Gaming Suikoden IV

[Ben Holiday]

Came across the trailer for this today and was very impressed it looks every bit as good as III did. It also seemed (though this is just my personal hope) that it was still text based which would make me very happy as well. This one deals with The Rune of Punishment and seems to be ocean based more then land so a definite change over the last I have some very high hopes after watching this. Has anyone else seen it? If so what did you think of it and pick up on?

[Guest ScirosDarkblade]

I haven't played the Suikoden series, but I hear they are quite good. Anyway I saw this trailer a LOOOONG time ago, but I do admit that it has pretty decent graphics (though nothing like other upcoming RPGs). The characters look decent, and from what I saw of the battle system it's also interesting, and well-paced. But apart from that I don't know what to expect.

Just predicting, I'd say Suikoden IV will be better than either Xenosaga Episode 2 or Baten Kaitos, and *possibly* Sudeki.

I don't have a PS2, so I can't get the game, but I mostly play real-time RPGs anyway.

[AzureWolf]

[font=Georgia][size=2][color=blue]I thought I'd just mention something about my personal experience with the Suikoden series and when I came across it. I played part II first, and it was during a time when my interest and hope for RPGs was dwindling since every successive Final Fantasy - the only RPG series I deemed good - was the same thing, getting worse with each iteration. I thought RPGs reached their limit with FF3 and that there was no hope for the genre.[/color][/size][/font]
[font=Georgia][size=2][color=#0000ff][/color][/size][/font]
[font=Georgia][size=2][color=#0000ff]I came across Suikoden II. It's still my favorite RPG to this day - well, II and III are pretty close. To say the least, I feel that all RPGs could learn a thing or two about how to create a [i]world[/i] instead of a linear, restricting storyline from this series. Yes, Suikoden is primarily linear, but it doesn't give you that feeling because of how rich the world is.[/color][/size][/font]

[Ben Holiday]

I only wish I could get my hands on a copy of I and II but their current market value prevents that from happening. :laugh: Since III is the only one in the series I've played it is all that I can comment on but I agree with your statement while linear it still feels very free and I think a big part of that was the choices it allowed you to make. It was a definite breath of fresh air for me it really made you enjoy the characters and want to track all 108 stars down they all had their little side stories which were all very cool and they had returns of people from older games.

That is something I noticed in the new trailer as well at least one character from the previous games will return a poor lost and confused teleporter I'm sure there will be others as well. I wonder if they will release it like III so you can choose whose eye's to play through during the majority of the time. It would be cool if they could but one storyline would be interesting as well I guess. The one thing that I really have been thinking about though is since this is going to be ocean based this time around is if they will have the castle/town system. I would truly miss that it made the game so much fun but I suppose they could always do it like Skies of Arcadia and give you an island port to return to.

[Semjaza]

Suikoden II is [i]amazingly[/i] good. If you can get your hands on a copy, it's certainly worth the 40 to 50 dollars I see it for online. The first is great, but it's slightly more dated by comparison. If anything, I'd go after the second one.

I liked III, but after awhile I kind of just lost interest in it. I've not really had as much time as I would have liked to dedicate to games because of this quarter in school. I'm already neglecting Disgaea, even though I LOVE the game... A Wonderful Life is having a similiar problem currently... but after this week, it's vacation time! Plenty of time for gaming.

As for IV, I don't know what to think currently. III was decent fun and I enjoyed the gameplay overall... but the little I've seen of IV looks so similiar to the last one that I can't really get all that excited over it. It literally looks like some sort of expansion pack because of the style they kept... However, the ocean and other things leave me optimistic.

I just wish they'd ditch those long "hallway" style areas, where you just run in a straight line until you get to the next place.

[satan665]

[QUOTE]I thought RPGs reached their limit with FF3 and that there was no hope for the genre.[/QUOTE]

Really? I think in general the RPG scene is getting thinned out, but am still really happy with the Final Fantasy series. Even though the successive games are very similar, they still are the best turn-based RPG games to come out. Suikoden III is pretty average, but I like the shear amount of characters you can get. I'm kinda hoping that IV is a lot more innovative, the game could use some new ideas for gameplay or story progression. I wish i had some ideas of what that would be, but then I'd be coming up with that stuff. Definitely going to have to wait for some reviews on the new Suikoden. They don't really have much competition though.

[SephirothNIN]

You really need to play the Suikoden games in order since it lets you load your date at the beginning of Suikoden 2 and 3 (and most likely 4). Saving at the last point and getting all 108 stars in part 1 unlocks an awesome secret in part 2. If you do the same in 2 and load it in 3, you don't get anything TOO cool, but they will refer to the past events of 2 using your character's name and such. Anyway, 2 is one of my favorite rpgs as well, the minigames were amazing and it improved over part 1 100x. Suiky 3 was good, but many characters were boring and uninteresting. They mangled the battle system with their buddy version, and completely took out magic combos. Speaking of combos, the unites in Suiky 3 was for the most part, pathetic. Luckily I heard that in part 4, they're ditching the buddy system and going back to the older style of fighting. I also heard that Suiky 4 takes place some 120+ years before the first game, and most likely deals with Harmonia itself, so not many characters will be returning =\. Probably just those with true runes or the teleporter because...well she's nuts. I just hope Suiky 4 comes out sometime soon, I'm in a definite rpg hole.

