Suikoden 1 and 2 finally coming to psn + Suikoden discussion.

[Aeolus]

Neclord's plot in 2 is mostly built upon the fact that he's basically going after the people who thwarted him last time (that and you hijack his hijacked castle from him so that you can turn it into your base for the game), and that just doing what you did last time won't work because it didn't last time despite more or less working last time.

Basically, bashing Dracula's face in with the Vampire Killer wasn't enough. Now you have to collect all of his assorted body parts and set them on fire, before you can bash Dracula's face in with a flaming Vampire Killer again.

The only thing I recall Suikogaiden 1 adding was how Neclord ended up with his bargain bin Pale Moon rune in the first place (which involved a completely different guy conning Serria out of her true Blue Moon rune and then eventually handing off a Pale Moon rune to Neclord).

Also, the real point behind Neclord was because "C'mon! Its 90s era Konami dude. They had to shoehorn a Castlevania reference in there somehow.".

[MeshGearFox]

Also Suikoden is based off of the Chinese story Water Margin and China loves putting vampires in everything, even if they completely change what vampires even does, like in Magic Cop or The Twins Effect.
待つ待つ待つwooden yams

[Ranadiel]

a massive plushie

Ahahaha

haaaaaaaaaaaaaa

oh lawdy, you card.

THEY'S A SKELETON IN THAT PLUSHIE, SON.

And out of all of the characters he could choose, he chose freaking Chiepoo (sp). The most annoying character in the entire series (waiting for some one to bring up something worse than him that I forgot). Really, if you are going to steal someone's skeleton to use in taxidermy, the least you can do is make them into something not as horrible as Chiepoo.

[kkhohoho]

So I just beat the first Suikoden. (Again.) And... it was good. It wasn't perfect, but what is but for a 1995 RPG, this was years ahead of it's time, both in terms of story and gameplay. Grinding (for exp, anyway...) is a thing of the past; battles, while not too complex, are quick and relatively easy, so they're not a problem; the teleportation system you get later saves a lot of time; and there are other things, I'm sure. And of course, the story is more mature and complex than most other RPG's of the era. Well, mostly. There's still a witch going around causing havok in the country and corrupting people with 'dark runes', but rather than that just being that, here, it ends up being the Emperor who is still ultimately at fault;  for all that Windy did, it was still the Emperor who turned a blind eye to both her actions, as well as to to his empire. All in all, for the first game in a series that lasted over 10 years, it's a great start.

That said, the game's not without it's problems. The encounter rate's still a bit too high, and while you don't have to grind for EXP, you do end up having to grind for money. Around the time you fight Teo, the prices for upgrading your weapons start to skyrocket, and by the end of the game, you'll find yourself having to take 20-30 minute chunks away from doing anything else just to upgrade your weapons. And suddenly finding yourself having to use a character you haven't used in a while, and thus having to upgrade them accordingly, doesn't help. Also, you can only equip one rune per character, which is okay, but it'd be nice to be able to equip more than just one. (And to not have to use a rune to run. That got old fast...)

The other problem with the game has to do with the characters. Oh, the main cast is fine. It's the other 90-something Stars that are the problem. I get that with such a large cast, most of them aren't going to get a lot of development, but most of them take little more than you just walking up to them for them to join you on what seems like a whim, and what little motivation there is for joining often doesn't make a lot of sense. There are exceptions, but for the most part, I really think they could have put in just a bit more effort towards the characterization and motivations of the vast majority of the 108 stars. As is, I could care less about most of them.

But again, this was just the start. The Suikoden series would move onward from here, and, if I remember correctly, just about every problem I had with this game was addressed in the sequel. I'll start playing it again soon enough.

[Cyril]

Yeah the money grinding is the worst part of Suikoden 1.

Fortunately, the gambling dude Gaspar has really bad luck and with some resetting you can win 999,999 in about 5 rolls. He rolls a 1/2/3 Storm and 1/1/1 about half the time.

[Dice]

Suikoden II is running thanks to a Secret Santa gift I got from a gaming friend from work...aww

= The game has aged well.  While i hate the 4-directional movement (it makes getting around that much more awful), the graphics are very lovely.  The frame rate for the characters is beautiful and the amount of separate animations for minor things is both noticed and appreciated.  Like Riou having a cloth in hand when he's cleaning the Merc. Fort.

= Holy shit, Pohl is a dude?  I thought he was a she the first time around for some reason....  The red hair???  maybe????  Eep.

= Flik and Viktor have great chemistry that makes me wanna play Suiko1.

= "Oboy!"

