Rank the Opening Movies

[sticky-runes]

Rank the opening movies for each of the games you're familiar with (If you haven't played every single Suikoden game or seen every single opening sequence that's fine, I know I haven't, and I know some games had varying sequences for different regions)

Rank them any way you like, in order from best to worst, ratings out of 5 or 10 or % or whatever, just wanna hear your thoughts and comparisons. Just to be clear, i mean the animation that shows up before the title screen, not any cutscenes or events that occur during gameplay.

Suikoden 1 (6/10)
Visually dated like the rest of the game, but still has its charm, with those vibrant colours and flowy banner effects. The entire Suikoden 1 soundtrack is timeless, and that opening theme still gets me excited - it's still the theme that comes to mind when I see the name "Suikoden". And it includes scenes not in the game, such as Odessa, Humphrey and Flik getting into a fight with Imperial guards, and Barbarossa and Windy having a moment in the gardens. That shot of Gremio, Ted and the hero looking across the lake at the castle is iconic, shame we don't get to see it like that in the actual game!

Suikoden 2 (7/10)
The operatic intro is to die for, and I love how it plays in time with those images of the Highlanders splashing across the screen and halberds being raised. But if I'm completely honest, it goes a bit downhill once you get that shot of the sapling with a due drop sliding off - very cliche, I think. The theme that plays with all the good guys showing up is nice and all, but it's just not as exciting as all the operatic stuff with the Highlanders, and it kind of drags on, and the shots of Riou, jowy and Nanami are, again, a bit cliche and cheesy.

Suikoden 3 (4/10)
Love the Studio Gibli-esque anime with the beautifully painted backgrounds, but unfortunately, it's not consistent with the graphics during actual gameplay. I'm not actually that bothered by the stumpy polygons of S3, and the 3d environments are some of the most attractive from the entire series. But it feels like the opening sequence is saying "this is how we want you to pretend the game looks like, this is how the characters are supposed to look." And I'm not a fan of the whaling Japanese female vocals, which were used quite sparingly in S2's soundtrack, but they went all out with it in this game (I'm sure there's some cultural significance to that sort of music which I'm oblivious to, but I'm just giving my impression). The quotes seem quite redundant as well.

Suikoden 4 (9/10)
Say what you will about this game, the opening sequence was pretty awesome, mainly due to that la mer soundtrack. Catchy and energetic, not so cliche fantasy RPG, and probably not quite the soundtrack you'd expect from a Suikoden game, but it works. The graphics are consistent with the rest of the game, and its 100% animated (no fobbing us off with character stills like other openings). There are some unseen events, including the queen of Obel unleashing the Rune of Punishment, and even Ted makes an appearance looking across the sea at the phantom ship (a little homage to the scene of him looking at the Toran Castle in S1?) and I do like the little scene that sums up the comradery between the young knights, with Jewel admiring Snowe from afar and Tal slapping Lazlo across the back in his boisterous manner. I do have faults with this intro - the Texturizer filter seems a bit sloppy where they've tried to give it a tapestry kind of feel. Probably should have just kept it clean or gone for an aged paper/treasure map kind of effect. And all those underwater shots with dolphins - we don't see a single dolphin throughout the entire game!

Suikoden Tactics (2/10)
Well it starts off quite nice with the dreamy soundtrack, but then it finishes abruptly. And the flashing character profiles and in-game footage makes it feel more like a sequence intended for a demo disk that comes free with a magazine. Oh well, most of this game's effort went into the actual gameplay rather than visual appeal.

Suikoden 5 (4/10)
One of the worst IMO, since it practically contains in-game spoilers. The music is not bad, but it doesn't quite match up to other opening themes in the series. And some of the animations are quite bad, especially when you see Ferid approaching a young Lyon, it looked like it was taken from an animation student's unfinished project. We get fobbed off with a load of character stills, and oh look, there's that leaf with the water dripping off it again, how cute. Yawn. Worst thing about this opening is probably that close up of the prince's bloodshot eyeball - freaky. But at least we get some Georg closeups.

[Pyriel]

When you say "wailing Japanese female vocals" are we supposed to apply "wailing" and "Japanese" to the vocals or the females?

[Wolkendrache]

Imho the most important thing about the opening is the music theme. The animation is less important to me, but I’ll still try to include it into my rating…

S1 (6/10): I wholeheartedly agree with you in that this opening theme is the first to pop up in my mind when I hear “Suikoden”. Still, the opening theme is by far not my favorite theme of this game. It should be preceded by the “theme of the advancing army” connected to it, then it would not only be a little similar but also nearly as good as the S2 opening theme. Both theme and “animation” are not very complex, but the opening still manages to raise some excitement for the game.

S2 (10/10): This is still the most epic opening theme I’ve heard. I’m talking about the first part where Highland is introduced. The rest has a similar mood as the S1 intro. The “animation” correlates very well with the music, there are simple but good ideas for the animation like the two halves of the rune colliding. The theme is complex, there’s tragic, sorrow, joy etc, and I’m still listening to it once in a while after playing the game at least 10 times. This is all I need from a ’98 PS1 game intro.

