[Discussion] Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden V

A forum for people who have played the game concerning the Sun Rune War to answer gameplay questions.
LadyKarasu
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Post by LadyKarasu »

Suikoden V Review:
All scores out of 10

Combat- 9. Large variety in weapons and styles, formations were very cool.
Magic- 7. *cries* The one thing SIII did so much better. Not as many cool runes (exception: Star Rune) and the spell designs suck! Though rune piece collecting is fun.
Characterization- 10. There were very few characters who were really, really irritating. And we got to know them fairly well for a cast of 108+. I was pleased.
Recruitment- 4. Sometimes way too tedious, and missing characters is bad.
Graphic- 6. Pretty nice designs, but often too bland. Especially with the spells. Nothing terribly impressive.
Plot- 10. I was absolutely spellbound by the story. While I thought the Prince was bland at first, he really does shape up. Lyon is adorable throughout. What a fascinating political fantasy. It plays a story better than some novels.
The HQ- 9. Little hard to navigate at first, but awesome design. Just gotta remember... it's a CIRCLE....
Duelling- 8. No opinion. It was okay, though I don't particularly like the one-on-ones.
Wars- 10. SO MUCH FUN. Customizing the units is a blast (speaking of blast, team up Josephine and Killey in a Rune Archer unit for some fiery wasting), and so what if it's easy? I particularly love the versatility of the beavers and dragon knights in the wars.
Town designs- 5. Some of them were fine to navigate(ie. Sable, Estrise, Haud, Rainwall), and some were a nightmare (ie. Doraat, Sol-Falena). Sol-Falena needs road signs, and I'm dropping the score almost solely because of that blasted city. I HATE SOL-FALENA.
Music- 6. Nothing spectacular. But not bad either.
Voice Acting- 9 for main cast, 3 for character blurbs at end of battle. You know what I mean. Lu's laugh still haunts me.
Mini-games- 9. Mostly for fishing. I love fishing. But there was a nice variety of neat games. And racing the Dragons was cool.
Skills- 8. I liked SIII's design better, but a party SP and movement system was great, along with the epic skills. So still pretty good.

Some ratings of character groups:
The royals: 8. Seeing Arshtat go crazy was awesome, Ferid was so loveable, Sialeeds was either amusing or borderline nuts, the Prince was... er... the Prince, and Lymsleia grew on me after a while. She had guts at least, even she was slightly annoying.
Queen's Knights: 7. I don't like Miakis, or Galleon very much. Kyle and Georg are awesome obviously though.
Barows: 7. Only because of Luserina, Chuck, and loveable ol' Boz. Salum was creepy and Euram an idiot. Obviously.
Godwin: 7. Okay villians. Marschal you don't see nearly enough of though. Gizel was interesting, but ultimately weak.
Raftfleet: 10. I LOVE YOU ALL!!!! Logg + Gale orb. Plus they were so great as allies.
Lucretia Merces: 10. Scary as all hell. Gotta love her.
Cius and Lelei: 2. Boring. BORING! They could have at least got different outfits! GOD! The only reason they get as high as 2 is because the innuendo between Lelei and Lucretia is hysterical.
The Mercenary Brigade: 8. For the worship of Lyon, and for Richard. And his obsession with Mueller. *cackles*
Dragon Knights: 7. Cool concept, poorly executed. The dragons weren't all that good. But I like rahal, and they have a good war party and a good place in the plot.
The gladiators: 8. Zegai, Shoon, and Belcoot are all pretty good characters. They're fun. But a tad bland.
The Maximillian Knights: 10. Isabel is disgustingly awesome, and Matthias is well rounded with an awesome tendency to throw people into bodies of water.
Notes:
Not very good villains in this game, in spite of amazing story.
Very fun to play, rarely really annoying, with exception of really tedicious recruiting.
Even leveling was often fun, lots of room for experimentation. Best part of Suikoden games in my opinion.

