A more compelling narrative has rarely been told in the form of an RPG...

User Rating: 9.7 | Suikoden V PS2
By jmartin77777 | Review Date:
After playing Suikoden V, I realized that few other games have ever moved me as much as this one. The game spends a sizeable amount of time near the beginning introducing you to the central cast, and to people looking for an immediate adrenaline fix this may be painful. But once the game takes off you realize that the beginning was a (masterful) attempt to bring you closer to the players. Make you understand them, and hopefully feel for them in the trials to come. To appreciate how much they grow over the course of the game. And the central cast is VERY likeable. Only a rare few other games bring together a cast as appealing as this one. And once you've 'bought into' the central cast, seeing them suffer together and triumph together is all the more sweet. Betrayals become personal things, and losses add even more fire to your desire to win in the end.

Also, I must say, for a hero that never has a line of dialogue other than the interactive choices YOU make for him, the prince is incredibly well developed. With just body language and facial features, and your choices, the prince presents a very dynamic personality that is at once likeable and noble.

And for having such a huge cast of allied characters (most of whom are playable) the game develops many of them more than most other RPGs develop the game's main character. Even if you don't find the central characters to your taste, you'd be hard pressed not to find a party composition of people that you do like.

I don't want to spoil the game at all, because moreso than most games the plot of this one is a HUGE contributor to the enjoyment you will get out of it, but let me say that this game has a higher density of moments that make you want to jump up and shout "hell yeah!" or moments that make you want to cry than any other game I've played. If you're a player that likes to get immersed in a plot, this is the game for you. It makes other games attempts at story-telling seem childish in comparison. Some of the twists you will NOT see coming. And best of all none of it feels forced. The plot reads like a good book. Once the main story takes off you REALLY want to keep turning pages. And as you do walk away you are thinking about it, wondering whats going to happen next, or whether you can really trust so-and-so.

In summary I'll say that this game has, after a single play-thru, risen to the status of my favorite RPG. I admit to being biased towards RPGs that are story heavy (Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics, Valkyrie Profile, and Xenogears being some of my other favorite games). If you are the type that enjoys your RPGs purely for the battle-system, and only want a story cutscene now and again to remind you why you are fighting, this may not be the game for you. Not that the battle system isn't compelling, but there are games that do battles better (aka the Grandia series, or most strategy RPGs). Then again few (er...none?) of them actually give you the variety of having 3 seperate battle systems: Group battles, dueling, and army/navy battles. This game is a masterpiece, pure and simple. One of those rare RPGs that the RPG elitists will be bragging about having played to the next generation of gamers. When the kiddies of tomorrow are trying to convince you that some hollow shell of a game is the best thing since sliced bread because of its graphics, you will tell them about this game, and about how 'gaming in the old days' was about story, and soul. This game has both in spades.

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