Customer Reviews

Suikoden V

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Suikoden in all its glory is back! I have just finished the game and am now writing this review.

First of all, when I picked up this game, I wasnt expecting much, after the failure that was suikoden IV (I liked it, but it wasnt suikoden calibur) However, I was sadly mistaken. The graphics on this game arent that great but WHO CARES?! Where RPG's matter, this game gets it all right (Great story, awesome fortress, army battles are the best in this game.) One thing I did like about the graphics though was the birds eye point of view, like youre playing a 2-d RPG but its 3-d. Very awesome. I only have very minor complaints about this game (cant skip dialog, cant pause cutscenes, etc) But overall, I was very impressed

Maybe I'm just crazy, but yknow that feeling you got from PS1 RPGs that you just couldnt stop playing because the story was so good, or you beat a 50 hour long game in a week? Well, that feeling has been rare on PS2 due to companies having the philosophy of "If it looks better, it IS better" But yes, this game will definately have you hooked, and its sales arent stellar right now so please, do the world a favor and BUY THIS GAME! So we can get another awesome suikoden out there.

P.S. I am a suikoden Fan, but if a game is bad, i would tell you, so. If any of you are suikoden fans, this is on the level of Suikoden II (most claim to be the best game in the series)

Overall - 10/10 This was just a great game. The Storyline, Gameplay, Characters, and everything else were all top notch.

Storyline - 10/10 From the first scene in the game, the storyline had me hooked. It was a tragic tale that invokes all sorts of feelings, and makes you WANT to continue playing, and see what will happen next.

Characters - 10/10 Simply amazing. Not only does the game go into extreme detail with the Protagonist, Antagonist, and other main characters, but even with support characters who have but a small role in the actual story. The game does such a good job with this, that after playing through the game, you will feel like you know all of the characters.

Gameplay - 9/10 The game was vastly entertaining, with the classic Suikoden style battle system, with some cool new features. Unlike IV, V returns to the classic 6 person battle party as was the case in I - III, and adds a new system of "Battle Formations" which give you certain advantages and let you tailor your party towards Physical Attacks, Magic, or a balance. The "Skills" system, which was introduced in III is also back. The only thing keeping me from giving a 10 here is the extreme difficulty in recruiting some of the characters, which any Suikoden fan knows is a must if going for the good ending. I know that it took me multiple hours to figure out how to recruit some of the characters, and would frustrate a casual gamer, who isn't obsessed with perfecting games like I am.

Difficulty - 7/10 The game itself was not difficult, in that I never found myself in battles that I could not win, but leveling up and strengthening character weapons/armor is neccesary, and slacking in either of these departments would likely make my previous statement untrue. The War battles take a while to master, but once you get the hang of it, the shouldn't be TOO bad, as long as you follow the objectives given rather than trying to wipe out every enemy. Individual Duels are tougher in this game becuase I found a number of the participants harder to read than in previous Suikoden games. The most difficult part of the game, as I stated above, was recruiting all the characters.

Length - 10/10 This is an EXTREMELY LONG game, which should excite any RPG fan. If you simply play through the game and do not recruit every character and uncover every secret, you will likely spend 35-40 hours. On the other hand, if you, as I did, go for a perfect game, you will likely spend 65+ hours on the game.

If you're an RPGer, and you're a serious one, Suikoden V should be one of the RPGs on your list this year. It's fun, long, and showers a lot of replay value. The game just all around shines, and it's easy to see why. Suikoden IV was nothing special, but if you lost faith in the series after it, allow Suikoden V to restore that faith.

In the Queendom (yes, Queendom) of Falena, villagers are beginning to question Queen Arshtat's motives. Her form of justice was torching a village and it's countryside. As the Prince of Falena, you're sent in to investigate the matters for yourself. It soon becomes easy to turn your back on the Queen. There's a reason for her mor wicked actions, and after a while you're not going to be used anymore. You're going to investigate. The story begins kind of slowly, putting you to the task of running errands for most of the beginning, but once you get past that, the game really takes off.

