[Discussion] Reviews and Opinions of Suikoden V

[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 V 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 V. 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!

[Kirkis]

Okay, well... once again I'll be writing a review for this game, so, here's a basic outline of some things.

Likes:

#1. Storyline, I'm 100+ hours into the game, and on the Queen's Campaign (around there atleast), and this game continues to surprise me, it's really got my RPG love burning for a genre that I felt was simply rehashing too many old ideas and turning into cliche anime trends.

#2. Characters are great, you can really tell they took a lot of time to focus on how the characters move and fight, and all the things like that.

#3. Woohoo, Runes are back! HOORAH! I'm really excited that all those cool Runes (Pale Gate, Minotaur, Venom, Boar, etc.) are back, I was kind of upset when they vanished in Suikoden 4. Also, the alignments and stuff were back, like A Rank & S Rank, etc.

#4. A lot of really fun mini-games that while sometimes tiring in long bouts (Checkers anyone?), are extremely fun and rewarding!

#5. It was really cool building your runes from various pieces, made it a bit easier but challenging at the same time. I also enjoyed the 'rare enemies/mini-bosses' that would pop up.

#6. Also, there was a very nice usage of 'forced' characters, a lot of people pick a team of 6 people they ALWAYS use, however, like previous Suikodens, they gave us a lot of 'No, you need to take this guy & that guy, etc.' which was really cool, because you got to experience different characters and watch them develop, etc.

Complaints:

#1. Rare items in war battles are by far the biggest annoyance... not only are you worried about getting a Victory+, but now you're worried about running around and killing everyone before you achieve your Victory+ in case they drop rare one time only items.

#2. Okay, Konami, how hard is it to give me characters with half-decent equipment and a weapon leveled up to atleast rank 7 when I'm at the end of the game. Certain characters like Nick, etc. who join your party in a Story based situation, should atleast be able to hold their own in battle. I really don't want a level 15 guy mandatorily in my party who can't even put up a fight because he has a rank 1 weapon.

#3. There are a lot of really awesome characters that make the battle system unique, however, some are VERY overpowered (Richard anyone? If not, perhaps Zerase?) and seem to completely destroy the challenge factor at times.

#4. Please bring back elemental weapon shards, they were fun.

#5. So far, from what I've seen, the Unite attacks are very unflashy and boring compared to Suikoden IV, which really upsets me, since they added a ton of character uniqueness (IE Aldo trying to shake Ted's hand). This also goes for some of my favorite runes like Falcon & Boar... where's all the multipunching, uppercuts, and stabbity-stabs? Seriously, showboat a little here people!

Mixed Bags:

#1. The skill system is really nice, however I still feel that it's a bit lacking... maybe I'm missing something, but the 'Epics' even though they raise 2 skills, aren't as good as raising one skill... seems iffy/weird to me... they should refine the system or add the ability to add more skills to your list (Atleast 3 instead of 2), depending on what level you are.

#2. The RTS style war battles are kind of fun, but they're very tedious, and kind of annoying when your enemy keeps running away from you. It also seems a bit too fast paced at times, because you need to pause the battle in order to jump around due to a slightly slow cursor speed and a game that keeps playing the cutscenes and jumping you around the map depending on where the skirmish is taking place.

#3. I absolutely LOVED the duels, but once again, they are way too easy. I usually tried to lose a few times on purpose just to watch the wonderful combat animations and dialogue, but for the most part they were very simplistic, and I never had a REAL challenge (but PLEASE keep the 3 second time limit, that makes it much more action packed).

#4. (This Space Reserved, I had something else to add but can't remember)

Side-Note: Just because there are less likes here compared to Suikoden 4, doesn't mean I didn't like this game a lot, it just means there isn't much to say aside from that it's a GREAT game, plain and simple.

[Oppenheimer]

I have one major complaint. Load times. Battle load times were somewhat annoying but the ramping up of the music and the screen effects made it a bit better but doing anything on Raftfleet was such a major pain because of how long it took you to get anywehre and the fact that there was a load time screen in the middle.

[Chris_Lightfellow]

I agree. It made Raftfleet very annoying. I also would've like some sort of map for the towns. I got lost in Sol-Falena every time.

[Queens Knight]

Only thing i have to add is i like how they made recruiting characters in Suikoden 5 more diffucult then it has been in previous installments.
Before most of the time all you had to do was talk to an individual or perform a very simple and easy to do task to get the majority of the SoD.
This time around it was harder to figure out how to get certain characters and there was a lot requirements for recruiting SoD.

