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cdl3's Suikoden (PS)
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| [April 23, 2009 10:34:15 PM]
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Suikoden is a Japanese RPG developed in the mid 1990's, before FF7. This game has spawned sequels and prequels with the newest version being a Suikoden Tactics and Suikoden 5.
The gameplay for this game is exciting. The combat system is turn based. The player's party can have up to 6 characters. Sometimes, certain members have to be in the party for story reasons, but most of the time, the player has the final say on which characters can be in the party. Most of these usual fights are caused by "random" encounters the character finds on the map. Other forms of combat include one-on-one duels and full scale army vs. army battles. These are very similar in presentation. Each one plays out like a game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" that allow you hints about what the enemy is planning.
The level design in this game is fairly simple. It is displayed as an isometric 2D environment. This allows for things like hidden passages and doors to be placed. The player usually has to navigate through some sort of dungeon filled with monsters and treasure. It can be difficult seeing what is coming because the camera focuses on the character usually, and the player cannot see far ahead or behind. I do think the levels were well thought out. Each one has a different feel to it.
The main selling point of this game, in my opinion, is the story. The storyline can easily suck you in. The main story points are very familiar (as we saw in my presentation), but the way the characters in the story discover secrets about each other and how they interact together is very interesting and fun to see. The authors of the story try to get the player to feel many different emotions to get the player to care about the story and keep playing to resolve the conflict. The conflict can become easier to resolve if the player recruits NPC's to assist in the rebellion. There are a possible 108 Stars of Destiny that can be gathered to win the game. The game offers bonus endings if the player gets all of the possible NPC's. This concept became very popular among players who enjoyed this game and this feature has been included in every Suikoden title to date.
The only thing that I found frustrating was the way items and equipment are handled. Each character in the party has a finite number of items they can hold. They also have a finite number of equipment slots to use. Their equipment takes up inventory slots. Throughout the adventure, items that are found are placed in the first available empty item slot. This is ok, since things are usually easy to find. But, if through the story one character is taken out of the party, anything they have on them is unavailable until you can either get them back in the party or completely strip them of everything, even equipment and magical crystals. These can be a pain to replace or reattach, especially if 5 other players have the same issue. I spent lots of time trying to get the equipment back to the way I wanted it after each major part of the story ended. I think that if the item and equipment was drag and drop or something more visual like that, it would be easier to manage.
This game is very fun to play, despite the annoying item manipulation. I was never bored with the gameplay. There was always something to do and something or someone to make better that you could work on. I would recommend fans of RPG's to check this game out. It is easily available from the PS3 store as a $9 download. It was originally a PS1 release and people still sell the disks on EBay.
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cdl3's Suikoden (PS)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Thursday 23 April, 2009
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