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BATTLE SYSTEM
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INTERACTION
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ORIGINALITY
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STORY
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MUSIC & SOUND
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VISUALS
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CHALLENGE
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Very Easy
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COMPLETION TIME
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8 - 11 hours
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OVERALL
4.0/5
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Rating definitions
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Released on the Playstation by Konami in 1996, Suikoden slightly based it's
storyline on a Chinese novel, using this idea to introduce more playable
characters into this RPG than any other ever released.
You play the son of Teo Mcdohl, Tir, who comes across the most cursed of all
the true runes, the Soul Eater, escapes as a traitor and is forced the task
of recruiting allies to fight against the corrupt government of the Scarlet
Moon Empire. The story itself is more about Tir, the Soul Eater, and the
fight with the Scarlet Moon Empire than anything else in the game, where
almost all the other characters getting little to no storyline at all.
If I stay away from you at all, my hands ache with bloodlust.
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When fighting battles, you have a max of six characters at a time, where
three characters can be set in the front and back row, each character having
a short, medium, or long range attack. Short ranged characters can only
attack from the front row, while medium range attacks can attack from both
front and back rows, both however can only attack the enemies front rows.
Long range attackers can attack from both front and back rows, as well as
attack both the enemies front and back rows. In addition, every character,
no matter how poor they are in magic can equip runes, there being three
different types of runes as well. Magic runes are just what you'd think
them to be, with each of these runes having four levels of spells, the level
each character can use as well as the amount of times they can use them
depends on the character. Attack runes while there not being very many, are
useable as many times as you want, but some result in the characters losing
a turn. The last of the runes being the support runes, which are just
innate abilities like status raise. One of the more unique aspects of the
game are the unite attacks, which depending on the characters in your party,
they can team up with another character or other characters and perform a
team attack, attacking more enemies at a time, or taking off a larger amount
of damage than they normally would.
Other than the normal battles, there are also duel battles and war battles.
The duel battles having attack, defend, and desperate 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
desperate attack is a critical hit and will cancel out the enemies attack,
but defending will allow you to dodge a desperate 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
involve your entire army, which you can charge, fire arrows, or cast magic,
as well as other options like power-up your army, or find out the enemies
next action and if you've played Vandal Hearts or Fire Emblem, the system
will seem similar to those. The Charge attack beats Bows, the Bows beat
Magic, and the Magic beats charge, however, even if you do the same
action(except for magic against magic) you'll take damage off their army as
well.
An Elephant Dragon!
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The graphics, while not excellent are pretty good, and they are some of the
best 2d graphics to date. While in battle however, all the attacks are
usually only a few frames, but even so, there are a large amount of
characters, each with a completely different attack animations than the
others. There are alot of great music tracks in the title as well, but alot
of the tracks also repeat and there are others that aren't so good, and
sound effects in which most of the weapons using one of two or three
different attack sounds brings it down a little. Localization on the other
hand is probably the worst part of the game, and while during the gameplay
there isn't that many errors in which to bother you, you'll see more errors
than in a few games put together while watching the ending.
Overall, this game has an excellent storyline, and in my opinion is the best
in the Suikoden series. While it's not long and has no real sidequests
other than recruiting all 108 characters, it's a really enjoyable game from
beggining to end and easy enough for everyone to enjoy.
Review Archives
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