Genso Suikoden: 108 Stars!
Written: Jun 19 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent story, wonderful character development, beautiful soundtrack
Cons: Average graphics, simple game mechanics, questionable English translations
The Bottom Line: Suikoden is a gem that no PS1 CRPG fan should miss!
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| gorocco's Full Review: Suikoden for PlayStation 1 |
OK, I can't give this game 108 stars, but nevertheless, if you call yourself a CRPG fan and you missed this game, shame on you! Buried under the overhyped, behemoth Final Fantasy series lies this gem for your PS1 from Konami: Genso Suikoden.
Story
You are the son of the great General McDohl. You have reached the age where you can contribute to your family's name in serving the Emperor Barbarossa. As a neophyte, your assignments begin with simple errands. But during one of your assignments, you and your party battle a seemingly unbeatable foe. Your friend Ted reveals the incredible power of his Soul Eater rune and saves the day.
Things start to go awry afterwards. Ted is attacked by the Emperor's forces in an attempt to get his magical rune. The young boy explains his story and entrusts you with the sacred rune, making you the target of the empire. Now, aligned with the Rebel army, it is now your job to gather the 108 Stars of Destiny and combat the Emperor.
Gameplay
The main quest takes place in a 2D, birds eye view of the game world. Controls are very simple, with one action button used for talking/searching for items. The majority of your time will be spent fighting or searching for companions.
Battles play a prominent role in Suikoden and come in three flavors: party battles, army battles, and one-on-one duels. Party battles are similar to many other CRPGs out there. Fights are divided into rounds. You select commands for your party of up to six members before each round and watch as each character attacks, casts a spell, etc. until one side or the other is defeated. Unlike other CRPGs, Suikoden allows for Group Attacks; if you have a specific combination of characters in your party, they can perform a team attack.
Army battles occur sporadically throughout the game. Your army is divided into squads led by predetermined teams of three. Each unit has a specific role in battle such as infantry, spell casters, and archers. Battles are decided in a rock-paper-scissors fashion (Attacks beat Archers, Magic beats Attacks, etc.). These clashes are immensely fun despite their simplicity. Since these battles are resolved rather quickly, they do not slow down the game. They are an excellent addition that adds an epic scope to the quest. The only downside is you can permanently lose party members in army battles . It is a rare but random occurance, but it has a tremendous effect on completely finishing the game.
Single duels also play out like rock-paper-scissors. Each of the three commands (Attack, Wild Attack, Defend) has a specific counter (i.e. Defend beats Wild Attack), and it is up to you to determine the right move based on your enemy's taunts. Most of these battles become a matter of trial-and-error or extraordinary luck. Overall, duels are few and far between -- a good thing since they are the weakest and most frustrating element of the game.
In fact, if there is anything wrong with Suikoden, it's the lack of complexity in the game mechanics. You will not find flexibility on par with FFVII's Materia or FFVIII's Junctioning system. What you do have is solid, basic CRPG gameplay that emphasizes the most important element: story.
The story is wonderfully told, with excellent pacing and many plot twists to keep you on your toes. Despite the weak English translations, Suikoden takes a fairly generic story model and tells a epic story that will leave you hard pressed to stop playing. It is rare for a game to move me as much as Suikoden did, but I will not delve into this much further. You really have to play the game to truly understand what I mean.
While the main quest plays out in a very linear fashion, there are many side quests to recruit the 108 Stars of Destiny. Here, Suikoden adopts a Pokemon type of feel as you try to "catch 'em all." The beauty behind this setup is Konami does a wonderful job instilling personality and backgrounds into each of the 108 companions. Also, recruiting characters not only gives you more choices for your traveling party, it builds up your army size, unlocks mini-games and Easter eggs such as the mural, and gives you useful goodies such as a world map and the ability to teleport to places you have already visited. You are given so much incentive to find and recruit all of the characters that
While you do not need to find all 108 characters, players who manage to find all 108 and keep all but one alive before the final mission will be treated with a special reward and ending. (Spoiler will be in the comments sections!) While the game world is large, you can easily get to the ending in less than 50 hours. However, you will be missing a lot in the process, including one of the most satisfying endings ever to a CRPG!
Graphics and Sound
The visuals are colorful and well detailed 2D sprites. Characters and portraits are drawn in old school, anime style. While the graphics will not blow you away like the 3D worlds and full motion video presented in the PS Final Fantasy games, they more than do their job in creating a beautiful and imaginative world.
Suikoden also features a beautiful soundtrack, amongst the best in a CRPG. The music ranging from the upbeat, very catchy travelling music to the tense battle hymns match well with the moment and will have you humming them while you are away from the game (whenever that is!). Konami has done a truly outstanding job in this department.
Final Thoughts
Suikoden is a CRPG that deserves to be in everyone's PS1 collection. While it lacks the complexity of the Final Fantasy games, Suikoden delivers with an excellent story and solid gameplay. You absolutely cannot miss with this game!
And once you find all 108 characters and finish the game, don't forget to save the data for the sequel!
Recommended:
Yes
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gorocco
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Location: Stony Brook, NY
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