what would you change about the soul eater

[mightofanubis]

I would personally want a spell that healed. Always had a hard time doing solo runs.

[Celes]

I would reduce the effect rate of Deadly Fingertips and Hell to at least 80%. Especially Hell is too cheap for clearing the first big goups of enemies for the huge exp boost in new areas.

[wataru14]

I would have it gain new spells normally and not through plot deaths. Tir runs around for too much of the game with tons of MP and nothing to use it on. If the game had multiple Rune Slots, then it would be fine, but it really cripples Tir early and mid-game.

[Antimatzist]

I would have it gain new spells normally and not through plot deaths. Tir runs around for too much of the game with tons of MP and nothing to use it on. If the game had multiple Rune Slots, then it would be fine, but it really cripples Tir early and mid-game.

I think that's part of the "fun". I mean isn't it ironic that you grow stronger as all your friends around you die? I think that's a pretty great idea.

But yeah, Hell is overpowered. With a group of Tir and a good magician with a Mother Earth Rune using Earthquake, you don't have to fight a single random encounter "normally" in a dungeon. This is especially true because only few dungeons have a boss, so you don't have to conserve MP.

[BrucePrintscreen]

Honestly, the unite attack between Tir and Kai is the most overpowered in the game, I recently finished it using this unite at EVERY battle and never took ANY damage apart from bosses.

Soul Eater seem fine to me, but I admit I found it a nice idea in Suikoden II that the main character was the one with the healing magic, because in such games it is always tedious to have to keep a healer (they are usually super fragile or otherwise useless apart from healing).

[sticky-runes]

I think it's fine the way it is. You only get limited uses for Hell, and Suikoden is very stingy when it comes to magic recovery, and I really can't be bothered to fight large groups of enemies on my way up Neclord's castle.

I think HP absorbing would be better suited for soul eater than a healing spell (it absorbs HP when Ted uses it in Suikoden 4, right?)
and I think plot related spell level ups have sort of been a key thing in the Suikoden games.

[Wolkendrache]

I wouldn't change it as well. Like Bruce said, Tir and Kai can almost do what Hell does, and Valeria can almost do what Deadly Fingertip does. I'd rather make the enemies tougher, so you can see the true value of this True Rune. Yes, it's a True Rune, it must be overpowered, otherwise the whole story doesn't make sense.

[Antimatzist]

Soul Eater seem fine to me, but I admit I found it a nice idea in Suikoden II that the main character was the one with the healing magic, because in such games it is always tedious to have to keep a healer (they are usually super fragile or otherwise useless apart from healing).

That's always nice, but it makes characters also.. one sided. I didn't like it in Breath of Fire III, your MC is the one with the best Healing Spells BUT he also has the power to transform into a dragon (which absorbs a lot of your MP and you can't use the healing spells then). I never bothered using him as a healer, then.

Riou at leats gets offensive spells, and he's not that good of a magicin anyway.

And Whiel Kai and Tirs Unite is really overpowered, it just takes way too long to perfrom on enemy groups of six. The spells are mostly pretty short so that's always nice. In my last playthrough, I haven't used Kai once, but instead used Hellion and Crowley a lot which I never did before. It's alwys nice to play it with different characters.

And yes, in IV, it heals Ted, but it's also not Instant Death anymore.

[sticky-runes]

It's supposed to be the rune of "life and death" so having some healing properties does make some sense. Draining makes it seem a bit vampiric, though.

If we ever do get a suikoden 1 remake, they should just leave the soul eater spells the way they are. It would have extra hand and head slots, so if we want the hero to use healing spells, we could just give him another rune any way.

[veriaqa]

If we ever do get a suikoden 1 remake, they should just leave the soul eater spells the way they are. It would have extra hand and head slots, so if we want the hero to use healing spells, we could just give him another rune any way.

This!

[wataru14]

I'm not even talking about Deadly Fingertips and Hell. For a big chunk of the game, Tir can do nothing against bosses except a standard melee attack. Zombie Dragon? Gigantes? Pannu Yakuta Dragon? Have fun attacking. Even against Neclord and Crystal Core, Tir is stuck using Black Shadow when he could be throwing Dancing Flames or Raging Blow or Earthquake. Your main character shouldn't be dead weight in boss fights.

[Wolkendrache]

You've made some good points. DF and Hell having no effect on mini-bosses doesn't make sense. Why would Windy long for a rune which can't harm certain creatures? And by the way, why could Ted kill the Ant Queen who was obiously the mini-boss of that dungeon? Maybe it would be a solution to apply the instant death effect of DF and Hell only to enemies with levels lower than Tir, and let these spells inflict damage on equal or higher level enemies, but this damage should be higher than other elemental rune spells of the same level. Again, a true rune must be overpowered to some extent.

I had a different perception regarding the dead weight issue. Tir cleared out half of the dungeons by himself, the rest along with Kai. Then came the boss, and finally a chance for other characters to show their skills. I have 5 other great characters, I don't even want to rely on a particular character, there is no hero, there are 108 heroes. If you like to solo games, then you're... playing the wrong game, and I would praise Suikoden for it rather than blaming it. However, I absolutely agree to the fact that the hero with his rune is a little unbalanced, too overpowered within the dungeons, and sadly underwhelming against bosses (until he gets Judgement). Riou on the other hand is more balanced, but it didn't feel like having a true rune, right?

[sticky-runes]

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Maybe it would be a solution to apply the instant death effect of DF and Hell only to enemies with levels lower than Tir, and let these spells inflict damage on equal or higher level enemies, but this damage should be higher than other elemental rune spells of the same level.

That's a good idea, restricting Tir's ability with the soul eater so he can only use it to bump off weaker enemies. He's only just come into possession of the soul eater so it would make sense for him to not be skilled enough with the rune to be able to instantly defeat powerful enemies. Ted, on the other hand, has carried the rune for 300 years. He's developed more of an affinity with the soul eater, so he would have no trouble using it to blow away large monsters. And Windy has been a powerful sorceress and true rune bearer for longer than Ted has been around, so she would likely be able to use the soul eater to much greater effect.

[Sasarai10]

I'd swap Final Judgement with Hell,so we can be more fair. Hell seems more effective than Final Judgement,except when it comes to bosses...so it'd make more sense if that was the 4th spell

[BrucePrintscreen]

In the meantime, I don't know how useful it is to have an attack specifically targeted at weaker ennemies when you have the "Let Go" option. As a matter of fact, I think it is one of the greatest things in Suikoden games, that you can "Let Go" of weaker ennemies, it is something I miss a lot in other similar games. But anyway, if Tir had an attack specific to weaker ennemies, I would never use it and just "Let Go" of them.