My Problems With Each Suikoden

A forum for all general Suikoden related topics.
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TMan
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My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by TMan »

Suikoden 1- Ugly as sin. Unforgivably bad colors for its time. The box art makes almost no sense. That's about it.

Suikoden 3- The World Map. Unique, but it made exploring super un-fun. The combat. Hitting a guy and then standing there next to him somehow looks even more unnatural and annoying than jumping in and out of formation, in turn.

Suikoden 4- I was just out of a surgery and on drugs galore when I played this. I barely remember anything except how annoying it was travelling across the sea. Also was disappointed by lack of references to other games outside the whole Ted thing.

Suikoden 5- The Sindar Ruins made me want to kill myself. The camera is too detached from the events. The voice acting didn't do it for me.

Suikoden 2- Nothing, fark you.
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Belle
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by Belle »

TMan wrote:Suikoden 4- I was just out of a surgery and on drugs galore when I played this. I barely remember anything except how annoying it was travelling across the sea.
Don't worry, most people had the same experience sober. :P
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sticky-runes
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by sticky-runes »

Suikoden 2 - The war battles, they were f#cking sh!t. Worst in the whole series.
TMan
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by TMan »

Don't worry, most people had the same experience sober.
hehehe So I'm told. I actually do remember liking at least one of the characters though, and I found a certain romance in the ship-castle.


As for Suikoden 2's big battles. Yes, they weren't perfect, but they were far from shoot. They, in my opinion, were successful at their primary purpose- showing the scope of the war in the game and allowing the player to participate in it.

Having said all this. I've just bought my very first PS2 and Suikoden 3,4,5. I already own one and two. It's marathon time, baby.

Just have to tell my job, family, and bills to take a break from me for a couple of months. I'm sure that'll be fine, right?
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sticky-runes
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by sticky-runes »

They, in my opinion, were successful at their primary purpose- showing the scope of the war in the game and allowing the player to participate in it.

BARELY. I ended up getting fed up with the battles towards the end, and spent the liberation of Greenhill in the war room with Apple. Turned out to be more fun.
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gildedtalon
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by gildedtalon »

Yeah, Greenhill battle was hell when you go with Kiba's group. You actually have to kill Yuber, only God knows how long
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LadyCyclone
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by LadyCyclone »

I love Suikoden 2's war battles, not to mention the music that goes with it. Suikoden 5's war battles were rather annoying - trying to attack someone, only to have the camera move because some other random unit is attacking someone else.

Suikoden 1's graphics were great! I prefer games where you have the opportunity to use your imagination - that's the beauty of 2D games.

The worst thing about 5 is BY FAR that Deep Twilight Forest. It actually puts me off from playing. I found the Sindar Ruins boring and tedious after the initial hunt for them when you first meet Zegai and Lorelai.

Can't comment on 3; stopped playing it about an hour into the game when I got stuck as Hugo and his duck friend (I think) running off into the night. As for 4 - again, did not play til the end because it was that crap.
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Belle
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by Belle »

I have to agree that Suikoden 2's war battles were probably the worst. Despite unit customization, it was still far too random with the outcome... though this sometimes resulted in some amusing dialogue *remembers Viktor complaining about fire spears not working when his unit CLEARLY DAMAGED AN ENEMY UNIT*

Oh sure, strategy SOMETIMES mattered if you wanted to end it quickly. Other times, Shu just kind of dictated things and you waited for him to stop waxing his carrot long enough to pull back the troops. (And then there was that bizarre Matilda border battle in which helpless unarmed refugees were somehow capable of fully defeating an armored cavalry unit with crazy high stats...okay, you didn't have to participate in that one if you didn't want to, but that was a little too weird for me.)

I prefer a cross between Suikoden 3 and Suikoden 5 for war battles... Suikoden 3 based it on actual character stats, which made the most sense to me. If you didn't level up your characters, you were fucked. In Suikoden 5, well, yes... rock-paper-scissors did return, but I liked the fact that some specially assembled units had a clear advantage over the average enemy unit... and not just some +3 defense or special bombardment tech that didn't help you at all in the last three battles.
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Nikisaur
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by Nikisaur »

Suikoden 2's war battles were my favourite... I loved how they were like a tactical rpg like (Fire Emblem) and I don't care what anyone says I will always love them. Sometimes there were too many scripted losses/withdrawals but that only made it more realistic. Unlike 5 where you win every battle because Lucretia is a Mary Sue who can do no wrong. 5's battles were cool though, I just wish you could pause while you gave orders because some of those maps are HUGE. Also it sucked when your unit lost a battle and tried to escape, only to run into a unit or a wall or something. Would have been better if you could choose a retreat direction.
The only thing Suikoden lacks...is dinosaurs.
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gildedtalon
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by gildedtalon »

The game pauses while you give orders. Did you forget?
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EstrangedIX
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by EstrangedIX »

I didn't like the excess of predetermined outcomes in II, but I'd take that any day over V's juggling act. To me, III has the best war system, but combining that style and II's somehow would be great. Having character stats actually be relevant to the battles really did make sense (thank you Belle). I hate Shu more than Lucretia, but I prefer Silverbergs. Lucretia is too psychic and Shu's just a dick.

