Suikoden V
Jun. 17th, 2007 01:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liaku1) I love this game.
2) See above.
3) No need to read the rest if you comprehend 1) and 2).
So yeah, this game was one ending short of a masterpiece. And had craptastic load times, so I guess it was some decent coding short of a masterpiece as well.
You know, for the record, the plot was not that twisty. Suikoden III had the truly twisty plot. Suikoden V... just has a good plot told amazingly well. Storytelling is an art and Suikoden's mastered it. There are seriously no twists, minus Sialeeds. If Dolph had actually killed Lyon, that'd be a twist too, but no, it's just a Dawn Rune deus ex machina.
Otoh, the characters are flat out amazing. A personality for all of them. A use for all of them! Anyone remember Deborah from Suikoden IV? Yeah, neither do I. Suikoden's always been pretty good at characterizing a random recruit in about two sentences and then shelving them away. Suikoden V is none different, but now the characters... don't suck. (For the record, Deborah was some old lady that read your fortune and joined your army [reason? What reason?] in Suikoden IV and... uh, that's it. She just sat there and did absolutely nothing.) Characters I expected to hate? Quite a few and I ended up hating absolutely none of them.
However, the villains were kinda... flat. Aleria and Zahhak ended up annoying me in the end and I found Gizel a bit disappointing, but I suppose my expectations were too high. Expected a Seed/Culgan out of Aleria/Zahhak and an Albert Silverberg out of Gizel Godwin. I usually like the villains, but not in this game. In this game, the villains were just... there. No fault of theirs really, Gizel certainly has his fair share of fans. Just that I think Suikoden V might've gone with tradition too much for them. Aleria/Zahhak an attempt at Seed/Culgan, Gizel a shadow of Albert, Childerich a really lame version of Luca. Bahram Luger and Dilbert Novum were good though, pity they didn't really get much screentime. Probably because they were ugly. But I liked them. I liked Gizel too, in general, I think he was underdeveloped.
Oh. I guess Sialeeds counts as a villain. She did good. Would've done better if they, like, actually explained what she was intending to do ingame. The best you could get otherwise was some hints from her bedroom maid if you bothered talking to said maid NPC at all. Yeah, lame, I know. I'm not sure if her intentions were supposed to be clouded, but I doubt that. Lucretia and Gizel seemed damn aware of her plans, not that any of them ever told the player anything. Gizel had an excuse at least. Gizel died before he got a chance to talk.
Ah, I forgot. I think Salum is an excellent villain. Truly excellent.
As for the ending... wtf Konami? What happened? On my New Game +, I am so just going to defend my castle, let Roy die a glorious death, and then leave Lyon for the ashes. Lyon just randomly falls down and starts dying. Maybe I'm missing something dreadfully obvious, but last I checked, she was perfectly healthy. At least tell me WHY she's dying. And for the third time, no less! I know it's a tradition to have a character resurrection, but why Lyon? Why not Sialeeds? She actually died! Why not Arshtat or Ferid? Well, I could see how Arshtat coming back could be a problem for royal succession and such. But why not Ferid? Eh? Could've made Roy dying not optional and revived him. Far better than Lyon biting it yet AGAIN.
I would've loved to see Arshtat back anyway, royal succession be damned. That woman deserves a second chance at life. With Ferid. Not fair to bring Arshtat back without Ferid.
Okay, onto the nitty gritty:
Combat: Exact same battle system as, well, Suikoden I. Hasn't changed much. Bit more than just old school now. I think the word is outdated. But it functions fine, or I'm plenty used to it anyway. Nothing too riveting or deep, is all. I like it. Formations are a nifty addition, but ultimately useless. I used Double Arm until I got Crescent. I used Crescent until I got ArrowStance. And that's about it. Used Illusion because it looked nifty (+10 all attributes? Hell yeah!) but found it extremely susceptible to row and column attacks, so it was back to ArrowStance.
Skills: So they keep using a successful battle system for ten years. Well, the skill system was one of the best things in Suikoden III. Why do they keep changing it? Equipping only two skills? That's gimp.
Graphics: I think they should've just brought back the 2D with this one. Static, top-down camera with cel-shaded graphics? Why even bother with making the game 3D at all? And if making it 2D would've given it better loading times... In general, they're not good graphics. Not bad, just not good. It would've been passable if this game came out a year earlier, but it released toward the end of the PS2's lifespan and it just doesn't match up. I'm just happy the hero doesn't walk like he's got a stick up his ass.
Loading times: Whenever you enter every damn building.
Voices: I watched a few vids of the Japanese version. I actually like the English better. This doesn't really mean much since the voices and inflections all sound exactly the same regardless of language. Only exception I've noted so far is Alenia sounding a lot more pissed off in English (which is a good thing imo, she seems a bit weak in the Japanese) and Euram a bit less foppish. I'm all for Euram being as pathetically foppish as possible, so...
