Reinhart
Veteran
Suikoden V
Developed by: Konami Corperation
Published by: Konami Digital Entertainment
Released for: Playstation 2
Introduction:
Suikoden V is the fifth iteration of the traditional Suikoden series to hit non-Japanese shores-- although it is not the fifth titles to bear the Suikoden name. Suikoden Tactics made between 4 and 5 is one of such games and the side stories (Centered around the 2nd title.) which never saw the light of day outside of Japan were also created. This brings the tally up to 8 games baring the Suikoden name making it a serious contender in the world of RPGs. Where Square Enix has the Final Fantasy series as their flagship RPG series Konami has Suikoden as theirs and in this reviewers' humble opinion Suikoden has not lost it's edge and luster like I feel Final Fantasy has.
Story: 8/10
The story in Suikoden V starts off slow but constant. It is a tale of royalty, political intrigue, moral dilemma and racism as well as genocide and a hint of love. It is a story which is all grown up but doesn't come off as gritty or terribly offensive-- it does just enough to strike your heart chords and keep your interest piqued while offering up mysterious characters and the standard fare Suikoden enigmas such as the Sindar which it delves heavily into. One of the biggest complains people have about the game is the slow pacing of the first six to eight hours of the game, it paces you from location to location with no sense of choice really. This time is spent developing characters and getting you familiar with the socio-political atmosphere of the game and setting up the mysteries and uncertainties which drive the game henceforth. Personally, I did not mind this, however most people do and this stops the game from getting a nine for story and instead leaves it with an eight.
People returning to the Suikoden world will be pleased to find returning characters such as Viki with her traditional scatter-brained personality intact as well as, what is now one of my favorite video game characters of all time: Georg Prime. People who have played Suikoden II may recognize him as one of the 108 stars of destiny, but was entirely optional in the previous game. Georg returns as an integral part of the story in Suikoden V and protector and one of many confidants of the main character, the Prince.
Speaking of the Prince, allow me to explain the basics of the plot line. You are the Prince of Falena, son of Queen Arshtat and Commander of the Queen's Knight's (Husband to the Queen.) Ferid. Due to the political structure of Falena you are not in line for the throne but your sister, Lymsleiia (Lym for short.) is. In essence, you are little more than a figurehead of royalty and a political chess peice to one day be married off to a neighboring kingdom. (Sort of like princesses in traditional medieval history.) Though your parents clearly do not treat you like some mere chess piece. The Prince and his entourage: The newly knighted Georg Prime, Aunt Sialeeds and bodyguard Lyon are on their way back from a tour of the town of Lordlake, from there the story slowly progresses into that of the Queen being slowly driven mad by something, something I won't reveal and the Princess being married to a suitable husband (Who will be the future Commander of the Queen's Knight, the elite bodyguards of the royal family.) through a massive tournament called "The Sacred Games" I cannot tell you much more without ruining some of the story, but through political plotting, assassination and the strife between the Godwin and Barrows families (Powerful members of the Falenian senate.) the country is turned on it's head and a massive civil war breaks out with the Prince leading the rebellion.
Gameplay: 8/10
Returning players of Suikoden will be pleased to see the return of the six-man battle party from the first, second and third games have returned and mixed up a bit through entirely optional but undeniably useful formations (Such as the Crane Wing, Circle and oddly named: True Men formations.) offering various statistical bonuses to the party as well as a "Formation skills" which can do anything from make the party attack first to a blanket attack on the entire enemy party. Battles are still turn based but are also strangely satisfying.
Skills are still in the game and influence every aspect of your characters from their counter rate, block rate, accuracy, attack power and magical power and come in grades between SS (Best) and E (Worst) and each character has nautral potentials with each skill which can be assessed by a trainer. SP is gained in battle along side experience and is given to both each involved character and a small amount is added to a party wide pool which anyone can draw from. Early on, you can't raise skills above C but you will later find items that allow your player trainers to upgrade skills all the way to SS provided said character is capable.
Tactical battles also return and, as usual, feature a whole new system. Battles (On either land or sea.) are in real time an can features thousands of troops at once organized into divisions and lead by your recruited characters which lend skills and bonuses to their squads of soldiers. This is done on an overhead map and soldiers are represented by little marching models of your side's troops with a small model of their commander at the head and battle are resolved in a rock-paper-scissors fashion, there are also a few 'unique' troops types that mix it up a bit. (Infantry beats archers, archers beat cavalry, cavalry beats infantry.) This is a welcome addition to the monotony of random battles. Tactical fights are also done over the water in an identical fashion and certain 'special' troop types can be found by combining certain officers.
