Suikoden going downhill?

son_michael · Post by **son_michael** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 4:22 pm

gameplay deffinetley matters, if the story is excellent but the gameplay is poor..it would be torture to advance the story because gameplay is from start to finish where as the story is only good during certain parts

story is overall more important than gameplay but gameplay is also very important to a game, if you dont like the battle system or how to equip things ect ect, it can be a chore to play through the game until you get to that good story part and then when the story part is over...back to the lame gameplay

Agremsep · Post by **Agremsep** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 4:33 pm

Mikalakatov wrote:
Agremsep wrote:
MatildaWhiteKnightLeader wrote:whoa whoa whoa, tactics is a very good game. Plot might have been sub-par but the gameplay was excellent.
If the plot is sub-parred, then why you call it a very good game? For me, it's just a standard SLG with crap story but nice decent gameplay. So, it's a standard game. Not very good game.
Whats so great about gameplay? If the story line is good as well as the music, then why should gameplay matter? A game is finished whether it takes 30 hours or 40, it doesn't really matter all that much does it?

What's so great about gameplay? If it hadn't for the decent gameplay, I would've stopped playing Tactics because the story doesn't keep me going. Gameplay and plotline are both very important aspects of a RPG or SLG. They complement each other to make a successful game.

FYI, gameplay is not equal to the duration of time taken to complete a game.

Mikalakatov · Post by **Mikalakatov** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 7:59 am

I always thought that gameplay was how long it took to complete a game,

so that explains it all, thank you son_michael and Agremsep.

Lemmy Claypool · Post by **Lemmy Claypool** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:58 am

Nah that would just simply be the game's length.

xClivex · Post by **xClivex** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 5:52 pm

I like Suikoden IV a lot. Sure the history is not as good as Suiko I or Suiko 2, but is not THAT bad either. Before playing the game i read some reviews and almost all of them said that the game is bad and stuff like that. But when i play it i realized that it wasn't that bad, in matter of fact it was a good game.
The History is not great but is enjoyable. At least is better than a lot of RPG out there xD.
The grafics are not that bad either, of course if you compare the grafics of S4 with S5 there's a lot of diference. I prefer the grafics of S3 or S5 that are more anime style.
Also i believe that Suikoden Tactics was a good game. It complemented the story of S4. It was a little like a SuikoGaiden. It explicate some things that wasn't very clear, like how Brandeau got the True Rune of Punishment or what happened to the Hero, Chiepoo, etc.

So i believe that Suikoden is going downhill?
NO, but Konami need to do a lot of work to do a Suikoden worth to succeed Suikoden II. Suikodens stop to be GREAT games and begin to be only good games since Konami fired Murayama (the man behind Suikoden). But i have a feeling that Suikoden V is going to be a awesome game

pesmerga786 · Post by **pesmerga786** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 6:03 pm

Suikoden 4 was very different from the other suikodens if you ask me. Suikoden 1-3 all had a very close related plot and 4 was very far from it. The closest they had was Ted's presence. I was hoping suikoden 4 would have been about SME or something else more royal relating to Barbossa or some other significant characters. Neclord would have been nice to see also

xClivex · Post by **xClivex** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:54 pm

pesmerga786 wrote:Suikoden 4 was very different from the other suikodens if you ask me. Suikoden 1-3 all had a very close related plot and 4 was very far from it. The closest they had was Ted's presence. I was hoping suikoden 4 would have been about SME or something else more royal relating to Barbossa or some other significant characters. Neclord would have been nice to see also

Yeah, you're right. Maybe that's why people don't like very much S4. I believe that they were hoping to see more characters of the others Suikodens or more of the others empires (like SME, Highland, Harmonia, etc). But in S4 you don't see anything like that (except Ted). Like you said, S4 is another history and has no relation with the other games.

Agremsep · Post by **Agremsep** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 9:06 am

@xClivex

Gamers have their different views on Suikoden 4 and Tactics. Personally, I hate it. But on a broader view, both are quite decent game in terms of gameplay. It maybe unfair to compare it to its classical predecessors, but on the whole, it's evident people expect future titles to exceed its predecessors.

Konami can't just be content with 'good games' like Suikoden IV and Tactics. (for me, I rate them as above-average, not anywhere near 'good'). They are an established game company. I don't think they would be satisfied with mediocre games like those. Yeah, maybe they appeal to the fans but the sales chart do not lie. The ratings do not lie.