Scene direction: No real thoughts. Random scenes got voiced, seems like. Some things made cutscenes really should've been, you know, normal, unvoiced dialogue. And some scenes really should've been voiced. Georg rejoining you, for instance. And as much as the Rahal scene amused me, why was THAT one given full cutscene treatment while the scenes after in the dragon's lair weren't? Because let me tell you, Georg saving my ass was a beautiful moment and I would've really liked to hear it. Scene direction in general is not particularly dynamic, but that's actually a bit of a pleasant change since some videogames have been making me feel a bit motionsick with their camera angles.
Character design: Flamboyant. This game has the most androgynous characters ever. Rahal is not the only one that made me blink. I'd like to point out Subala had me completely fooled. Yeah, she's the one I picked the "Let me guess. Your boyfriend?" option. Oh, man. Not a boy. Oh, let's not forget the Prince himself. Methinks his testosterone is in the negative levels. Shula Valya as well. There's one I thought was a girl until he spoke. And the random little boy NPC in Falena that said, "I want to be queen when I grow up!" After browsing the forums after I beat the game, uh, I'm glad I'm not the only one did a doubletake. (If you want a general opinion, it can be summed up as: I like.)
Loading times: Yeah, I think I mentioned this.
Character Recruitment: A bitch. A good one though. Ya got to jump through hoops to get some of them, but I think that's a good thing in general. I prefer doing Yahr/Nelis' sidequest rather than just getting two random Island Nationers joining up just because they can. Very, very easy to miss characters too, Oboro in particular. And missing Oboro sucks. You don't just miss Oboro, you miss Fuyo, Shigure, Sagiri, Nakula, and Raven. Let me tell you that the beginning of the game can be painful without Shigure. And I think the Nakula recruitment scene should be required.
Humor: Some games can actually succeed at being funny when they intend it. This is one of them.
War Battles: Fun shit yo. Got a bit too easy after I got Craig Laden since, well, the dragon knights are all they're cracked up to be. I didn't use the beavers until late game as well, but they're amazing too. Not as much style as the cavalry, obviously, but still. I also pity people that never recruited Wilhelm. Five star general? Don't have too many of those. Just Raja, Craig, Wilhelm, and Shula, iirc. Oh, and Shula. So we, like, recruit the coolest character ever who's a five star general and then the next two war battles have pretty much all my generals chosen for me? I'm sorry, but I'd rather have an extra dragon and beaver unit than Shula, badassitude or no. C'mon, Konami, what gives?
Duels: I have always and will always suck at duels. That means I'm not exactly a great judge of them. I'd say the time limit is a nice touch though, as well as the voice acting. Fight choreography sucks as usual though. Rest assured that all fight scenes suck.
Trailers: Totally random, I know, but whoever thought it was a good idea to have the scene with Roy (the Prince lookalike) getting killed is an evil bastard and deserves a pay raise.
Difficulty: So, uh, this might be because my final team and strategy of choice was Galleon (tank), Kyle + Rahal spamming spell combos with Rage and Thunder, Lyon and Prince either using their coop attack or Twilight/Dawn spell combo as a heal, and Zerase doing her Magic Absorb and Meteor Shower thing, but boss fights were cake. Well, the big boss fights were cake, even though the three before the final boss where I thought I'd have hell and a half. There were some fairly challenging random encounters and dungeons (notably, the one for Eresh's sidequest and the Ashtwal Ruins can be painful depending on buff your three teams are), but nothing really challenging. So, yeah. Suikoden is an easy game, always is, always has been. Suikoden V is especially easy.
Dungeons: They range from a twisty little path from point A to point B that you cannot get lost on unless you're me and mix up your lefts and rights or, well, a lot of intersections and deadends. There will be no puzzles. The sewers and Ashtwal Ruins have some fairly simple switches to make doors open up, but I wouldn't consider them puzzles by any extent. Twilight Ruins sucks. Mostly a single twisty path with a few dead ends, but the problem's that there are trees and plants and shit that cover the path. Actually, not really. I don't know what the problem is, but that place sucked. More importantly, there are no major cases of running in spirals in Suikoden V.
Music: Uh, for the sake of listening to the music... don't do it. It's mostly crap. It works though. The bgm always fits what's going on, so I haven't any complaints. Beware of Haud Village though. The music there will drive you maaaaaaaaad.
That's really about it, actually. This post's been sitting here for a few days and I've been making idle additions to it whenever I got bored and I think it's time to stop.
Good game, in conclusion. Of course, if you're one of those people after the slickest, prettiest, most high-tech video games that utilize the full capacity of the PS2... uh, this game's not for you.
