Wishlisst for new suikoden game

[Wolkendrache]

Other than living on a huge tree, none of the elves is depicted as protector of nature. Kinnison, Ayda, and maybe Badeaux, are all humans. What elves like most about the forest is that it separates them from humans. They don’t enchant them out of love or respect, they enchant them out of hate for humans. Speaking of hate, elves, dwarves and kobolds all hate each other in their great forest parallel world, out of stupid reasons just like humans do.

This is all fine, but Suikoden should give us reasons why it is all like that. I know why humans, elves and dwarves hate each other in the Tolkien universe, but Suikoden has only given some sketchy cliché reasons. I agree elves (as well as the other non-humans) should be more elaborated, I’d like to see more of their specific attitude and relationships, and I also want to know more about their “socio-historic” backgrounds.

I guess Suikoden introduced different races just for the sake of optical diversity. Races are being treated as any other kind of “subculture”. Ninja are living reclusive in a forest, have their own culture and way of life, similar to elves. There isn’t more to tell about elves than about ninja. Ninja are as different from other humans as elves are from humans (apart from appearance). Likewise, kobolds are closer to knights than tricksters or fishermen are, because knights and kobolds have a strong hierarchical and militaristic structure and glorify courage and honor and this kind of stuff. Maybe it’s us making a mistake by thinking in the wrong categories…

[BrucePrintscreen]

No, Suikoden is awesome because races are created ONLY to serve the greater purpose of telling a good story.

Elves only exists so that Suikoden 1 can have a Holocaust story. They exist so that Kwanda can look like Heinrich Himmler and Valeria like Oscar Schindler. If they had decided that the genocide was perpetrated against a certain type of human, it would have made the story too grim and make it too similar to real life not to hurt the sensibility of some people.

Wingers were created so that Two Rivers can have its own favela without having to portray some humans as ghetto dwellers.

Kobolds were created to make a people with ambiguous positions without looking like the authors of the game are discriminating some humans.

Every race in Suikoden has been created when the storytellers needed a group of people who would have looked unsensitive or offensive to the audience if they had been humans. Just try to tell yourself the story of Kwanda burning the forest or Ridley hesitating to join or the Wingers living in slums but instead of a different race they are just a subgroup of humans, and you will see my point.

[Wolkendrache]

Interesting point of view, I can see your point (if the wingers were black people…). So the reason why different races are under-elaborated is that they’re supposed to only serve a temporary plot part. It makes sense, but it doesn’t make it any better. If you introduce a certain group of people, race or subculture or whatever, you have to elaborate them to integrate them into the full context. I’m not criticizing Suikoden’s plot or story, I’m just not satisfied with the implementation of certain elements. Races in Suikoden do indeed do a fine job avoiding certain associations as you say, but reducing them to that purpose instead of telling us more about their backgrounds, their deeds in this world, reasons for their way of thinking etc. does actually NOT serve the greater purpose of telling a good story.

Elves only exists so that Suikoden 1 can have a Holocaust story. They exist so that Kwanda can look like Heinrich Himmler and Valeria like Oscar Schindler. If they had decided that the genocide was perpetrated against a certain type of human, it would have made the story too grim and make it too similar to real life not to hurt the sensibility of some people.

Then why does Kwanda have a german name? How indiscreet. At least they didn't call the elven village elder Schlomo or so...

[BrucePrintscreen]

Kwanda is a german name?

I do not agree, I think the story is perfect as it is precisely because NO background is given to us.

There is a tendency today to give far too much backstory, and to create ellaborated extended universes who only make things less believable than they were if they stuck to simple suggestions.

Take the wingers for example. I do not need to know more about them. What they are in the story already tells me enough. Where they are from and how they are structured, I can imagine it myself.

Telling a story relies a lot on leaving things to the imagination of the audience. When everything is overexplained, it's cheesy. I do not want to be told how the Wingers arrived there. I prefer to think about it myself.

That's why franchises die, it's because they become overexplained, they give a lot of fanservice by giving crappy little details that looks like a real legal system or history or sociology, but those are not needed in storytelling. I mean, this is a fantasy world with magical runes and people with wings, why do I need to know if they have a bicameral system...