There's probably a discussion on here somewhere about how the cover art for the first game makes no damn sense. That's pretty much something everyone agrees on. But I swear I'm the only one who isn't bothered by sailing in IV.
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Antimatzist
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by Antimatzist »

LadyCyclone wrote:Suikoden 1's graphics were great! I prefer games where you have the opportunity to use your imagination - that's the beauty of 2D games
It's got nothing to do with imagination, the colours are bland and the spritework isn't as good as in Suikoden II or SNES titles of the time, imo. I don't really like playing I because it's.. well, not ugly, but definitely not appealing to the eye.

Suikoden: You can't run without a rune, which makes replaying the game a pain. Imo it's worse than sailing.
Suikoden II: Nothing really except the many translations errors, especially in the German version. Sometimes they kept English text, sometimes they had French text (all recruitings in Rokkaku and Gregminster are in French, so I thought the people of the Toran Republic are speaking French.)
Suikoden III: Yeah the world map.
Suikoden IV: Sailing is a pain, but it's even more a pain because there is so little to explore. Then: invisible borders you canot cross until a certain point in the story. Makes no sense on the sea. They could have at least say something like "No, the wind here is too strong for our ship's sails"
Suikoden V: War battles were hard to manage, RTS doesn't really work on the PS2, but I liked the battles. I think they could have gone a little bit more all-out with the graphics, imo it lacks detail and the colour isn't right somehow.
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Neclord X
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by Neclord X »

Suikoden 1 - Nothing worth of mention
Suikoden 2 - Stupid high required levels for underpowered characters. Go and talk Genshu with a lv 14 weapons just to see he has a lv 30 and shoot weapon level. Underpowered characters in general, Clive with weapon at max does almost no damage, any random average mage like Milie is better
Suikoden 3 - Map, not a "problem" really, but it was a bit boring.
Suikoden 4 - YADA YADA YADA Suikoden 4, what are you talking about? Such a thing doesn't even exist.
Suikoden 5 - Ruins of the Lake, FUUUUUUUUUUuu, too long and too much combats and no saving points nearbt
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sticky-runes
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by sticky-runes »

Nikisaur wrote:Suikoden 2's war battles were my favourite... I loved how they were like a tactical rpg like (Fire Emblem) and I don't care what anyone says I will always love them. Sometimes there were too many scripted losses/withdrawals but that only made it more realistic.
WAY too many scripted battles. As the player, I want control over the situation. I also want a sense of accomplishment from winning a battle, not wasting my efforts fighting a battle that I'm supposed to lose anyway. Half of Suikoden 2's major battles might as well have been cut scenes.
EstrangedIX wrote: There's probably a discussion on here somewhere about how the cover art for the first game makes no damn sense. That's pretty much something everyone agrees on. But I swear I'm the only one who isn't bothered by sailing in IV.
Luckily, the PAL version didn't have that dodgy looking 80s fantasy artwork with Windy's cleavage and Ted's pecks on the front cover, we got that nice mural with the hero and other characters behind him (which is pretty much what all the other titles went with for their front cover)

I didn't mind the actual sailing in S4, it was nice with the free roaming camera, and we got the other ships following us which was cool to look at, and I particularly like sailing around Illuya's waters with the dark clouds and rain drops, that all looked very pretty.

My problem with sailing in S4 was the encounter rate - that really ruined it for me. The weird thing is, I always felt that Suikoden 1 & 2 should have had random encounters with water based monsters when you sail in the lakes and rivers because we only get piddly little fishing boats, but in Suikoden 4 we have that massive ship armed to the teeth, and end up fighting off bats and furballs and little hermit crabs. And then we get attacked by that land shell monster which is bigger than the ship, you'd think we'd just blast it with rune cannons. And it was frustrating when you sailed too close to a cliff just missing the dock, and had to wait for the ship to turn itself around (which would result in more random encounters - AGGGH! :evil: )

But if I really wanted to enjoy sailing, I'd wait 'til I got the champion rune and then go around with the fishing net to pick up treasure, that was a nice relaxing thing to do. :mrgreen:
TMan
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Re: My Problems With Each Suikoden

Post by TMan »

Oh, Suikoden V, forgot to mention- LOADING TIMES. Also I forgot to mention I was also on some lesser meds while playing this from another surgery (I'm healthy now, I swear!) and I don't remember which ruins it was that destroyed me, Sindar or Lake or whatever.

Okay, I'll admit that the thing that bothered me S2s big battles was the fact that some magic attacks and arrow attacks occasionally did zero damage for no discernible reason. I enjoyed the overall cutscene nature of them though.
And it was frustrating when you sailed too close to a cliff just missing the dock, and had to wait for the ship to turn itself around (which would result in more random encounters - AGGGH! )
This makes me pretty glad I don't remember IV.
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