(6.4/10) An Average RPG in my book
Now the last time I played a Suikoden was part 1. I had originally played it back in 96 when it came out, Its only competition then was Beyond the Beyond but i was a young child and enjoyed Beyond the Beyond much more since it was more for kids. I played Suikoden 1 again in 2005, and once again last summer. Last Summer i got the farthest ever but could not get into it, i started building up my base and by the time they gave me boats and free roaming abilities i had lost interest. I used to own Suikoden 1 & 2 but unfortunately sold them when i was an unhappy person =( So I dont have the fond memories with part 1 & 2 to make me appreciate 3 i suppose, so maybe I'm missing a little something like inside jokes and dramatic twists when "familiar" characters of the series show up.Let me break it down for you all, and also appropriately address exactly what the editors at IGN and Gamespot were likely thinking when they gave Suikoden such high marks. Graphically, it's pretty. After 5 hours…you realize everything looks the same. Suikoden 3 looks great for the first few hours when everything is fresh and enjoyable. The opening movie utilizes a beautiful combination of anime and CG, and the game itself is clear, crisp, and well textured. The characters are detailed in a cartoon-like manner; they have facial expressions, detailed costumes and look awfully clean cut. It's not quite cel-shading technology, but its close. Towns are well decorated, you can tell there is a relatively high polygon count, and the anti-alias makes everything look sharp. It's not quite FFX quality; it's more like Skies of Arcadia, or Grandia, but slightly more detailed and with more work done on the characters.
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The problem is not evident right away. For the first few hours, you'll be thrilled at how detailed the game is, how smooth the camera moves, and how many characters models there seem to be. However as you play the game more and more, you gradually will begin to become disappointed at how many textures and generic character models are reused. The overuse of the “civilian” character model is simply painful. This is nowhere near the quality of FFX, which dressed its civilians in different outfits. In Suikoden 3, everyone and nearly everything eventually looks the same with the exception of the characters you can recruit. Even towns, although they attempt to differ slightly, utilize generic textures and lighting. And so, unlike FFX, original locations run out quickly. A few ice caverns, high detailed forests, and it's all over. Dungeons are highly repetitive visually, and texture samples are recycled constantly. Finally the biggest smack in the face is that there are only about two FMVs, none of which are impressive at all. The beginning clip you saw, rich with FMV and anime is nowhere to be found in the actual game! So how did IGN and Gamespot miss this? Well, they were right, the game does look nice. But they probably didn't finish the game, to realize the last dungeons and end bosses look horribly plain. How bad? Well, let's just say the “dragon” looked more like a garden snake and the ice dungeon has one ice texture. Music? Sound effects? Suikoden III's awkward moments of silence. |
The most memorable sound effect is the clangy scuffling of feet. The most memorable music is the annoying tweeting sounds you'll hear in Brass Castle, over and over and over again. The melody repeats in less than thirty seconds. There is no variation. Everything about the music in Suikoden 3 has detracted greatly from its predecessors. The instruments are lacking, everything seems synthesized, and horribly plain. In fact, the lack of music is the real culprit. With all the dramatic scenes the game has to offer, most of them are in dead silence. For some reason, the music that was produced for the game was mainly for the purpose of town music, and battle music. They did not make music for the cut scenes, so you'll end up watching plenty of dramatic, death scenes in exactly that. Cold deathly silence. This view is easily shared by IGN and Gamespot, whom both wholeheartedly agreed to this fact. Suikoden 3 has no memorable music to fit its epic storyline. This hurts especially in the end of the game, when one expects triumphant, riveting music to take over. Fans will watch the game end in an unusual funeral-like silence. The storyline is unique but simple and uninspiring. 
