Suikoden. I've heard it pronounced by Psycho Mantis, of Metal Gear Solid fame - as Soo-ee- koh-den. That's right, Psycho Mantis knows all about this game. He knows all about your Konami games. But I digress.

Lets get this out of the way, this game has probably more characters you can add to your party than any game I can think of. You can switch them around as you like in your group, as long as they are not dead.  Yeah, chance people could die here because theres a war going on.
This is a fantasy setting, a western world with distinct asian influences. For instance, there are ninja mercenaries around stone castles, and no one bats an eye. Dragons take flight and blind seers can see the future. Powerful spell runes have dreadful curses for those who seek their power. There are undead monsters, magic in the forms of runes that people can call upon, and a political turmoil plot line to chew over. 

Story
You play as the son of Teo McDohl, a general for the Emperor Barbarossa. You are about to work for the empire, like your esteemed father, and quickly you'll start seeing cracks in the giant empire. While Barbarossa and his capital seem OK, the place you end up working at is run by a psycho. Fortunately you're not alone, you have with you a small team of loyal family retainers, Pahn the strong, Ted the boy hiding something, Cleo the big sister-type, and Gremio - the annoying manservant. Seriously, Gremio was my least favorite character, hes always fretting over your McDohl like you're five.

Things escalate quickly, and you acquire knowledge of a well-meaning liberation front, and the power of one of the greatest spell runes - the Death Eater. Doesn't sound too nice, does it?  Its not.  You're going to have those near you die a horrible death, thats the curse. The rune does it work very well though, you can use it to smoke through random enemies, but until you lose something vital to you (story reasons) your rune will not upgrade and learn more powerful spells. 

Long story short, you will end up finding out all sorts of things about the Empire, and end up joining the rebels to overthrow them. This is a story full of losses and sacrifice. While you will decimate your rival, the rebellion will suffer quite a few losses on its own. Not a typical RPG as your party members can bite the dust in story driven plot points or highly risky battlefield maneuvers ... although if you are very persistent you can achieve the  'everyone lives' ending, at least as possible in this game. 


The common elements of Suikoden
While Final Fantasy has staples in nearly every game like a person named Cid, some kind of airship  - Suikoden also has their own tropes - you can recruit up to 108 special people, called stars of destiny. Every Suikoden has them, though sometimes heroes make it into more than one game. Crazy, right? Do you travel the world? Well, no. Its set in one continent. Some of these people are acquired as the story progresses, and there are others hidden that you would have to find and wile if you want them. The only other RPG I can think of with an obscene amount of player characters is Chrono Cross for PS1 also, but Suikoden easily trumps them.

Also look for a large home base in these games. Later ones let you accessorize it, but not here. Its a giant stone castle on the water, and it will seem empty as first, but as you recruit more people it begins to fill up. Any of the stars of destiny you recruit, will stay at the castle for your convenience. 

You get 6 party members. Again, way more than traditional RPGs. You start getting characters fairly quickly (since there is so many to grab!) and using them, or not, is your discretion. You often don't have to use certain characters, but pairing like minded ones can provide advantages. Take the fishermen, Tai Ho and Yam Koo, they are able to do a combo attack together if you have both in your party. Several warrior types have this, and the magic types are able to combine spell runes - though the dual spells take too long to set up for my patience.

The magic is not based entirely off elements, they have the typical fire/water/wind types, but also passive skills like the Turtle or Holy Rune - which makes one be able to run (there is no way to run in this game otherwise - but not such a big deal). Anyone can equip nearly any rune, and there are 'true' versions out that are even stronger. Some, like your Death Eater rune, are locked to a certain user.  You are allowed to cast a certain amount of each spell tier before it needs to be recharged by sleeping. There are even some runes that act like a physical attack, so your fighters can use them offensive as well as defensively.

This game has 3 kinds of battles
If you have played any rpg game, battles are its bread and butter. This is no different here. But there are also 2 other special kinds of fights, and these are the deadly types that can kill characters. Army battles and personal duels. Completely opposite in notion, masses of soldiers vs. a one-on-one fight - but they play almost exactly the same in principle - they are simple. The base is just like rock-scissor-paper. The army fighting utilizes ALL your characters you have acquired, and having certain ones allows special actions beyond the standard 3 list moves. If a move goes wrong, there is a chance one of your team won't be making it back. It adds some much needed weight.

Now we know what some Suikoden is bringing to the table of role playing, lets get into some scoring.


