that a lot of people don't know that.

And welcome, btw

[Captain Tenneal]

Wow, that will make it a lot better, you probably salvaged my gaming experience with it. Thanks! And thanks for the welcome.

[Blutiger Engel]

Wow, that will make it a lot better, you probably salvaged my gaming experience with it. Thanks! And thanks for the welcome.

Oh you haven't finished it yet? Glad to help, then!

[Captain Tenneal]

Haha, no, I'm about 45 minutes into the game. I mostly had to vent my frustration with it. Thanks for the help.

[eldrasidar]

Suikoden 4 had a lot of problems. Not to say that is wasn't all bad, but even the good things had issues.

the good
-improved trading system: trading had previously been nothing more than a convenient way to get some extra money. In 4, you have to rigorously trade in order to acquire the materials needed to make armor and clothing, which I personally felt was pretty cool. unfortunately, with various trading ports occasionally being made unavailable, and without viki, getting all your high quality goods takes a lot of time and annoyances.

-making armor & equipment: definitely a growing trend among RPG's, the ability to get some use out of random items from trading. cool way to get fancy equipment without paying. unfortunately there wasn't enough flexibility with this, and you couldn't make unique stuff.

-nice interface: not sure how to phrase this, but I like the way that the characters move on screen as well as being able to to first person mode, although it would be nice if there was more interaction between the character and the environment, along with bigger environments, and non-disappearing character models.

the Bad

Bland and boring combat system: only 4 characters, lackluster rune use, and almost no difference between various characters. every sword user has the same pose, likewise with other weapons.

no skill system: suikoden 3 made the skill system a viable way to make distinct characters, something fairly important with 108 of them. suikoden 4 decided not to use it, making a bland combat system even more bland, and bland and forgettable characters even more bland and forgettable.

mediocre characters: 4 chefs? really...did we need 4 of them? that and far too many mini game characters, and other characters that just seem to be there. Until you play through tactics, you wont know why half the people on your boat are there. and even then you still might not know for every one. some characters like Kika are well designed, but most are forgettable and once you get them, you'll forget they're even there. some people have complained that some character's are ridiculous to recruit, but having played previous suikoden's, the recruitment for suikoden 4 isn't all the hard, it's just a lot faster because the game is so short, so you will miss things because you're expecting a slower pace.

pointless villains: Troy could have been cool. in fact he was really cool for the first part of the game. then he's whiny for the rest of the game, and then duels you at the end. graham cray, underdeveloped. the kooluk-a bunch of goons there to annoy you.

hurried plot: the plot seems to be going somewhere interesting for a little while, but once you get kicked out of obel, the plot goes fast forward through what should have been a much longer more convoluted plot.

definitely the worst suikoden, although a decent game.

[Chris_Lightfellow]

-making armor & equipment: definitely a growing trend among RPG's, the ability to get some use out of random items from trading. cool way to get fancy equipment without paying. unfortunately there wasn't enough flexibility with this, and you couldn't make unique stuff.

What do you mean by "unique stuff"? A lot of the armors that you could make can't be obtained by other means.

Also, even though a lot of people seem to forget about it, I think the training room was the best thing that they added in this game and that it should have been included in S5. I also think that the appearance of the weapons changing as they were upgraded gave a better sense of satisfaction from upgrading weapons, besides the usual attack upgrade.

[eldrasidar]

by unique stuff i meant that you could just plop in a bunch of random materials and get something, as opposed to acquiring the required materials to make a pre-formulated piece of equipment which cannot be modified. I could for example create a piece of diamond mail with 4 pieces of diamond, but I couldn't use 5 pieces to make a better version of it.

the training room was a needlessly broken addition to the game. yes, you could easily bring up characters to level 99, but it wasn't hard to level up anyway; you only needed to level up 8 characters to beat the game; and after going past level 60 the improvements gained at each level are minimal and unnecessary anyway. along with a good portion of the mini-games it was completely miss-able.

[RangerDeon]

I just really wished that they'd made an island their HQ and not the boat.
Sure it was convenient, but it made it too easy. Items are basically useless since all you have to do is fight something, then rest = HEALED
And the ship was always huge! They gave you no room to build it up because it already was. I like to see it progress.

There were too few islands on the game.
That annoyed me.

And why the frakkity frak couldn't you sell items on your ship? Ya had to dock just to sell.

Despite the subtraction of two battle companions, I enjoyed the game. It was great. The main character, visually, wasn't much to look at. The rune animation was kinda crappy. They all looked similar. It was a big step down from Suikoden III.

Overall, fun but short. Can get a little "OMGWTF" at times, but it was my first and I obviously liked it enough to buy SuikoIII, then SuikoV, then SuikoI, then SuikoII. . . .

[Blutiger Engel]

Good points, Deon. I completely forgot about not being able to sell on the ship. That drove me absolutely insane! Every time I needed money for a weapon upgrade or whatnot, I had to use Viki to go elsewhere and sell and come back... terrible. Why the hell was the item guy conspiring against us?

As for the ship not progressing, I suppose they considered the tiny ship from before we knew it was a ship (when it only had 2 levels) the progression, but I know what you mean. It didn't progress based on the number of stars or types of people recruited, but rather at a set point very early in the story. The resting also made things super easy, as you mentioned. I barely used items at all; just MP items during bosses, I think. I really, really did like the convenience of being able to save anywhere and use the blinking mirror from towns, though...

