[Discussion] Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tactics

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Oppenheimer
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[Discussion] Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden Tactics

Post by Oppenheimer »

Reviews and opinions on certain games are generally disallowed at Suikosource. However, your friendly moderators and admins have noticed that there is a great love and need to discuss opinions and give reviews of the various Suikoden games in the series so these threads have been created!

In this thread you may discuss Suikoden Tactics/Rhapsodia and give your reviews and opinions on it. You may refer to the other Suikodens but please keep the primary focus of the conversations about your opinions of Suikoden Tactics/Rhapsodia. You may talk about plot, setting, gameplay or anything else.

Please keep all reviews and opinions to the stickies in each gameplay forum. This change in policy does not mean that the remainder of Suikosource is allowing opinions or reviews.

Enjoy!
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LillyXChris
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Post by LillyXChris »

Well, here's my review/criticism of the game:

It's been a while since i've played a decent Tactics game before. And now with the inclusion of Suikoden Tactics, i feel that i'm back in the tactics world.

You start out with HeroIV and Snowe. It's already your first tactics match. Then when you see Kyril, the party gets started. Soon, the whole storyline seems to etch itself into the ground for you. Years pass and you see our three heroes, Kyril, Andarc and Seneca, all grown up and embark on a completely new mission; Rune Cannons.

The storyline, if you follow it correctly, you can and WILL understand. It's not a complicated storyline at all!

Gameplay-wise, it's not all that it can be. I mean, it's like your everyday tactics game except it has Runes and Combo attacks like you've never seen before. Otherwise, gameplay is quite limited.

Graphically, it should be improved. Going back to basics and downsizing the people just didn't cut it (according to me of course, i don't know about you people.) Thank goodness this was balanced with great voiceplay and great SFX to go with it.

Overall, the best tactics game i've ever played.

Score: 8.7/10
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Kirkis
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Post by Kirkis »

Well, I finally completed this game, and here's just a handful of things I have to say...

- This game is practically required to be played for you to get the full enjoyment out of Suikoden IV, and vice versa.

- Characters permanently died a little too easily, it was very annoying, and eventually I started only using characters I knew wouldn't die when I was doing challenging things like the Obel Ruins.

- It was cool seeing the origins of Peck, Brandeau, Edgar, etc. Unfortunately, it was for a very brief moment of time. I really wished they focused a lot more on the past instead of chucking you forward in time so quickly.

- The ending itself kind of bummed me out, no explainations or anything of what the characters went on to do after the game ended, just the main player characters, it seemed that nobody could give two craps about Trishtan or Jeremy or anybody, unfortunately.

- There was one very glaring plot hole, what's the deal with Simeon? Is he also from this other world, or what?
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warmaster670
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Post by warmaster670 »

my views

PROS
+elemental grid system, added extra strategy
+variety of characters, though not as many as normal suikodens
+opening chapters complement S4 well
+Missions
+combo attacks

CONS
-long battles, with the enemy sometimes getting up to 15 units worth of reinforcments
-graphics, while an interesting style, lacked detail
-characters seemed to die 95% of the time when defeated
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Post by MatildaWhiteKnightLeader »

On characters dying too easily...

I think their remaining HP and the damage they take is a factor.
For example, a character with 5/252 HP takes 150 damage. He's dead.
Whereas 140/252 HP takes 150 damage. Withdrawl.

I had NO ONE without storyline protection survive the first situation and withdrawl during my playthrough. How about you guys?
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Kirkis
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Post by Kirkis »

I had a feeling that's what it was too... which is cool, but makes leveling up characters nearly impossible. Which is a big downfall of the game, that you have to level up characters cheaply by either swapping them in and just casting terrains or using items, etc.
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Post by Chris_Lightfellow »

Agreed. They did seem to die rather easily. The main thing I don't like about this game is that it remains to be the only Suikoden game that I have not beaten. Curse you Iskas!
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Kirkis
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Post by Kirkis »

Having trouble with the final battle or something Chris? He's fairly easy if you just throw down some earth items and then go to town on him.
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Post by Chris_Lightfellow »

I just can't do it. Most of my people retreat before I can even get to him and then by the time I do, they're half-dead. I haven't tried again in a while though. I'm in the middle of replaying S3 instead. I'll try again after I finish that.
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Post by MatildaWhiteKnightLeader »

Chris do you have Lazlo?