For what it's worth, Suikoden V has a great story, and a brilliant cast of characters. Throughout the game it's great to watch your characters grow, including the Prince. There are tons of characters who you can get to join your cause, and all of them are very well developed. There are 108 characters in all. In most RPGs with an unrealistically large number of characters, the character development is terrible. This isn't true in Suikoden V. Each character is distinctly their own. The array of characters that join you is also interesting. You'll have just normal civillians. Chef's, detectives, ordinary peasants who are willing to fight for your cause. The way at which you obtain them is also interesting. Some will join based on what you say, others will join you depending on who is currently among your ranks. Some won't join you until you've got A LOT of people. This also works out to manipulate the ending of the game itself, as well as certain story sequences. The bulk of Suikoden V is actually getting all these characters, and it is perhaps the strongest part of the game.

The battle system is pretty cool too. You'll have six characters in battle at a time. You can set up your characters in battle in a way that you earn certain bonuses. There are formations that allow you to up your attack power, magical power and plenty more. It's awesome to tinker around with, and makes battling more interesting. The only thing that bogs down battling is the load times before it, which over time become pretty annoying.

Alongside the normal, everyday battle... you'll be able to duel as the story moves on. The duels aren't especially challenging. They way they're done is similar to Pokemon in a way. You can attack, use a special attack or defend. It's like Rock, Paper, Scissors. Everything has the potential to lose. For example, you can't defend against a special attack but you can use a regular attack to offset it. Those you're dueling will usually call out what they're going to do, and you'll have somewhere around three or four seconds to decide how to offset it. Dueling isn't especially hard, but it has its moments.

There are also army battles on land and sea, and to be honest, they're no different than the duels. You'll have to move closer to the enemy, but they pretty much play out in the same way. However, this is where the bulk of your 108 characters come into play. They are, essentially, your army.

Graphically, Suikoden V is good. Good, not especially great. Most characters are pretty detailed and the enviroments are colorful. The PS2 is capable of better, but in all honesty, Suikoden V is NOT by any means a bad looking game. It's a good looking game, just not as good looking as others that have set the bar. Soundwise, the game sounds great. Mixing classic music from the series with other tunes. The new tunes are used perfectly when setting the mood of certain scenes.

Suikoden V is full of good voice acting. It isn't always perfect, but it works out just right. Some characters sound perfect, others you're scratching your head and wondering what the deal is. You won't find yourself questioning the voices too often, though. Most of the voice acting is good, and the voices that matter you'll be proud of.

Suikoden V is a gem. It's got lots of replayability, and tons of well developed characters. It's one of the most exciting RPGs of the year, and any RPGer would be proud to have it.

The Good
+Great storyline
+Tons of characters
+Well developed charactes
+Fun battle system
+Overall good voice acting
+Good graphics
+Great soundtrack

The Bad
-The load times for battles
-Duels and army battles aren't really all that difficult

I'm not quite sure what I expected when I started Suikoden 5. My first meeting with this series was Suikoden 3, which I enjoyed greatly. Konami had made a definite effort to compete with the Final Fantasy series, and while they are different style games, the result for Konami was a genuinely compelling fantasy odyssey. I was less thrilled with Suikoden 4, which was a step backward in technology with very flat characters and a plot that lacked the vastness of Suikoden 3.

So here comes Suikoden 5 which, strangely enough, has been simplified to the point of almost being a throwback to a PSOne game, lacking event the graphic finesse of its predecessor, but which is every bit as interesting a game as Suikoden 3. Once you get past the lack of fine detail, you can't help but notice that the artistic design itself is excellent. The plot is intricate, and the fight system is solid without being overwhelming. And it's a very big world with plenty to look at and interact with.

If you haven't played a Suikoden game before, the underlying structure is political, and a good part of the game involves international and interpersonal relationships. One of the keys to the games are the 108 stars - characters that must be found, recruited, and used during the fights and battles to come. They must be trained, armed, and occasionally coddled in order to complete the game successfully. You not only get to deal with the traditional hack and slash of traditional combat, you have to cope with a real time battle system. When you're not doing that you can go on trading expeditions to make money. And you will always need to make money.

This otherwise successful game has two flaws from my point of view. I found the tactical warfare system difficult to work with. I seemed to be getting the job done, but I was never sure what it was that I was doing right. Another irritant is the number of random fights encountered in fields and dungeons. When you are in the middle of trying to figure out a puzzle or a maze, getting interrupted every three steps can get on your nerves.

