Seriously, what the fuck!? I thought the first two games were supposed to be really good compared to the later games. I’ve only played Suikoden 3, but holy shit, if 4 and 5 are worse than the first one, then it baffles me how this even became a successful RPG series. People put up with a lot of crap back in the early days of RPGs, I guess.
Did you play the first one? Play 2. The first one is great, but only in the context of it being a prequel to 2, really. I haven’t played 3 or later. All I know is that Suikoden 2 is a really, really good game. 1 is good, but it’s hard to ignore the shoddy music and graphics if all you’ve been playing lately is 360. II is much more polished.
There’s also the chance that you just really don’t like this style of game.
I loathed 3. Say whatever you want about 4, it’s probably true, but at least it’s over fast. 3 just DRAAAAAAAAGS ass until you chose the Flame Champion, who never makes any sense no matter who you chose, and battle the evil wizard’s magic army of evil. I also like how it sort of feints at getting into actually interesting political plots and “OOPS, NO TIME FOR THAT, GOTTA GO FIGHT MINOR BOSS BATTLE AGAIN BY OURSELVES. BTW, WE’RE ALL GOOD BUDDIES NOW DESPITE THE MERCILESS SLAUGHTER.” Game should have been about Thomas. I fucking loved Thomas. That bit at the end where he’s all like “Is this crap over already? Sheesh” was the best part of the game.
And I haven’t even talked about gameplay.
And Hades: Get 5. Seriously. It lacks Luca and Jowy, but it’s the one that’s most like 2 in the whole franchise and actually improves on just about every gameplay mechanic (War battles are actually FUN now), as well as having the absolute lowest filler recruit count of all. Also, first game where the Tenkai actually has a reason to be involved in all the crap.
1 is a generic but entertaining RPG that sets the style of the series. 2 is a reknowned, excellent title. 3 is known to be mediocre and a flawed experiment. 4 is awful (it came at at time that everyone in fucking japan thought it was interesting to make games with lots of boats). 5 is supposed to be a good game.
There is a suikoden coming to ds soon, but I am really iffy about what I heard.
Yeah, Tierkreis is supposed to be set in another dimension, and the mechanics are supposed to be vastly different. But hey, it can’t be sillier than the other MY MOTHER IS A GOAT AND I WAS BORN FROM AN EGG spinoff.
I already found the wars in #2 really fun, but a little slow at times. Is 5 for PS2? All I have right now are PS2 and DS.
SERIOUSLY!? I fucking hated the war battles in 2. It had a good idea, but the execution was awful. Random-chance skills do not make for good strategy and if two units were evenly matched, you could have SEVERAL frontal attacks do absolutely nothing. I still remember the “difficulty” in the “harm Luca” battle: You could gang everyone up on him and still spend several turns attacking before making even a scratch. And yeah, movement was tremendously slow so it took forever to set up any sort of formation.
Incidentally, 5 takes the mechanics from 2’s war battles and makes them work by mixing them a bit with 1’s rock-paper-scissors and turning the actual fight into a RTS/RPG crossbreed. It’s still a lame RTS, but compared to every other system, it actually feels like you’re having a real influence on what’s going on.
And yeah, it’s PS2.
The skills weren’t random chance. Their effectiveness varied but it wasn’t random to the point that it was un-strategic. You generally knew what was going to happen when you used a skill, or stacked Ridley’s unit until it had 22 attack 
Actually, that’s the thing - I LOVE the game’s style (maybe I’m skewing your definition of style here; if I am, my bad), and the graphics and music don’t bother me at all - I think you’d know better than to assume that I’m a whore for graphics, and most of the music is pretty appropriate, so that’s fine. I also think the story has a really neat style, too - I like that it appears to be cliche when explained in broad strokes, but the finer details of how the story is panning out are very cool.