Final score: 9/10, love this game.
VinceValentine
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Post by VinceValentine »

mpieco wrote:well those two pieces of armor provided an INSANE amount of defense. and also, there is no limit on the potch you can make, unlike in the previous games (999999). You can go above and beyond that, making the end of your first game/new game+ very easy in terms of purchasing power.

also, zweig is quite a character. i didn't mind having to carry around a bunch of required characters, because the game was so easy that it didn't really matter. and, i don't think i ever had marina in my party. i needed her to run the inn. ;x
Sorry this is coming late, but yeah, i know the games easy(well EXCEPT for some of the SOD recruiting.) and having above the maximum limit of potch that the previous Suikoden's didn't have is always a plus but also, everything seems to be way more expensive in V then the previous games and i had to spend hours and hours making enough potch to even upgrade my weapons to level 16 on the characters that i use and thats just... well a little too much in my opinion, i guess i'm more used to using the dice trick with the emulator in the other games to make my potch...i'll be able to do things a lot easier on my 2nd playthrough though so i guess i'll just have to grind it out a bit longer and make sure i have a lot of potch before i beat the final boss.

And yeah..... Zweig is cool but i hate the fact that you have to use him at the end dungeon and every sindar ruins... but he has a unique personality atleast....and i have Marina for her regen because i don't really need her to run the inn when i'm at the final dungeon and that regen will really be nice for the final boss i'm sure... or atleast thats what i think anyway... watch it do some move to one shot me reguardless. Lol xD
mpieco
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Post by mpieco »

VinceValentine wrote:above the maximum limit of potch that the previous Suikoden's didn't have is always a plus but also, everything seems to be way more expensive in V then the previous games and i had to spend hours and hours making enough potch to even upgrade my weapons to level 16 on the characters that i use and thats just... well a little too much in my opinion, i guess i'm more used to using the dice trick with the emulator in the other games to make my potch...
two words: prosperity rings.

i have a previous post in this thread regarding them. you can make enough money to sharpen your party's weapons from level 1 to 16 in about 20 minutes.
VinceValentine
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Post by VinceValentine »

Oh wow! Thats not bad at all... and here i was complaining about money... if you arent over-exaggerating about the rings making you that much money then i'm all for it... BUT theres one small problem with that... i can't seem to locate my prosperity rings... i think i had 2 of them and they're not even in my storage, so, i guess i'll have to get them again somehow... if those weren't the only ones you ever get, and knowing me being really clumsy, i more then likely sold them for starter money because i believe you get those in the begining, maybe stormfist. I know theres a prosperity body piece though... i think its called prosperity armor or something. I have yet to get that though. So, is there a way to get more prosperity rings or what? i'd like an easier time making money before i go to my 2nd playthrough for new game+. I only have about 500k potch right now. :/
Pokerface
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Post by Pokerface »

You have problems geting money in Suikoden 5? I will list here some possibilities how to get a lot of money. Here we go:

-After recruiting Subala (Take Lun in your party and go to Raftfleet) and start the fishing minigame. You will catch antiques (pots) and fish armor parts. Sell them and you will get a good ammount of potch.

-Keep fighting in the polar area before you go to Marscal Godwin. Nemesis drops Windspun armor, Lightning Ring and Dragon God Statues. You can also get Demon Statues from the enemies there. Have Haleth in your party and sell the Dragon God Statues for 440k potch.

So I had in my new game+ about 50 million potch.

Pokerface
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mpieco
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Post by mpieco »

like i've said a million times before, prosperity rings are PURCHASABLE items at the item shop at port spinacks or whatever it's called. you can get AS MANY AS YOU WANT. how do people not know this yet.
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Ralphy Leone Tensei
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Post by Ralphy Leone Tensei »

Suikoden V is the first Suikoden game I've ever played and to me, it's one of the most underrated and overlooked games in the world.

Graphics - 6
The graphics are kind of gritty and bright to look at, especially Fuyo, but they're better than Suikoden Tactics' character design.