This is how they killed Star Wars already. There is a moment when I need to dream, not to nerd out on everything.

[Wolkendrache]

Quander Rossmann, which I believe would be the correct transcription, is a german name, at least Rossmann for sure.

What are you talking about? Of course the game gives us background! Have you never talked to the people in the games, or read the old books, or sent Richmond for investigations? If you go to the church of Tinto, a citizen will tell you that the church was built to pray for the safety of the miners. On the other hand the game lets elves mention who they hate but don’t really tell us why. So it seems there’s an underexplaining of some important aspects and an overexplaining of minor stuff.

As much as I love Suikoden, I don’t think it’s absolutely perfect. As much as I respect Murayama, I think if he had had more time he would have done even better. He wouldn’t have used additional time to think about stuff to omit or not explain, I think he would’ve gone deeper into certain elements.

I don’t need to know why Rubi has green hair while Urda is blonde. I don’t need to know why the wingers have wings. But since wingers, kobolds and humans live together in that city, and because it’s important to the story, I’m very interested in the author’s idea of how that happened, and why the constellation is as such (wingers = slums). This wouldn’t be overexplaining, it would be the perfect degree of explanation in my opinion. I’m not familiar with Star Wars, maybe you’re right at that example, but none of the franchises I know died because they were overexplained. I agree leaving stuff to the imagination of the player is important, but you must carefully decide what.

[sticky-runes]

Well, Tolkien created an entire mythology about how the races and creatures in his Middle-Earth came into being and it didn't seem to do his following any harm

But I'm not really talking about creating back stories for the races in Suikoden, I'm talking about introducing new creatures VS re-using creatures that already exist. Suikoden 3 has Lizard people - ok, cool, but we never see them again in any other game. Instead of saying "S3 had lizards and ducks - lets put cats in S4. And then lets put beavers in S5." why don't they try doing more with the creatures they've already featured in past games? We never got to recruit any female kobolds before, what would it be like to have a kobold huntress in our army? what would it be like to have a Winger who is a sorceress?

To be honest, the games haven't really been all that creative with their demi human characters. Gengen was basically Kuromimi, Landis was basically Sid with a scythe, and all the lizard characters in S3 looked exactly the same to me, I couldn't tell them apart. As for the beavers, I try to pretend they don't exist when I play S5. That's another risk with introducing new creatures in a game - they try to be cute and lighthearted with the idea of a fuzzy race of teddy bear creatures, and it ends up looking silly.

[Wolkendrache]

I’m 100% with you there, I’d prefer the existing races being refined and elaborated over new races introduced. Not that the latter would be too disastrous, but we’ve had enough of that. Or why not both? I don’t need a female kobold or winger for parity reasons, but if it’s an interesting character, why not. I will never forgive the S2 team that they didn’t give Susu an avatar and a more prominent role, hell, she’s the most respectable and reasonable person in all of Two River.

Yes, Kuromimi and Gon are too similar to Gengen and Gabocha. What pains me is that I’m still waiting for an elf or kobold I can look up to. They’re all either idiots or assholes or annoying or boring, even though brave and cute or whatever. They don’t have a Viktor or Flik or Valeria or Georg or you name it. As for beavers, chief asshole star of heaven Moroon saved the others: he looked so ridiculous that he made the others look good, and he makes Rubi look like a tolerant and liberal person.

If you guys were to introduce a new race, what would it be?

[sticky-runes]

The beavers just did not look consistent with the human characters of Suikoden 5. At least the kobolds and wingers looked like they fit in with the Suikoden world, but the beavers were too cartoony, they looked like they had been taken out of a completely different game.

The beavers and dwarves got along quite well in Falena, so couldn't they have just made them out to be river dwarves? So the river dwarves specialize in carpentry and building dams while the cave dwarves specialize in mining, or something like that.

[Antimatzist]

If you think about it, the different races are always located on a very small spot. Only Kobolds (Dunan and Toran), Elves (Toran, Island Natons and Falena) and Dwarves (Toran and Falena) have spread out to a certain extent. I think the dwarves in V even give a small comment about their northern counter parts, but it's never explained if they stem from the same origin or were "created" entirely independently.

