Flaws With Suikoden Games?

[CAPTAIN PLANET]

Suikoden I

- Lack of personality
Yeah, all the characters had personalities, I guess, but, uhm...where are they? Half the people really didn't have a reason to join the army, and the art was the most personality we saw of them.

- Translation
Seemed to be a wee bit of a problem. Like, how Morgan seemed to "lie" about how he was always blind, or something, when his eyes were really taken out. Cleo was talking in some weird-ass third person, and Mathiu wound up saying "All this killing...in front of a children." I didn't know "children" was a singular word. XD

- Lack of culture
The Scarlet Moon Empire didn't seem to have any culture or anything, really. It was like most other fantasy RPGs from the era, with ninjas, elves, knights, and the like. It was mainly "European", but it did have the Japan section. Other than that, not much culture to it.


Suikoden II

- No real reasons/explanation
No one really had a real reason to do anything in the game. The rune was supposed to have made Riou and Jowy enemies, but either one of them could have had the will to say "screw it, I'm staying out of this." The game never gave any explaination, like the rune forced them because it controlled their minds, or something. It's pretty much known that if they aren't enemies, there's no story. Also to add to this topic, Leon really didn't have a reason to cause trouble in the war. The battle was over, yet, he cuts his own hand to keep it going? for what? Nothing. Why is he suddenly a bad guy, when he was a good guy in the last game?

- No need for the Beast Rune
You see it only a few times, or even hear of it. It's a big part of Muse, and Luca, when he's around, and then it's the final battle. It wasn't even the biggest part of the game, and could be done without it. It's like, they could have used the Black Sword Rune, really.

- Not much culture
Same as Suikoden I, but more fantasy, including griffons, unicorns, giant squid-like things, and more ninjas.


Suikoden III

- Didn't see enough
You only see a few places from each country. It's assumed that Zexen is a small nation because they only show a couple towns from there, and mention another one (Nor). Yet, Salome says Zexen is a "vast realm". We see a bit of Harmonia through cutscenes, but not much else (aside from Caleria) is seen. Also to add, many characters from past games and that game were said to be from the Grasslands, but weren't said where in the Grasslands. We saw five of six clans. Plus, to add, there's a village of werewolves, and other duck and lizard villages. Where is Muto from? A Grassland Kobold village? What about Martha? None of it is explained or shown.

- Translation
To add to Sophita's point, they made the error of making people think Zexen had a true rune, the Zexen Rune. When, really, it was meant to be the Zexen Crest.

- No reason to be in the war
Some people didn't really have reasons to even be in the war. Some characters returned, and had good reasons (Apple, with her book of the Grasslands. Or Belle, to find Meg.) But others simply showed up and joined the cause for very little reason. Estella? She had no reason at all. Twaikin wanted to dig holes and repair stuff. He didn't dig one hole or repair anything!


Suikoden IV

- So-so graphics
The overall graphics were spectacular, but they all lacked emotion in cutscenes and such. Lazlo and everyone had no emotion at all!

- No reason to join the war.
More than half of the recruits joined because Lazlo asked them to. Nothing more, nothing less. Some of the characters were inspired because they wanted to kill Cray, and some were obsessed with the drunken strat. But, really, a lot of the people just wound up freeloading.

- Cliché baddies
Cray and Troy, and the other dude had no motive to start the war. To expand the empire? How cliché. By this game, it was cliché for the bad guys to want runes, too. and nothing was explained by the end. Cray just magically brought a tree to sparkly life and was all "Yeah, you have to die now or give me the rune that I already got rid of twice. plz and ty." It didn't even make sense why Cray got rid of the rune twice before, but then wanted it again.

- Not enough variety
In past games, there were several races. In this game? Not so many, really. We had humans, nay kobolds, elves, and mermaids. They mixed up things slightly by adding triangles on some human's heads, but other than that, it wasn't too snazzy. No lizards, ducks, or anything previously mentioned in past games.


Suikoden V

- Explanations..?
Yeah, not there. How could an entire city be pretty much okay under ground for thousands of years? How could the city be, like, lit up and stuff? How could the king of the Armes Dynasty be alive when the other Sun rune bearers got all ashed up? How could Marscal control the Sun RUne if he didn't even have the Dawn or Dusk runes? How could Jeane and Eresh know about the Armes Dynasty? Too much not said!

