Character Customisation

[Nikisaur]

just something I've been thinking about lately, sorry for the novel:

Okay so, I know that with western RPGs, customising characters, especially the protagonist, is all the rage. And to be honest, I love it. For example, Bethesda's Skyrim lets you be whoever you want to be, you can put your energy into any aspect you wish to pursue, but you're voiceless and solitary. Bioware's Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect let you express personality through limited options and deveops your character's personality. Combat-wise, you can choose between a few different classes, but lacks the complete fusion of Skyrim.

Basically, what I've been thinking of is a way to make the Tenkai stars more personal. Especially with the addition of voice acting in the later titles, Lazlo and Frey really fell short for me. This goes for Tir and Riou too, although harder with the 2D graphics, so I might exempt them from this example, but they never show any emotion without our say so. On the one hand, they represent the player, but on the other hand, they are a legitimate character with family/friends/backstory. but they never get a scene on their own, we never see any kind of action (aside from Frey's awful facial expressions) to express...anything.

Pretty much the point I'm trying to get at here is: how could character customisation and choices bring Suikoden into the new age of RPGs?

How about increasing replayability by choosing a weapon type for your Tenkai? Suikoden Tierkreis kinda did this but I feel they went too far by making all of the characters too changeable (with 108 characters they need some things to make them different, if you can change every aspect then what is the point?.) Do you prefer a Short, Medium, or Long range character type? Medium is the default, which is fair enough. But how about armour style? Tenkais never get to use shields! Maybe we could go Kingdom Hearts style make a choice to choose/give up the Sword, Shield or Staff, depending on the player's priorities.
Or they could even pull a Dragon Age: Origins and have several different Origin stories for the protagonist? (This doesnt totally fly with me because of story cohesiveness but it's food for thought).

Anyway. Anyone have any thoughts about how Suikoden could be more customisable? Voice acting for Tenkais? Combat/armour customisation? Or is it going to continue fine as it is?

[Raww Le Klueze]

Armor customization is unlikely to happen, even if it only applied to the Tenkai, and the trade-off for that kind of thing is that there's a lot less armor to choose from or a lot of them look the same. Different outfits is probably doable, like they did with Snowe and a bit surprising it hasn't happened yet.

V already had the Prince don several outfits, why you couldn't pick which one you preferred by the end is beyond me.

Lack of choice is certainly something Suikoden has a problem with. Most of the time we get choices that boil down to yes and no, and if you pick no the response is just "Well, I'll just stand here till you change your mind then." Occasionally you get some faux-choice of where to join the battle but there are no consequences to this, I'd like it if there was actually some impact over choosing one over the other, not just which battle I personally took part in.

And when we do get a real choice it's usually detrimental to the player in some way to not go with what the game wants, choosing to defend the castle in V is a good example or executing Snowe or the imperial generals, sure you have the choice but you're screwed out of the best ending so how many player will pick that if they know the consequence. And you can always choose not to recruit someone, but who's going to do that in a serious playthrough?

More alternative stars could solve this problem somewhat, and not like Eresh/Euram but more like Ridley/Boris or Valeria/Kasumi, with a contextual story, say you encounter a group of escaped slaves, help them and they'll join or turn them in to the slave-traders and the slavers will join instead. Situations like that where you can get one or the other, so you're not forced to always do things one way. That would certainly help make playthroughs more unique if you can actually influence who joins you in some cases, changing your playable characters a bit as well as let you influence what kind of person your Tenkai is.

Makes data load a bitch for any future games though if you want more than passing references.

Actually, it's weird when I think about it, but the game that offers you the most choice (and that's not a whole lot in the grand scale of things) without screwing you over is Suikoden II, and that's one of the oldest games. You can run away at Tinto without screwing yourself, you get to choose between Kasumi and Valeria and you can choose to join either the battle at Greenhill or Muse or direct both from the HQ, choosing poorly in the HQ can get Adlai killed though.

[Nikisaur]

By armour type I more meant light/heavy/robe etc kind of stuff, rather than appearance. That could get tricky with cutscenes etc. Also with weapon types, Suikoden 4 pretty much had one weapon style for Jewel, Keneth, Paula, Jeremy, Ameria, Millay and I swear some others. Plus greatswords with Axel, Selma, Mitsuba... it makes sense that they could make a few different style for the Tenkais.