Over all, this was a game that far exceeded my initial impressions. I contribute this to the complexity of many of the characters. This kept up the flow of surprises that make a game interesting. I'd play it again some day.

Konami's Suikoden series has been a fixture in the Playstation console systems since the PS1. While not as graphically beautiful as Square-Enix's Final Fantasy series of role-playing games, Konami's own Suikoden rpgs more than held its own in complexity of character development and storylines. These two factors have become something the Final Fantasy rpgs have really lacked since Final Fantasy VII. I would even say the Final Fantasy series hit its high-point in Final Fantasy VI and has been downhill since. Not so with the Suikoden series. From the beginning the series has beautifully combined characters and storylines to create a game that still uses the basic stats and experience mechanics of most Japanese RPGs but with a unique brand of npc recruiting and a wholly realized complex world which grows and reveals itself with each successive game in the series.

In 2006, Konami released Suikoden V in North America and there were some trepidations on how well the game would turn out. The previous game in the series, Suikoden IV, was abit underwhelming in its execution. A rarity in the Suikoden series in that the game was just ok; with some fans calling it awful. But even Suikoden IV still played better and its story less cliche than most rpgs coming out of Japan. Suikoden fans needn't have worried about this latest entry in the series. Suikoden V doesn't bring anything new or innovating in terms of graphics to the genre (but then Suikoden games never has in the past) but what it did was bring back the series to the high-standard of character development and storyline the series was very well-known and critically-acclaimed for.

Set six years before the events which played out in Suikoden I, Suikoden V takes places in the Queendom of Falena whose current Queen has in her possession the Sun Rune. The Sun Rune is one of the 27 True Runes which makes the backbone of what makes the critical events of the Suikoden Universe so unique to the role-playing genre. Queen Arshtat rules Falena with the Sun Rune but events prior to the beginning of the game (told in flashback) has set into motion a dangerous game of political machinations and powergrabbing between two powerful groups in the Houses of Barows and Godwins with the Sun Rune in the middle of it all.

The player is given control of Queen Arshtat's only son to figure out just what sort of secret plans either Houses has in store for the Royals. Accompanying the player are Arshtat's sister Sialeeds, his bodyguard and lifelong friend Lyon, and Georg (a familiar face for those who have played the previous games in the series). As the game's story unfolds the complexity of the power struggle between Barows and Godwins and those of the Falenan Royal Family becomes more than a struggle for the realm of Falena but for its ultimate survival as something powerful and beyond human comprehension has slowly influenced those in close proximity. There's moments of extreme sadness and ultimate sacrifices and love. Machiavellian plots and counterplots from both the protagonists and antagonists keep the player guessing as to how the story will play out. There's also betrayals and genocidal actions which gives this entry to the series the dark edge the previous fourth Suikoden lacked.

Unlike most JRPG's (Japanese RPGs), Suikoden V doesn't have an end-of-the-world storyline but one which stays regional, but makes the plot no less epic and actually gives the game more freedom in how the story unfolds. Suikoden V's story has to rank up there with Suikoden II's as one of the best rpg storylines ever and only lags behind the second game due to that game's having a brilliant and memorable villain in one Luca Blight. The main characters and most of the 108 Stars of Destiny characters were well-written with their own distinct personalities and motivations for joining the fight. The dialogue during the game is mostly done through text with each character show in anime-style profiles. The cutscenes on the other hand uses voice acting which for a rpg was done pretty well with voice actors who actually gave each character voiced a distinct personality. It would've been nice if Konami had included the Japanese voice-acting in addition to the English translation. It's a minor gripe, but nothing that takes away from making Suikoden V such a great game.

The gameplay mechanics returns back to the 6-party formation from the first three games in the series. There's still the usual co-operative attacks when certain combinations of characters are put in the battle party. The co-op attacks could involve just two characters all the way up to six characters combining to create devastating non-runic attacks. There's also co-op attacks between characters using runes. These combined runic attacks are some of the most damaging attacks in the game and allows the player a reason to actually bring a balanced party of 6 characters that's made up of fighter strong in physical attacks and those adept in runes. The newest change in the battle mechanics occur in the war battles. Gone is the turn-based system that's worked well in the first four games. Suikoden V's war battles now takes place in real-time which makes for much more hectic battles. The player must constantly know where each of his units are and how they're stacked up against the opposing forces. This change in the system was a good one and here's hoping that in the next Suikoden game for the upcoming nextgen systems, Konami builds on this real-time war battle.

