Back in the days when Sony strongly discouraged anything 2D from leaving Japan, this little Konami title slipped through to claim an attentive audience. Maybe one had to be there at the time to feel the love.
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I'd probably stick Suikoden up to a 3.5 out of love and devotion, but yeah, the series was at its best in Suikoden II.
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Suikoden is one of the best RPGs ever made on any system. It's one of a very few games that I could still go back to on the PS1, it featured a great cast of characters, a very enjoyable combat system, beautiful music, decent graphics for its time, so how you can reward it 3/5 when games like Wild Arms, Alundra and even Azure Dreams scored higher is beyond me.
Yes Suikoden 2 probably pipped it but I wouldnt put much between them. Strange review.
I never really saw what was so great about the original. It was okay even at its time. The only major reason to get it is to unlock stuff in Suikoden 2, but considering what you get, it's worth it.
I wasn't really bothered by the inconsistent encounter rate since, in another series tradition, you can Let Go weak enemy parties and avoid wasting your time fighting them for meager experience, which is proportional to a character's level.
I also managed to beat the game in under 20 hours but then again I've played it plenty times.
Last edited by LOLOttertard; 09-27-2012 at 12:19 PM.
JuMes didn't retroview Azure Dreams and Wild Arms 1, to be fair. Plus he only awarded Alundra .5 more, not too big a deal.
Anyway, this review pretty much reflects my opinion toward Suiko 1. Its a decent game for sure, but not super spectacular. My first time playing Suiko 1 was when I was very young at the time it was originally released. I think my mom rented it for herself and I tried it as well. Was a neat game, but the lack of attention span in my youth and only having it a short time messed things up for me. Eventually I went on to try Suikoden 2 and fell in love with that one. A couple years later or something I finally got my hands on a copy of S1 and felt a little underwhelmed. Everything was just a little unrefined, which is certainly forgivable given what Suikoden was trying to achieve.
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I have to agree with JuMe's review. The game was good, but is pretty average nowadays, and I had the same irritations and whatnot with the game. That reminds me...I still need to beat Suikoden 2.
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No but surely there needs to be comparison to other reviews, at least for games of the same genre on the same console? I had every RPG released on the PS1 and I can assure you that Suikoden was far superior than any other RPG released in the UK at that time bar Final Fantasy 7 (Although I have more love for Suikoden) and maybe Chrono Cross, Vagrant Story and the Vandal Hearts.Originally Posted by ChickenGod
Games don't get bonus points for being on a console full of RPGs that didn't age well. If it's not that fun to play now, then it's going to get a score that's not that great. There is no "This game wasn't all that fun, but at least it wasn't Beyond the Beyond. 4.5/5 for Suikoden!" in reviewing. JuMeSyn has been tearing through a back catalogue of widely-loved console and PC RPGs recently, and he hasn't hesitated to give the fun ones high scores.
It's fine to love an older game, but don't tell someone a mediocre, flawed experience should get bonus points because some worse games existed that year. You already listed several better PS1 games. Most of us were still on the SNES in 1996 which has an even deeper list of better RPGs, if you're going the comparison route.
The lesson here is that dreams inevitably lead to hideous implosions.
i put down this game because i was getting tired of the grind. The story is all right, the battles are not bad, but I've played better. I've played better PS1 RPGs at that.
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Yeah, I definitely was one of those guys who could never understand the love of Suikoden. To me it was a subpar rpg even back then, and I never included it as part of my top favorite rpgs on the PS1. I hear Suikoden 2 was better though, but never had the chance to play it. If that game ever comes out on the PSN, I would give it a go though...
I loved Suikoden. I remember that when I first got a PS1, I got three games with it: Final Fantasy 7, Wild Arms, and Suikoden. I played FF7 first because I knew I was a fan of FF games, and honestly I was a bit let down by it. I played Wild Arms next because I had heard good things about it from friends, and it was pretty fun. I put off Suikoden for last because of the terrible box art, and afterwards I felt like that was a terrible mistake, because it was easily my favorite of the three games.