2) See above.
3) No need to read the rest if you comprehend 1) and 2).
So yeah, this game was one ending short of a masterpiece. And had craptastic load times, so I guess it was some decent coding short of a masterpiece as well.
You know, for the record, the plot was not that twisty. Suikoden III had the truly twisty plot. Suikoden V... just has a good plot told amazingly well. Storytelling is an art and Suikoden's mastered it. There are seriously no twists, minus Sialeeds. If Dolph had actually killed Lyon, that'd be a twist too, but no, it's just a Dawn Rune deus ex machina.
Otoh, the characters are flat out amazing. A personality for all of them. A use for all of them! Anyone remember Deborah from Suikoden IV? Yeah, neither do I. Suikoden's always been pretty good at characterizing a random recruit in about two sentences and then shelving them away. Suikoden V is none different, but now the characters... don't suck. (For the record, Deborah was some old lady that read your fortune and joined your army [reason? What reason?] in Suikoden IV and... uh, that's it. She just sat there and did absolutely nothing.) Characters I expected to hate? Quite a few and I ended up hating absolutely none of them.
However, the villains were kinda... flat. Aleria and Zahhak ended up annoying me in the end and I found Gizel a bit disappointing, but I suppose my expectations were too high. Expected a Seed/Culgan out of Aleria/Zahhak and an Albert Silverberg out of Gizel Godwin. I usually like the villains, but not in this game. In this game, the villains were just... there. No fault of theirs really, Gizel certainly has his fair share of fans. Just that I think Suikoden V might've gone with tradition too much for them. Aleria/Zahhak an attempt at Seed/Culgan, Gizel a shadow of Albert, Childerich a really lame version of Luca. Bahram Luger and Dilbert Novum were good though, pity they didn't really get much screentime. Probably because they were ugly. But I liked them. I liked Gizel too, in general, I think he was underdeveloped.
Oh. I guess Sialeeds counts as a villain. She did good. Would've done better if they, like, actually explained what she was intending to do ingame. The best you could get otherwise was some hints from her bedroom maid if you bothered talking to said maid NPC at all. Yeah, lame, I know. I'm not sure if her intentions were supposed to be clouded, but I doubt that. Lucretia and Gizel seemed damn aware of her plans, not that any of them ever told the player anything. Gizel had an excuse at least. Gizel died before he got a chance to talk.
Ah, I forgot. I think Salum is an excellent villain. Truly excellent.
As for the ending... wtf Konami? What happened? On my New Game +, I am so just going to defend my castle, let Roy die a glorious death, and then leave Lyon for the ashes. Lyon just randomly falls down and starts dying. Maybe I'm missing something dreadfully obvious, but last I checked, she was perfectly healthy. At least tell me WHY she's dying. And for the third time, no less! I know it's a tradition to have a character resurrection, but why Lyon? Why not Sialeeds? She actually died! Why not Arshtat or Ferid? Well, I could see how Arshtat coming back could be a problem for royal succession and such. But why not Ferid? Eh? Could've made Roy dying not optional and revived him. Far better than Lyon biting it yet AGAIN.
I would've loved to see Arshtat back anyway, royal succession be damned. That woman deserves a second chance at life. With Ferid. Not fair to bring Arshtat back without Ferid.
Okay, onto the nitty gritty:
Combat: Exact same battle system as, well, Suikoden I. Hasn't changed much. Bit more than just old school now. I think the word is outdated. But it functions fine, or I'm plenty used to it anyway. Nothing too riveting or deep, is all. I like it. Formations are a nifty addition, but ultimately useless. I used Double Arm until I got Crescent. I used Crescent until I got ArrowStance. And that's about it. Used Illusion because it looked nifty (+10 all attributes? Hell yeah!) but found it extremely susceptible to row and column attacks, so it was back to ArrowStance.
Skills: So they keep using a successful battle system for ten years. Well, the skill system was one of the best things in Suikoden III. Why do they keep changing it? Equipping only two skills? That's gimp.
Graphics: I think they should've just brought back the 2D with this one. Static, top-down camera with cel-shaded graphics? Why even bother with making the game 3D at all? And if making it 2D would've given it better loading times... In general, they're not good graphics. Not bad, just not good. It would've been passable if this game came out a year earlier, but it released toward the end of the PS2's lifespan and it just doesn't match up. I'm just happy the hero doesn't walk like he's got a stick up his ass.
Loading times: Whenever you enter every damn building.
Voices: I watched a few vids of the Japanese version. I actually like the English better. This doesn't really mean much since the voices and inflections all sound exactly the same regardless of language. Only exception I've noted so far is Alenia sounding a lot more pissed off in English (which is a good thing imo, she seems a bit weak in the Japanese) and Euram a bit less foppish. I'm all for Euram being as pathetically foppish as possible, so...
