Difficulty of the games?

[Yvl]

What do you think about the difficulty of the games? I've only played 1 - 3, but I have noticed an increasing level of difficulty throughout the series so far.

Suikoden 1, I died once in 4 play-throughs due to the insane stats of the main character.

Suikoden 2 was on a decent difficulty, with a few difficult battles that I had to try a few times atto beat, but nothign I couldn't overcome.

Suikoden 3... that's the first game I got "stuck" (by my standards) for a LONG time. I believe the last time I played an RPG that hard was... Final Fantasy 4, SNES release, which is hailed as the hardest FF game of the series. The battle with the Ice Dragon, as well as the fights leading up to the final boss (Yuber and Sarah) took me over 10 tries each to beat!

And I hear that Suikoden 4 is hard, in an annoying way, to the point that people dont even want to play it. I stay clear of most S4 and 5 topics though due to my firece hatred of spoilers.

So what do you think? Are they making like Harry Potter and making the games harder each time?
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[Eden]

Suikoden I was very easy. I haven't beaten it yet, but almost, and I can say it has no difficult scenes. Okay, it wasn't too easy and it don't loose tension because of this, but one can play it through without hesitating.
Suikoden II was harder to beat. I had to level-up my party on two occasions (I liked it) in order to defeat Luca for example. The first time I played the game I gave up... :oops: I am at the fourth chapter in Suikoden III (two done with Chris, one done with Hugo and the first chapter with Geddoe at the moment) and till now it was rather easy.Suikoden was in my opinion not really difficult. I lost not a single fight as far as I remember, but I will play the game a second time soon and maybe it's just my memory that tricked me.
All in all the Suikoden series isn't that difficult, but still claiming.
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The Fool

[Yvl]

Yeah, Geddoe's chapters are usually alot harder than the other two. And after Chapter 4, it gets crazy hard. I dont even remember how I did beat the ice dragon.

I would like the strategy battles and duels to be a bit more difficult though... I was able to wipe out all of Zexen in each of the Buddehuc battles without uberleveling my characters, and they just TELL you what they are doing in duels!
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[Buff]

[Parallax]

I haven't really found any of the Suikoden games to be difficult. Actually, very few RPGs are difficult at all to me. I found parts of Xenogears difficult...and...other than Tactical RPGs, which are difficult for other reasons (usually because you don't want X character to die permanently...) ...that's about the list. I think that the Suikoden games started getting harder for a very simple reason though: the power of the Tenkai star. Sure, you've got certain characters in Suikoden V, who I won't get into in this forum, who are just ridiculous...but...do any of them compare to Tir McDohl? Tir was basically in the top couple of characters in everything, strength, speed, skill, hitpoints, defense, and magic.

Not only that, but he had the Soul Eater Rune, the most powerful Rune we've seen in Suikoden so far! 100% instant death to all enemies? As I recall, there was no non-boss enemy that Deadly Fingertips and Hell didn't work on. Even when it was dramatically reduced in power in Suikoden IV, it was still quite formidable. Ted also mirrored Tir in some ways, though not quite as extreme...more powerful in magic, but less powerful everywhere else.

Riou was almost as bad. He was just as ridiculously fast, powerful, and magically inclined as Tir...but the Bright Shield Rune wasn't quite as formidable in an offensive sense as the Soul Eater. However, with the Bright Shield, I almost never needed a second healer in my party in Suikoden II. I thought that the Luca Blight battle was somewhat difficult on my first playthrough, just because I didn't have anywhere near 18 powerful characters to battle him with...but I still defeated him without too much trouble by stacking my third party.

In Suikoden III, however, there are four different main characters, none of whom is even close to as mighty as either Riou or Tir. Although Geddoe is extremely powerful with his True Lightning Rune, the limits on skills for all three characters (and Thomas too, but I wouldn't really say he counts anyway...) give them discernible weaknesses, and none of them has the be-all end-all all around magnificent stats of Tir or Riou. The Ice Dragon battle was somewhat difficult...and I think the True Wind Incarnation at the end is the most difficult final boss of any of the Suikoden games, but then, I thought all five final bosses were embarrassingly easy.

In Suikoden IV, once again, you're dealing with a Tenkai who isn't nearly as overpowered as Tir or Riou. Not only that, but compared to any of the other True Runes, the Rune of Punishment is somewhat lackluster. Its spells are gradually released, and its level 4 spell is basically a less impressive version of the Level 4 Cyclone spell. With the exception of the level 1 spell, which is powerful through most of the early game, the Rune of Punishment is basically outclassed by 'advanced' Elemental Runes all the way across. However, in Suikoden IV there are two things which really make the game all too easy:
- The training room, which allows you to get 8 characters at level 99 with...I'd say maybe an hour and a half to two hours of invested time.
- Ted, with the Soul Eater Rune, and excellent all-around stats.

Also, using the 'Flash' attack, you could skip the final boss' turn when it's in its 'white' or dangerous phase, and just completely stop its ultimate attack from ever going off.

I won't get into any detail in Suikoden V, but I thought it was almost as embarrassingly easy as Suikoden I or II. I understand others have had more trouble with it, I'm not really sure.
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He's a victim - not a perp - and I'm choosing to let him go.

[Yvl]

Buff, in Suikoden 1, since it sounds like you played it when it first came out, its likely you weren't as experienced with RPGs as we are now.

Maybe my characters were underleveled or something... but I found Suikoden 3 to be ridiculously difficult. Even Geddoe vs Le Burque's mantors took me a few tries to beat, and the final bosses took me 5 tries each (except the true wind rune itself, which took me 2 tries.)
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[Buff]

[ForeverKnight]

To be completely honest, most of the people who can actually tolerate Suikoden games, story-wise, are the kinds who can actually stomach an RPG for its depth as a game and as a story as opposed to sitting there for hours, gawking at the pretty graphics, beautiful boys and angsty music videoness of it all.
Most of those players have been playing for some time, and by most merits, are pretty decent players. While the Suikoden games may seem easy to us, there are probably some out there who have a lot of trouble with it. Given they are, by all standards, moderate and intermediate on the difficult scale, there are those who would look at a lot of this and just scratch their heads and give up.
My roommate is a classic example - while he's an awesome guy and I'm glad I have him as opposed to some jerk in this house... he's watched me play Suikoden V and he's said, several times "I just don't get these games." This guy is also someone who plays Halo, Black, NHL 06, and similar games almost addictively.

Don't dismiss a game's difficulty just because it was easy for you. I think Suikoden works out perfectly because, for an RPG with almost no tutorials, the learning curve is quite shallow, and picks up at times, but not so much as to discourage the player, and there's plenty there to hook the veterans, like the 108 Stars of Destiny.
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[Yvl]

It took me 4 times in Sui 1 to get all the stars, 3 in sui 2, and hopefully 2 in 3. I definately DO appreciate a challenge, I'm saying that the gap in the games really surprised me.
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[Buff]

do you mean the gap in the timelines between the first 3?
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Devoted protector of Ferid and Arshtat

[Yvl]

No... I was talking about the level of difficulty, and how huge a gap there is between each of the games. I also wanted to confirm how difficult Suikoden 4 was.
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[Buff]

really suikoden 4 isn't that hard, the toughest thing is getting used to the naval battle and the final boss. but other than that it can be easy. but you may get made with how much traveling you'll be doing with out the champion orb.
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Devoted protector of Ferid and Arshtat

[eXistence of Fly]

[Buff]

[dark-knight]