a reason for the relative easiness?

Detailed hypotheses for, and analysis of, the events transpiring during the Suikoden games
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Chaco
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Chaco »

Final Bosses:
Suikoden: SUPER easy. It takes almost no preperation to kill this guy.
Suikoden II: Easy if you know what your doing.
Sukoden III: I found this one a long battle but not a "hard" battle forsay.
Suikoden IV: This one was average.
Suikoden V: I found this one hardest. Not sure if it's just me, or i was overconfident but it was tougher then the others.
Hardest: Suikoden 5

Random Battles:
Suikoden: Again not that difficult.
Suikoden II: They can be hard in certain areas unless you do the Matilda Glitch.
Sukoden III: I found the random battles in this game the most difficult.
Suikoden IV: Again about average difficulty.
Suikoden V: The Randoms were not hardest but there where so many that they were tough since the characters were weaker each battle. Plus they attacked every like 4 steps.
Hardest: Suikoden 3

Battle System/Formation:
Suikoden: Simple set up, Unites and formations easy and status effects easy to get rid of.
Suikoden II: Suikoden 2 was actually better then 1 sinc eit had magic unites, new runes ect.
Sukoden III: This one was the hardest since you had that STUPID pairing system and frinedly fire. It made the true fire rune harder to use. HOWEVER Skills were introduced and they made the game unique and enjoyable.
Suikoden IV: Only 4 people allowed at a time, no skills anymore and menu was done poorly.
Suikoden V: Had skills once again yay. Also the new formations system was crazy in my opinon it made things to complex. The system itself however worked well and we were allowed 6 characters once again!
Hardest: Suikoden 3

Puzzles/Dungeons:
Suikoden I: The dungeons were kinda crazy (that stupoid wheel in the mansion) and long at times but other times not so much.
Suikoden II: Suikoden 2's dungeons were pretty easy. I had no trouble with the wind cave and they were liner at times.
Sukoden III: Very straightforward dungeons. They could be followed easily and I normally knew the route to take.
Suikoden IV: There were barley any dungeons to begin with howevere the ones it did have were easy.
Suikoden V: I found them quite maze like in this game, a lot more detailed.
Hardest: Suikoden 5

Character Gathering:
Suikoden I: It was very easy to get all 108 in this game. Half the people join you just by talking to them!
Suikoden II: This game had some tougher sidequests but still very easy to recruit if you knew exactly how. I ahd trouble with
Sukoden III: The three POVS made it easier since you had three chances to get someone and I didn't find this one to difficult when it came to character gathering.
Suikoden IV: This game I had trouble because it was annoying traveling back and fourth between islands so I didn't get a lot of people until I got Viki. That said this one had some tricky ones to get and I found this one the 2nd hardest to get everyone.
Suikoden V: Had very detailed sidequests and the characters were the hardest to recruit in this game. This game had a lot of backstory behind people not important to the story and there were a lot of characters you had to get at a certain point.
Hardest: Suikoden 5

Sorry it was so long, but as you can see Suikoden 3 in my case is hardest, then 5 then 4, then 1 and finally easiest being 2. (2 easier since I played 1 prior to it)
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Silver Dragon Flik
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Silver Dragon Flik »

In my opinion one of the thing that makes the game so easy is the rune magic.
I guess I'll do the same.. and this is without any extra leveling up. Just going through the story and defeating enemies on the way and getting 108 SoD.

Final Bosses:
Suikoden: Really easy, the only thing that made it harder was the immunity.

Suikoden II: Can be annoying but given the very powerful runes in S2, it was really easy.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v_OaYVT8sk my battle against the final boss)

Sukoden III: Not played, but seen it on youtube. Didn't seem much harder than S2

Suikoden IV: This is the only boss that defeated me on the first try. But with Ted's Soul Eater and the powerful unit of Snowe and Lazlo this boss was a little harder and took a little longer to beat.