Story - 9
It's probably the only RPG with a story of betrayal, loyalty, and power. I kind of think of it as a cartoony version of The Godfather.

Gameplay - 8
I still don't like the idea of turn-based Final Fanstasy-style gameplay but its better than nothing. Battles gets repetitive but with the right stuff like Action Replay Codes or simply a walkthrough, it gets it done. Potch was always the problem for me but I got to finish my New Game with 99.9 Million potch with Action Replay Codes and my New Game+ never bugged me whatsoever.

Lifespan - 9
Recruiting all 108 and getting to see the true ending took me 80 hours of game time but it was worth it....I think.

Overall: 9
The best alternative to Final Fantasy and one of the most overlooked and underrated games out there.
VinceValentine
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Post by VinceValentine »

Yeah, i tried the fishing game Pokerface but i kinda bored with that and i never really got anything worth "too" much money if you know what i mean.

I did however, fought Nemesis(reminds me of Resident Evil 3 lol) and i'm at that polar area right now... those mountains and i got a couple Lightning rings... eh about 18k, but i got 5 of those statues but i have to appraise them first and i got a couple Windspun armors which sell for like 100k-ish which isnt bad at all. So yeah i've already been doing that... but i'm gonna sell the statues with Haleth... if i even got her recruited... i can't remember. xD Thanks for the help though Pokerface.

And Mpieco, chill, i didn't mean to iritate you... or atleast you sound iritated. I just didn't see your post which was a page back by the way with a bunch of other posts. But i'll go and buy those rings too.
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zionprophecy
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden V

Post by zionprophecy »

(this will be a brief review...I tend to carry on if i dont haha)

Suikoden V - 9.5/10

I started playing back when Suikoden 2 came out and have been a pretty big fan ever since. One of the things with every suikoden game is the way the makers draw you into the main characters and you really start to hate or like them. The graphics are pretty good, i still enjoy the simplicity of Suikoden 1-2 but this was nice.
Sound was great as always.
Storyline was amazing as always.

But it lost that half point where it doesn't have that flare that suikoden 1-2 had, there was something about you never felt rushed, maybe more memorable characters, but i cant quite put my finger on it, it seems the past 3 suikodens are missing something that really made the rest stand out.

Im not going to mention tactics since i havent beaten it and from what i played i wasnt to to impressed but it was still fun.
I never said a word to my wife until i said yes to a divorce.
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden V

Post by media_girl18 »

I agree with the above poster. While I enjoyed Suikoden 5, there was just something missing from it. Granted, that something wasn't as obvious and big as in Suikoden 4. Still..it just didn't quite have that magic. I think part of it is that you don't really get the interesting characters to recruit until much, much later in the game-it seems to take longer to meet up with more interesting side characters than in the other Suikodens.

Anyway, for those interested, I wrote a review at http://media-girl18.livejournal.com/3226.html on this game. Thanks!
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Eggplant Wizard
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden V

Post by Eggplant Wizard »

I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand you have a great cast of characters, a great story, great voice acting, intelligent dialogs between characters (some of the best dialoging I've seen in a video game), and a battle system worthy of Suikoden. ...on the other hand you have lame magic animations (mind boggling lame, the summon spells were a big disappointment for me), a backwards skill system, unnecessary cutscenes, and characters that are thrown into your party that you can't switch out (although, the latter is typical of all Suikoden games).
I'll always love this series no matter what. ...but I don't think that taking several steps back was the way to go here. Of course, bringing back the six-person battle party and ranged weapons was a long overdue accomplishment...
I'm not one of these gamers that pisses on a game, though, just because it doesn't wine me, dine me, and you know the rest. I would recommend this game to any RPG fan who loves a great story and dialog.
promethez
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden V

Post by promethez »

Personally, I don't find the story THAT appealing. I mean there were some good twists and such but a lot fo the twists were quite predictable; the game had to give away so much clues that you already know that someone was gonig to do smth. And I didnt like the fact that the story was rather forced upon us, or at least that was how I felt. The strategist always seem to be able to prophesise the outcomes and even what people WILL do. Didn't felt strategy to me, more like divine guidance. This made the whole war thing seem quite unrealistic. In fact, throughout the game, the prince's army was by and large invincible. then again, the brady games strategy guide kind of spoilt some parts of the story for me; it had to go about using spoiler-full headings or pictures or even descriptions.