Another type of combat in this in additional to the traditional turn based and tactical battles is the duel system, which is found in all Suikoden titles. The duel system is again, a rock-paper-scissors style battle (normally) between the Prince and an opponent, though I have found one instance where another character could be used, but only if you happened to bring him along. There are three options: Guard, special and attack. Each beats another (Guard beats special, special beats attack, attack beats guard.) and if the same attack is used by both AI and player different things happen. You can determine what your opponent is going to do based on what he/she says and I find duels to be pleasing (As they are nicely coreographed.) but extremely easy to win.
This brings me to one part of the gameplay I have a serious problem with: The difficulty. Simply put, this game is a piece of cake. Except for a few times in a long dungeon where I ran out of medicine to heal my men and had to ration what I had left and ration my healing spells this game is entirely to easy. Boss battles often times are a joke and can be brushed aside within a few turns with powerful magic and/or unite attacks. Georg Prime is also a difficulty breaker because he is essentially a God unless you hit him with magic. Consistantly dealing over 1,500 damage with his powerful and frequent double-critical red-flash attacks whereas the most powerful spells can normally deal under 1,000. This combined with general weak enemy combat AI, their refusal to heal and a serious lack of offensive power makes most encounters in Suikoden V as joke.
Other than that, acquiring your castle building your magic power (Which works in a similar fashion to dungeons and dragons where you can only cast so many spells of a certain level a day.) sharpening your party's weapons at the blacksmith, collecting rare items, collecting all 108 (Yes 10
of the recruitable characters, about half of which can be put into your party; delivering ingrediants to the chef to make ever more complicated and beneficial food items and enjoying the myriad of mini-games and other distrations makes this one of the most entertaining games I have ever played but in the end, the difficulty knocks this down a point for being insultingly easy to a community of RPG gamers who have grown up enjoying these types of games.
Sound & Music: 6/10
One thing I must applaud Konami on this time around is their consistantly decent voice acting. It really is very good for the most part, except for a few minor roles and a couple pretty bad voice actors this game is beautifully voiced. This however is largely where my praise ends. One thing I've always liked about the Suikoden games is their music, it's pretty generally good and catchy. But save for a few recycled tunes from the previous games the music in this tends to be annoying and just plain bad, especially the theme of the village of Haud (A village composed entirely of horrible artists.) which thankfully plays a very small role in the game. With that said, the music is bad but it is never innappropriate and the the tunes from the previous games give a warm feeling of nostalgia.
I would have to say though, without a doubt what rubbed me the wrong way the most was the battle themes. The normal one is meh, the major boss theme is meh and some of the random variatons you encounter later in the game just plain suck. I found that the music even detracted from the experience a little sometimes. So, I really hope Konami pays more attention to their music next time around because for many, like me, music is important to the experience.
Graphics: 9/10
I am not big on graphics as those who know me know. But this game is basically the pinnacle of the Playstation 2's capabilities. The environments, characters and spell effects are very good and couldn't be much better on Konami's system of choice. There are instances of slowdown in areas crowded with many characters and NPC's but none of it detracts from the gameplay at all. The Prince is far from the emotionless rock the hero in Suikoden IV was and this is expressed with his face. (Because as with all Suikodens the hero is basically a silent hero.) Facial expressions in this are well done and are shown both in the game engine and through the beautifully illustrated portraits for which there is one for each recruitable character and even some who aren't.
I have few complaints outside of the aweful tactical battle graphics but that is to be expected honestly considering the scale of the battles and it is leaps and bounds ahead of the previous systems found in the earlier Suikoden titles.
Controls: 7/10
This is an RPG so controls aren't a real big issues. I didn't find menu navigation irritating or standard battle navigation but I do have a couple of complaints:
One, the camera doesn't rotate at all. The graphics in this game are good but you can't really enjoy them with the camera being the way it is (Only being able to zoom in and out.) and the tactical battle controls were frustrating because of the slow speed the cursor moved around the map. When you need to switch from controlling your army to your navy it is frustrating when you are snapped to the scene of a battle when you're trying to pull your archer unit with only 10/100 men left away from an enemy that is about to rout it.
Conclusion: 9/10 (Not an average.)
In my humble opinion this is one of the best RPG's ever made and takes it's place in my top five, actually, it gets the second spot beaten only by Suikoden 2. The problems with this game I can easily forgive because I am a voracious Suikoden fan, however I know some people would be so bothered by this games flaws that they would likely not enjoy it nearly as much. However, if you are a fan of RPG's you should play this and if you are a fan of the series you must play this as it is a suitable apology for the joke that was Suikoden IV and the best Suikoden since II.