Suikoden Tactics: Pretty hard if you didn't watch out. (Not counting that rune cannon 1 on 1)

Suikoden V: Killed it in a few turns on the first try.
Hardest: Suikoden Tactics

Regular Bosses:
Suikoden: Most bosses had a good amount of HP to least long. Bosses didn't move more than once which made it harder since all power was focused on 1 attack. So it could rape your party. Image Luca just attacking once but it's 3 times as strong! Pahn vs. Teo is hard if you don't know exactly the quotes.

Suikoden II: Only the first boss was a little difficult if you didn't level up. The rest didn't least more than 3 turns, except Luca. But IMO he isn't that hard either. Just get as many Fire Emblem's as possible. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXedbsqAQls my battles against Luca, without leveling up) Bosses in this game just didn't have enough HP or defence to least long against powerful runes.. But now more bosses could use Runes too which could be deadly. Culgan and Seed were dead in 2 rounds.

Suikoden III: Not played, but some bosses really seemed difficult to me. 3 chimera's, Yuber, Sarah and Luc seemed very hard. If you didn't kill a lot right off the bat I'm sure you're in trouble.

Suikoden IV: The first Suikoden where it was easy to revive fallen characters. But there were barely any bosses in this game! And none gave me a hard time, except Moving Island if you had too many short range characters.

Suikoden Tactics: Bosses were a little more tough but most of them were easily defeated with 3 powerful attacks.

Suikoden V: Bosses barely had any HP, I could even kill some in 1 turn...

Hardest: Don't know lol but I guess Suikoden was a tad bit harder than the rest.


Random Battles:
Suikoden: The random battles were so easy, thanks to Kai unite and Hell which eliminated harder enemies. And one enemy with a lot of HP: Deadly Fingertips. Complete dungeons without getting hit.

Suikoden II: The beginning could a little challenging. But after the Syndar Ruins there wasn't much difficulty anymore... Especially that most party's couldn't survive Dancing Flames or The Sheddering.

Sukoden III: I WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME!!!!!

Suikoden IV: I think the random battles could be a tough, as the normal Kooluk guys could cast runes too and had quite some HP. But again the runes raped enemy party's, but not as easily like in S2.

Suikoden Tactics: Yay no random battles

Suikoden V: EASY
Hardest: Suikoden 4

Battle System/Formation:
Suikoden: Easy to get used to and you can cast a lot of spells. But can only equip 1 rune.

Suikoden II: Very good combat system, lot's of different runes to choose from. Either put on weapons, more rune magic to equip.

Sukoden III: Cannot play this one...

Suikoden IV: Dumbed down unfortunately...

Suikoden Tactics: You have skills again, you can use 10 characters which is nice. Battles required good thinking. I got quite some game overs.

Suikoden V: New formations.. don't see what was so great about that.
Hardest: Suikoden Tactics

Puzzles/Dungeons:
Suikoden I: Dungeons can be easily cleared in 5-10 minutes max.
Suikoden II: Dungeons took a little longer but not that bad. The Syndar, for the maze, and Matilda, for the high enounter rate, were the worst IMO.

Suikoden IV: There were barley any dungeons to begin with howevere the ones it did have were ANNOYING!!!

Suikoden Tactics: None...

Suikoden V: Only the Syndar related dungeons were a pain, I had to use maps to clear them.
Hardest: Suikoden 5

Character Gathering:
Easy but I use guides to find them.
Suikoden I: Easy except some required some dropped items to find. And keeping Pahn alive can be challenging. Found all on my own. But the last blacksmith and Leon could be tricky to recruit.

Suikoden II: Not that hard either, and found them on my own.
This was before I had internet, so it was quite challending but with a guide none are hard to find or take a long proces to recruit.

Suikoden IV: Also very easy.

Suikoden Tactics: Very easy to find, I think the easiest.

Suikoden V: A lot of characters are missable, some were very short termed. And a lot had extra dungeons and quests to do. AND THE MOST ANNOYING CHARACTER: Where you had to raise and lower the price of salt..... Dang that was so annoying!!!
Hardest: Suikoden 5


Mayor battles:
Suikoden: Just lucky Rock, Paper Scissors but the ninja's made it easy.

