Suikoden V being released on the Playstation 2 was a bit of a surprise since it was expected that the next Suikoden game after Suikoden IV might be feature on the Playstation 3 instead as a possible jump start in reviving the series to its past former glory on a next generation console. Since the series made its leap to the Playstation 2 from the Playstation, fans have been disappointed in the direction that the series have gone which is down hill with each new game. Suikoden IV is clearly the least favorite game of the series so far. One can say that Suikoden IV is hitting the bottom. And once you hit bottom, there's not place left to go but up. Is Suikoden V the bounce back that the series needed to return to its former glory days that had attracted so many core loyal followers? We're going to be looking at that answer right now.
STORY
Chosen One, your destiny begins now.
Tell me, as your Aunt was I a hot babe?
Six years before the events in the original Suikoden, unrest looms over the Queendom of Falena where the Sun Rune rest. Two fractions of the Falena Senate struggle to take control over the future of Falena, the Godwin family and the Barows family. In the midst of all this, your royal family is preparing for the Sacred Games which will see your sister, Princess Lymsleia to be wed to the winner of the Sacred Games. However the result of Sacred Games seems to be tainted as the winner of the Games is Gizel Godwin, the son of Marscal Godwin who is scheming to take control over Falena from your family. But with no proof of any tampering with the result of the Sacred Games, your royal family agreed to continue on with the wedding of your sister Lymsleia and Gizel. On the night of your sister wedding as your family rest for the night, the Sun Palace was invaded by assassins from unknown parts. As you attempt your escape with your bodyguard, Lyon, and Aunt Sialeeds, you learn that this invasion into your palace was a coup attempt by the Godwin family. The Godwin has managed to assassinate your parents and capture your sister. Only you have managed to escape that night. As next day rises, the situation becomes clearer as you now know that the Godwin objectives were to take over the Sun Palace and claim the Sun Rune as their own. And with Gizel now married to your sister, Lym, he can use her as his puppet Queen as he rule over Falena. But Gizel shouldn't just celebrate yet as you now plan on fighting back and rescuing your sister. A rebellion force is about to form and the Stars of Destiny is calling you forth as you make your journey into the past secret of the Sun Rune and its mysteries.
For the first time since Suikoden II, a Suikoden story has an emotion family feel to it. It's that family closeness feeling of losing a family member that makes a Suikoden story special. Suikoden III never really had that family closeness bond in the story and Suikoden IV for sure never had that feeling. It's probably why those two Suikoden stories never really struck a cord with the fans unlike Suikoden I and Suikoden II. Suikoden V is all about the family. Losing your family and being betrayed by your family. By the end of the story you once again just maybe start to have that special Suikoden feeling that you normally get from the first two Suikoden games. You start to have a connection with the hero and feel a special bond on what his journey was like. This is a good improvement as previously you don't really care too much about the hero and what happened to him. I wouldn't go as far as to say that the Suikoden V story have managed to recapture the fire that once made the Suikoden Series special but it's a good start in recapturing that fire. There are still some flaws in this good story. Some of the flaws are mainly due to the story not fully explaining reasons behind the sub plots and plot twist. Without going into so many details that may spoil the story, let's just say that the story doesn't really shred much light into the reason why the Godwin family was so keen on getting the Sun Rune and having scholars study the Sun Rune. There's this big sub plot on the mystery of the Sun Rune and all that but it's really a big disappointment and there's really no big mystery at all.