Graphics: 8
The backgrounds are bright, crisp looking sprites, and often little details make the scenes pop. There is one town where little cook pots are on stoves, as well as laundry, for instance. The areas you go to are diverse, A french style mansion, a giant forest or two. The spells highlight the rune, and they look OK. Not the best, but they are often quick, and get you right back to action.
On the opposite end, I didn't appreciate the crude looking army battles, they are super deformed little squished shapes hopping up and down vs enemies doing the same thing on their side. It looks rather silly. The army battles are uncommon, so they don't take a lot of your time. I also found the choice for critical hits to make the screen zoom in, not to my liking. It only shows the pixelation of your characters when under that magnification.   But those are both for minor issues, Konami did a good job. There is over 100 characters with their own distinct look, and thats pretty impressive.

Sound: 9
Suikoden also has a daring, nice soundtrack. Its very eclectic. You can hear a medieval, renaissance faire type music in the towns and your home base. Tribal reeds and drum in the song Distant Mountain. A dreamy song in Eternal Flow, full of soft horn and a dash of harp.
The battle music is great! It has building tension, rising score and crashing cymbals and drums. The overworld theme is grand, with heavy drum and light, whimsical flute that evokes the feeling of having important things to  do and the whimsy of being surprised. There is even a creepy organ song that sounds like it might be trying out for the supernatural Castlevania series.  The sound tries to do a lot of things, and nearly gets them all right.

Addictiveness: 7
I had one large problem with the game that kept pulling me out of the narrative. I think its the single biggest mistake it makes, and why I hurt the addictiveness score. This game suffers from giving you the illusion of choice multiple times.  You are presented two decisions. Do this or do that? And nine times out of ten, your choice is completely irrelevant. Its not just one or two times, its over 10 times before you even leave the beginning of the game and head out of the empire! Whats worse, sometimes you already can predict what will happen, but the game forces you to make a bad choice for story reasons. I would have liked the game much more if it just did the typical silent hero and rolled with its story. The immersion breaking - hey which do you want? Nah, we're going to do the other one even though you are the leader is just aggravating.

That aside, the game plays along with an interesting story. The idea of a bad giant government isn't new, but the means to it is. The lines between good and bad get blurred slightly, especially considering your dad is a staunch supporter of the empire you're trying to bring down. I wish the game would have had more of this, and make the decision weigh more on your shoulders. The empire is often painted so awful, yet you lived in it for years and didn't seem the wiser. A few more empire people that weren't zealots would be have been nice.

Depth: 6
Suikoden has some really stupid dungeon maps. There, I said it. Its like maps for dummies. If you are walking, say, in a forest. A castle, it doesn't matter, and you are presented with a fork in the road - I can guarantee one path will be super short and just lead you to treasure. The whole thing diminishes the exploring experience. Its like you're almost on rails. There is no way you can get lost. Some of these maps work better than others in being so confining. When I had to break into the legendary Dwarf Vault with its metal guardians and confusing paths, and it was super tiny, that was when I had to laugh. So bad are the exploratory maps, overall.

I also didn't like there are very few secrets in this game. You have one or two really tricky Stars of Destiny to find, but other than that, I can only think of two times where searching the area would find you some kind of treasure. It makes the decorative backgrounds feel wasteful.
You do however, get all the freedom of picking your revolving team however you want, and most everyone can be a battle participant if you so wish. The story has some twists, and I enjoyed it. I wish the many, many characters could have been fleshed out here and there. You learn so little about some of them (like Apple), but some of that is for other Suikoden games to do.


Difficulty: 5
The Death Eater rune does help limit the grinding, and for that I'm thankful. This game does not pad battle after battle, because with the rune, you can just go out, one-hit rune to death for several battles, go rest, repeat. OHK doesn't work on bosses (yay), but with 6 people in your party, its kind of hard for all of them to end up defeated.

That being said, there is a small bit of hardship. I have heard of some people having trouble beating some of the duels, although I did not find them bothersome, save for one. It is difficult to rescue all the 108 stars, as the natural storyboard will try to kill at least some. A few bosses can really test your patience, but with a death rune, they should be scared of you!

Overall: 8.5
A solid, fun game that deserved its own series. Look to Suikoden for strong female characters, themes of corruption and strife, fort building, good music and most of all, A TON OF UNIQUE PEOPLE TO RECRUIT.

All of the Suikoden games are fantastic. They stay away from the "apocalypse" style storytelling that is so prevalent in RPGs and focuses on the individual characters and what they fight and struggle for and the relationships between characters. Each character you can recruit has their own story and their own reasons for wanting to join you. The way each character talks, walks, and fights is unique making the whole world feel organic instead of just another overused trope.

I do hope you will get a chance to review the second Suikoden game because it is even better than the first one with an absolutely breathtaking story.