Suikoden II: Battles were also easy since most were just time limits, you didn't have to do much. Also required some luck, but it wasn't so bad. But I liked these battles.

Suikoden III: On youtube these seemed pretty hard to me, but I liked how it also depended on your levels and equipment.

Suikoden IV: OMG these were so easy.

Suikoden Tactics: Didn't have any.

Suikoden V: Nice system, except that it could be very chaotic. Going from land to sea all the time. But IMO the battles were not very hard.

Hardest: While it's hard to decide, I think Suikoden III. Otherwise Suikoden V
JanusThePaladin
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by JanusThePaladin »

The major battles in S3 were flipping rediculous! Who the hell would use their rune that does double damage on the opponent with only 20 hp?
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rhombus
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by rhombus »

I would actually argue that Suikoden is one of the harder RPG series around. For people on this site or in the "suikoden community" perhaps not, but as a casual gamer, even as a casual RPG fan, Suikoden offers some unique challenges.

First off, other than S4, the game has very different and unique ways of dealing with death/revival and inventory management. I know plenty of people get stuck early in Suikoden games cause they're used to being able to resurrect, which in general, isn't easy to do early in the games (sacrificial jizos are rare/too expensive early on, and you won't have a resurrection rune either). The limited party inventory, and having to equip healing items also can lead to situations where the party isn't ready for a tough encounter. A tough STRING of encounters can really throw you for a loop if you're poorly stocked and been throwing out those medicines.

Money management is also a tricky issue for some. In most RPG's (at least console RPG's) you'll occasionally have to spring for new weapons and new armor, but otherwise you don't spend much. Usually by the end of those games you have millions of gold (or whatever the currency is) and nothing to even spend it on, as in most games all the "elite" stuff is found in the field or from sidequests, etc. In Suikoden you ALWAYS need some amount of money to keep those weapons sharpened, not to mention the armor upgrades, and even end-game you find yourself maxing out your money just to spend it all in sharpening the weapons of just a small fraction of your army. Yes, there are some "tricks" to making money in just about all the Suikoden games, but I'll get to that a bit later. What this boils down to is, don't flee too much!

Also, the way Suikoden deals with magic can be quite tricky to some. Ya it's superpowerful, but that's balanced by the fact that you get such a limited amount of spells. Early and mid-game, pure mage characters are more or less a liability, dragged along only for boss fights or the occasional overwhelming random battle - I think mages were shafted the most in S4, with only 4 characters, a higher encounter rate, and no true front row to shield them. The fact that runes also must be equipped in towns (or at your base) means that once you're out in the field, you better be happy with your set-up, both individually, and party-wide - it's bad to realize halfway through a dungeon that no one has a water rune equipped, or that the one guy who does also has all the offensive spells so can't really use it. Also, and this ties in with item management, there's no item like a tent that you can use at save points to restore spells, so you have to be stingy with healing spells.

And now possibly the main point. Everyone here thinks Suikoden games are easy. Why? Suikoden is all about knowledge and preparation, to even more of an extreme than other RPG's, knowing the system inside and out and preparing effectively can make the game very, very easy. Knowing how, when and where to get all the SoDs as early as possible, who has unites with who, which enemies have a chance of dropping rare runes and items, character growth rates, affinities, and skill abilities. Most of these things are NOT stated within the games themselves and would take alot of time to explore and figure out. Everyone here takes this stuff for granted cause we've all played these games alot, and we refer to this site, to the community, to walkthroughs, etc. Suikoden is almost never about leveling, in fact, due to how the leveling system works it's almost impossible to be underleveled in the games, even if you flee alot, and it's also fairly tough to overlevel even (without abusing tricks that are hardly intuitive, or just spending ALOT of time leveling). Runes and equipment make or break the characters, and if you go through the game low on funds, not getting the best stuff, and not being a master of Suikoden, you may find it pretty tough at times.
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Vermillion.Twilight
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Post by Vermillion.Twilight »

patapi wrote:This series isn't exactly known for its difficulty.