Andarc will do just fine also. But the key to fighting Iskas (Part 1-Final Battle) is to kill off all the other enemies First. Make sure no one is spawning and stuff.

Then you have to Seperate your party. West, East, South- basically Close him off with mages or people with distance attack so he can't run away and heal and take no damage for a single turn. Also seperating your group protects them from area attacks. His physical and magic defense is INSANE, you just have to chip away at him with magic, archers, etc... Thunder here, Cyclone there, here a Strong Arm, there a RoP, everywhere Boom Boom. Poor Iskas had a farm...
Then Close in on him and try to Trap him with physical swordsmen or hand combaters with specials. If you surround him, he can't escape. Just do so more chipping.
and then finish him off with Kyril Swallow Rune attack when he's low.

Part 2 Final Battle- Just have people who can do Coop attacks for an area cause the enemies are all bunched up. I just Rushed Kyril and Lazlo at Iskas(form 2) and finished in like 4 turns lol.
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Post by Kirkis »

In the first round, I swapped around my fighters, to pretty much whomever wouldn't permanently die, and I caught Iskas in a corner, and threw an Earth down on the ground and I think I eventually killed him with a lucky hit from Busk or someone (Iskas dodges like he was Stallion or something).

Here was my basic strategy, I didn't have any fancy runes, since I wanted a lot of stuff to transfer, but I attached a wizard rune on Lazlo so he would be my AoE (Area of Effect) guy, him and Seneca... or maybe it was Kika (I used both and swapped it around a few), pretty much held off the enemy in the 2nd round on that little bridge, and kept throwing down wind stuff whenever the bridge turned to fire. Eventually, Iskas will be crazy and jump over to your side of the bridge (I had everyone back up and not advance, so all the fish men would pile onto the bridge and await some RoP or the Co-Op between Kika & Lazlo attack), and then I just finished him off with like... Trishtan and Frederica and some other earth characters while keeping him on Earth Terrain. I even managed to snag the god-hand.

ANYHOW... sorry for jacking this sticky thread, if you have any more questions chris, just message me and I'll fill you in on some more strategies.
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Chris_Lightfellow
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Post by Chris_Lightfellow »

I do have Lazlo, but I'll post further questions in a different topic so that this one doesn't get clogged up or something....
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Post by patapi »

warmaster670 wrote:-characters seemed to die 95% of the time when defeated
One reason why I would have preferred if all characters could die permanently. Why would anyone take the risk of getting characters killed for withdrawals in the first place?

For storyline characters, they could do something like permanently wounded, so these characters could still participate in storyline but not playable anymore.
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Post by Kirkis »

I suppose... but, they still needed to make the permanently killed thing like a 1/10 chance of occuring or something... I was ready to rip my hair out in the Obel Ruins because of so many deaths and resetings/continuings I had to do.

The only reason to use a lot of the perma-death characters (aside from the fact 90% of them really didn't matter one way or another in the sense of storyline, except some rest scenes and such), is because at the beginning of the game you have very few storyline related characters... some of them just didn't even make any sense... like... I know Lazlo couldn't die because... y'know... whatever reason whether it was the true rune or whatever. But, characters like Flare couldn't die... yet I don't remember her in any cut scenes... same goes for Kika... she couldn't die, but she was barely in any cutscenes.
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warmaster670
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Post by warmaster670 »

i think its karl, he was really good on teh final boos, just charge him up, and i think he did 3/4 of his health
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