What is your favorite war system?

[Benit149]

I noticed that in all four Suikodens, the rules for random battles and duels don't really change that much, but war battles are entirely different with each game. To recap:

Suikoden: select a group of three and attack with infantry, archers or magic. That unit can't be used again, but you keep selecting units to attack until all combatants on one side are down.

Suikoden II: unit leaders are preordained, and you can customize the members within the unit. Certain unit members have special skills, like Fire Spear, Heal, Encourage, Invention, etc. Units move freely on the battlefield, and attack each other. 50% of your men are lost at times, and if the other 50% are lost, that unit is finished.

Suikoden III: move units around on a premade path, being able to move two spaces within ally territory. Select a unit to attack, and a regular 'random' battle will occur, except that only the Attack command is available. Units are lost when all members are down.

Suikoden IV: entirely naval battles, this system utilizes Rune Cannons on your ships to try and sink enemy ships. The magic strength of your cannon is determined by the character in command at the cannon, and each cannon has one element assigned. Different elements have different effects when the opposing cannons meet: some cancel, some ignore each other, and some can cancel one but not the other. Ships are sunk when the number of men on your ship reaches 0. Ships can also be boarded and attacked from within, but only the Attack command is available.

**

I personally selected Suikoden II's because it has the air of surprise when you're attacking, that you hope the enemy will lose the soldiers. It's very satisfying when you see a huge group of enemies fall while your guys remain unscathed.
_________________
"Luca Blight, patron saint of population decrease." -- Benit, MST149

Benit149: First Lady of Addervon, Princess of Slight Fever, defender of the Nameless.

[Exile]

Definitely Suikoden 2, that game actually took a little bit of thought rather than ninja/opposite attack for the first three turns followed by thief/hope/opposite attack or guess in the first game. The third game was interesting but annoying to level up absolutely everyone involved, I guess you didn't need to but...Anyway I quite like the third one's but it still pales in comparison to the second. The fourth game's system was lacking in any strategy whatsoever, it was a case of matching rune type and then basically the battle was over.

So, yeah, definitely the second game.

Edit: Typos!
_________________

Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay -
The worst is death, and death will have his day.

[Tonberry]

I really liked Suiokden III's the best because yor characters actually got to do some fighting. The last battle (entering the ruins) was extremely fun. My favorite in the whole series.

[Daniel Blackhand]

I would have said III's if you had more control over what each character did. I would say my favorite was IV's because of you being able to board the enemies boats and battling them plus I truly liked the naval battles.
_________________

[Krawnik]

I voted for III, but it's a very tight call between III and II. S2's war battles reminded me of Shining Force, which was great. I also loved the scale on which S2's battles occured, you really got the sense you were commanding an entire army (which you were, after all). In S3, though... I'm not sure... I think I prefer how "personal" the battles were. Like, when you attack Yuber's unit, you can see Yuber right there, cutting your unit to shreds. I liked how you could see your individual character's prowess in battle. I also loved the layout of the battlegrounds and the method of moving your characters around. The scale was perfect for defending little places like Chisha and Budehuc. Although for larger battles, like when "Harmonia" begins it's assault on the Grasslands (one of my favourite parts in all of Suikoden), I would've liked to see more fighters to a unit. Having four on four battle in the middle of a flaming violent battleground just seemed a little underwhelming at times.

Suikoden I was a mockery of epics, but at least it layed the foundations for S2. Suikoden IV just never impressed me. Having to fight 2 enemy units with my 2 ships battle after battle after battle was never really brain-wracking. Besides that, most enemy ships reused previous Rune Cannon setups, so if you wrote down the most effective ways of dealing with certain setups (like I did), it was perfectly simple to recycle your own tactics every time. Ocean Rune pieces made the battles far too simple, as well. In addition, once your SoDs are competant enough, near the end of the game, boarding becomes no problem, and most generic enemy vessels can be boarded quite effortlessly.

If you could use non-star units in battles more often, and the scale of the battles was a little more grand, S3's war system would be perfect, but even as it stands, I think it's the best one. Or at least, it's my favourite. Heh.
_________________

416- friggin' racists, messing up my generalizations, also stealing my jobs, women.
RIP Ninjalicious

[Wataru]

I would definitely go for SII, but it does have major drawbacks.

S1 - Too easy. Paper rock scissors and you an cheat with Ninja. Lead off with Dragon Knights before you use your Ninja and you have a 2/3 chance of elimitating 25% of your enemy soldiers before even using a ninja! I beat Yuber's final battle without losing a single soldier. Far too easy.