What’s getting me is the gameplay. If I may steal one of AVGN’s only good jokes, playing Suikoden reminds me of what purgatory must be like if it exists. It’s just. So. BORING. Most stuff is passable, but what really kills me is that the world map is so slow, and there’s no actual MAP for you to look at, so you have to wander around a claustrophobic map made of nothing but wide expanses and samey-looking plains to try and find a village. Even better is the fact that you’re frequently given no instructions on how to get to your next destination. Right now, I’m supposed to sneak into a prison to break out somebody I’m supposed to recruit. So, how do I get there? …Oh? You’re not gonna tell me? Oh good. Now all I have to do is wander around the continent, and if I don’t find it, I can just sail the entire world on a boat and hope something cool happens. What fun!
And really? I just found out today that you have to recruit everyone to get the best ending. Sweet lord. I turned the game on today and accomplished NOTHING because I went running around picking up every character I could. I love how you have to have the right person or the right item, or enough levels or recruited characters just to get some people in the party. So, you have to spend a lot of time warping back and forth.
And why, god, WHY do you have to warp back to the castle every time? I don’t buy the argument that the game is too old - there were games already out by then which did town warping the right way.
And then there’s dealing with all 10 million party members. I hate that the game forces you to take so many recruits. It’s insulting that they ask you to choose your party, and then less than ten minutes later, they force you to have some other shitty people join your party and force your characters out. Even worse, when this particular thing happened to me, I was able to boot them out two minutes later! Why didn’t they just not join me until after the storyline event? Was it really necessary for me to eject 1/3rd of my party to wheel these guys ten steps? And why do I have to remove ALL of someone’s equipment if they’re not in my party?
See, doing everything in this game requires a bunch of roundabout, stupid steps. I hate this more than anything in gameplay. No matter how complex a game is, I don’t mind as long as it gets to the point. Ironically, Suikoden is the opposite - the gameplay is very simple, but just about everything you can do is made to be as difficult as possible.
The only reason I’m still playing this game is because people make Suikoden 2 out to be so good that it will leap out of the screen and give me a blowjob. If Suikoden 4, 5, Tactics and Tierkreis are all worse than this…then, FUCK. That’s AWFUL.
I think you’re missing the point of the game. It’s not a game that’s supposed to be hard to get to the end of. Recruiting characters IS the focus of the game. It’s kind of a puzzle game in that sense. The story is great too, but this is not a game of hard battles or anything like that. Some of them are close to impossible to recruit without a guide though, and I’ve always hated shit like that.
By the way, if Pahn and Teo already fought and Pahn didn’t win, you’re not getting the best ending, so don’t bother. There ARE missable characters.
Also, I think I remember the prison you’re supposed to go to right now… That’s like, the ONE vague part of the game I can remember. And I don’t remember having to remove equipment, but I know for a fact that it’s not a problem in #2.
Yes, but it IS hard to reach the end when everything takes more steps than is necessary and no one tells you where to go. I don’t mind recruiting a lot of characters, but yikes, shouldn’t a game be good without needing that sort of a gimmick? If you make a qualifying statement like that, you can excuse almost any of the game’s shortcomings, and that’s not a very fair way to argue.
By the way, if Pahn and Teo already fought and Pahn didn’t win, you’re not getting the best ending, so don’t bother. There ARE missable characters.
Thanks…No, I HADN’T gotten that far. 
Also, I think I remember the prison you’re supposed to go to right now… That’s like, the ONE vague part of the game I can remember. And I don’t remember having to remove equipment, but I know for a fact that it’s not a problem in #2.
That’s good to know.
Wait are you playing suikoden 1 or 3? Hades’ comment is about 1.
And the 108 stars of destiny is classical suikoden. If you hate it, yes the gameplay will drive you nuts. The combat can be slow if you don’t know how to break the game. In the 1st game there are several ways to get groups that can attack all enemies in unite attacks. Makes the game go very fast. In the 2nd there were fewer. Don’t know about the other ones. You have to think strategically to make it work for you. The vast majority of characters are really useless.
SG, be as mad as you want that I spoiled it, but if you really do want the best ending without playing the whole thing over again, you’ll thank me pretty hard later. It’s a fight that’s rigged to be lost and most people will assume it’s just part of the story.