Characterization is great for the first 12 hours or so, and actually remains somewhat consistent throughout the story. There just unfortunately isn't enough. With 108 characters, one would expect plenty of character events to flesh out each character's motives, causes, and reasons for being involved in the game. Only about 20 characters' backgrounds are really fleshed out. The rest are random cameos that can be recruited for battle. About 20 of them are total support characters, meaning they don't fight, but add bonuses to your battle, making it more like 85 characters that are actually usable in combat. The final problem is that for a 40-50 hour game, you sure aren't getting a lot of plot. In retrospect, I feel like old school SNES Final Fantasy 3 or Chrono Trigger, easily gave me far more storyline than this game. The storyline is so simple, so deprived of plot twists and fantastic enemy schemes; it just manages to end before it really gets started. I wish they went took it the extra mile, and worked on the complexities of both sides involved in the war and added more interesting subplots. |
The Battle system, nice but not all too difficult to master. The battle system is nothing special, using typical rpg turn-based commands. The load times are classic Suikoden though. Battles load incredibly fast, possibly because of the low-polygon count enemies, and redundant enemy models. Nonetheless, battles tend to last a decent half a minute to a minute, which is longer than previous Suikoden games, but very short compared to most other rpgs. The problem is that most of the battles you fight in this game do not require even the slightest thought. I usually just use the Auto feature, which has all my characters attack. The few times you'll actually need to utilize your character skills will be in mini-boss and boss battles, but even then, strategies are often really straightforward, requiring you to cast your most powerful spells, and heal occasionally in response to the damage you receive. It is nowhere as intriguing as FFX, which had you casting certain spells to better damage certain enemies. As far as this game is concerned I believe there are only five elemental type damage, Earth, Wind, Water/Ice, Lightning and Fire. The damage however a character receives has little to do with the type unfortunately; the most critical part is simply determining which characters have magic resistance and which do not. There are also two insanely hard bosses in the game, which require more luck to defeat than anything. The final boss has a completely random attack pattern, he either gets to go 5 times in a row or once. If you get lucky, when you play him, he gets to go once, allowing you defeat him. If you don't, you are guaranteed death unless you're on level 99, which you won't be. The leveling system for the game makes it nearly impossible to level up. Everyone levels up fast, up to a certain level cap, but once you reach the cap, it slows down to 5 exp per battle, or a required 200 battles for a level! So, despite how much you may want to level up for the last boss, the most you can do is upgrade your armor and skills, and hope that he does not kill you the first few turns. As you may have guessed now, a great deal of the battle system's focus is more in the managing of your character skills, armor and weapons prior to battle. Like in previous games, you'll be able to sharpen your weapons at a blacksmith to boost their attack rating. Skills and runes can be equipped to give your characters different weapons and abilities. It's a lot of detail, a lot of micromanaging, but its fairly straightforward. The mantra is simple: Upgrade everything. Ever walk through a big town or dungeon 6-7 or more times? You will in this game. This is the most painful part of Suikoden 3. 50% or possibly more of your time is spent running, and not just running, but running back and forth with different characters. Without a walkthrough, it's even worse. You'll be running, looking for the “trigger” spot that initiates a cut scene that you need to watch in order to continue the game storyline. You may even spend hours looking for that “trigger spot” as I did, which can be often really vague and obscure, from leaving town randomly, to going to a corner of the screen, so that a bunch of characters can suddenly walk out of nowhere to talk to you. 
Run speed is not all that fast either, and tends to be variable with the polygon count on the screen. It also tends to change depending on which character you control…very odd. If running had been slightly faster, it wouldn't be a chore running around looking for which character you need to talk to, in order to continue the game. But because you run slowly, and the environments are vast…you've got a problem. IGN and Gamespot do not refer to this problem as much, again because I doubt they've played the game through. You do not realize how many times you enter the same town over and over until you've played this game fully and to the end. To get from one town to the next for example, you might need to travel through a forest. This forest cannot be avoided. So if your character needs to go to Town A, and then Town B, and is told to go back to Town A, you will travel through the forest twice. This happens so many times, you will run through the same identical forests for easily ten minutes, and face the same random encounters over and over and over. Trinity Site System – Suikoden's Way of Making You Play the Same Game 3 Times! The back of the box calls for an “innovative trinity site system” which allows you to view the game through multiple character perspectives. Or more accurately, makes you play the game three times over, with different characters in order to get your money's worth. Characters sometimes meet up in the same events, so you do get to watch some cut scenes three times over. But hey, you gain a greater understanding of each character's motives right? Sometimes yes, sometimes not at all. Sometimes it's just plain redundancy. The best feature- Building your own hometown Easily the coolest and most enjoyable part of the game is the hometown feature, which sets Suikoden III apart from your typical rpg and gives it a very needed, refreshing sidequest from its main storyline. Recruiting characters in the game means sending them over to your hometown, a decrepit, rundown castle that you know of in the game. However as you send more characters there to that castle to open up shops, start farms, and make improvements, the castle becomes more and more rich, and more pleasant. The game contains loads of bonuses in this castle area, where you can watch plays performed by a cast of characters you choose (from your 108 choices you have!), and it often leads to humorous results as you find out which characters can act and which cannot. In addition, you can form parties and have your characters “bathe” together, which is just watching a screen of a bath (totally empty) but hearing your characters have conversations with one another. There are also a few mini-card games that you can play, and you are given the option to decorate your castle with whatever antiques and paintings you may find in the game. In the end Suikoden 3 is a dark dramatic, sometimes funny always adult adventure. Its very serious and once you get into the story a bit you will find yourself hooked. But for a series as legendary as the Suikoden one, this game falls a bit short, but I guess its ok since it was Konamis first Next Gen RPG.
10/18/08 
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