Unconnected Suikoden

[Username]

I found Suikoden IV was a novelty because it was so far from the other games. Suikoden isn't about what happen from Suikoden I till the end. Suikoden details the history of a world as nations rise and fall thanks to the True runes and the 108 stars.

Not to say each game should be thousands of years apart. (The worst thing a company can do is suddenly make a game 1,000 years in the feture. I hate that and it can ruin games.) Hopefully they will make a Suikoden set during pre Sol times. The fun for me isn't just seeing characters from the last game, but learning more about this world. Games should take you into there world. And by setting games in different periods of time gives you a better sense of the world.

I really don't want to just see the same characters over and over. The fun is meeting old characters among a slew of new characters.

In a game about wars time gaps are a given. Characters can't be in war for all there lives. Suikoden III was set a good amount of time away. The characters from from each game find peace at the end while a handfull of others find there way into another war.

Basicly time gaps aren't bad. They let you see more of the world, but are still connected. Not to say I want every game to be set really far apart. I'm just saying don't be hateing it if they explore all of the world in different times and places.
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[Admiral Ackbar]

Yes, but the reason fans loved Suikoden in the first place was because of the returning characters. Returning characters are the one thing Suikoden has that the other mainstream RPGs don't have. It needs them, it thrives on them, and the fans love them. Fans complained about how few returning characters were in Suikoden 3. But for some reason Konami chose to ignore one of the biggest complaints of the game and had Suikoden 4 set 150 years before the others with a tiny amount of returning characters. And as a result, Konami heard even more whining from fans that it wasn't connected to the previous games like it should have been.

And I'm all for learning more about the Suikoden world, but you can still have the game take place on a set timeline where each game happens a certain amount of years after the one before it and still explore new lands. Suikoden 1-3 did it just fine. We explored new parts of the world, but we also saw returning characters come back. And we saw them get old. Look at Futch, look at Tuta, and look at Apple. Heck, look at Luc! He's changed more than any other character and it all happened over time.

Fans want to see returning characters come back because their stories are rarely ever finished. I want to know if Humphrey Mintz is dead. I want to know who Rikimaru is after. I want to know what Albert Silverberg is up to in the western continent. I want to know the history of Geddoe's teammates. I want to know how Sasarai's future with Harmonia will turn out. I want to know how well Sierra's new village has been doing. I want to know where Edge and the Star Dragon Sword will go next. I want to know why Lotte never seems to age. I want to know if Joshua is dead. I want to know if Windy and Barbarosa are still alive somewhere.

There are just too many storylines open after Suikoden 3, and those are just the tip of the iceberg. It was wrong of them to abandon everything they had built up for three games and leave fans wondering what the hell happened.

Worse yet, Suikoden 4 barely gave any answers or asked any questions. What did it add to the series? Barely anything when compared to the previous three games. If Konami knows whats good for the series it'll have a game take place after Suikoden 3's timeline and then keep going from there.
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[Username]

I do agree with you on most of those points BT. I would love to see those answers as well. But your really shrinking Suikoden fours importance. It dose answer a few nagging questions. Like why did Ted age from when he got the rune, Or Who was SRIII? And it dose raise some questions. What is the true importance of the Rune cannon. What happen to Elenor and Cray? What became of Kooluk and Gaien? What became of Hero4?
Why do Jeane and Viki get hotter every game? What clan of ninja did those ninjas belong to and why was it destoryied*?

I whould like to know these answers. But I would also like to know the answers to the questions brought up in S I,II,and III.

I also don't think the game is completly dependent on returning characters. The game has plenty of other things. The great stroy (Not that that dosen't encompess the returning characters), the battle system that is unlike any other RPG. (Save SIV)
The the modes of gameplay. Theres plenty of other reasons I think people bought Suikoden I and III.

Also if fans didn't complain about one thing they would another. As a company they must hear the complaints but not get carried away with giving fan service.
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The pursuit of symmetry... Death The Kid, Patty and Liz.

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[Admiral Ackbar]

It's not just that fans complained about returning characters. it's that we *expected* them and wanted them. You'd have to be blind to not notice the fans of some of these characters. Thinking that Pesmerga or Flik or Viktor or Clive would be in Suikoden 3 was why some people bought the game. That kind of fan devotion can't be ignored.
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[Username]

Defenitly not. But I really don't really agree with that kind of character devotion. I love some characters, but if they aren't needed they shouldn't be in the game. Clive told his story in SII. He has no reason to really be in the game again besides for prue fan service. Pesmerga I can see becasue he and Yuber go togther for a yet unknown reason. I would like to see his story fauthered. I also see no point in Flik or Viktor returning. Viktor passed the tourch and Edge has tooken his place. With time progressing it makes sense for that to happen, and Flik could come back but I doubt he would be any cooler.