I personally enjoy the combat in the first two Suikoden games. I like that it is simple, but fast-paced, without endless flying cameras. I like the fact that the world map only confines you to a few sets of plains (the area of one country) and doesn’t try to depict the whole planet. I think the second game fixed the problem of not knowing where to go – I recall it being fairly straightforward there.
Regarding the Pahn/Teo fight, Pahn’s health meter in that fight depends on his HP, so if you are losing, try to gain some levels for him.
I think that the first game is a pretty solid fantasy RPG, but not spectacular. I remember enjoying it, but I don’t feel like revisiting it, either. Suikoden II is <i>very</i> different in tone, though. If Suikoden I is a nice silly fantasy story, Suikoden II (aside from the Neclord and Two River episodes) feels more like a historical novel. The characters are broadly drawn, but very memorable.
No, not the area skills, the in-battle activation skills. You know, the ones that trigger like once per playthrough because they are so fucking rare. Like the time I ALMOST managed to save Ridley with full health and Jowy decided to trigger the ONE TIME I saw Charge in the entire damn game and one-hitted him.
3 has the usual combinations (pretty boys, pretty girls, etc) though it’s severely lacking in regards to plot-relevant party members, except for Thomas and Cecile. Then again, Hugo mounted on Fubar with the correct runes is a fucking monster, so you barely notice it.
4 has the same, and a lot more, but you have to play ten battles with the correct characters to learn them, and then some more to upgrade them. It’s kind of bullshit, but the only team attack you really use is True Friendship, which is tremendously strong.
5 loves these to death, so much there’s a whole mechanic you are told nothing about regarding certain responses, which make characters like you more, which increases the power of team attacks. You’ll be abusing Sworn Protector with Lyon and/or Miakis a lot too. There’s even a team attack between Georg, Viki, Lorelei and Killey that does absolutely nothing but serve as as joke regarding the fact that they all meet again in Suikoden 2. Dunno why Jeane is not part of it.
Georg is in #5? I gotta play it then, for that alone. He was my favourite character. He had huge attack bonuses for the war map, I think he was the guy I put with Ridley, or he had his own unit that was equally good at raping shit.
He’s a semi-major character actually, and looks a lot less battered here. He’s in your main party from the start and sort of leaves and joins like ten times during the game. For whatever reason, I’m guessing the “Deathblow Georg” nickname, he’s got a random chance of executing a flashing sword strike that isnta-kills normal enemies, regardless of Rune equipment.
I’m talking about 1. Suikoden 3, I played a very long time ago, like 2004 or something. Not long after it came out, I remember.
And the 108 stars of destiny is classical suikoden. If you hate it, yes the gameplay will drive you nuts. The combat can be slow if you don’t know how to break the game. In the 1st game there are several ways to get groups that can attack all enemies in unite attacks. Makes the game go very fast. In the 2nd there were fewer. Don’t know about the other ones. You have to think strategically to make it work for you. The vast majority of characters are really useless.
Again, though, I don’t mind the combat at all. It’s just the fact that everything else is slow as shit. Honestly, if it weren’t like that, I probably wouldn’t mind recruiting 108 dudes so badly.
Also, Hades: I’ll leave the jury out for now, because I use that particular character in my main party every chance I get. But, if I win the fight on my first try without any extra grinding, I’m gonna be piiiiiiiiiiiissed 
I doubt you will. Even if you grind a lot, Teo will waste you in a duel if you’re not good at predicting his moves from what he says. If you do though… you’re pretty good He’s not like other duels so far though, trust me. The guy’s a monster. You can do everything right and still lose.
Also, I should tell you that Leon Silverberg is extremely missable, and tricky to get even if you know how. I’d use a guide for him if you’re serious about getting all 108.
SG: you will not get him on your first try without grinding.
If you want everything else to be faster, use runes to make yourself run faster. There is a character that has a True Holy Rune who runs extremely fast. Fortunately, he also unites for the all party attack. Makes things a lot better. When you get the Mirror to teleport back to the castle and Vicki to teleport you to any place you’ve been, that also speeds things up.