Suikoden V is a game that reverts back to its roots, the good and the bad.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Game Play 8.5
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Controls (Satisfactory)
>> The controls allow you to accomplish what needs to be accomplished and are therefore satisfactory. That's really all that matters in a turn based RPG. However, there are a couple issues I am going to address. My first complaint is with changing your battle formation in out of battle menu. The whole process is cumbersome and finicky and your formation is messed up whenever you change characters or when some story sequences occur. My second complaint is with the camera angle. It is fixed and you can't do anything about it. In today's day and age it is annoying and constricting to not have a camera you can rotate at will.
Battle System Standard Turn Based Battles (Excellent)
>> This is an area every Suikoden game excels in. This game reverts back to 6 member battle parties arranged in rows and columns. The new twist this game adds is the ability to change your battle formation. Different battle formations can allow you to protect weaker characters and give stat boosts to the party. This is definitely a welcome addition to the series. These type of battle are turn based. At the beginning of each turn you will select the actions of all characters at once. Once chosen the battle party and enemies will attack all at once (order based upon speed). You can also decide to run from the enemy, bribe the enemy, or choose for all of your party members to attack. The auto attack option is a real time saver as opposed to manually selecting attack for all 6 party members every time.
In this game characters can execute a regular attack, use a rune, or execute a cooperative attack. Runes allow you to gain magic, usable abilities, or inherent skills (such as a increase in critical hit rate). Most characters can equip most runes, but some runes are pre-equipped and unique to that character. Co-op attacks allow multiple characters to combine to attack one or more foes. Unfortunately there aren't a whole lot of Co-op attacks in the game and you have to have specific characters in your party to use them. They also cause a negative status effect on one of your party members most of the time. These can be useful early in the game, however they loose effectiveness as the game progresses.
Last, but not least are skills. These skills increase the stats (such as strength or speed) of your characters. Each character can equip 2 skills. At first this seems insignificant, but later on this becomes a huge factor in building a strong battle party. For instance, with a high speed rating a character can attack an enemy multiple times in one action. Also, some characters are more adept at certain skills than others adding a level of uniqueness to each character. You have to use skill points gained after battles to increase skills. I personally loved this part of the battle system and spent a ton of time leveling and strategizing on skills.
Duels (Excellent)
>> Duels are one on one battles that happen a few times throughout the game. They work in a rock, paper, scissors type fashion. Usually your enemy will say something that will give you a clue as to what type of action he is going to take. It is then your job to predict and choose the correct action to beat him. These battles are a nice change of pace and fun when they occur.
War Battles (Poor)
>> War battles take place similar to real time strategy like Rome: Total War or Disciples. The best example though is Ogre Battle, these battles play out almost exactly in the same manner. These battles also work in a rock paper scissors type fashion with certain units being strong/weak against others. When two units fight each other a skirmish will occur and both units will lose some fighters. Whoever looses the most soldiers will get knocked back. Now this can be extremely annoying because the direction the loosing unit will get knocked back can vary depending on the direction of encounter. Sometimes an enemy unit will get knocked in an undesired direction towards one of your weaker units. It is also very tough to manage all of the units moving on screen at once because the control scheme for these battles is poor. Most of these battles are not very hard and early in the game I found them to be a fun diversion from the standard turn based battles. However, you will experience a ton of them throughout the course of the game and they eventually become a nuisance. The worst part is that they are very long and you can't save in the middle of them.
Puzzles & Mini Games (Great)
>> The few puzzles scattered throughout Suikoden V are very easy, but do a good job at adding variety. Most of them involve just hitting switches. Being a Suikoden game there is a lot of mini games you can play depending on what characters you recruit. There is fishing, cooking, cards and the other stuff you come to expect from Suikoden. These mini games are a fun way to pass time and you don't have to do them if you don't want to. What's not to like?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graphics 7.0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background & Environment (Good)
>> The background and environment graphics are nothing special but they are nice to look at. They did an especially good job with shiny walls, floors, water, and etc. Basically, they did a good job in this department and it did not detract from the game.
Characters (Good)
>> The character graphics are not extremely detailed and look pretty outdated. There only real saving grave are the hand drawn character pictures. That's right, my favorite part about the character graphics is the old school dialogue photos. There is extreme detail paid to each characters art work and each one pictures depicting several emotions. My personal favorite is Georg who's art work looks awesome.