Take Ted for example. People compare him to his SI self all the time, and think he was better in SI becasue his rune that he barely uses was stronger. The same would more or less happen with Flik and Viktor. People don't want them to return as much as they want them to be the same forever.

Maybe some people just want them to return. (I was pleased with Ted, and thought his rune was good, but the game breaking power was removed which was good in some aspects.) But eventually the "fan favorite" characters will have to die off unless the games keep revovling around the same few decades.
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The pursuit of symmetry... Death The Kid, Patty and Liz.

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[Admiral Ackbar]

From a writing POV you can always come up with a good reason to bring a character back.

To be honest I didn't see much logical reason for Flik or Viktor to be in Suikoden 2. They fought and suffered to bring the Scarlet Moon Empire down and then went to Dunan and became mercenaries instead of staying to defend the land they liberated. But the writers put in the excuse that Viktor was helping out Anabelle, a new character they created. That gave a solid reason.

Then there were Humphrey and Futch. Suikoden 1 gave no implication that they would travel so far away from Goya (the Dragon's Den) but they were in Suikoden 2 anyway, looking for a dragon there. Sheena popped up in Suikoden 2, even though he's the son of the President of Toran and it wouldn't make sense for him to leave, but the story made up the excuse that he was spending his dad's cash while "learning more about the world." Valeria and Kasumi faithfully serve their lands but join the Dunan army anyway. They were obviously given to the Suikoden 2 army as a fanservice since they're high-ranking soldiers in their nations that in reality would be too valuable to give up. Tuta came to the Grasslands of all places for Suikoden 3, with the excuse of bringing the people there proper medical treatment. Apple appears in Suikoden 2 writing a biography on Mathiu even though he had little to nothing to do with the area, and she cropped up again in the Grasslands in Suikoden 3 caring for Caesar, a new character.

A good writer could come up with any reason at all for a character to be anywhere at anytime and have it be believable. I could see Flik and Viktor in another game. They would just need a good excuse. Sierra involving them in something, they hire themselves out as mercenaries to a new nation, a new character important to one of them drags them into the story, Neclord comes back (gag!), or something else. Of course by this time a lot of fans may not even know who they are so it would be sort of pointless. But you get the idea.
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[Lucent]

I definately think the draw of the Suikoden series, for me, is the evolution of its story and the over-arcing nature of its plotlines. It's a lot like the game SaGa Frontier 2 where you play a fifty year span of time in several families lives and see how they intersect, Suikoden is just spaced out over several games instead of a single title.

Never would I have imagined when Luc was first introduced in Suikoden that he would have such a dramatic and sad role in Suikoden III, nor would I have imagined his tie with the mysterious Harmonian bishop Sasari from the end of Suikoden II.

the Suikoden series is about an unfolding storyline, and even IV helped tell a portion of the great tapestry that is the saga of the runes. I whole-heartedly look forward to both the macro and microscopic elements of Suikoden V's plot.
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[Elzamine]

I don't think they'd go as well if they weren't connected, but it's hard to say. They're made to connect, wars and characters that act upon one another. That said though, if they were made to stand alone, there would have to be over hauls on what happens and such that would make them stand alone, which could easily produce you a new game. It's really an odd question to answer, because of asking for an opinion on something that doesn't exist. As they are, put into stand alone games, they just wouldn't have any sort of flow to it.. which I find a lot of the fans of the series like :)
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[Parallax]

Honestly...the best part of the series to me is the recurring characters, and the game world that always contains the same places. You only got the very barest hint of connection in Suikoden IV, where it had so few recurring characters, and only a small hint of the Scarlet Moon Empire. The best one for me was II, which had the most people transfer from I, including the ability to recruit Tir McDohl. It also took place not far away, and you got to visit liberated Gregminster. It was just a series of nice touches that made the game pretty great in my eyes.

