|
|
BATTLE SYSTEM
|
|
INTERACTION
|
|
ORIGINALITY
|
|
STORY
|
|
MUSIC & SOUND
|
|
VISUALS
|
|
CHALLENGE
|
Very Easy
|
COMPLETION TIME
|
18 - 22 hours
|
|
OVERALL
2.0/5
|
Rating definitions
|
|
|
Although this is the fourth in a series that is slightly based on a Chinese
story, it's completely different than the others, as well as a prequel of
the first.
A true rune called the Rune of Punishment sucks away the life of all who
wear it as they use its power, the hero acquires this rune as well as
getting cast off the island in which he serves as a knight. Finding about
the Kouluk's plans to rule the islands by seeing attacks first hand, he
searches to find allies, the 108 stars of destiny, to help defeat them.
While a world map really needs no introduction to how it works, Suikoden 4
has a world map that does. Navigating the world map really doesn't cause a
problem as you can always open up the map screen and choose a point and send
your ship on its way. Holding up will get you to where you want to go, and
you can even use the run command to make your ship go a bit faster, however,
the pace at which you'll travel is incredibly slow, and you'll be spending
about 40 times as much time on the world map travelling and fighting
monsters than you'll spend anywhere else in the game. Entering a port
you'll only have to make your boat travel up to it, while exiting, you'll
end up having to travel farther out or end up being asked to make port
again, even when you can barely even see the port on your screen.
Wish everything was as good as this games opening.
|
|
Unlike the rest of the series, you are only aloud to have a max of four
characters to control at a time, instead of the usual six, as well as each
character's range of attack being meaningless unlike in the other
titles(except for a single battle.) Three runes can be equipped at one
time, just like the second started with, although there are fewer runes than
in the second and third, with less to customize your characters. Each rune
has one of three types, which would either be a special ability, most of the
time being a powered up attack which can be used continuously, or others
giving the character a special innate ability, which will be in effect
without having to be used. The usual runes that would be equipped would be
the spell runes, with each character having four spell levels that level up
depending on their level and magic ability, as well as determining the
amount of magic points each character has on every level. Just like the
rest of the series, this game also includes combo attacks, which are attacks
done in cooperation with each of the characters using the attack, however,
unlike the rest of the series, you don't know which character has a combo
attack with another character unless you have each of those characters fight
together and learn it through a certain amount of battles. A last combo
attack called Rush includes all three characters as well as the main
character and can be used anytime before the initial attack commands, only
being able to use it again after a certain amount of battles.
Other than the normal battles, there are also duel battles and war battles.
The duel battles having attack, defend, and special attack, which depending
on what the enemy you are fighting says, you choose the option that you
think would be the best choice in defeating that opponent. Using a special
attack is a critical hit as well as canceling out their attack command, but
defending will allow you to dodge a special attack and strike back taking
critical hit damage, where attacking will take off a small amount of damage,
but still hurt an enemy even if they defend. The war battles this time
around are done in ships, where you have each of the elements, and each one
of the six elements will beat another one of the six elements. Except for
the final war battle, every single ship is set up with a max of two elements
in which one beats the other element, and all you need is to equip the
strongest element of each attacking ship. When the ships are attacking,
you have no idea which element they are going to use, so it's nothing more
than just guessing at a winning element once you are fighting the last ship
that has four elements instead of two like all the rest.
Unlike the rest where you get a castle, you'll recieve a ship in Suikoden 4
which will house your 108 stars. And again like in the first and second,
you really won't do anything other than go around and collect the 108 stars.
Thankfully they really didn't put any gameplay heavy sidequests in this
title however, seeing as how they took out what really made each of the
series fun to play, but there are a few, and if anyone has ever played the
first, like you see on the opening movie, Ted is a secret character in the
game.
This is about 10 hours of the games gameplay.
|
|
Most of the graphics to this game are poor, featuring very low quality all
throughout the game, almost every single town having little to no detail.
Seeing the system this title is on, and the animations from the previous
title being nothing short of excellent, the animations from this Suikoden
tries to use special effects to cover up the fact that they're using a low
frame rate for each of the characters attacks, or even the speeding up of
the main characters frames when running around in a town or dungeon instead
of using a completely different frame set. The music as well, as there are
only probably two tracks out of the entire game that are really any good, or
even decent. Also, like above, there is no reason for the games sound
effects to be done the way they are seeing as what system it's on, where
rather than multiple weapon types having different sound effects done, or
while running around on different types of land, each only has two or three
different sound effects used. One thing I can actually say good about the
game is the localization, where there isn't really an error to be found
throughout the game, and that's something I was glad to find in the game
after all the mistakes throughout the rest of it.
Overall, this is by far the worst of the Suikoden series, removing almost
every aspect of the series that made it fun. It felt like the creators
wanted to just get another Suikoden out there and didn't even try making it
any good, leaving random battles to make up for most of the gameplay, and
except for the last boss, making it incredibly easy. I feel sorry for the
people who bought the game without preordering it, as they'll have spent the
money for this game and not have recieved the free artbook, however, that
doesn't even make up for the waste of money anyone would have used for this
game.
Review Archives
|