Suikoden V is a great game and also brings the Suikoden series back to great form after an interesting but lackluster attempt at innovation with Suikoden IV. This fifth entry did everything right in what made the series great. It had a great and compelling storyline with complex and distinct characters. Suikoden V misses surpassing the great Suikoden II in greatness just due to that game having certain classic and memorable characters. This is an unfair comparison but something that still puts the second game ahead of V, but just barely. That shows just how great this game really is. Already announced by Suikoden's creators that V will be the last Suikoden game for this current generation of Playstation console system. The next installment will have nextgen hardware at its disposal and I, for one, can't wait to see what the next one will turn out to be. Until then I shall continue to play and enjoy Suikoden V the second time around with its New Game + option that unlocks after a player finishes the game.

Well, I didn't much care for Suikoden 3 (although I still gave it 4 stars), and I probably am too easy on Suikoden IV (which at least I replayed), so I am happy to say that Suikoden V is head-and-shoulders above each of those. The storyline is good, the war sequences are the most fun yet, the minigames (particularly the fishing minigame) is entertaining, and yet, and yet...

NOW LOADING...

You will never get more sick of a screen, and truthfully, there is no excuse for it. After every battle, after going into any door, NOW LOADING, every time. Every time.

The battles would be nice except that each one is about 10-15 seconds longer than it should be, due to the ridiculous amount of time necessary to enter and exit the battle screen. Couple this with an uncomfortably high encounter rate (in some dungeons, about 1 battle every 10 steps), and you are looking at hours spent waiting for battles to begin and end. Were it not for this (very noticeable) flaw, Suikoden V may have given Suikoden II a run for its money. As it is, it'll have to settle for second.

I won't spoil any of the story, but I will say that if you know Suikoden II, there are MANY more ties to that game other than Georg Prime. Moreover, the story is interesting enough to survive the incredibly slow beginning (it took about 6 hours for the game to get off the ground!) and the overly long battles. Nearly 60% of the Stars of Destiny must be discovered on your own (i.e. they won't join merely as part of the progression of the game), and there are numerous sidequests involved in finding them. Unfortunately, the load times really hamper the experience (and frankly, I see no excuse for them, as this is the 3rd offering from Konami on the PS2 - haven't they figured out the hardware yet?).

It's nice to play this game after the terrible disappointment of Suikoden 4. I wish that the game developers would wise-up and return to sprites, as the loading screen indicates they haven't forgotten how.
Apart from that, the dialogue is decent, the script redundancy is only moderately annoying if writing appeals to you. The loading screen, while it never takes too long, is seen frequently, and the game would be better if you could change camera angles beyond the ability to zoom in and out. If my character is behind a building, zooming in and seeing a bigger building doesn't help much.
The fighting systems seem to take the best all the games have had to offer, and use it in one efficient system. The one-on-one battles are easier than ever before, but the army battles are possibly the best yet. The only other game feature I miss is the ability to fight with all 108 stars. I miss the chefs, gardeners, fishermen, and gamblers out there battling and levelling up.

If you've played all the previous Suikodens my opinion stands 2, 1, 3&5 tied, 4 distant last place.

Where to start...

Gameplay: 9/10
Back on form! Apart from a few minor problems, the gameplay in Suikoden V (SV) is excellent.

With regards to the battle system, SV simply expands on what Suikoden (SI) and Suikoden II (SII) did - Not that that's a bad thing. No longer do you only have the option of using the basic formation of old, you can now use various formations, meaning you can make a party with any six characters work. Simple as it may seem, the option of changing the battle formations makes battles much more fun.

Speaking of battles, the now famous Suikoden war battles make a return. This time around they're in real time and are much more frantic, leading to both good and bad points. They follow a basic rock-paper-scissors principle, certain units giving and taking more damage depending on who attacks who. Sadly, they aren't all that well designed, sometimes leading to mass slaughter due to having to control too many units in too many postions at once.