So, for me, I do agree Suikoden is going downhill. Not to castostrophic proportions, but it's sliding gradually. Konami should be heading the right way this time, with Suikoden V. I'm really keen for it.

Auron_81 · Post by **Auron_81** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:59 pm

Suikoden to me has always been about plot, its what drew me in the first place....1-3 have phenomenal story lines and i couldn't wait to get my hands on the 4th installment, and at first i loved it because although it picked up slow i knew the story would kick in at some point.....but it never did, which is probably why i didn't jump at getting Suikoden Tactics, and still haven't, but i will because i'm a big SRPG fan.....but probably not until after i play S5..........

Fu Su Lu · Post by **Fu Su Lu** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:22 am

Well, you should give tctics a chance, because is worth of it.
SIII had better story, ok, but the fact you had to play with three main characters till chapter III -and walk the same places with Chirs,Geddor, Hugo...and Tomas if you like-was too much for me; I prefer SIV because, despite its many defects gives you one story-ok, mediocre- a map to walk freely -ok, crazy tax random monsters-, music -ok, not as good as S I &II, but way better than III, at least for me- and ghaphics which face in the game looked similar to their face in the talking-window.

suikoden, I think is not downhill, but Konami has a lot of job to do.

Auron_81 · Post by **Auron_81** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 10:12 am

You think travelling to the same places with different characters was more annoying than travelling blindly with the ship in S4 while getting attacked 100 times a minute?

Fu Su Lu · Post by **Fu Su Lu** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:35 am

Yes for me. And furthermore... I did not discover the ship could go faster till almost the end of the game!and the same goes for Viki. So next time I played the game...it was way faster. To tell you the truth The first time I played, I was reading a good book while sailing

And with all of that SIV took me a week. SIII took me a month revisiting everything

-finding Viki was hard for me here too-.

pd:give tacitcs a try, you wont regret it!

Shigure · Post by **Shigure** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:32 am

When it comes to a game's critique, how can you measure it?

The Suikoden series, as a whole is awesome. The major problem with Suikoden is that 1 and 2 were so close, only like a 2 to 3 year difference. It established a lot of the Suiko-fans expectations.. especially those of us like myself that began Suikoden with Genso Suikoden. To me, even Suikoden 3 was the series beginning to backslide. First of all, the series really needs to bring back the upload data trick. Even if you just fire in some next to pointless models of previous heroes. Those things strengthen the connection between games and draws them closer together.

I judge a game by it's "feel" if you can understand what I mean, when you play the game, how does it feel in your hands. I can tell you one thing, in Suikoden 1 and 2, I wasn't sighing when I ran into a random encounter. In Suikoden 3 and 4, I had a hard time, I'd avoid battling because the battles took to much out of me. A lot of Suikoden 3's battles were just attack-attack-attack. And although I liked Suikoden 4's battle system better, four characters a little too few for Suikoden. However Suikoden 4 as a whole would have been ruined by a 6-char battle system.

Now, from what I've seen, Suikoden V is going to be awesome, it looks like that feel of the earlier suikodens are back and it's been a while since I've been able to enjoy that.

However I agree with Agremsep, the Suikoden's decline is not a declineso much as merely some of the pie is starting to crumble. You can scoop it all up and enjoy but subconciously you know it's not what you've been eating.

I've yet to pick up Suikoden Tactics as well, I enjoy games like Fire Emblem, which Suikoden Tactics reminds me of, however I'm kind of old school with Suikoden and it's simply not on my priorities list. From what I've heard it strenghens Suikoden IV's story and in my view that was the series' weaker link.

Darth Yuber · Post by **Darth Yuber** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 11:20 pm

Game series don't really go downhill. I mean... just because S4 wasn't the greatest (even though -I- liked it a lot) doesn't mean S5 or S6 or S7 or whatever else are going to be bad. Look at Final Fantasy... FF4 was great, FF5 was eh, FF6 and 7 were great again, FF8 kinda sucked, FF9... good again. The only time a game series really goes downhill is when a company completely stops trying to innovate and make things better. Like when EIDOS makes Tomb Raider 2 and 3 and 4 nothing but the same stupid sliding box puzzles.

Wraith · Post by **Wraith** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:51 am

Well, in the words of SARS: Suikoden is Back.

S5 is apparently better than S1,S3 and S4(obivously). I suppose it depends on person to person if its better than S2 or not. I really wouldn't say that Suikoden is going Downhill anymore. Offcourse S6 might be rubbish but we can't know that yet.