Special Effects (Poor)
>> Suikoden V took a tremendous step backwards in the department of battle special effects. I didn't play Suikoden IV, but Suikoden III's special effects were outstanding. I have a feeling that Suikoden went back to older and less dramatic special effects in an attempt recapture some of the magic from Suikoden I & II. I was not too pleased with the idea though and it only succeeded in looking outdated. Cut scenes were all done with the same in game graphics.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sound 9.0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music (Excellent)
>> I never got bored with any of the music in Suikoden 5 throughout the entire game. They did a great job mixing up battle songs from time to time and giving boss battles a more intense feel. The song selection in the story line also did a great job setting the mood.
Sound Effects (Great)
>> As I played through the game I noticed a high level of attention to detail when it came to sound effects. This ranges from little noises such as the sound of your feet hitting different surfaces to more pronounced sounds such as Georg powering up to land a huge critical.
Voice Acting (Ok)
>> Well the game does have voice acting, but it is run of the mill and nothing special. You don't hear a whole lot through out the game, so this does not make or break this game. I wasn't a big fan of the voice acting for Georg...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story 9.5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plot (Great)
>> The thing this game is infamous for is how slow it starts and I can verify the truth in that statement. A lot of time is spent running around a talking to people before you get to experience any significant gameplay. However, once the game does pick up it takes off and keeps that pace throughout most of the game. Unfortunately the game does not finish that strong, but its story is better than most and definitely and strong point.
Characters (Excellent)
>> Another staple of the Suikoden series is the ability to recruit the 108 stars of destiny. These are the characters destined to help you achieve your goal in this game. I forget the exact amount, but around 50-70 of these characters are usable in battle and most of them are usable in war battles. Almost every character is unique in there own way. This is the highlight of this game and primary factor that makes it so enjoyable. Georg is one of my all time favorite characters. It is hard not to love his quiet confidence and overall demeanor.
Writing (Excellent)
>> This game is extremely well written from start to finish. I had to retrieve my dictionary to look up words several times while reading the dialogue in this game. I personally love a game that also increases my vocabulary. The dialogue is also very witty and made me laugh on several occasions. The writers did a wonderful job expressing the unique personalities of all the characters. I thought Gizel was one of the most unique characters I have ever run into. He is not your average antagonist.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Value 8.5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Main Story (Great)
>> The main story will probably last most people 40-50 hours. This is about par for the course for an RPG.
Sidequests & Secrets (Great)
>> Recruiting all 108 stars of destiny is a time consuming task that extends this game out to about 60-70 hours. This is really all there is as all sidequests in this game are to acquire new characters. Most of the extra items can be gotten on the path of the main story and are easy to find.
Replay Value (average)
>> There is a New Game+ option that allows you to start over with most of your runes and equipment. This wasn't the type of game I wanted to replay though as it is fairly linear. The primary motivation for replaying it would be recruit characters you may have missed (yes, you can miss characters!!) or to try out different battle parties.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fun Factor 8.0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Role Play (Ok)
>> In this game you play as the Prince of the Kingdom of Sol-Falena. You are silver haired and adored by everybody. In the beginning the game you are treated like the child that you are, but with time you become respected and feared. I was not a huge fan of the main character you are put in the role of in this game. He is just a kid and kind of looks like a girl. I believe that they were once again trying to recapture the feel of Suikoden I & II with this character. You could see it in his weapon, his build, and his sidekick Lyon. I was never really able to loose myself in the role of this character.
Tediousness (low)
>> One of my favorite things about this game is the ease at which characters can level up. This is essential with all the characters in this game. Unlike many other RPGs it takes very little time to level characters up. It only takes about 5-10 battles to raise a low level character to the same level as the rest of the party. You never have to spend much time in this game running in circles and leveling. Just keeping moving on with the story and your characters will level up. Combined with the option to have all characters attack battles are very quick and easy. This game does have random encounters, but the encounter rate is about normal and thus not a huge issue. The biggest issue is with War Battles and I elaborated on this in the Gameplay section of the review.
Miscellaneous
>> One thing I feel this game could have used more of is large boss battles. There was very few of these and it did hurt the satisfaction of the game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pros
-Deep battle system w/ good variety
-Large cast of unique characters
-Interesting and well written story
-Music selection is appropriate w/ lots of variety
-Leveling up is effortless
-Plethora of mini games at your disposal
Cons
-Poorly designed and frequent war battles
-Dated Graphics
-Fixed Camera
-Very few satisfying boss battles
Gameplay (25%) - 8.5
Sound (15%) - 9.0
Graphics (15%) - 7.0
Story (20%) - 9.5
Value (10%) - 8.5
Fun Factor (15%) - 8.0
Final Score - 8.5 (rounded up)
>> I enjoyed Suikoden 5 from beginning to end. This game is not epic by my standards, but the characters are charming and it is easy to play through. If you are a fan of Suikoden or RPGs you should definitely give this game a shot.