- So much mentioned, not enough there
In past games, things were mentioned that people were so excited to see. Such as the Crimson Bird Clan, or the Falenan calendar. None of that was seen or explained too much. Yeah, we saw Killey again. Yeah, we saw how Lorelai, Killey, and Viki all met. But, did we see the actual clan? No. Did we hear much of anything about how the Falenan calendar was different from Harmonia's "In Solis"? Nope. Some things, like slavery and ruins, were mentioned, but some of the things weren't shown, and will never be seen.

- Not much of Island Nations anymore.
We know the Island Nations exists then. We got to see a brand new island from it. But, we didn't see any specific races seen in Suikoden IV. We didn't see any Nay Kobold NPCs, nor did we hear of or see any merfolk. Hell, Yahr could have had a triangle on his forehead, for that matter! But, none of it was really mentioned again, sadly.

- Not many foreigners
Actually, there were lots of individuals who were foreign. We saw people from the Island Nations, Scarlet Moon, Harmonia, Katana, Kanakan, Armes, etc. However, the only person from Nagarea was Eresh, and we even doubt that she's really from there. Also, only a few Armes people were seen. If Nagarea and Armes border on Falena, more of those people would be there. Nagarea was even invited to the coronation ceremony! The least they could have done was shown Eresh or whoever at the coronation, to make it more believable. Not to mention, Nelis talks about Milich Oppenheimer, but we don't see him. come on Konami, throw us a bone.

- Lack of races
We had even less races this time around. Less elves than in past games, and then we had beavers, dwarves and humans. No kobolds, no nay kobolds, lizards, ducks, wingers, etc. It would have made it much more believable and sad for Marscal to go on a genocide spree if there were more races in Falena.
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ard says:
I'll yank your pigtails and call you heidi
Mirage says:
ard, save the dirty talk for when we meet!

[Sniper_Zegai]

Dont get me wrong I have many beefs with the Suikoden series, however they are minor and have already been pointed out by most other posters. Of course the majority of my complaints are against III, IV and Tactics.

There have also been some complaints against Jowy that I agree with however I accepted that he was'nt some master of peacekeeping that he tried to make himself out to be and assume hes an idiot who did'nt have the brain capacity to know any better.

Non of this however changes the simple fact that I think Suikoden is the greatest RPG franchise of all time and other RPG's I have played have never engaged me in such a way as Suikoden does. Does it have flaws? Hell yeah but if you've ever played Final Fantasy X-2 you can see that the series could have been much, much worse.

And last but not least I think Suikoden 2 is arguably the best looking 2d game ever made combining 3D graphics with 2D incredibly well and also improving on almost every aspect of Suikoden 1 making it (in my opinion) the best seqeual I have ever played to any game.
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[Gemini]

I agree with most of your reasons ... but sometimes i couldn't help but feel that some reasons were a tad bit annoying probably its because i love the series so much!

Unfortunately i haven't played Suiko 3 and 4 so i can't say anything about them

Suikoden 1 : The fact that to run we had to use the Holy rune and well i wasn't much of a fan to the runes used!

Suikoden 2: The english translation ... there's a cat that said Sonya in the beginning and well i though it had some link to suiko one with the lost cat of mina and Sonya Shulen ... don't ask!

Suikoden 5: I pretty much liked the game, yet still it was too simple ... i finished it within a week! ... >.> I like challenging games! Oh and the fact that without Oboro no other 6 characters!
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[KFCrispy]

most of the games had interesting stories and a lot of development that was shown when considering the land's history and surrounding areas.. but they did always fail to detail certain important plot points clearly... one thing was the Beast Rune in Suikoden II. Luca had let the Beast Rune feed so it had a lot of energy stored up, ready to unleash hell if it got in the wrong hands... Jowy was using the Black Sword Rune to keep it sealed and as a result he was dying. Leon released it to save Jowy's life and pretty much forced Riou to bear the rest of the burden.
However, there are still simply bad decisions to drive the plot forward, such as Leon advising to Jowy to continue his campaign to control both Jowston and Highland with an Iron Fist to ensure the safety of children or something. Jowy knows politic negotiations are inefficient but he could have at least TRIED with his life-long friend who was completely willing to become a leader at that time.

other times they failed to give explanations were in Suikoden V, with Sialeeds, Lyon, and the ending in general (what, they all cared about Falena in their own psychotic way so they're friends with you? you're happy to see them?!), and a lot of Suikoden III seems to have plot holes... like the True Water seal and Yun's sacrifice business ("damn, we lost it! but good, now it opened up the ruins so we can get it"???).
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[ClouD.]