Scene direction: No real thoughts. Random scenes got voiced, seems like. Some things made cutscenes really should've been, you know, normal, unvoiced dialogue. And some scenes really should've been voiced. Georg rejoining you, for instance. And as much as the Rahal scene amused me, why was THAT one given full cutscene treatment while the scenes after in the dragon's lair weren't? Because let me tell you, Georg saving my ass was a beautiful moment and I would've really liked to hear it. Scene direction in general is not particularly dynamic, but that's actually a bit of a pleasant change since some videogames have been making me feel a bit motionsick with their camera angles.
Character design: Flamboyant. This game has the most androgynous characters ever. Rahal is not the only one that made me blink. I'd like to point out Subala had me completely fooled. Yeah, she's the one I picked the "Let me guess. Your boyfriend?" option. Oh, man. Not a boy. Oh, let's not forget the Prince himself. Methinks his testosterone is in the negative levels. Shula Valya as well. There's one I thought was a girl until he spoke. And the random little boy NPC in Falena that said, "I want to be queen when I grow up!" After browsing the forums after I beat the game, uh, I'm glad I'm not the only one did a doubletake. (If you want a general opinion, it can be summed up as: I like.)
Loading times: Yeah, I think I mentioned this.
Character Recruitment: A bitch. A good one though. Ya got to jump through hoops to get some of them, but I think that's a good thing in general. I prefer doing Yahr/Nelis' sidequest rather than just getting two random Island Nationers joining up just because they can. Very, very easy to miss characters too, Oboro in particular. And missing Oboro sucks. You don't just miss Oboro, you miss Fuyo, Shigure, Sagiri, Nakula, and Raven. Let me tell you that the beginning of the game can be painful without Shigure. And I think the Nakula recruitment scene should be required.
Humor: Some games can actually succeed at being funny when they intend it. This is one of them.
War Battles: Fun shit yo. Got a bit too easy after I got Craig Laden since, well, the dragon knights are all they're cracked up to be. I didn't use the beavers until late game as well, but they're amazing too. Not as much style as the cavalry, obviously, but still. I also pity people that never recruited Wilhelm. Five star general? Don't have too many of those. Just Raja, Craig, Wilhelm, and Shula, iirc. Oh, and Shula. So we, like, recruit the coolest character ever who's a five star general and then the next two war battles have pretty much all my generals chosen for me? I'm sorry, but I'd rather have an extra dragon and beaver unit than Shula, badassitude or no. C'mon, Konami, what gives?
Duels: I have always and will always suck at duels. That means I'm not exactly a great judge of them. I'd say the time limit is a nice touch though, as well as the voice acting. Fight choreography sucks as usual though. Rest assured that all fight scenes suck.
Trailers: Totally random, I know, but whoever thought it was a good idea to have the scene with Roy (the Prince lookalike) getting killed is an evil bastard and deserves a pay raise.
Difficulty: So, uh, this might be because my final team and strategy of choice was Galleon (tank), Kyle + Rahal spamming spell combos with Rage and Thunder, Lyon and Prince either using their coop attack or Twilight/Dawn spell combo as a heal, and Zerase doing her Magic Absorb and Meteor Shower thing, but boss fights were cake. Well, the big boss fights were cake, even though the three before the final boss where I thought I'd have hell and a half. There were some fairly challenging random encounters and dungeons (notably, the one for Eresh's sidequest and the Ashtwal Ruins can be painful depending on buff your three teams are), but nothing really challenging. So, yeah. Suikoden is an easy game, always is, always has been. Suikoden V is especially easy.
Dungeons: They range from a twisty little path from point A to point B that you cannot get lost on unless you're me and mix up your lefts and rights or, well, a lot of intersections and deadends. There will be no puzzles. The sewers and Ashtwal Ruins have some fairly simple switches to make doors open up, but I wouldn't consider them puzzles by any extent. Twilight Ruins sucks. Mostly a single twisty path with a few dead ends, but the problem's that there are trees and plants and shit that cover the path. Actually, not really. I don't know what the problem is, but that place sucked. More importantly, there are no major cases of running in spirals in Suikoden V.
Music: Uh, for the sake of listening to the music... don't do it. It's mostly crap. It works though. The bgm always fits what's going on, so I haven't any complaints. Beware of Haud Village though. The music there will drive you maaaaaaaaad.
That's really about it, actually. This post's been sitting here for a few days and I've been making idle additions to it whenever I got bored and I think it's time to stop.
Good game, in conclusion. Of course, if you're one of those people after the slickest, prettiest, most high-tech video games that utilize the full capacity of the PS2... uh, this game's not for you.