[Sarangeyo]

[quote name='SephirothNIN']You really need to play the Suikoden games in order since it lets you load your date at the beginning of Suikoden 2 and 3 (and most likely 4). Saving at the last point and getting all 108 stars in part 1 unlocks an awesome secret in part 2. If you do the same in 2 and load it in 3, you don't get anything TOO cool, but they will refer to the past events of 2 using your character's name and such. Anyway, 2 is one of my favorite rpgs as well, the minigames were amazing and it improved over part 1 100x. Suiky 3 was good, but many characters were boring and uninteresting. They mangled the battle system with their buddy version, and completely took out magic combos. Speaking of combos, the unites in Suiky 3 was for the most part, pathetic. Luckily I heard that in part 4, they're ditching the buddy system and going back to the older style of fighting. I also heard that Suiky 4 takes place some 120+ years before the first game, and most likely deals with Harmonia itself, so not many characters will be returning =\. Probably just those with true runes or the teleporter because...well she's nuts. I just hope Suiky 4 comes out sometime soon, I'm in a definite rpg hole.[/quote]

I agree Suikoden II was my favorite. And yeah, I really disliked the change in the battle system in III. It really made fighting less fun. :sweat:

As for Suikoden IV, it takes place in the Island Nations. It does have a similar battle system to the 1st and 2nd games, just with...3 characters. :bawl: Ah well. It takes place 150 yrs in the past. Viki is in there, lol. What's interesting is that [i]Jeane[/i] (the rune mistress of all three games) is in it too. Does that mean she has a true rune? But Konami said she doesn't. So I wanna know what's up with her. :sweat:

I really cannot wait til Suikoden IV comes out. Suikoden has always been my fav RPG series (I've never been a big fan of FF).

[adempton]

Suikoden 1 was one of the first games I played on my first PSX. What an extraordinary game! I've played it a few times over since then; I've done the same with Suikoden 2 as well.

Suikoden 3's jump into 3D felt a little awkward, but thankfully they kept a lot of the "Suikoden charm" in the series. That magical allure that makes the game so interesting. The whole story involving the runes and the massive world we've gradually been introduced to is extremely captivating. I never thought such large wars and conflict would be so interesting. And even with 108 stars of destiny they still manage to make the game feel personal for the main character.

Like Sarangeyo mentioned, the battle system in Suikoden IV is going to be more faithful to the older games in the series, which I am [B]so[/B] grateful for. Suikoden 3 felt a lot slower paced, and the weird column fighting system was almost enough for me to put down the game and stop playing. The battle system went from one of the most exciting things in the series to the most boring.

Oh, anyone else think the main character in 4 is cute? ^^; From what I heard the story seems sounds really deep and tragic for the main character, largely relating to the rune he comes to possess. I can't wait to get my hands on this game.

For those of you who don't know, the official Japanese website is at [url]http://www.genso.com/IV[/url] , they have some wallpapers and other downloads available. Check it out! ^_^

~adempton

[grecords]

I recently bought a preowned copy (10% membership card discount) from the store I work at (15% employee discount, total 25% discount :D ) just to say I completed the series. I started this game up with only a 15 minutes available to me the other night. I had low expectations for the game as I don't care for the character models in the game (i.e. the main character looks so lame). Personally I like the "loading screen" 2D animation better than the 3D model.

Anyway, I put it in and after 15 mins I really have to say I didn't it so far. Now I know thats not giving an RPG enough time to develop, I understand they take time to build up. My main questions are:

[list]
[*]Does the game pick up and get a lot more interesting?
[*]Does this game has interesting characters?
[*]Does this game have cool and original runes?
[*]I beat Suikoden 3 without a guide can I beat this one without the guide?
[/list]

I'm not bashing Suikoden 4 I'm just curious as I realize I didn't have enough time to get into it.

[JimiWiggy11]

[SIZE=1][B]Does the game pick up and get a lot more interesting?[/B]
Let's see .. I haven't played the game for a couple of months, but from what I remember it picks up somewhat. This is one of the more slow moving RPG's out there, but it's still worth a playthrough for any hardcore Suikoden fan.

[B]Does this game has interesting characters?[/B]
Some of the characters are interesting.. but most are not. I don't want to bash the characters in this game, but I can't actually remember any of the characters besides the main characters in the game, unlike previous Suikodens where I could name all 108 Stars of Destiny.

[B]Does this game have cool and original runes?[/B]
The most original rune in the game is the Punishment Rune.. but I won't tell you who has it unless you already know. The animations for the runes are pretty good, but once again I can't really recall many of the main runes in the game. There's another rune you get later in the game that's one of the best in my opinion, and the game is worth playing through just to get it.

[B]I beat Suikoden 3 without a guide can I beat this one without the guide?[/B]
I personally tried to look for all 108 Stars of Destiny myself and found only seventy of them, so I would recommend maybe going to GameFAQs or something like that for the recruits you can't find. The story is pretty much straight-forward for a Suikoden game, and the many times you have to sail on the boat gets very boring very quickly. Don't forget that holding R1 makes the ship go faster, as does it makes you run faster!

I know it sounds like i'm saying Suikoden 4 is a crappy game, but I actually enjoyed it enough to play through it again. Beating the game is a reward in itself.. you'll see what I mean later.[/SIZE]