One thing I really like about the Mass Effect series is that although you make a whooole lot of choices, the protagonist is still a character in their own right. Male/female, honourable/renegade etc. Might not quiiiite fit with the Suikoden dynamic but I think they could play around with scenes with the Tenkai on their own, like in their room or something. Not every scene has to be dialogue only.

[ninjaluc79]

Well, most if not all Tenkai are usually more magicians than warriors, so it makes sense to have them wear light armors. So maybe if we really want our Tenkai to wear heavy armors and shields, then unless the Tenkai is named Klift the Paladin, we won't be seeing them wielding magic-type TR's. Kinda like Barbarossa Rugner, only that the TR is embedded in the weapon rather than equipped in the right hand.

If I think about it, maybe too much customization could make Suikoden NOT Suikoden. Just saying.

[Nikisaur]

Perhaps they've always been a mix because they weren't giving the player a choice, so went with a general medium range fighter with decent magic and access to most armours. Just because something has always been one way doesn't mean it can't change. Of course, the Tenkai would need enough magic to wield a True Rune, but that can easily be built into the game. There's no reason a heavy armour couldn't be a Tenkai as far as I'm aware, except for the fact it hasn't been done yet. Having a bit of variation isn't completely foreign, we did get to choose a Flame Champion.

Basically, my question to Suikosource was what could we do while still keeping it Suikoden.

[ninjaluc79]

Heavy armors are often portrayed in RPG's as physical combatants with low-to-medium-level magic powers. But well, if we're looking for a heavy armor TR bearer, we have Chris from Suikoden 3. Since True Water is mostly for healing, she fits the Paladin (healer-type Rune Knight) archetype.

Out of 27 TR's, only more than 10 are featured so far, so if Konami decides to continue with the Murayama universe (which is probably unlikely), there's still a lot of things that could happen, including a possibility for a heavy armor/shielder Tenkai.

[patapi]

I thought Bioware didn't too well when combining protagonist customisation with their in-series continuity.

Of course, now that we are venturing deep into realm of the Million Worlds/Infinity theory, and that the likelihood of a past Tenkai reappearing in a later installment is very unlikely, Konami does have a greater freedom to let players design characters of their choice.

[sticky-runes]

I like the idea of being able to choose a weapon style for the main hero, but agree that Tierkreis took it too far by making all characters have optional styles, and as a result we got crappy animation and the characters did not have anything unique about them because they were all stumpy polygons that basically did the same thing as anyone else using that kind of weapon.

It might also be nice to choose whether I want my tenkai to be a thief/bandit/pirate/mage or whatever, and that can affect the appearance of my character, whether he wears tunics or armour or robes.

The voice acting is more related to the silent protagonist thing which has been discussed a lot in other threads, so I won't go into that here.

But what I think would be good for Suikoden is if I could choose what kinds of relationships I wanted to form with other characters. Kind of like the marriage system in Skyrim, but not neccesarily having a "get married" feature (the main characters in suikoden games are usually a bit young for marriage anyway) I mean more like choosing a platonic relationship with one or more of my 108 recruits, and this can influence my characters' personality and responses to certain situations. So for example, I might want to become Kinnison and Shiro's hunting partner. Or I might want Oulan to become my surrogate big sis/aunty type and I might want Amada to be my big bro/uncle type figure. I might want to become closer to Hellion and have her as a grandmotherly adviser, or for Zegai to become my mentor.

We have 108 characters, but our closest relationships are all predetermined for us by the game, and we are left to imagine what kind of conversations we might have with some of the other characters, and it's a bit disappointing when some of my most used supporting characters just wander off at the end and don't get any special treatment. So, some relationship customization could be nice.

[Neclord X]

I've been saying this for years Suikoden mc should be customizable. May be not to the point where you pick race and all, this is not a mmorpg and shouldn't become one, but some variation and basic choice would be nice, such as hairstyle or appearance. For example I'd loved to play a Prince that look like his father and not like his mother ¬¬

But most important would be what Raww says, choices. TRUE choices "behead the general" and get the bad end or make him to join and get the good end. Which kind of choice is that?

Even if some choice would make things more difficult (one must deal with the consequences of your choices) it should be possible to get all the stars and therefore the good end. And it should work in both ways, sometimes picking the "bad" choices would make things worse, and sometimes picking the "good" option would make the things more difficult.

This is a bit too greedy, but it would be nice be able to even pick the side, if you want to join/lead the "Galactic evil empire" or the "rebels"

[sticky-runes]

Or perhaps playing "bad" rebels who want to overthrow a "good" empire...