I have to agree that the graphics gave me mixed feelings. The environments came to me as being very gritty and drab, something like final fantasy XII- which although came out as more realistic, appeared rather bland and boring ( it had stretches of desert that look roughly similar). The camera sucked too. Obviously, the game is trying too hard to imitate Suikoden II. While in a 2D game, a zoomed out camera would work fine, it definitely does not in a 3D game. The camera constantly frustrated me as I tried to look around the environment by rotating the camera which most 3D games would allow me too. Furthermore, the flamboyant colours of the costumes didn't really go well with me. Even the HQ looked bland and drap. And I was glad I could change the window setting. I didn't like the original window at all. The menues had gaudy colours which were a pain to look at. Finally, I would like to add that I hated the loading times.

The spells too were largely unoriginal and lack-lusture: quite a number of spells had this column explosion in varying colours-depending on the spell- and the pale gate rune's animations even copied that of other spells and added some lame summon in the foreground or simply changed the colour of the explosion. Of course, there were notable spells. I did like the Explosion spell of the fire rune, the final spell of the Twilight runeand maybe a couple of others . Suikoden II and III had by far the best spell animations. the final spell of the lightning rune was rather good in IV though.


The voice actings were as a whole good, though I couldn't understand why did they use such an... unmanly voice for zegai. The elf-capturing musician had an unhumanly voice too. Music wise, it was ok. Again it ran into some problems like FFXII. Like FFXII, the game had some rather loud music as BGM. While in itself the music was good, I just felt that some of them were suitable for the background. I much preferred those of chrono cross, suikoden II or even III ( which although was quiet, suited the sounds of plains and grasslands). That much said, there were quite a few tunes which I liked in the game including Determination-tragic battle, light moaning in the darkness, counter offensive and the ususal themes of a moonlit night and sindar civillisation.

gameplay was it was ok too. Battles were ok but lacked challenge, well most anyway except at teh end when I had to use untrained characters. The tranition into the battle screen took too long. towns were unnecessarily karge and made exploration and hiking tedious. Minigames weren't too interesting compared to previous installments.

Overall, I would give this game a 7/10. As a comparision, I would give suikoden II a 9-9.5, III a 8.7-9.2, IV a 6.7-7.
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RangerDeon
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden V

Post by RangerDeon »

[EDIT]
After playing it a couple of times since I bought it two years ago. .


I was just having this conversation with my brother (who never played a suikoden game, but loves to watch me play them. . )

There are a few things that I did not enjoy about this game. I'm unsure as to weather or not they've been expressed here already, but I'll give it a shot:

1. The rune animation. Just like Suikoden IV's, it seemed to be a huge step back from Suikoden III's rune magic animation. It was just disappointing. Don't get my wrong, it was better than Suikoden IV's, but that isn't saying much. It looked. . . .plain. Nowhere near 'breathtaking'

2. I know this is tiny, but the OCD in me was annoyed by this: The people were stationary. In towns, in your castle, anywhere you go -- unless they were a guard (on some occasions) they'd just be standing there. "Oh, I thought today was a nice day for a walk" . . You aren't walking! The animals did all the walking. There was nothing but dolls, standing there. . all. . .boring. .No one was sitting in the cafeteria area, no one walking around. Just still. Unrealistic.

3. The camera. What was up with the camera? Sure it was great for the first two games, but come on . . .it doesn't work well when the game is 3-dimensional. It made navigating so convoluted. I'm guessing they were trying to rehash the whole Suikoden 1 & 2 era, big mistake. Move forward, not backwards.

