So, my wife is playing Suikoden...

[Piisuke]

Sorry mate, but I completely disagree.

My final party included Alen, Grenseal, Viktor, Flik, Tir and Crowley. Guess what, that's 1 M range character.
Crowley had Storms, McDohl had his Soul Eater Rune (ignoring Judgment), Alen and Grenseal have their Rage and Cyclone Runes, Flik can cast his Lightning Rune from the back row (or use Alen/Grenseal) and Viktor has the Double Beat. I don't know about you, but most enemy groups died within a turn, or at most 2.

Even better, at no point did I walk out of the dungeon to heal and/or rest.

Not to start an argument, or to derail the topic, but characters like Fu Su Lu have their place. Just because you don't like them, doesn't mean their useless. I take Pesmerga over Antonio any day of the week.

[wataru14]

I could never have one Short-range character in the back row, let alone two. It doesn't matter how much magic they have. My OCD would never allow it. I'd rather use Tai Ho and Yam Koo with Turtle Runes. Or Varkas and Sydonia.

[BrucePrintscreen]

You guys are just proving the point of another strenght of the game: even gameplay-wise it's rich enough that we can all have a different approach from underdogs-based parties to big muscles at the front.

I am finishing SII again these days and my final party would surprise more than a few:
Riou/Valeria/Gantetsu
Karen/Rina/Lorelai

I had no problems at any point of the game with such a party.

To stick back to the topic, my wife hasn't been playing for a while. We have been very busy these days. And she wants to have a big free time ahead of herself to fight Luca Blight. But she keeps on referring to it from time to time, it's like the latest fad in our home. Recently, she found herself explaining the game to her parents.

She also made an interesting point: Viktor looks like Neil Young...

[Sasarai10]

Oh,it'd be even more interesting if your in-laws start playing the game too...why not?

[BrucePrintscreen]

Oh,it'd be even more interesting if your in-laws start playing the game too...why not?

Ahaha at more than 60 years old that would be interesting indeed

As a matter of fact, we also talked about Suikoden to a friend of ours who shares our interest for storytelling. He told us that, when he was a teenager, he played Dungeons & Dragons. He managed to overcome the preconceived idea that my wife and I shared about this game being a nerdy bore, and we once gave it a try, we had a lot of fun. It's not a game for nerds, it's a game for storytellers!

How funny we had to be above 30 before we started enjoying all these things... Ironically, it happened mostly because we are not able to go out as much as before now that we have a child so we seek homebound entertainment that is not television (we both dislike it)

It won't be long before we start writing our own Suikoden game

[Piisuke]

I could never have one Short-range character in the back row, let alone two. It doesn't matter how much magic they have. My OCD would never allow it. I'd rather use Tai Ho and Yam Koo with Turtle Runes. Or Varkas and Sydonia.

If your OCD refuses you to approach the game in a different way, other than intended, then I think you have missed out on a lot of opportunities.

In Suikoden I, Unites can be cast when characters are in the back row, same for Command Runes, i.e. Falcon, Hate and Shrike. Why not use this?
If all you're going to do with Valeria is use her Falcon Rune, stick her in the back row and have another S range fighter in your party. Unless you're too concerned about your auto-battle.

[wataru14]

Unless you're too concerned about your auto-battle.

Yup.

[nefrati]

awesome mate, i have played the series from the first release, i cant count how many times i have completed all of the games, and your stories of how you and your wife are experiencing it together is great

i noticed you stated that you have never played Suikoden 3, i too, did not play this until i googled a way to do so, obviously there are options

first time i played it was 5 years ago, i soft modded my PS2, it has to be a slim line black edition, i cant remember the serial codes of the compatible device but if you Google "soft mod PS2 slim" there are some great guides, all you need is some stick back plastic (Blue Peter?) some tissue paper and a screw driver, you can then but the game onto a disc and pickup SwapMagic for about £10

later i got onto Free McBoot, a modded PS2 save cartridge, it took me a lot of time, but i managed to get it working directly from a formatted drive on my PC through a cross over network cable, i would suggest you do the first option and then if you like this way, move onto the second

Suikoden 3 got mixed reviews, but i LOVE the story behind it, i just HATE the pairing system in battles, i dont like not being able to use 6 magic runes

hope this helps

[BrucePrintscreen]

I'm back from a trip just in time for a party organised for my daughter. My wife did little decorations for the cakes and stuff. On some of the decorations, she used modified Suikoden sprites to represent our family. She used George to represent me (I'm flattered, I don't have that much hair anymore!) and Eileen to represent herself (although she modified it so much it looks like if Eileen got Kasumi's haircut). She used Meg from SI to represent our daughter (Pilika would have been more of the right age but my wife said Pilika is too sad a character to represent her).