S3 (5/10): The theme sounds tribal-ish and grassland-ish to me, which is good, and I actually like the song. The animation (without quotation marks) doesn’t correlate with the music because it’s just impossible. The theme has only one mood from beginning to the end, that’s why battle scenes and peaceful scenes are just randomly placed all over the intro. Good animation and good song, but the song is not really suitable as intro music.

S4 (7/10): I love the theme, and the animation has lots of good ideas like the “memory effect” or the underwater sequences where you can see everything from the eyes of a mermaid or so. Overall it has the same problem like the S3 intro, but I like the song much more and the animation is a little better arranged in accordance with music, but only as far as this is possible, because this song is also not really an intro theme to develop excitement for playing the game.

S5 (2/10): The theme is not really awful, but as an opening theme it’s absolutely lame. It doesn’t enthrall me and no excitement is raised. In fact it sounds more like an ending theme. No tragic, no passion, oh god, just skip it. The animation is actually a setback from S4, I guess they tried to imitate the S2 intro a bit, but that’s quite disappointing for a game which is about 8 years younger. It’s just underwhelming.

[sticky-runes]

When you say "wailing Japanese female vocals" are we supposed to apply "wailing" and "Japanese" to the vocals or the females?

wailing as in moaning/howling, not hunting for whales, oops!

[sticky-runes]

S3 (5/10): The theme sounds tribal-ish and grassland-ish to me, which is good, and I actually like the song. The animation (without quotation marks) doesn’t correlate with the music because it’s just impossible. The theme has only one mood from beginning to the end, that’s why battle scenes and peaceful scenes are just randomly placed all over the intro. Good animation and good song, but the song is not really suitable as intro music.

Now that you mention it, the S3 theme does have a tribal feel to it, which works well with the Grasslander tribes. I agree with what you said about the mood being the same all the way through. It would have been nice if they included some more European influences for the Zexens and created more of a feel of different cultures clashing.

[Pyriel]

I was genuinely curious what you meant, because the song isn't in Japanese.

Suikoden 3 is probably my favorite intro, if only because I saw it so many times. The intro for the original was simple, and a little strange. I didn't have the opportunity to play 2 until 3 had come out, so the 3D looked well dated and a little hokey in places by then. I found myself wishing they would have stuck with traditional animation because even if it appeared dated stylistically, it wouldn't have looked primitive after only 3-4 years.

I barely remember the intro for IV, and I have no recollection of the intro for V. Either I skipped them almost every time I played, or they just failed to make a lasting impression.

[Omnigamer]

I can only comment on 3 and 2 for the time being, but 3 is probably my favorite between the two. The audio track is quite wonderful and fits a lot of the emotion throughout the game. 2's is fairly bland in comparison and is pretty generic for RPGs of the time. It has more impact once you can draw some sense from the imagery (ie, playing the game) but by itself it's not great.

[sticky-runes]

I can only comment on 3 and 2 for the time being, but 3 is probably my favorite between the two. The audio track is quite wonderful and fits a lot of the emotion throughout the game. 2's is fairly bland in comparison and is pretty generic for RPGs of the time. It has more impact once you can draw some sense from the imagery (ie, playing the game) but by itself it's not great.

^ Good points.

[BrucePrintscreen]

S2 would be the best if it weren't for the crappy 3D. I disliked 3D at that time in videogames and now it has aged so badly it makes it even worse.

I'd say the best opening movie is the one for Suikogaiden 2 but that's the only nice thing I have to say about the Suikogaidens

[sticky-runes]

Yeah, Suikoden 2 could definitely have done without the use of 3d. I don't mind it so much in the opening because it gives fly-throughs of the castle and fields we can explore in the game, but the short cut scenes were totally unnecessary and totally out of place with the game's classical 2d appeal. And I'm someone who likes the 3d in 3 and 4.

[Neclord X]

S1: 4/10 the western one, was awful, 5/10 the normal.
S2: 6/10 has a really good momento and awesome music still it lacks something
SG1: 10/10 this is the pinacle of videogame anime openings
SG2: 9/10 not as good as the previous one but still pretty good
S3: 9/10 great music grat animation
S4: I don't even remember it honestly
S5: 5/10

[Sasarai10]

S1 4/10 nothing special
S2 10/10 the best...i grew up with it
S3 7/10 nice
S4 9/10 i loved the music in this one
S5 8/10 cool!!

[sticky-runes]

S1 4/10 nothing special

NOTHING SPECIAL??? That was our entry into the Suikoden world! (for people who played the games in release order any way)

[Sasarai10]

NOTHING SPECIAL??? That was our entry into the Suikoden world! (for people who played the games in release order any way)

in my case S2 was the first game i played, and S1 the LAST

[Neclord X]

S1 4/10 nothing special

NOTHING SPECIAL??? That was our entry into the Suikoden world! (for people who played the games in release order any way)

Dude, what you all "our entry" to the Suikoden world was basically a tráiler more than an opening, I mean, it even had scenes of the ingame battles. Unless you played the japanese versión with the original opening nostalgia is talking for you.