What pains me is that I’m still waiting for an elf or kobold I can look up to.

Ridley? Roland? Gau (from III)? They were all pretty serious characters, but I see your point, these are exceptions to the rule. IV especially did a terrible job, both elves are lame (Paula is just very bland, Selma is an asshole for no reason) and the Nay-Kobolds even lack their Ridley (they are all comic relief).

I hate to bring this up, but: Suikoden Tierkreis. In that game, even more new races got added, but they explained it with the Infinity merging thing. They all come from different worlds. Maybe the different races in the normal Suikoden games also come from other dimensions, who knows (and I don't want to know). It would explain their local restrictions,a t least a bit.

I would love to see a whole Kobold nation, several cities and villages instead of only one village named "Kobold". Putting the racial diversion conflicts on a larger scale would be epic and a lot more interesting. Kobold Republic vs. another nation. But I guess they would also itnruduce furry girls, which I would hate. But having a human minority would be a very interesting plot point.

[sticky-runes]

Tierkreis actually did have decent cultures like the Furious Roar and those Rhinoceros people, can't remember what they were called, but they had really cool character designs, they were more diverse with each race's sexes, ages and personalities among the characters we could recruit, and they even had their own religions. Too bad the game sucked over all. The magedom was an awesome idea as well, and they wasted that.

[Wolkendrache]

On the whole I’m fine with beavers and dwarves in S5 (just modify Moroon). Dwarves and water don’t fit, so obviously beavers are a good choice as dam constructors. Perhaps Fuwalafuwalu, Maroon and Muroon would’ve been enough, but the others add the family relationship/reunion theme, a popular theme throughout the series. In my opinion Gengen and especially Gabocha look as cartoony as beavers, maybe even more.

Ridley? I can’t look up to someone who likes flogging his underlings. I don’t know the guys from S3, but it’s not about being serious. Look, Viktor isn’t entirely serious, he’s very entertaining with his “flaws”, and he has powers and virtues that make us look up on him.

I haven’t played Tierkreis, but if there’s a different dimensions theme important to the story, then of course this must be explained at least to some degree. In the main games however this is not really a theme. Tensions between different races is a theme, so some explanation is appropriate, but shouldn’t go so far as to explain how wingers developed wings or why kobolds have fur, or where elves originally come from, or why dwarves love mining. What’s not important to the particular story can be left to the player’s imagination.

I’d prefer humans keep being the majority in Suikoden games. What I like about the other races is that they’re (supposed to be) special. Other races have or should have special abilities: wingers can fly; elves should, for example, have a perception and farsight superior to humans; dwarves are excellent blacksmiths, miners and even engineers (firewind cannon), and should be very sturdy; kobolds, like dogs, should make use of their smelling ability (smell the enemy from a far distance, and excellent for searching stuff); beavers, regarding abilities, are actually fine the way they are. They will only be special as long as they’re a minority. Btw, I love to see random kobold and winger etc. travelers in various inns throughout the Suikoden world.

[suiken]

Having Elves equip bows already implies that they are a good/great marksmen. Asking where this humanoid beasts came from is like asking which came first, the egg or the chicken.

I noticed that each humanoids only have one or two resettlement in each Suikoden games and won't find them in other villages.

Suikoden I:
Elf Village
Kobold Village
Dwarf Village

Suikoden II:
Two-River City
Kobold Village

Suikoden III:
Great Hollow
Duck Village

Suikoden IV:
Nay-Kobold Village
Na-Nal Elves Village (not explorable)

Suikoden V:
Dwarf Cave
Beaver Lodge

I have yet to see a village where both humans and humanoids co-resides. I don't know much about III since I never played it much. Two-River City doesn't count as they have segregation for each races.

[s21]

I don’t need to know why the wingers have wings. But since wingers, kobolds and humans live together in that city, and because it’s important to the story, I’m very interested in the author’s idea of how that happened, and why the constellation is as such (wingers = slums).

it's already explained if you talked to chaco's grandma