Developed by: Konami Corperation
Published by: Konami Digital Entertainment
Released for: Playstation 2
Introduction:
Suikoden V is the fifth iteration of the traditional Suikoden series to hit non-Japanese shores-- although it is not the fifth titles to bear the Suikoden name. Suikoden Tactics made between 4 and 5 is one of such games and the side stories (Centered around the 2nd title.) which never saw the light of day outside of Japan were also created. This brings the tally up to 8 games baring the Suikoden name making it a serious contender in the world of RPGs. Where Square Enix has the Final Fantasy series as their flagship RPG series Konami has Suikoden as theirs and in this reviewers' humble opinion Suikoden has not lost it's edge and luster like I feel Final Fantasy has.
Story: 8/10
The story in Suikoden V starts off slow but constant. It is a tale of royalty, political intrigue, moral dilemma and racism as well as genocide and a hint of love. It is a story which is all grown up but doesn't come off as gritty or terribly offensive-- it does just enough to strike your heart chords and keep your interest piqued while offering up mysterious characters and the standard fare Suikoden enigmas such as the Sindar which it delves heavily into. One of the biggest complains people have about the game is the slow pacing of the first six to eight hours of the game, it paces you from location to location with no sense of choice really. This time is spent developing characters and getting you familiar with the socio-political atmosphere of the game and setting up the mysteries and uncertainties which drive the game henceforth. Personally, I did not mind this, however most people do and this stops the game from getting a nine for story and instead leaves it with an eight.
People returning to the Suikoden world will be pleased to find returning characters such as Viki with her traditional scatter-brained personality intact as well as, what is now one of my favorite video game characters of all time: Georg Prime. People who have played Suikoden II may recognize him as one of the 108 stars of destiny, but was entirely optional in the previous game. Georg returns as an integral part of the story in Suikoden V and protector and one of many confidants of the main character, the Prince.
Speaking of the Prince, allow me to explain the basics of the plot line. You are the Prince of Falena, son of Queen Arshtat and Commander of the Queen's Knight's (Husband to the Queen.) Ferid. Due to the political structure of Falena you are not in line for the throne but your sister, Lymsleiia (Lym for short.) is. In essence, you are little more than a figurehead of royalty and a political chess peice to one day be married off to a neighboring kingdom. (Sort of like princesses in traditional medieval history.) Though your parents clearly do not treat you like some mere chess piece. The Prince and his entourage: The newly knighted Georg Prime, Aunt Sialeeds and bodyguard Lyon are on their way back from a tour of the town of Lordlake, from there the story slowly progresses into that of the Queen being slowly driven mad by something, something I won't reveal and the Princess being married to a suitable husband (Who will be the future Commander of the Queen's Knight, the elite bodyguards of the royal family.) through a massive tournament called "The Sacred Games" I cannot tell you much more without ruining some of the story, but through political plotting, assassination and the strife between the Godwin and Barrows families (Powerful members of the Falenian senate.) the country is turned on it's head and a massive civil war breaks out with the Prince leading the rebellion.
Gameplay: 8/10
Returning players of Suikoden will be pleased to see the return of the six-man battle party from the first, second and third games have returned and mixed up a bit through entirely optional but undeniably useful formations (Such as the Crane Wing, Circle and oddly named: True Men formations.) offering various statistical bonuses to the party as well as a "Formation skills" which can do anything from make the party attack first to a blanket attack on the entire enemy party. Battles are still turn based but are also strangely satisfying.
Skills are still in the game and influence every aspect of your characters from their counter rate, block rate, accuracy, attack power and magical power and come in grades between SS (Best) and E (Worst) and each character has nautral potentials with each skill which can be assessed by a trainer. SP is gained in battle along side experience and is given to both each involved character and a small amount is added to a party wide pool which anyone can draw from. Early on, you can't raise skills above C but you will later find items that allow your player trainers to upgrade skills all the way to SS provided said character is capable.
Tactical battles also return and, as usual, feature a whole new system. Battles (On either land or sea.) are in real time an can features thousands of troops at once organized into divisions and lead by your recruited characters which lend skills and bonuses to their squads of soldiers. This is done on an overhead map and soldiers are represented by little marching models of your side's troops with a small model of their commander at the head and battle are resolved in a rock-paper-scissors fashion, there are also a few 'unique' troops types that mix it up a bit. (Infantry beats archers, archers beat cavalry, cavalry beats infantry.) This is a welcome addition to the monotony of random battles. Tactical fights are also done over the water in an identical fashion and certain 'special' troop types can be found by combining certain officers.