My only complaint about the recruiting aspect of Suikoden this time around is it was pretty much impossible to recruit every character the first or even second play through of the game without some sort of guide, and even with a guide it still was very confusing to recruit some characters, especially the ones that had a timelime on them (having to recruit before a specific event, or between two events and failing to do so means you could not recruit them anymore).

[Raww Le Klueze]

My major complaint is that the ending is such a cop-out. Not only do people appear who are completely illogical and the whole "resurrect people who died just for the sake of dying so we can resurrect them" is a bit lackluster.

It also tries very hard to make the Sun Rune seem like all other True Rune's put together.

[Raging Barows Brat]

Yes, the layout of Sol-Falena, in a word, sucks. It took me an hour to find that blasted Rune shop. And in Raftfleet it took me forever to realize there were arrows that pointed to the Dahak (me = idiot), so I ran around finding everything but the ship for at least twenty minutes.

I also tend to agree about the ending. I thought after such a great game, the ending was really cheesy and meh. The whole bit with people who made no sense being there whatsoever emerging and grinning at you like idiots was a bit much (people like Zahhak and Alenia, who were nothing but complete a-holes all the way and had no regrets about it). I think there may be something in Japanese lore that suggests people obtain a sort of enlightenment when they die, so that may have had something to do with it, but it was a little forced (and might have been helped if we could actually hear what they were saying).

And I realize it’s a Suikoden staple, but I think they overdid it a bit with Grem—er, Lyon. She nearly dies, doesn’t die, fights with you, drops dead and then comes back (“I’m not quite dead”). A little redundant and corny if you ask me, but then so is the idea of gaining all 108 idiots just for the sake of resurrecting the obligatory “Gremio” character when she dies (because she has to die, by crackey!)

I can certainly think of worse things to have to complain about, though. The game overall was very nice, and the first rpg I've enjoyed to that extent in a while.

[SOe]

I hate the loading time.. it's terrible...
but i think it's a great idea of having someone tailing you all the time to remind you what to do next.

[Kirkis]

I was just glad when Lyon was gone from my party because of her injuries... the good thing is Lyon doesn't completely suck stat wise, but... still, I like to switch things up in my party.

[Jalk]

Another thing I'd like to add which makes this game a very great Suikoden game (feel free to disagree though) : Sialeeds. Her character is a great success and adds a great deal to the story. Most of the situations she's involved in are the most intersting moments of the game.
In general, I found the characters deeper than in the previous games, and it really added another dimension to Suikoden V.

[Georg in his Prime]

I think the designers over at Konami really took the criticizm of S4's storyline to heart, cause in 5 they were a good ending short of a masterpiece. I was amazed at the depth and detail of the characters. It seemed like almost every character in the game was well integrated into the game and had their own story to tell, like Oboro and his detectives being part of Nether Gate, or Yahr and Nelis' quest to destroy rune shells.

With the exception of the ending and the easy major battles, it is difficult for me to point out anything I disliked about the game...except when I first got the game I had an eye infection and it felt like my eyes were being pierced with needles everytime they would cut away to a battle. Anyone notice how bright that light is?

I do wish that S5 would've included a few things. I would like to see a return in the cooking minigame...and with Retso it would have been a chance to bring it back. They did a good job with the skills in this game, I just wish they directly applied to the battlefield like they did in S3. And would it have been that difficult to make one of those worthless storerooms in the basement an art gallery so we could bring all those paintings out of Chuck's warehouse?

[IamMe]

Things I liked:

1. The story. And not just the actual plotline itself, but the way it was told, too. It was crafted very well... the way it teased you made it very hard to put down the game. After all, there's more to a story than the content.

2. Character/graphics design. VERY nice art direction. George and Zerase's portrait and sprites were very cool. There were a ton of unique weapons, which I also liked. Admittedly though, rune spells were pretty damn lame, a step back in the series. For the most part I liked the monster design, though there should have been more variations/less buffed up repeats.

3. The voice acting. About time Suikoden got it. The voice acting, unlike tons of voice acted games, was VERY well done, fit the characters perfectly in almost every situation. Yeah, the only complaint with it though, is that it should have been done more often... there wasn't enough voice acting in the game, especially with such a talented cast, for sure.