Code:

This sticks out about as much as VLR's "goddamnit"

= I don't get runes much yet.  People make this game sound easy, but I remember the opposite when I played this as a young'un.  Soo... I'll do my best. :S

= Good god the music is divine.  The perfect east/west influences in suitable melodies and perfect instrumentation.  Who could as for more?
...funny enough, the main battle theme is balls (or it gets better, but 20 seconds too late).  Then again, I can't say any Suikoden has really impressed me in this aspect here... =/

= Fumi Ishikawa is an outstanding artist.  I don't blame Konami for using her twice in a row.  Hell, any Suikoden artist has a super formidable task of creating at LEAST 108 unique characters (+ important enemies/NPCs) and is able to do so without making their style look repetitive whereas there's a ton of artists who are waaay too guilty of "same facing" (like, for example, Tony Taka and Nomura)

= A minor thing, but I love the graphical choice to make the 'water' into a greyscale gradient

[Cyril]

I think part of the appeal of Suikoden is the mixture of cultures that is represented so nicely in music, in-game cultures, and designs. Arshtat from V, for example, is an incredible mix of so many different cultural styles and still somehow looks amazing.  I think I can count at least 4 cultures that influenced her design and Falena in general.
(I had this really long post music-gasming about how great II's music is, but I decided to remove it because Miki Higashino is Miki Higashino and there's not really much more to be said than that for someone who has played the games. But, I will say that the cooking duel song is so stupidy addicting and once I start listening to it I can't stop).

I admit that I didn't appreciate the amount of animations Riou had until I was replaying recently as well.  That cloth-in-hand run was so neat.  This game has so many small hidden details. Relationship values between characters, Rune affinities, so on.

And you should play Suikoden 1 if you haven't before!
Flik is really, really different in Suikoden I, and you can see how he grew into the man he is in Suikoden II.
The same goes for Futch, who has a really nice arc throughout 1, 2, and 3.

[Aeolus]

= I don't get runes much yet.  People make this game sound easy, but I remember the opposite when I played this as a young'un.  Soo... I'll do my best. :S

The one thing I can suggest about Runes early on is to try to walk away with one or two Fury runes from the Mountain Pass between the starting area and The Highlands (it'll be a long time before you can return to that place for reasons that'll become obvious later). While not at all necessary, it can lead to some hilarious results down the line. For now though, just take advantage of the fact that Riou and Jowi/Jowy/whatever have an excellent Unite together and don't worry about outfitting them with Runes (they'll be set once they get theirs' due to plot soon enough).

[Chronix112]

= I don't get runes much yet.  People make this game sound easy, but I remember the opposite when I played this as a young'un.  Soo... I'll do my best. :S

Suikoden II is as easy as you want to be. Depending on your party set up the game can be broken easily. 

= Good god the music is divine.  The perfect east/west influences in suitable melodies and perfect instrumentation.  Who could as for more?
...funny enough, the main battle theme is balls (or it gets better, but 20 seconds too late).  Then again, I can't say any Suikoden has really impressed me in this aspect here... =/

Suikoden I and II are up there for best music in any game series up there with Trigger/Cross for me. Thank the lucky stars Konami realized it was gold as there are over A dozen arranged albums for this series.

= Fumi Ishikawa is an outstanding artist.  I don't blame Konami for using her twice in a row.  Hell, any Suikoden artist has a super formidable task of creating at LEAST 108 unique characters (+ important enemies/NPCs) and is able to do so without making their style look repetitive whereas there's a ton of artists who are waaay too guilty of "same facing" (like, for example, Tony Taka and Nomura)

The amount of detail and care put into character design is  suberb. Even the fodder 108 members  are nicely detailed.

[pseudonym]

I don't really remember how I acquired Suikoden I when I was younger, but I think it may have been on a whim. I do remember thinking that the artwork in the case look somewhat cheesy. The first game drew me in and Suikoden II sealed the love that I have for the series.

I would rank the entries in this order:

1)II
2)V
3)I
4)III
5)IV

The only toss up that I have in the rankings is I and III. III had a better story and tied things in from I, yet the gameplay was way too slow and deviated from I thought was unique to the overall series. I's story may have not been as good as III's but it was the introduction to the series and wasn't bad by any means. I found the gameplay in I more enjoyable than III's.

Also, I messed in V and wasn't able to get all the characters. I was too far along in the game to want to restart. Something happens that causes the ending to one or another way. I found the alternate ending where the player didn't get all the 108 people to be more realistic and enjoyable. It wasn't all "happy, happy, joy, joy".

[Aeolus]

I don't really remember how I acquired Suikoden I when I was younger, but I think it may have been on a whim. I do remember thinking that the artwork in the case look somewhat cheesy. The first game drew me in and Suikoden II sealed the love that I have for the series.

I would rank the entries in this order:

1)II
2)V
3)I
4)III
5)IV

The only toss up that I have in the rankings is I and III. III had a better story and tied things in from I, yet the gameplay was way too slow and deviated from I thought was unique to the overall series. I's story may have not been as good as III's but it was the introduction to the series and wasn't bad by any means. I found the gameplay in I more enjoyable than III's.

Also, I messed in V and wasn't able to get all the characters. I was too far along in the game to want to restart. Something happens that causes the ending to one or another way. I found the alternate ending where the player didn't get all the 108 people to be more realistic and enjoyable. It wasn't all "happy, happy, joy, joy".

3 did some silly things every once in a while like the fighting in pairs bit, but it did some cool things too like introducing Skills and the Theater. I generally find it really hard to actually rank 1 & 3 tier wise since both have their merits (realistically speaking, they're pretty much on the exact same level).