Another type of combat in this in additional to the traditional turn based and tactical battles is the duel system, which is found in all Suikoden titles. The duel system is again, a rock-paper-scissors style battle (normally) between the Prince and an opponent, though I have found one instance where another character could be used, but only if you happened to bring him along. There are three options: Guard, special and attack. Each beats another (Guard beats special, special beats attack, attack beats guard.) and if the same attack is used by both AI and player different things happen. You can determine what your opponent is going to do based on what he/she says and I find duels to be pleasing (As they are nicely coreographed.) but extremely easy to win.
This brings me to one part of the gameplay I have a serious problem with: The difficulty. Simply put, this game is a piece of cake. Except for a few times in a long dungeon where I ran out of medicine to heal my men and had to ration what I had left and ration my healing spells this game is entirely to easy. Boss battles often times are a joke and can be brushed aside within a few turns with powerful magic and/or unite attacks. Georg Prime is also a difficulty breaker because he is essentially a God unless you hit him with magic. Consistantly dealing over 1,500 damage with his powerful and frequent double-critical red-flash attacks whereas the most powerful spells can normally deal under 1,000. This combined with general weak enemy combat AI, their refusal to heal and a serious lack of offensive power makes most encounters in Suikoden V as joke.
Other than that, acquiring your castle building your magic power (Which works in a similar fashion to dungeons and dragons where you can only cast so many spells of a certain level a day.) sharpening your party's weapons at the blacksmith, collecting rare items, collecting all 108 (Yes 10
of the recruitable characters, about half of which can be put into your party; delivering ingrediants to the chef to make ever more complicated and beneficial food items and enjoying the myriad of mini-games and other distrations makes this one of the most entertaining games I have ever played but in the end, the difficulty knocks this down a point for being insultingly easy to a community of RPG gamers who have grown up enjoying these types of games.Sound & Music: 6/10
One thing I must applaud Konami on this time around is their consistantly decent voice acting. It really is very good for the most part, except for a few minor roles and a couple pretty bad voice actors this game is beautifully voiced. This however is largely where my praise ends. One thing I've always liked about the Suikoden games is their music, it's pretty generally good and catchy. But save for a few recycled tunes from the previous games the music in this tends to be annoying and just plain bad, especially the theme of the village of Haud (A village composed entirely of horrible artists.) which thankfully plays a very small role in the game. With that said, the music is bad but it is never innappropriate and the the tunes from the previous games give a warm feeling of nostalgia.
I would have to say though, without a doubt what rubbed me the wrong way the most was the battle themes. The normal one is meh, the major boss theme is meh and some of the random variatons you encounter later in the game just plain suck. I found that the music even detracted from the experience a little sometimes. So, I really hope Konami pays more attention to their music next time around because for many, like me, music is important to the experience.
Graphics: 9/10
I am not big on graphics as those who know me know. But this game is basically the pinnacle of the Playstation 2's capabilities. The environments, characters and spell effects are very good and couldn't be much better on Konami's system of choice. There are instances of slowdown in areas crowded with many characters and NPC's but none of it detracts from the gameplay at all. The Prince is far from the emotionless rock the hero in Suikoden IV was and this is expressed with his face. (Because as with all Suikodens the hero is basically a silent hero.) Facial expressions in this are well done and are shown both in the game engine and through the beautifully illustrated portraits for which there is one for each recruitable character and even some who aren't.
I have few complaints outside of the aweful tactical battle graphics but that is to be expected honestly considering the scale of the battles and it is leaps and bounds ahead of the previous systems found in the earlier Suikoden titles.
Controls: 7/10
This is an RPG so controls aren't a real big issues. I didn't find menu navigation irritating or standard battle navigation but I do have a couple of complaints:
One, the camera doesn't rotate at all. The graphics in this game are good but you can't really enjoy them with the camera being the way it is (Only being able to zoom in and out.) and the tactical battle controls were frustrating because of the slow speed the cursor moved around the map. When you need to switch from controlling your army to your navy it is frustrating when you are snapped to the scene of a battle when you're trying to pull your archer unit with only 10/100 men left away from an enemy that is about to rout it.
Conclusion: 9/10 (Not an average.)
In my humble opinion this is one of the best RPG's ever made and takes it's place in my top five, actually, it gets the second spot beaten only by Suikoden 2. The problems with this game I can easily forgive because I am a voracious Suikoden fan, however I know some people would be so bothered by this games flaws that they would likely not enjoy it nearly as much. However, if you are a fan of RPG's you should play this and if you are a fan of the series you must play this as it is a suitable apology for the joke that was Suikoden IV and the best Suikoden since II.