That is if you discount III, IV and Tactics.
Please take this statement back. IV was the easiest rpg ive ever played. Nevermind easiest suikoden, it was easier then any Rpg.
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Mackasplaff »

I think the reason for the easiness must be there to gain a larger amount of players. If it is too hard some people don´t bother playing it through and don´t buy the the next title in the series. And since the storylines in the Suikoden games are of such quality i think that most of the people who stick around throughout the game, happily continue to play the series.

I also sometimes wonder if every title in the series are made mainly to introduce new players to the the Suikoden world.
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Vermillion.Twilight
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Vermillion.Twilight »

Well with the exception of S-4

They arnt easy to the normal player...However a veteran of the series would easily beat them. I find this true in all series games.

In fact the average player would find it difficult to find all the stars and get past certain boss fights. Suikodens require alot of time invested to do everything and not alot of people are willing to do that. So they have to make the storyline easier to counteract that.
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Silver Dragon Flik
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Silver Dragon Flik »

All the planning you need is enough healing items and magic you win every fight in Suikoden.
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by JanusThePaladin »

Tis a fact. Most the time you dont even need the healing items til after battle. It gets to the point where you script your fights and can do it with your eyes closed. (atleast i can).

The storyline and stuff in the game though is the difficult part. The battles are secondary to making you find the 108 stars and making you conquer whatever evil comes your way.
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Chaco
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Chaco »

All the planning you need is enough healing items and magic you win every fight in Suikoden.
That is very untrue. Blacksmith and weapon leveling is the key to victory, that and arranging party members and runes before battle. Tactics relies more on getting the beads and Leveling up like mad.
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Palmguy »

I have to say that I didn't realize the S/M/L fromation thingy in SuikodenII (My first) till, I'd say, pass the Cave of wind. The Sidar ruins were insane for me since Shiro and (I think) Rikimaru (or was he M?) didn't want to attact from the back row.

Also, in V at least, the fact that you OFTEN get stuck with people mid-way trough a mission with Lv1 weapon didn't help making it easy. Unless you trew them in your entourage...which I didn't knew you could do and taugh it was Green people only. Again, the Sindar ruins were insane with Zweig, Lorelai and Maroon with a Lv1 Weapon...

And the War Battle in III... I wont even start with it.
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Chaco
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Chaco »

I have to say that I didn't realize the S/M/L fromation thingy in SuikodenII (My first) till, I'd say, pass the Cave of wind. The Sidar ruins were insane for me since Shiro and (I think) Rikimaru (or was he M?) didn't want to attact from the back row.
Acutally Shiro is really good compared to most people you can get. Rikimaru sucks though. To bad you didn't know about the Matilda Glitch which makes the game much easier for you earlier on. Shiro and Millie are the best two people to get whne going to Sindar if your not doing the Matilda glitch. I always restart until I get them. This opinon may differ but I feel that way.
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Palmguy
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Palmguy »

Oh, no no no. I know that Shiro's good. Actually, I always keep him till the very end of the game. He's a real beast...no pun intended.

And I never do the Matilda glitch....usually.

What I meant was that I put them in the back row so since they were S-type, they just wouldn't attack the enemy when I asked them to do .
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Chaco
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Chaco »

What I meant was that I put them in the back row so since they were S-type, they just wouldn't attack the enemy when I asked them to do .
Yeah I did that to the first time I played, I tried using Rikimaru and he couldn't attack so I thought he sucked and never used him (I never use him anyway but thats not the point) and I kept getting confused. acutally it's because of Bolgan I discovered the row thing, I had him in the back behind Riou and accedentally pressed Shift and suddenly OMG he could attack! Then I put two and two together.
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Re: a reason for the relative easiness?

Post by Palmguy »

I don't remember how I discover it... I know was looking at their profile and was like "what's that SML?" and I guess it just clicked in my head.
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