4. Back to the runes. There were too many runes that were "right-hand only". Of course on each game, there were runes like the blue gate or something that only goes on your forehead. Understandable. But come on! I couldn't really give the hero anything to set him apart from everyone else (besides the dawn rune, but that was. . .eh) The Resurrection rune. Magic absorb rune. Two examples of runes that were 'right-hand only'


I did like the bad guys. They felt original. . . . . . . .except one.
Who was that guy who looked like Valdo? Childerich? something like that.
Him. In my opinion, they were trying to reinvent Luca Blight, and it didn't work. He wasn't evil, he was annoying. Sure he killed people, but . . .I got tired of references from the older games. Some parts of the story reminded me greatly of Suikoden II. The whole Lelcar thing being almost exactly like the events that took place in Two River, sans fire.

But over all, I did enjoy the game.
Last edited by RangerDeon on Mon Jun 22, 2009 3:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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oops
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden V

Post by oops »

Ok I'm now on the verge of completing this game for the second time(not game+). There are a few things that make the game so easy!

Overpowered characters boosted gets u sick damage, mix that with runes like fury + crazed, use the circle formation and then true men and you should have anyone killed... I still have to complete the last stage but most my boss charachters get 1 attack on me and that's it.
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Mushra
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Re: Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden V

Post by Mushra »

I already posted it on the "Introduce yourself part" but i wasn't acknowledge about this areas so im coping and pasting here my opinion about this game:

Suikoden V took ALL of the good features from the others Suikoden and made then EVEN BETTER! The normal batte was awesome, the one on one battle was EXTREMELLY fun, since you could actually see Prince's amazing profiency with Bojutsu and Nunjutsu(Not ninjutsu...nUnjutsu from nunchako) The field battle...THAT WAS VERY HOT! I wouldn't stop for a minute, very hard to play (I used all troops at once for better playing) and dynamic too! Not only that, in my opinion the storyline is the best of all Suikoden series, even Suikoden II which was my previosly favorite. And the ending? Damn...I have no fear to admit that it took a few tears from me, it was really stirring...

*SPOILER AHEAD!*

I was really thrilled when Prince and Lyon ended the game together, it was really the only thing left to close this game with golden key...I'm not saying i would be sad if they didn't ended together, i'm only saying that this event made the game not only awesome, but in my opinion, perfect, since all the game they have like a very close realationship, this kind of thing was really supposed to happen. I was too ery happy to know that Prince became the new Commander, after all that this is the least he deserved, and the scene where Lyon appears from behind of him, dressed as a Queens Knight was very nice too, and everytime i see this scene a certain sentence go trought my mind: "Behind a great man, lies a great woman"

*SPOILER ENDS HERE*

The only two things i didn't like was the silent Hero, but that can't be helped since these are their ways to it...(Besides Suikoden III of course, thinking about it, thats what made Suikoden III so nice) And the SoD recruitment, because in my opinion they were extremelly easy to catch, in my first playing i got 104 stars without guidance (Faq, walktrought and sorts) And needed a guide only to get the three lasts, since i saw no point in losing a better ending because of just three characters.
I couldn't believe how much they improved from Suikoden IV to V, and by playing this game i have regained my trust in Konami and in the Suikoden series.

Well, that is my opinion about the game's "shell"...Now, about the technical area

One on one battle: Besides everything i told, it was too easy, with very predictable speaks...My opinion is that the speak system need to be removed and replaced for a "Stance System" that forces the player to watch and discern which stance the enemy is preparing so we can antecipate his move...This is the basics os fencing

Field Battle: Only one complaint, directional speed, sometimes we couldn't reach the other side of the field in time before the engagiment.

Normal Battle: I was very happy when they revived de 6 characters battle system. have no complaints...Oh, well, not like a complaint but i just felt half satisfied with the skill system, it should be like SIII or no system at all.
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