She had no time to play in my absence and I had no time to complete my trading guide. I have collected all the datas before my trip but I need a bit of time to compile them into a useful form for you guys. I have been playing Suikogaden games during my free time abroad but I have to say I'm a bit disappointed, they're kind of boring...

[bluemask]

@Bruce -
That's lovely. You sure is lucky and for her to use Suikoden stuff, I dunno but it makes me happy too haha.

About the Suikogaiden games, yeah. It is really just a Visual Novel type of game and it really sucks haha. It'd be more interesting if it was just one flowing story like a manga or something.

[McDohl]

Amazing thread! Enjoying it thoroughly.

Are you two planning on playing 3-5 too?

[BrucePrintscreen]

Amazing thread! Enjoying it thoroughly.

Are you two planning on playing 3-5 too?

Thanks actually it's been ages since we managed to play again. But she still talks about it sometimes and doesn't plan on giving up.

We don't own S3 and 5 and I never played them myself, we only have S4. Being mostly based in Europe, it would be difficult for us to play S3. But we will try...

[Kobold]

Hi, just wanna say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading your accounts of your wife's playthrough. Hopefully she's still going at it.

You've inspired me to convince my partner to play it as well. Biggest problem is that she's a lazy reader. Hopefully the story will be engaging enough to hook her on it.

On the note about the versatility of Suikoden gameplay, that's essentially one of the biggest strengths of Suikoden.

What other RPG provides the variety of playable characters that Suikoden offers? Honestly, Suikoden's gameplay is not terribly hard. There is nothing wrong in forming your party simply based on your preference, as opposed to wanting to just use strong characters.

Personally, I've played S2 at least 20 times. Each time, I try to use different characters in my party. I had a playthrough where I decided I was gonna use a multi-racial party as the final party and ended with Riou-Gengen-Sierra front, Bob, Chaco, Stallion rear. They were all fairly decent characters and quite usable. Gengen was probably the weakest link, but I just dumped a few stat stones on him and slapped a double-beat and he was more than doing his job.

Heck, I've even had one playthrough where I used the 5 squirrels for the final dungeon. Took awhile to prepare, but it's entirely do-able.

That's why Suikoden is so amazing. The characters are so varied that even if there're stereotypical popular characters that many go for, there's always gonna be some underdog favourite that gets into someone's party that would be surprising. Everyone has different preferences. There's literally no point in arguing who's better in a game like Suikoden. To me, it's completely an apples vs oranges thing.

[BrucePrintscreen]

Thanks Kobold sadly we have a very busy life and this short momentum during which we could afford to play has gone. I hope it will come back soon, and she does too because she really liked it.

Honestly, Suikoden's gameplay is not terribly hard. There is nothing wrong in forming your party simply based on your preference, as opposed to wanting to just use strong characters.

Yes that's what I always say! I don't see the point of all the tricks to overpower your party when I managed to play the entire game without having any character dying at any point while only selected those whose personality was nice, regardless of their strenght.

I think that's because I like to wander around with my party before I advance the plotline. My goal is to make the opposite of a speedplay. Anytime I replay Suikoden it's such a pleasure to feel its ambiance in my daily life that I do not want it to be over. It's like when I enjoy a book so much that I only read a little every day because I don't want to shelve it. As a result, my party piles up a lot of experience and levels, making it very strong whatever the characters are.

[Kobold]

Yeah exactly my point. If anything, I'd say the chance to use many characters would be a good thing, which was one of the plus points of s3 for me actually. In S3 the game play changed quite abit and the actual motive behind the conflict was considered weak by most, but the trinity system allows you to use many more characters than you would have been able to in other games. The war system also depends on your characters level which makes it more important to actually use many different characters instead of simply sticking with the standard party all the time.

Anyway hopefully you'll find time to get back to playing again. I'm currently replaying the games myself and I'm probably gonna get my partner to start with 1 soon.