Stand-alone games like Final Fantasy can be good...but they're not as rich as the Suikodens because there's no possibility for the games to build on each other. On the other hand, Suikoden isn't so dependant on other games in the series that you can't figure out what's going on just by playing a single game out of the lot. (Especially Suikoden IV).
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He's a victim - not a perp - and I'm choosing to let him go.

[Beecham]

Here is my opinion.

When I first played Suikoden 2, I had no idea whatsoever about it being connected to any game whatsoever. (In fact, the purchase of the game was a mistake by my father, but I thought, what the heck... Anyway, that's another story.) The game had a good enough storyline to keep me playing it for ages, and more than once too. In fact, I played Suikoden 2 6 times alone before Suikoden 3 came out. The game was just so different from other big-name RPGs. It allows the actual building of an army, unlike where a group of six teenagers with zero things different about themselves as compae to other people, making people think that my grandmother was capable of defeating the final boss. On the other hand, Suikoden involves building up an army to actually deat a whole nation. Seems more realistic than single-handedly rescuing the world.

Of course, if you say "Realistic? It's a game! What do you expect to be realistic?" So let me tell you, would YOU want to play a game where you are a one man army capable of destroying a whole army with one go? I don't think so. But that is what games like Final Fantasy, the Tales series among others are doing. It's not that I say that they are bad, but they lack the pulling factor Suikoden has because of realism.

Another example is Suikoden 4. It almost has no link to previous suikodens (or later, depending on your perspective), with only Jeane and Viki (And the Maximillian and Silverberg families) as returning characters. It has no link to other countries, be it Jowston, Grasslands or whatsoever. Yet, I enjoyed the game more than I did Suikoden 3. Maybe its just me, but sometimes, when they make too big of an effort to bring back returning characters, they end up messing up hte true purpose.

Take a look at Final Fantasy X-2. To date, I have yet to see a reason for bringing that game to existance at all. FFX alone was enough to already end the game. Yet, they chose to make another one (prbably just to make one last attempt at gold from the game). The game didn't captivate me one bit. So, if you say Suikoden is only good because of its connection, think again. FFX was good, but did FFX-2 do it any justice? It was just a gimmick. Suikoden would still be good even without the links.

[Adelaide Silverberg]

I couldn't even imagine the games not being connected. More than half the time when I'm talking about Suikoden to someone it's about the characters being related to each other, and how do they know each other, and even just looking at the world map for the games, seeing all the places from the games and how they're all near each other .. it's what makes them my favorite games :) :mrgreen:
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[Artificity]

How can open-endedness be considered a bad thing? It's better that they leave things unsaid than say things and retroactively change them because of plothole after plothole caused by trying to tie all the loose ends.

Besides, many things that are left unexplained don't need to be explained. Like as to what happened to so-and-so after everything finishes. That's just nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking. Every other RPG, even RPG's considered to be closed books like Shin Megami Tensei still have relatively open ended finale's for their characters and I expect that when you have a cast of 108+ characters, this game shouldn't be an exception.

Everyone wondered what Tir would do after S1 and we find that he's living a nice quiet life somewhere. Can't we assume the same for almost more than half of the cast? Wandering the world for answers to a life long quest isn't a prerequisite to becoming a SoD and after everything, they shouldn't be expected to follow said route just for dramatic closure.

Granted, there are several important plot questions that remain unanswered, but by now Suikoden's been known to be a series that will answer questions when they need to be answered. All I want is for Point A to attach itself to Point B neatly. I don't need an entire game of connect-the-plot-dots to act as an excuse to fill up empty game time.

That's what sequels are for.
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[Peace Maker]

I personally think the best part in the Suikoden series is the connection between its events and plots besides we'll ve very happy after every new game that has one or more of a returning charecters like we are right now about Suikoden 5 right ?

In general the fans like the long stories that can give you the same enjoyment as the past one of it like the Suikoden series we won't accept it if Konami decided to right every Suikoden story on it's on like Final Fantasy won't we? :wink:
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" The man who will bring peace to the Suikoden world "

[kupet]

everything in here is sooo cooool....

[dark-knight]

^oh yeah right it is soooo coool. umm. and why is that?


for me, the connections between the storylines and plots of the games serves as a charm that attracts me to play every installment. its like watching the history of a world unfold right in front of your very own eyes.

just imagine the suikoden series ala-final fantasy style. no connections. no returning faces. no nothing.

the relationship of every suikoden game is what makes this series unique for me. and about the unresolved mysteries, maybe konami will answer those in later installments.... i hope.
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