[killerslime]

Multiple path choices are definitely needed for replay value, something that the current games lack in my opinion. I mean how many times has anyone chosen to recruit the kraken family in 2 or defended the castle in 5 while missing out on the best endings.

If Suikoden took a leaf out of Tactics Ogres book and had three different paths: a neutral path, a chaotic path and a lawful path it would really enhance the games and give the player more control. Neither of the three paths are the 'good' path or the 'bad' path, just different perspectives.

Suikoden games are at their best when they're not so black and white like 2 and 3. Its boring when we have an obvious baddie that the game wants us to hate and unidentify with like the Godwins or Windy.

[sticky-runes]

Yeah, but the games' "best" endings normally mean that the hero no longer has to put up with some whiny character who has been forcing their way into your party throughout a big chunk of the story. Is that really such a bad thing?

[ninjaluc79]

Hmm... interesting point.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. When somebody is forced into my party, there must be a reason for it so I try to find use for him/her no matter how bad his/her stats are. It has probably something to do with the fact that some early RPGs I have played have forced characters who were actually pretty powerful themselves.

Gremio usually serves as my Holy Rune bearer in a game that requires a rune just to run.

Nanami was my Spark Rune bearer because she has high SPD so her turn goes up before anyone else in my party, and with it on her slower characters can attack after her turn. I did pass the rune to Riou (since he has high SPD as well) when she was about to "die" in Rockaxe.

If anything, I wanted the hero to be more than just "the strategist's puppet" during war battles. Riou got this trait particularly hard, I really don't know about Tir but from what I understand about S1, he was actually a pretty good leader by himself. After all, Lepant said in S2 that he led thousands of warriors in battle.

It could range from choosing to go your own way and veto pretty much anything your strategist advises or try following him/her to the letter and see how things work out. If you try to go your own way, though, suck hard in war battles and you'll pay big for it.

Or something like that.

[Punkaiser]

Does anyone miss the Alignment system in Ogre battle?
I hope to see that getting implemented in a game again as : lawful, neutral, chaotic.
This also comes from the idea of suikoden 5 which represents Saint's Cloak(less 30 kills to equip) and Corruption Shell (more than 100 kills required)

Along with liking points system, each choice the Hero makes through dialogue, or his actions in battles(be it killing, healing or defending.etc.) will give him one or a few points towards the lawful(positive) or chaotic(negative) pole.

Chaotic-----------------(------Neutral-------)--------------------Lawful

Each character recruited bring different points to the party's alignment
( exemple:
Recruit Kirke= -10 points
Recruit Fukien = +15 points
Can't forgive Millich= -20 points
Ressurect Gremio= +20 points)

Everytime the alignment level increases, the hero or other characters could have access to the corresponding skill/rune/weapon/armor sets, may very well affect stats growth trend, affinities.etc.

The endings also could vary base on alignment, as usual chaotic ending might be something sad or evil while neutral & lawful ending could be either good or normal ending.

[sticky-runes]

Hmm... interesting point.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. When somebody is forced into my party, there must be a reason for it so I try to find use for him/her no matter how bad his/her stats are. It has probably something to do with the fact that some early RPGs I have played have forced characters who were actually pretty powerful themselves.

Gremio usually serves as my Holy Rune bearer in a game that requires a rune just to run.

Nanami was my Spark Rune bearer because she has high SPD so her turn goes up before anyone else in my party, and with it on her slower characters can attack after her turn. I did pass the rune to Riou (since he has high SPD as well) when she was about to "die" in Rockaxe.

I was on about their personalities rather than their stats. Whether Gremio and Nanami have good combat stats or not (I didn't think either of them were particularly amazing in combat) I still had to put up with a lot of annoying dialogue from them, and there were rare moments where I could wander off without them in my party and think "ah, this is nice..."

This could relate to what I said about customizable relationships, where I can decide which characters I want to become close to, and have somebody of my choice who backs me up during major scenes and accompanies me on most of the missions, instead of having the predetermined bodyguard/surrogate sibling character.

Suikoden 4 sort of gave us this, where you could decide which two knights would join you on missions, and they would end up following you during your exile, and this had an effect on a lot of the game's dialogue, and this was one thing that gave Suikoden 4 a bit of replay value. Of course, eventually you'd be reunited with the other knights that you didn't choose earlier, and the game would pretty much resume to normal. It would be nice to have something like that which effects how the story unfolds right to the end.