S3 - No control over units. You can pick your setup, but from there it's pretty much AI vs. AI. Whenever I chose attack or flee, the game pretty much did what it wanted too anyway. Viki with the Pale Gate Rune destroys nearly every unit she encounters with Open Gate and Jeane/Estella/Sasarai can take out any boss unit without even engaging it. I liked the control you had over the units on the map, but hated the battles. When will video games realize that anything that causes you to lose control of your character and let the AI handle things is a bad idea? I did like the importance of troop placement and cover, though.

S4 - Waaaaaay too easy. I just loaded the Dauntless with Ted, Jeane, Maxine and Warlock and had it mop up the entire enemy fleet by itself. My other ships hardly were ever used. They didn't need to be.

S2 - My favorite system by far. I love the customization and variety of troop arrangements. I like the unit ranges and types (except that Luc was always in the back and never seemed to get to the battle before it was over) and that you could make your units super offensive, defensive, balanced, whatever. It gave the player the most freedom and it it made the most sense. I didn't like the fact that you couldn't select which units were where on the field at the start (see earlier in the post). Hi, Luc, this is Shu and Humphrey. Now the three of you have fun killing everything!

I also didn't like the randomness of the damage. The mystery of it all was fun (and I LOVED watching Ridley critical three times and take out three Highland units by himself in the rescue battle), but it seemed at times your unit numbers meant nothing. When I made the strongest offensive unit possible (Georg, Shu, Pesmerga - 17/8 with cavalry, critical and evade) and they couldn't damage a 5/4 Highland unit after four tries I got a little preterbed, but when the 0/1 refugee unit outside Matilda damaged Luca Blight, I was really puzzled. Random number generation was far to important.

S2: flawed, yes, but still the best. I could play a game made of nothing but S2 military battles.

EDIT: It wasn't a 5/4 Highland troop Georg + company couldn't hurt, it was a 10/3 Karayan unit in the final battle (I just gotta kill everyone ... can't just scale the damn wall). That actually makes it worse. My offense was nearly SIX TIMES their defense and I couldn't hurt them no matter what!
_________________

[John Layfield]

Suikoden I's was easy but fun. And if you forced yourself not to use Ninjas, it could be quite a challenege first time round. After a few playthroughs you have the pattern down pat however.

Suikoden II's is my personal favourite. It works together well and can be very exciting and dramatic, especially with the great music used to add to the atmosphere. One gripe is the unbalanced states. Two units clashing with equal stats invariably meant you were going down.

Suikoden IV's was fun the first time round but too easy. I don't see the attraction of boarding. Wow, I can fight extra battles, the same thing everyone whines about when they're on the world map! :roll:
_________________
One day, I shall come back. Yes, we shall all come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

[Acheron]

I didnt get to play 2 yet so I'll go with 4 since it was free0range movement and u could use a distant attack or up close and personal and you had unit bonus' too.

[Kalidor]

Out of the two Suikoden's I've played, I and II, I'd have to say that Suikoden II had the better battle system by far. Suikoden I was far to easy. Harder without the ninjas, yes, but still far to easy. If you made some lucky guesses you would win, and even then your units were almost inherently superior to the enemies.

In Suikoden II I felt like I had some control over the strategy of the battle. By moving my characters around the map, and assigning differnt abilities to different troop, I could set up ambushes of sorts and draw the enemy where I wanted him to be. Being able to customize your troops is a big plus in my book. Also, adding in cavalry was a fun addition for me, and a large tactical bonus. I also had a sense that there was more at stake in Suikoden II's large battles. It wasn't just a bunch of guys milling about at one side of the screen, it was fighting for control of an area with different troop dispersements.

[Goldy]

I voted for Suikoden II's myself. Great customization with the troop units. And what about the gripping battle theme eh? Great!

[Zaleria]

The style in suikoden II is the best so far.
Suikoden I- Unfortunately, I haven't played the game...
Suikoden II- my favorite! Especially when the critical is triggered or i'm destroying infantry units using my cavalry.
Suikoden III-i DON'T LIKE it. it's not very engaging. you just have to have the strongest unit unlike in sII where you really need to have a strategy to beat the likes of yuber...
Suikoden IV-Kinda like it. very uinque from the other war systems. I love boarding enemies although if it will be retained in future suikodens, i want to be able to man the enemy ship once i successfully board it.
_________________

[Marshmallow]

I'm rather torn on the matter. For one, I found Suikoden's major battles to be terribly amusing and entertaining, but they didn't help much with story progression, and they were entirely too easy.

