worthless characters

kenshindono · Post by **kenshindono** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:22 pm

is it just me or are there a lot of worthless characters in this game. I mean utterly worthless. It jams anoying dead weight into your party all the time that i cant find any use for. People like Toma, talgyel (the old guy) or Fumafewhrjwhatever. I have to drag them along durring plot points where they just sit in the back up party with no combat abilities or support ones to speak of, then after they join me they never do anything ever again. No support, no combat, no shop uses

am i missing something, what good are these characters? Most people had at least SOME use in past suikoden games. there seems t o be a handfull here that do nothing but waste space in story segments then take up a slot on your tablet

Post by **Oppenheimer** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:43 pm

It's called "plot". They're in your party because they're necessary to come out and say stuff at various plot points. I don't mind that one bit. Yay for plot.

kenshindono · Post by **kenshindono** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 2:57 pm

toma is essential to the plot? if you say so =P

if they're key to plot they should have still given them some functional benefit. Lyons key to the plot and shes actually useable

so those other characters have no actual mechanical function in the game then?

AlphaSigmaOne · Post by **AlphaSigmaOne** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 3:19 pm

Well if you don't include telling the story?

The only time they are ever in the party anyway is at times when you don't do a lot of fighting. Plus, you still have extra spots to put other people.

Sheesh.

Post by **Oppenheimer** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 3:26 pm

Do you really need all 12 fighting characters? Isn't 11 enough? I mean really now, complaining about having one story only character in your party of 12 is insignificant.

And yes Toma is important to overall character and scenic/political development. He gets lots of cut scenes. I won't say more because this is a gameplay only thread.

I'm glad they didn't put fluff stats on the characters. Like in Suikoden I they gave even that scientist "old man" guy stats and he's in your party for 5 seconds and is totally useless. They need not have bothered. This way works much better.

Rivera · Post by **Rivera** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:26 pm

Yeah, I agree that some characters are here only for plot development. Not everyone NEEDS to be a warrior, some characters simply are not. You mean to tell me you WANT to put a little boy or old beaver in battle?

I felt IV had a much larger concentration of worthless characters many of whom didn't contribute to the plot at all. Contributing to the plot of an RPG is as crucial to contributing to battles.

AlphaSigmaOne · Post by **AlphaSigmaOne** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:44 pm

^
If not more so.

Sovereign Rune · Post by **Sovereign Rune** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:15 pm

The characters that are being dubbed as "worthless", or at least most of them, are important to the plot even though they may not be so adept in battle. What I have noticed about this game is that most every character joins for a reason, whereas in some of the other Suikoden's, characters just seem to join for no reason and have no motivation to join the army other than the hero beats them in a minigame or something.

Tyege · Post by **Tyege** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:50 pm

Its kind of a pity you cant use Euram for battle...I would have enjoyed making him a powerhouse hah...

sonic_Reaper · Post by **sonic_Reaper** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:33 pm

Oppenheimer:

Erm, I may be mistaken but, I believe it's 10 characters max. 6 fighting + 4 entourage (which can be a combination of fighting or support).

As for Kamandol (sp?) from Suikoden; well Suikoden did not have a Convoy/Entourage system, as such, it was more or less a necessity to have any story characters be battle ready. I didn't mind it. You're complaining about more options? I don't get it.

And, again I may be mistaken, but a HUGE chunk (possibly all/almost all) can be used in the War battles in Suikoden V. Yes, even Toma and Fuwalafuwalu.

Sovereign Rune · Post by **Sovereign Rune** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:36 pm

That's another good point about Fuwalafuwalu... he can use a Flowing spell in the army battles. So he cannot be completely useless.

Also I used Fuwalafuwalu a lot in the ship battles due to the fact that he is strong against all ship types. Plus, with the Flowing rune, he can completely heal himself one time then go take out more ships.

Sickpup · Post by **Sickpup** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:41 pm

Yeah, all of these "worthless" are extremly helpful during army battles. Talgyl uses the Mother Earth Rune, Fuwalfu leads the Beaver unit, Craig leads the Dragon Cavalry, and things like that.

Post by **Oppenheimer** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:41 pm

sonic_Reaper wrote: Erm, I may be mistaken but, I believe it's 10 characters max. 6 fighting + 4 entourage (which can be a combination of fighting or support).

As for Kamandol (sp?) from Suikoden; well Suikoden did not have a Convoy/Entourage system, as such, it was more or less a necessity to have any story characters be battle ready. I didn't mind it. You're complaining about more options? I don't get it.

Yes yes 10, so you get 9 fighters with 1 story character. My point remains, it's a lot.

Yes Kamandol or whatever. They did have a limited entourage system in that when Kraze's lieutnant (whatever his name is) joins you he "comes along" but isn't shown anywhere. They could have done something like that.

More, but unnecessary options. I'm just using it as an example of something silly they could have done instead when what they have done is perfectly fine and actually an improvement over the "more" options they gave you in earlier Suikodens.

sonic_Reaper · Post by **sonic_Reaper** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:55 pm

To my understanding, if they had the time, resources and money, they would have given us more battle ready SoDs. Suikoden I and II used small (but charming and detailed) 2D sprites; in a short span of time they could have given us more characters than they could for any 3D game where they must create the 3D character model, map out the textures, then proceed to animate them (and in the case of Suikoden IV and V, use real motion actors for the animation).

In context, to complain that any character was playable in the original Suikoden; well, it's not something I would do. Suikoden had its share of useless SoDs; Esmeralda and Qlon come to mind (and those farmers, Blackman and ... that other dude. There wasn't even any farming in Suikoden. Totally useless).

Still, Suikoden was simple. Everyone was differentiated by stats. No rune affinity and only one rune per character. Having a few more options with a simple battle system made more sense.

In Suikoden V we had many more unique characters. Add to this the battle system is more complicated and there are many more options with equipment/runes/affinity/skills and so on. It's understandable there are less playable battle characters, but that they are more unique than they've been in the past Suikoden games.

Post by **patapi** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 8:32 pm

Killey doesn't fight when he joined my party during that one scene. I agree that he's worthless too because he joins the entourage but doesn't contribute anything at all.