Why are there so many useless Characters in Suikoden I?

[Kirke]

In each of the Suikoden games, they had to do a little stretching to have 108 characters. 108 is a LOT of characters. Some games can have 8 (or less) and be fine, but Suikoden has at least 100 more, plus NPCs. I can see a group of game designers sitting in a conference room at 1:00 AM stuck on number 73, and having to resort to some shenanigans to get all 108 filled. And that's where 5 blacksmiths, a castle greeter, and a bath maker come in.

Suikoden I was much more simple than the other 3 games, but had just as many characters. Keep in mind, programming in a cooking/Ritapon minigame, adding features like a detective or farmer, or designing unique characters like lycanthropes, takes additional programming time and more development time, and I don't think that they were anticipating having to do so much to make 108 unique characters. So Suikoden 1 does suffer a few more useless characters than the others.

[Ska_Kitti]

I'd think with any other game, perhaps Konami decided to have the player have all uses for each of the 108 SODs. However later on in GS2, they may have realized that not everyone uses Onil, Marie or Lukian, so they made up support characters instead.

[kelvingarinkz]

i think that all 108 characters from all suikoden series is not useless ... well, each has different roles in the army and it is just their degree of importance which makes them look 'useless'

for example Onil. she actually takes Taki, Picollo, Deborah and Fuwalafuwalu's role as castle gossipmonger whom you may want to talk to when you are stuck with the game. They give you hints as directions to continue with the game

as for Qlon and the other 107 sod from s1, i think they are not useless because they do participate in the strategy war ... as i've said earlier, it is just a matter of their degree of importance ... Qlon's may not be as important as Crowley's who is a leader of a magician unit

Marlowe Cody in s2 although he doesnt participate in strategy war, he indeed plays a role during Neclord's occupation in Tinto as helps out protecting ... is it Tinto or Crom ... i can't really recall from the zombies. He has then a role in the storyline

other characters like Tuta who looks useless can be used in battles as well as strategy war. Also the mermaids in s5 ... they are the one who navigate the ships which are meant to be destroyed by the rune cannons before Lazlo and co. can attack Fort El-Eal


as for Esmeralda who has won the award for the most useless character which i read in some threads, is also not as useless as she may seems. she is part of the Narcisst unit which is a magician unit and there are not many magicians unit in s1 ... also if im not wrong, her unit is among the top3
she also part of the Narcist in suikoden series who has unique background music as well as outfits
and if im not wrong, there's a picture of her together with Millich and Vincent and also Simone in suikogaiden vol.2 ??? or somewhere else which i think is official
so her appearance in suikoden cant be said to be useless as she indeed plays some roles in suikoden series which may not be as important as some of the major characters

^^

[widjaja23]

people who made suikoden just wanted to make 108 characters

[RangerDeon]

I'll just insert my 25 cents. . ..

Of course there are a lot of useless characters in Suikoden 1. I mean, it was the first installment of the Suiko-series and when the creators made the second, third and so on, they added extra things to them that the first lacked. Not all of the characters can be fighters, and the game itself lacked support characters (you know, like in Suikoden III) so those who weren't fighters just filled up the castle.

With that said, we should realize that even though they didn't do much in the castle (there is, honestly, only a few who have no actual reason being there -- while there are some who are there because their master/boss/lover is there), that they were used in the big war-type battles and increased the number of soldiers you had in your army -- increasing the amount of times you could make a mistake and pick the wrong choice without losing completely. . . which, ultimately, makes them very useful to the army.

[FUUSUULUU]

There are many useless characters in all of the suikodens.

[Oppenheimer]

Well, it gives you some variety. If you wanted to challenge yourself you can put in a weak character instead of putting in some of the power houses.

[ninjaluc79]

Indeed. Doing so actually gives you some kind of challenge. Heck, using weak characters in a Suikoden game is a better challenge than trying to accomplish an FF game with only level 1 characters.

[Antimatzist]

I hate it when you put much effort in recruiting a character and he is basically useless. The best example imo is Travis. He's the last character you recruit, you must go through Obel Dungeon twice.. and well, he's just a character. You may never use him and in the end it says, that he stays in Obel Dungeon and you never see him again. Omg.

They should have done it in Suikoden I like they did it later in Tierkreis: Make nearly every character usable in battle. Then some characters had at least one purpose. Even though I liked how every character made your castle a bit mor livable due to the lack of NPCs in your castle.

[Belle]

I hate it when you put much effort in recruiting a character and he is basically useless. The best example imo is Travis. He's the last character you recruit, you must go through Obel Dungeon twice.. and well, he's just a character. You may never use him and in the end it says, that he stays in Obel Dungeon and you never see him again. Omg.

God, I hate that guy. Even Onil served an actual purpose.

[Antimatzist]

I hate it when you put much effort in recruiting a character and he is basically useless. The best example imo is Travis. He's the last character you recruit, you must go through Obel Dungeon twice.. and well, he's just a character. You may never use him and in the end it says, that he stays in Obel Dungeon and you never see him again. Omg.

God, I hate that guy. Even Onil served an actual purpose.

Oleg's great too. This was the first game with actuel video sequences and he had a camera - why not make him a character where you can view all video sequences!? Is this so farfetched? No, instead he does nothing after his plot purpose.

Or Haruto. You don't need a cartographer, since you have a map from the very first minute of the game. And he really does nothing. Even Tov has more purpose.

Someone here said something about the other mermaids - yeah, everyone of them is useless except one. But I think you see all of them in a story sequence near the end!? Still, gameplaywise they do nothing except writing you stupid comments.



Now that I think about it, Suikoden IV has the most useless characters. Suikoden I was the first, and one of the first RPGs for the PSX, so you cant excpect too much from it yet, but Suikoden IV came out at the best time for PS 2 games...