I suppose the dual battle system is also worth a mention, although it doesn't get used very often during SV. I won't bother going into details since the dual battle system hasn't changed much since SI, using the same same sort of rock-paper-scissors principle that the new war battle uses. The only thing worth noting to Suiko vets is that you have to give your command straight away now, which makes the duals more interesting. Oh yeah, and the dual battle graphics look great.

Moving away from the battles, something SV improved on over its prequels is the character recruitment. It all seemed a bit too easy in past Suikoden games, most SoD would join you as soon as you asked. This time around, Konami make you work damn hard...no longer do most SoDs willingly join and risk their lives unless you put some serious effort into recruiting them.

The only thing that lets the gameplay down is the encounter rate...well, that and usual low difficulty level of Suikoden games. The encounter rate REALLLY annoyed me at times, like the time when I got lost in a dungeon and kept getting into random battles every few steps when all I wanted to do was explore. Konami really should've fixed the high encounter rate after Suikoden IV (SIV), I can't understand for the life me why they made it so high, it's not like they needed the high encounter rate to add extra length to SV!

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Story: 9.5/10
Without a doubt, the strongest point of SV.

You get slowly introduced to Falena and the main characters, something most fans seem to moan about, but don't worry, the story is absolutely amazing once it gets going. If you want some sour to go with the sweet, the story does lose some of its momentum near the end; it starts to get a little on the dull and predictable side.

I mentioned that most of the SoD require more work to recruit when talking about the gameplay, and I'm happy to say that the SoD imporovments don't stop with them simply being harder to recruit. Nearly all of the SoDs have strong connections to the plot and other main characters, plus they all have their own unique and understandable reasons for getting involved in the war. If you're anything like me, you'll be straight on Suikosource for more information about certain characters after you complete SV.

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Soundtrack: 10/10
Never before have I heard a more fitting and beautiful video game soundtrack. I want it! Someone buy it me, I'm too cheap!

Some video game soundtracks seem to fit in with the game without having any truly memorable tracks, others have some excellent tracks that don't quite work with the game, SV gets it just right and as near to perfect as a video game soundtrack can be.

As for my recommendations, you should check out these tracks:

A Sad Wish
Determination ~Tragic Battle~
Overcoming the Grief
Scar of Destruction

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Graphics: 8/10
Perfect for people who enjoyed playing older RPGs...not that the graphics are bad, far from it!

If you're the sort of person who only cares for flashy graphics, don't get SV, please. I can't believe how some people actually dislike SV simply because it doesn't have KH2 graphics...I mean, why even play RPGs if you can't put story and gameplay first? It's beyond me. The graphics aren't even that bad, the facial animations are excellent, the only problem being that there aren't all that many cut-scenes to view them with.

Now, there is one bad point relating to the graphical side of things; the camera. You can't change the angle, all you can do is zoom in and out. I suppose it's pretty bad for a game not to have a fully rotatable camera, especially when you consider that SIV, the prequel of SV, let you rotate the camera. Still, the fixed camera angle doesn't really cause any problems, I can't recall getting annoyed with the camera during my first 78 hour SV experience.

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Length: 9/10
7.4 inches...oh, the game? It's very long.

78 hours, the time it took me to complete SV on my first playthrough. I missed 9 SoD, I didn't mess around with the mini-games...you get what I'm trying to say.

In my opinion, you should play SV without a guide on your first playthrough. You probably won't get all 108 of the SoD, you'll also no doubt waste lots of time trying to figure out how to get them to join you, so why bother you ask? Well, it gives you a reason to replay it straight away, plus you get see an ending worth missing out on getting all 108 SoD.

Oh, and SV has (as far as I know) five different endings. I'm happy enough with the ending I got with 99/108 stars, let alone the best ending!

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Overall: 9
The best Suikoden? Depending on how highly you rate SII, yes.

Don't let SIV fool you into thinking the Suikoden series is over, that couldn't be much further from the truth. Hell, maybe SIV was a blessing in disguise, who knows how good SV would've been if not for fans hating SIV so much!

Minor problems aside, SV was well worth the wait. It'll be truly sad if this gem of a game isn't played by every true RPG fan out there. If you can look beyond the graphical side of things, you will see one of the greatest games ever made.