Only thing that freaked me out in the Suikoden series was the massive amount of random battles in some nervy placed and the fact that you could never escape the battles in Stormfirst, Doraat etc...

[Archpark]

They end.

[Harmony]

I agree with Sniper Zegai. Most of the flaws people see with the Suikoden games is because one game is getting compared to another in the same franchise. Play Suikoden IV and then play, as Sniper suggested, Final Fantasy X-2, and see how they compare.

However, here are somethings that disappointed me a little, since that's what this thread is about. There's no Suikoden I or II here because I haven't played them.

Suikoden III

:: Small world map ::
---- There weren't enough places to explore, the different areas were WAY to small ((it takes just 2 screens to get from Karaya Village to Brass Castle)). The way the over world map was set up was a disappointment as well, it really made it clear how restricted travel was. More villages would have been nice as well.

:: Too short ::
---- The first three chapters take a while to play through because you're forced to play through all three viewpoints ((or four, if you decide to play Thomas' chapter)). After that, the 4th and 5th chapters just fly by. There's a chapter boss, maybe a strategic battle or two, and you're done.

:: Soundtrack ::
---- The game's soundtrack doesn't have a nice unifying sound to it. The only town themes that fit together nicely are the Duck and Karaya Village themes. Brass Castle and Vinay del Zexy had music that annoyed me to no end, and Le Buque's theme was re-used as the theme for Mt. Hei-Tou. Also, there are many scenes in the game with no music at all.

:: Tiny towns ::
---- Every single town in this game is tiny. Chisha village is one map with three houses in front of you that you can enter, Brass Castle is boringly linear. Enough said.

Suikoden IV

:: Too easy ::
---- Seriously, every time you fight in the training hall you level up at least once, bosses have a super fast respawn time and give you loads of money. The easiness of the game is what makes it feel even shorter than it actually is.

:: Lack of event development ::
---- The only place with any sort of quest to getting it is Na-Nal ((everything else is just sail up to the island, fight a strategic battle)), and even at that it's left completely unresolved. It's not really all that hard to get places to join you either, and you're left waiting for one that will actually be a little difficult. As a result, nothing you do ever feels significant.

:: Lack of character development ::
---- The only character to go through any development is Snowe. And pretty much everyone hates Snowe, so that really sucks. There's a really small circle of main characters ((Lazlo, Lino, Kika, Elenor and maybe Chiepoo)), but none of them ever change or go through anything significant.

:: Destroying an awesome battle system ::
---- The usual six man system is gone, over half the runes are gone, the kick-ass skill system from Suikoden III is gone. Were they TRYING to make battles boring and tedious?

Suikoden V

:: Tedious beginning ::
---- How many hours does it take to get into the actual story? All you do through that entire time is run around on petty errands that just overload you on background information. Is there really any reason for you to talk to every single person in the senate building before you're allowed to see the list of people entering the Sacred Games? No. This gets even worse during the second play through.

:: The camera angle ::
---- You can't see where you're going, you can't see what anyone looks like, and every non-cinema scene is from this angle. They could at LEAST cut to a similar style of scene to Suikoden III or IV for the silent scenes. Even without sound and uber-shininess they would have been more enjoyable than the boring bird's-eye scenes.

:: Lyon's sparkles ::
---- Seriously, WHAT is up with that? She's the only one who bleeds sparkles, every other character who gets stabbed doesn't bleed at all. She gets freaking SPARKLES.

:: Too much left unexplained ::
---- For all the over-explaining they do at the beginning of the game, you would think this wouldn't be a problem, but it is. Why does Sialeeds betray you? How do the Godwins manage to control the Sun Rune? How does Marscal Godwin + Sun Rune = giant butterfly, and how does he manage to pull that off?