Too few islands is also a good point. First of all, 3 or so are optional and super tiny with nothing but treasure on them (assuming one doesn't miss the maps) so those barely count. They really needed a lot more story-line islands. It would have also made recruiting more fun, as there wouldn't have been so many recruits in the same obvious places.

I do like eldrasidar's point about how we should be able to make unique items with extra materials, though I honestly didn't do too much of that (or trading) in general, as the game is easy enough without the best armor (another flaw of this game, to some).

[RangerDeon]

It was a great convenience, and I thought that when I first played it.
I was excited to get a ship (it was the first RPG that I played where a ship is the main means of travel.) But then I played the others and I was shocked that they had castle thingies and I was a little bummed that this one didn't have one.

I was also bummed about the runes and it's visuals. They all looked the same! Every fire spell looked similar (sure, they'd make the red fire bigger, but. . .COME ON!) And all the runes (ones you can use in battle) were magic runes, what happened to the command runes!?!?!?

I was most disappointed because, visually, this was the best looking game in the Suikoden series. the first two had the adorable little sprites (which is excepted for Ps1) The third one was a little bulky, but still decent. . .and the fifth one. . . . .they walked funny, and the camera stank. So, visually, this had the potential to be the best looking game. But they failed me with the characters and the fact that in battle, they had similar stances and all that jazz.

Plus it completely took away the 'putting the mages and archers in the back row' thing that I've loved so much.

[TrueWater00]

Ok honestly suikoden 4 had potential to be one of the best suikodens, I enjoyed it it but this is what i would change.

1. 4 characters............4 CHARACTERS???? cmon 6.
2. Let us use at least one mermaid in battle if not all.
3. the graphics for the magic spells were just awful. I am not one to care about graphics but the magic spells in suikoden 1 looked better.
4. The nay kobolds had potential. But they made them more annoying then anything. i wanted to kick chiepoo in the cat balls every time he spoke.


Things i liked.

1. Sigurd. one of my all time fav. characters. an awesome male fighter that is good with water magic THANK YOU!
2. TED TED TED. they brought him back and you get to play as him. amazing.
3. Elemental adds to weapons, the graphis were actually nice when you attached element pieces.
4. Jeane and Viki. I believe this was the first game where we were able to fight as jeane, hell yeah.

[Silverberg]

I won't add to this review thread too much since everyone has put in some really valid points.

S4 was probably my least favorite of the series but not particularly horrible really. It's a game you can beat in probably less time it takes you to beat the first one which I guess could be good if you're looking for a quick RPG fix, but not fun if you want a really flushed out game.

Things I liked where:

1. Bringing back Leknaat (since she was pretty much absent from S3)
2. Ted of course. Though why he went from a really nice coat, scarf, and grey slacks motif to blue tunic clothing style, kind of boggles my mind. What was that archers name you recruit on Eleanor's island? Was he gay? I can't imagine he really just wanted to be Ted's friend. He was all over that kid.
3. Quick battles, despite how frequent they were.
4. Rune cannon battles.
5. Music was fantastic. There were only a couple of songs I hated but the rest of the score was beautiful.

Dislikes would include:

1. Silent and emotionless hero. You were just framed for murder, you fool! Say something!!
2. Lame villain. I never cared about Grahm Cray or his connection to the Rune of Punishment at all. You brought Ted back. Might as well have thrown Windy in there too. I was so disappointed in the first game that you never fought against her. They better bring her back at some point.
3. 4 party battles make for little imagination when trying out unite attacks.
4. Along those lines, why did I have to earn unite attacks? Just gimmie!
5. Character models were used too many times. How many warriors with two handed swords have to stand the exact same way?
6. Also thought the character models in general were lame. Like, the characters who didn't participate in battle looked so plain. Like what's his name with the camera. Very uninspired. Clearly the designers were trying to go with a more realistic approach. But with 108 characters, you kind of have to be a little cartoony if you want anyone to remember who they are.
6. Overpowering way too early. Hero and Kika, Sigurd and Hervey. Why use anyone else in battle?
7. I hated heading in a direction on the ship then getting sucked into a random battle. Sometimes you'd come out of it and forget which way you were going. Also, I hated getting too close to the shore from the wrong side of an island and it'd bounce you off in a most annoying way. It didn't help that more often than not, you'd hit a random battle when you'd get bounced off, adding to the frustration.

Although I liked Eleanor because it kept the Silverberg strategist theme going, I didn't like how she was such a lush. There's no sign that she had any kids so I'm assuming Leon, Mathiu, Odessa, etc were not descended directly from her. She just seemed so absolutely different from the others.

Why did everyone love Lino en Kuldes so much? How could a man dressed in a torn up vest and jorts inspire the masses? That would probably explain why at the end, when he gives that speech about forming the Island Nations Federation everyone in the crowd didn't really seem too excited about it at first. They were probably like, "who the hell is this guy with the robe on?"

Anything else? hmmmm probably. But I can't think of it now. Maybe I'll play through it again soon and put up more thoughts on the subject