4. War battles - seems like I'm alone in this one, but I think they're perfect the way they are. Not challenging enough to be a nuissance while playing, but a step up in difficulty from it's predecessors. The reward system was pretty cool, too.

5. Duels - 3 second time limit for options is perfect. They're still too easy, but more difficult and much cooler than before. In previous games the duels were basically a two characters fight but with worse graphics. Not the case here. The voicing enhances them very much too.

Things I didn't like:

1. Sound track. The soundtrack was good, don't get me wrong, but for a game that matched Suikoden II in almost everyway, the soundtrack was a letdown. Most tracks, while fitting enough, are honestly boring and repetetive (although there are a few gems, such as the "Imprisonment" and "Bitterness.") Suikoden II still has the best soundtrack in my opinion, it's the only suikoden OST I actually listen to outside of playing the game.

2. Difficulty. Ok, seriously, the game is way too easy... WAY too easy. Sure, you can use other characters instead of overpowered ones, but it doesn't help me that all of the coolest characters designs (killey, belcoot, zerase, jeane, etc) are ridiculously over powered. Not to mention the game forces you to use Zerase, Georg, Miakis, and other overpowered characters on more than one occassions. They should have included a hard mode, somewhat like Fire Emblem, I guess. Anything to give players the option to have a challenge in the game... finishing off a boss in one turn is just ridiculous.

3. Loading times. Apparenty I got a defective disc or something, since my game regularly lags anywhere form 10 seconds to a minute during such simple tasks as opening the main menu, but I hear they're still pretty bad in a normal game, too.

4. Killey's portrait. Ok so this is totally ridiculous and a small peeve but I HATE Killey's portrait art, it's absolutely TERRIBLE. SuikoII had it right. For such a cool characters, they sure knew how to make his torse look terrible, rofl.

5. Jeane's costume. So damn stupid, give her some clothes. Stop catering to a ridiculously horny fanbase.

6. Childerich was seriously a lame character, I have to admit. Seemed like a shameless Luca Blight clone to me, but less developed, worse design, and less importance. Oh well.

7. They really need some sort of cinema mode, or something, where you can view voice-acted cutscenes after beating the game, or something. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to be able to view Galleon's recollection of the Godwin Invasion at my leisure.

8. Finally, the ending. They've pulled the revive trick not once, not twice, but THREE times now. It's just a little excessive and redundant. If they HAD to revive a character at the end, I would have prefered Lyon to not simply not die at all, and have someone more interesting revived, such as Sialeeds or Arshtat/Ferid. But eh, no game's perfect.

I love Suikoden V, it comes second on my favorite list (Would have tied II for first, but the Riou's ridiculously funny dialogue choices throughout the story really made the game on top of everything else, IMO.) If I had to rate it numerically, it'd probably be somewhere around 9, give or take.

Fun.

[Feldoon]

One word. Epic.

I found the storyline immense. I found the graphics brilliant (given it's a PS2, the space limitations on the disk and when it started production, etc.). Character development the best out of all the games.

Put frankly, I found it such an epic, immersive experience. Well done Konami.

Give a few more features in VI and you'll have it spot on. Such as the ability to have an "active" camera (similar to IV's) instead of a "passive" one (Suikoden V) so people get a choice of how to view things. Loading times were utterly evil. Let us replay VA'd scenes, quite obviously. And how about letting us just access the minigames with a saved data?

But, alas, except for a few niggles, this is easily on par with II. Even though Falena's a godsawful place to navigate around, it's still brilliant. Well and truly.

Strong contender for best PS2 RPG. And I've played the PS2 Final Fantasies, Kingdom Hearts, the Dark Cloud series, to name a few.

[Li'l Bonaparte]

Hmmm.. what can I say about this game....

I love the formations, Hate the coop attack(they should add more detail to it just like in IV), I love the character designs, The story is good, The castle is too big.. really... If I want to do a bath scene so many corridors to go... and the loading times is soo long...

but its a fun game to play

[nuizilla]

I agree to IamMe

make Lyon die for? I still don't understand
If they want to revive someone pls bring Sialeeds back (I like her, ehh )

anyway

S5 is very VERY good . It got my heart
ahhhh it brings back memories of S1 a lot
Storyline is SO GOOD that I felt the staff really put their heart in making this game . They put every details in the game .
....
...


in short
IT IS A VERY VERY GOOD GAME