I chose Suikoden II's system for major battles because I enjoyed the fact that it felt as if I were playing a tactical RPG, and also because it continued to feature the small, screaming little men running at each other full of bloodlust. That part ruled. Plus, this system, in my opinion, was best in the way of story progression than any of the others. It was interesting to see enemy and ally units appear on the map at different intervals, and I liked the fact that the maps in Suikoden II gave you a free range of movement, unlike Suikoden III's.

Suikoden III was my least favorite, because not only could you move only on a set path(it really reminds me of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai II's story mode) but engagements were actual battles, though you can't control the people in them, taking out all the fun, and just adding to frustration. Also, to be of any use at all, you had to train a large amount of characters, something I wasn't very used to doing the first time I played III.

I enjoyed Suikoden IV's system, though I think it could have been improved. The rune cannon was too easy to predict and use, and since that made up like 90% of the battle, I felt as if Suikoden IV's system was way too easy. I also think characters could have said more than "Rune Cannon, Fire!". To my knowledge, only desmond's deviates from that, and that's only by "F-Fire" instead of "Fire" :P Again, I didn't like how, to make defending ships from boarding effective, you had to train a lot of characters. It didn't help that most start at weapon level 1, and you have to put them in the party to raise it (and with a reduced party, that makes it even more annoying)

[Ellvia]

SI:too easy I guess,it's look like you play rock scissors and paper,and little tougher before you get the ninjas
SII:My second favorite,it's very fun =p
SIII:my least favorite war -_-,you can't control them --
SIV:Fun,and also you can boarding on enemy ship,at first I think is easy like SI war,but I found is little tough at the last naval battle :p
_________________

[Barbarossa Rugner]

My vote definitely goes for the Suikoden II battle system. It is by far my favorite of the four and i doubt any other major battle systems will ever match up to II's in my mind. I think what i like most about this particular major battle is that it is basically pretty simple, the actual battle that is, but this simplicity allows for a lot of randomization which is what i like. You can basically never have the same battle twice and since your units are not designated a set course on the map, you can move them freely and experiment with different strategies. I usually found myself elongating the battles in order to make sure none of my units were injured or dead and every last enemy unit was defeated. I also like the way you could customize each unit to your liking. The combination of Georg Prime, Pesmerga, and Shu is just too much fun to not try at least once.

My second favorite would have to be Suikoden 4's major battles. I can draw a lot of similarites to 2 and i think that is the reason i liked it. I hate being restricted to a set path or not being able to move my army at all. Suikoden 2 and 4 both allowed me to maneuver my unit any way i wanted never recreating the same exact battle. The rune cannons and boarding system were both nice and allowed the individual characters to participate.

My third favorite is suikoden I's major battles. They were nice using the little sprites along with special commands, but it was nothing spectacular. I guess the only thing i can say is that it was very elementary in every aspect, which wasn't that bad of a thing for this game.

My least favorite is Suikoden III's major battles. I am not sure what it was, but i just never liked them. I can't give a specific reason, but i didn't like being restricted along a line to move my units and i didn't like having to level up my characters just for major battles. Some would say they liked this aspect because it allowed more characters to get involved, but i saw it as a pain and did not enjoy it. It is not that the major battles were horrible, but more that i enjoyed the other three a lot more.
_________________

The Rune on my Sword, the Dragon King Sword, is protected against any form of magic, Even the rune of the Gate - Barbarossa Rugner

[fuji]

Suikoden I was a glorified dueling system (rock, paper, system) with ninjas added in... Sure it was fun, but it was definitely lacking. Suikoden II was very nice since positioning was taken into account. You had to watch out how you approached your enemy. Suikoden III's system was saved from being a wreck because you got to see your guys fight. It meant you needed to train some of them up, but that's nothing that I wouldn't already do. Suikoden III also implemented pincer attacks which was cool. I couldn't stand Suikoden IV's. It was near impossible to lose. In fact, I think you'd have to go out of your way to lose a strategy battle in S4.

I chose Suikoden II and their coked out soldiers as they attacked some other coked out soldiers to the sounds of a hurt wild animal.
_________________
______ "We're still flying"

___ "That's not much"

"It's enough"