Suikoden 5 is a reasonably accomplished RPG which tells the tale of a kingdom (or in this game, a queendom) under threat from evil forces wishing to control the world (as usual). You play as the prince, who finds himself initially just doing various chores and generally drifting through the country waiting for something to kick-start his true sense of purpose.

Now let me say right now that never before have I played a game that took quite as long as this to get interesting, in fact I seriously considered abandoning it during the early stages. We're talking 10 solid hours plus before the game starts to deliver anything more then mildly diverting ambling about. This is a huge flaw, and something the game creators really should have addressed. Ten hours of wandering around with little more to do than press prompt buttons to initiate text-only conversations is really too much to ask. There are a couple of starter dungeons but enemies were way too easy and after about 3 encounters the paths were pretty much finished. However, I persevered because of what I had read on other review sites, and EVENTUALLY, after what must have been about 15 hours of extremely mundane play, the game finally started to get going. And yes, the reviews are right. Once you get past this initial hurdle, things do get good.

So, what does it play like? Well the controls are easy...there isn't much you need to learn to get around the game. The towns and locations in general are quite large and sometimes it seems like the game is making you are run down very long corridors or around large towns just to bump up the running time. There isn't really any need for this, and in that miserable opening section it just contributes to the boredom. And graphics-wise, I think it could be better. Everything looks kind of...childish. Characters are rather bland looking and their facial expressions are very simple. The scenery of the game is also pretty dull...and both dungeons and towns share a very bad "top-down" camera angle that cannot be manually altered. All locations are viewed from the same overhead and vaguely south-east vantage point. You can't rotate the camera at all, and as a result there are sometimes doorways in walls that you can't see! All you can do is zoom in and zoom out. There is no in game map of towns or dungeons, so I think the zoomed-out vantage point is designed to be your map substitute, but it looks awful - character models become minute and the interiors (which exist as floating 2-3 sided rooms within a black empty space) look very out-dated.

Right now, let's get onto the fighting. As I mentioned, in the introductory hours dungeons are a breeze, and there is an "Auto" option that just makes everyone attack, which I used almost 100% of the time to begin with. Not a good start. I mean, the fact that you can play without having to even think. But the battle system actually has quite a lot of depth to it. Good fighting depends on many things: Character equipment, battle formation (the positions your team members stand in during battle), magic orbs (equip to enable spell casting for the spells that orb contains), skills (raise by spending points on them, and equip the ones you like), and of course levelling up. I must say that the fights always tended to stay on the easy side. I used that "Auto" function mercilessly when I was just roaming round dungeons to make sure I didn't miss any treasure...it was just the quickest way. Oh yeah, on the subject of speed, this game needs to go to a load screen excruciatingly often. After every battle, after every change from town to world map, in and out of every building, between every cut scene and in game screen...a few seconds on the load screen is needed for all of these, and put together, that's a LOT of dead time. It really grates after a while, and as the encounter rate is pretty high there's no escape.

OK it sounds like I have a lot of moans, but let me point out the good points. Surprisingly, top of the list in Suikoden V has to be the actual story. Believe it or not, when the loading screens and ugly graphics get you down, it is the story that will bring you back. And this is partly down to that very long preamble, during which time you get to know quite a lot about a lot of characters. Boring as that is, when the game suddenly (and finally) plays an ace with a quite exciting plot twist, you'll be pretty much hooked for the rest of the game. So a big plus point there.

Next, there is quite a lot of variety in the gameplay to keep you amused along the way. First of all there literally dozens of support characters to fight with. The game has what could be described as a side quest, in which you try and recruit people from all over the country to help your cause. Most of these can be used in your battle team, while others offer passive "support" skills, so the permutation of party members is huge. Next, apart from normal RPG battles, the game also has wars. War sees you controlling combat from a strategic point of view, with several battalions to control and direct. I was a bit unsure about this at first, but after a couple of them I got hooked.

So by the end of the game I was having a good time. The story kept me hooked until the end and the gameplay was fun enough to make the time spent enjoyable. If only they had made that long prologue more interesting....

Look out Square/Enix! Konami has really built this series from the ground up. The 5th installment is easily the best so far, doing everything a great RPG should.