I really liked the story, but I've always been a fan of games that had more "local" stories -- that is to say, the type that concerns itself with the politics and events in a single area rather than a global "save the world from destruction" type plot. I also loved the amount of detail that put into the setting; there's a lot of details you find scattered about the game that may not be directly related to the main plot, but add a lot of depth to it. I also loved the music, it's still one of my favorite soundtracks. I thought that the different styles of battles were a lot of fun, too; even if the army and duel battles are basically rock-paper-scissors fights, they added some variety to the game.
But anyway, that's enough of me rambling about my love for Suikoden. Suikoden II took everything the first game did and did it much better. It's one of the few games that I'd say deserves a solid 5/5.
Oh, good. A kindred spirit. I've also always been more fascinated by smaller scale plots than "save the world" stories. I think it's because small scale plots do a better job at handling key characters and dramatically detailing their struggles with elements much closer to home, plus it's harder to justify a line of comic books and novels when the story can actually fit one game. Big universe lore has seriously gotten out of hand.I really liked the story, but I've always been a fan of games that had more "local" stories -- that is to say, the type that concerns itself with the politics and events in a single area rather than a global "save the world from destruction" type plot
Your mom sounds cool. My mom still hasn't figured out how to send emails, lol. Which is...kind of odd because she is very, very good at Streets of Rage.I think my mom rented it for herself and I tried it as well.
Last edited by TG Barighm; 09-27-2012 at 09:06 PM.
While I didn't play the original Suikoden, I did play the prequels (Suikoden 4, Suikoden 5, and Suikoden Tactics), sequels such as Suikoden 2 and 3, and spinoffs like Suikoden Tierkreis.
Too bad there's no mention of a North American release of Suikoden Centennial Tapestry.
As for a hope for Suikoden 6, Suikoden 7, or future mainstream Suikodens, I hope that Konami brings back or restarts the Suikoden development teams and continues this series after a seven year hiatus so it won't go the way of Capcom's "Breath of Fire"
While not related to Suikoden, any news when Suikoden Centennial Tapestry will be released in North America?
I just looked at the screenshots for Suikoden Centenntial Tapestry, and the battle layout and graphics are much better than Suikoden Tierkreis.
If North America and Europe don't get Suikoden Centenntial Tapestry, it will be a big blow to Suikoden fans this side of the Pacific.
Best not hold your breath on that one.
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I liked Suikoden, but disliked that there are so many characters. I hate having to choose which characters should go into the group. If it only had 6 playable characters I'd probably rate it 4/5, but like this I'd also rate it 3/5.
I'd rate Alundra and Wild Arms higher than Suikoden myself as well. Alundra has this really really well written story, much better than Suikoden's and Wild Arms has much more interesting dungeons with better puzzles and stuff.
Azure Dreams was pretty bad, though. Wouldn't rate it better than 2/5.
I liked Suikoden a lot so it would rate higher(4 personally, 3.5 subjectively) for me but can't really argue with the issues.
You could have just stuck to the same group of 6 characters for the whole game. You didn't have to swap out your party that much.I hate having to choose which characters should go into the group
Re read my statement - the game should score higher because it is a fun to play great game that spawned one of the best RPG series of all time. This is not just my opinion but that of many. (Check out all the Suikoden revival pages on social network sites)
My comments were that far worse games have scored higher in RPGamer's reviews it makes me wonder how extensively these games have been played through before review? Azure dreams was fricking awful.. repetitive tosh, Alundra was decent but just a Zelda clone. Maybe you should have actually played these PS games rather than your SNES games before commenting?
Suikoden was different to all the rest, a large list of characters(a fair few had real depth), headquarters, 3 different battle systems, mini games & most of all a great story. Who didn't get upset when Gremio or Pahn died? Only to find out they didn't have to if you played the perfect game.
Your (or others') opinion isn't what this particular review score is based on though, kinda defeats the purpose to use someone else's scoring opinion with Jumes' text
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