Suikoden Tactics

:: The "creative" story ::
---- I love it when Corselia tries to explain "they're turning people into fish... monsters...", even she starts second-guessing the logic of this story. I'm seriously curious to know what they were smoking when they came up with this. Especially the goats. Fish, okay, a little weird but I can deal with it. Goat boys? That's pushing it.

:: The character models ::
---- Don't get me wrong, I think the style they used for the character models during fights is wonderful. However, I wish they would have done something a little different with the cutscenes and gone with something a little more similar to the cutscenes in III and IV.
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[TruePerception]

Umm....compared to Final Fantasy X-2, every RPG is good!
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Daily Funny Award for May 1st, 2008

[BlackKnightYuber]

[Scott]

Well, there's plenty that can be said. Not to say the series is bad, but it certainly has it's fair share of flaws.

SUIKODEN I

- "Since You gave me Soap, I'll gladly risk my life by joining your army! :D"
It had some of the most absurd reasonings for people joining your army. I know descent was high in Scarlet moon Empire(or at the very least I assume!) But come on.

- A complete lack of side quests beyond getting all 108 Characters. It's a big side quest, if you want to call it that, but it no less wasn't enough.

- Some VERY bad character artwork. The artist has come a long way since then, but some the characters are just painful to look at. Marco is a damn good example. Even though some characters looked great for some reason...


SUIKODEN II

- HORRID release date. If I remember right, wasn't this released like 2 months before Final Fantasy VIII? Not exactly a good move.

- Shoddy localization. This one should be in everyone's list really. Look at Annalee's song. I thought my game was broken the first 2 times I tried to recruit her. I assumed it had froze.

SUIKODEN III

- Trinity Sight system. It's pretty awesome in theory, really. But once put into practice I felt it was pretty bad. The third time I had to deal with Karaya being burned was pretty damn annoyed.

- Mostly Minor details. Like the Location for the Star Tablet(if memory serves me right). Very small towns. Mediocre soundtrack.

SUIKODEN IV

- Boring characters galore. About as many as Suikoden I had. And that's quite a few. Konami really dropped the ball here. Both in regards to look an personality.

- Another Mediocre soundtrack.

- Travel by Boat was just terribly executed.

- And a storyline that failed to get me interested.


SUIKODEN V

- The Tedious start. I myself enjoyed it, but I can see why some many are put off by it.

- Cheap and lazy character models. They look GREAT in close scenes, but out of they they look very dull and washed out. Plus some designs were just very boring and uninspired.

- Varying voice acting. Some was terrific, like the Queen's Knights, but some characters (SORENSON) had unbearable voices...
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[TruePerception]

Yeah! No skin, no fun!
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Daily Funny Award for May 1st, 2008

[Raww Le Klueze]

[KFCrispy]

Suikoden 2 probably has the most prominent technical issues, from bugs with item-collecting and item-submission to bugs with the Matilda border gate that allows you to see an area before it should be available. Then there was translation (some parts completely missed while other parts had bad/inconsistent translating), music, Kindness Rune..... i don't think the other games had even one major flaw like Suikoden 2 that hindered you from collecting all items or let you become too powerful for your own good.
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[Song Jiang]

[chaco]

Suikoden 1: Nope it's orignal so I cannot complain (Although after
playing Suikoden 2 it would of been nice to have more then one rune slot)

Suikoden 2: Perfect game in my opionion. ONLY thing I didn't like was how many times people were forced into my party and I didn't want them there (Freed Y, Tuta at the start, ect.)

Suikoden 3: The "pairing" system was just dumb. I think they should of made the Flame Champion (whoever you picked) the Tenkai star then put Thomas into whatever slot wasn't filled (So if you pick Hugo then Thomas takes the slot Hugo is in if you don't pick him. Kinda like they did with Tomo and Valeria/Kasumi). Also Worldmap was kind of annoying to travel across.

Suikoden 4: 4 Person Party (Lame) and The World Map was god awefull crap, with invisable walls and endless nothingness a lot and I spent way to long on it. Voices sucked to.

Suikoden 5: Great game overall, the loading screens were to long and it took a bit to long to get a castle but that was really all I could complain about. (the voices were not half bad either)
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