Given the amount of JRPGs with crazy plotlines that dive headfirst into fantastical situations, Suikoden’s no frills approach was a breath of fresh air (to be clear, I like those crazy plotlines but it was nice to see an RPG buck that trend). It was a surprisingly grounded story about war, loyalty, and sacrifice that benefited from a crisp translation and a strong emotional core. The game built around this story wasn’t groundbreaking and seemed somewhat basic at first glance, but the combat system proved to be an engaging exercise in resource management and the game itself had enough variety in its scenarios that it never felt perfunctory.
The story in Suikoden was simple and it remained that way for the entire game, never veering off into strange territory. You play the role of an unnamed teenager whose father is the Empire’s top general. The game starts with you and your father having a meeting with the Emperor. When your father leaves to lead a campaign up North, you are left to run errands as a means of starting your own career within the Imperial Forces. But as you run said errands, you begin to realize that the Empire is corrupt. This culminates in the wicked court magician Windy’s pursuit of your friend Ted who possesses a powerful rune called the Soul Eater. Ted leaves the Soul Eater in your care and you eventually join a rebel force called the Liberation Army and move up in its ranks. Suikoden is the story of your ascension to the top of the Liberation Army and your fight with the empire. Some people might say that it doesn’t make sense for so many experienced fighters to be following a fifteen year old, but the hero’s age gave me an incredible feeling of empowerment. It’s hard not to get a warm fuzzy feeling from the hero’s transformation to a nervous teen to a powerful leader.
One of the best things about the story of Suikoden is that it always gives you a reason to care. Whether it’s because of a changing relationship, a dramatic death (the game has some great death scenes), or a confrontation with somebody you hold dear, Suikoden almost always has you emotionally invested, which gives the game a sense of emotional gravity that is essential when telling a war story. Suikoden is full of political intrigue but it is foremost a story about people. Many gamers make a big deal about the 108 recruitable characters, but while it is a ton of fun to explore the world and recruit them, they are most significant in their believability. Even characters that get just a little development convinced me. Furthermore, the story has so little fat that you never lose sight of what’s truly important. Suikoden clocks in at about 20 hours, which is quite short for an RPG, but hardly any of that time is wasted.
It’s a good thing that Suikoden has such a powerful narrative because the game itself it fairly typical. Towns, dungeons, and the overworld are all pretty basic, but the game doesn’t feel like it gets bogged down into a town-to-overworld-to-dungeon slog. The scenarios driving the game’s progression are almost always something you care about and many of them are very interesting. For instance, there’s a scenario where you hunt down bandits who are not paying their taxes, only to figure out that you went after the wrong guys. The mountain path that you scale to reach those bandits might just be a string of basic pathways, but there’s enough emotional payoff to make the scenario memorable. Suikoden has a ton of that kind of thing and it makes the game extremely engaging even when the basic design tells you that it shouldn’t be.
The battle system also seemed pretty basic at first, but it was actually quite engaging. It’s a typical turn-based system where you pick your actions and then watch your turn play out. You can use physical attacks, magic (called runes), and special “unity” attacks that require that two characters in your party have a special relationship in the story. The twist is that you can have up to six combatants in your party and you can choose from dozens upon dozens via the recruitment mechanic. However, while six combatants spruces things up a bit, the battle system in Suikoden is not doing anything you haven’t seen before. That said, there are two things made the battle system for me: the first is that it’s super fast and has extremely cool animations; you can further speed things up by choosing “free will,” which is basically an auto-battle mechanic. The second is that the game severely limits the amount of items you can carry and the amount of spells you can cast, which gives the game some tense resource management that makes fights more rewarding than they would be otherwise. I imagine they did this to make the game more challenging. Your six combatants can easily overwhelm enemies, making many fights a potential cakewalk, so the resource management, while irksome at times (having to give up items to make way for new ones could be super annoying), balances that out.
One thing that makes Suikoden’s combat portion somewhat unique is the other two battle systems. Unfortunately, only one of these is any fun. The fun one is the one-on-one duels. Here, you have a fighting game-style life bar and you can attack, defend, or do a wild attack. Your opponent will make cryptic comments and you have to use these to figure out what they are going to do and respond accordingly. I found these battles to be fun in their own right as well as being a good tool to push the story along. The not-so-fun battles are the full-scale military battles. These were merely a glorified game of rock paper scissors that I found to be somewhat lazy and unimaginative, though they did work well as storytelling devices.
Customization in Suikoden is fairly typical but also well done. To use magic in battle, you go to magic shops to equip ruins that you can find and purchase; these ruins give you access to special abilities, most of which are quite useful. These runes can be leveled up and attached to any character; some characters come into the party with their own awesome runes. Instead of buying new weapons, each character has one weapon that can be leveled up at the blacksmith for a gradually increasing fee. I thought that this was a good system because there was already so much equipment to manage. Between decking out what felt like every body part with armor for six characters, I felt like I was managing equipment way too often. With so many characters to choose from, the developers should have streamlined this portion of the game a bit more.
Given that it is a top down SNES-style RPG, Suikoden didn’t have cutting edge graphics when it released, but I thought the game looked great overall. I loved the muted, slightly washed out colors. They really complimented the grounded, mature feeling of the game’s story and I thought the fusion of Oriental and European art styles had an understated air of elegance about it that I found to be quite beautiful. The sprites were kind of basic, but still full of personality, and the character portraits were amazing and quite believable. The only gripe I really had is that some dungeons and inside interiors were a bit too bare.
There is quite a lot of side content in Suikoden to sink your teeth into. Recruiting the 108 Stars of Destiny gives you access to a lot of optional side quests, but this doesn’t extend the game quite as much as you would think. That being said, I thought the recruitment mechanic was quite fun, especially given that your home base expands every time you recruit someone. The home base is not that interactive, but it added to the feeling of empowerment that the game does so well.
The sound effects in Suikoden are typical, but the music is absolutely amazing. Again, the fusion of Oriental and European styles gave the music an air of elegance and beauty. So did the lovely melodies and the slightly wistful use of wind instrument sounds. Honestly, I would put this soundtrack in my top five favorite all time soundtracks. It’s that good.
When compared to Chrono Cross, Xenogears, or one of the Final Fantasies, Suikoden might seem very stripped down and basic, but the game ultimately turns this into a strength with its focus on character, emotion, and empowerment, which to me is what role playing games are all about.
GAMEPLAY-4.5/5
DESIGN-4/5
STORY-5/5
VISUALS-4/5
PLAYABILITY-4.5/5
VALUE-4/5