You just don't really understand what the Godwin goal was in the entire story. Sure the Godwin family overthrew the Queendom which gave purpose behind the gathering of the 108 Stars of Destiny and the rebellion to fight them. But they really didn't even need to overthrow the royal family since they pretty much married into the royal family. One can say they decided to overthrow the royal family so they can get their hands on the Sun Rune right away which they did. When they got their hands on the Sun Rune, all they did was have scholars study it. For what purpose? The story never revealed. The story end boss fight doesn't seem to make sense too. It's almost like they introduce this story end boss fight just for the sake of having an end game boss fight. It's nice to have plot twist but you need to explain the reason behind the plot twist or else you'll just have a plot twist that doesn't make any sense. One minute a close relative of the hero is standing behind him and fighting for his cause and the next minute, that same person betrays him and joins the enemy. Why? The story never gave a reason behind the betrayal. Just didn't make sense. It's a good emotional story overall but there are certain sub plots that didn't connect very well together that keeps it from being a great Suikoden story.
Score 8/10
CHARACTERS
The 108 Stars of Destiny.
Like with all Suikoden games you'll going to have up to 108 characters. That's a lot of characters for any game to focus on. Add into the fact that in all the games, the main hero is a silent type hero that doesn't talk at all. This might work in the old days where there are no voice acting but in today's world, a hero that doesn't talk while all the other characters around him do just seem out of place. And that's the case here. In the Suikoden series where the main character is weak in terms of character development and presentation, it's the supporting cast of characters around him that need to stand out and bring the story and game to life. If you have a good supporting cast with good personalities and some decent background development, it might be enough to give the story some personalities. In all the Suikoden games where there are 108 possible characters, the story usually centers on the top 10 supporting characters. In Suikoden V, the main supporting characters are center around the Queen Knights and the leaders of each main city. The improvement in the characters here from that of Suikoden IV is that the supporting casts are more colorful in terms of their personalities that they are almost all likeable.
The characters actually give spirit to the entire game and you just can't help but put a smile on as to how they interact with each other like real people. This was what was missing in Suikoden IV where the supporting cast was dull and uninteresting. This is not the case here as each character seems to have a distinctive uniqueness about them that makes them special. Add into the fact that the story actually takes quite a bit of time actually giving some decent background development on some of the main supporting cast. A major improvement from Suikoden IV but the hero needs to be upgrade from a non speaking hero to a talking one for the next Suikoden game.
Score: 8/10
GRAPHICS
Feel the power of the True Runes.
The graphic designs are pretty much identical to Suikoden IV but presented and showcase in a much better way demonstrating the colors and open world of Suikoden V. Castles and towns are fully design to a maximum, demonstrating a massive environment. It literally takes you nearly an hour of exploring just to explore an entire town or castle sometimes. That's just how much effort the game designers put into it. The drawback is that even though we are looking at a fully develop rich 3-D world, the game doesn't give us access to a 360 degree rotating camera view. This makes traveling around in a 3-D world a bit annoying at times as certain angles are block off and you can't see where you are going because you aren't able to rotate the camera around. Moving in a 2-D direction on a 3-D world is a bit annoying.
For the story cut scenes, they are all rendered in a smooth, soft lighting effecting featuring full 3-D anime models. There more details to these characters model than what was done in Suikoden IV. Most noticeably is the clothing on these characters. The clothing or costume designs on these characters have a very elaborate eastern Asian culture look to them for the first time in the series. This is a very nice touch as for the first time, the game designers actually put a lot of effort into what sort of clothing that an entire nation wears that is different from another nation. Battle animations from warfare to party battles are also done exceptionally well. The high level rune magic are rendered to a full battle effect that does make you take notice and say "wow". A big improvement from the pathetic attempt in Suikoden IV where you hardly see any difference between the low level spells and the high level spells. Not the greatest graphics in the world but on par with all the good rpgs out there.
Score: 8/10
MUSIC
Let's play our best song for
the Prince.
Without a doubt Suikoden V boast the largest selection of musical scores for a Suikoden game.
You are looking at over 100 musical scores ranging from remix of old familiar Suikoden tracks to new tracks, clearly the largest selection to date. These selections cover all categories in an rpg soundtrack with Character themes, Town themes, Event themes, Dungeon themes, and World Map themes. If you manage to find and recruit a particular Star of Destiny in the game, you can actually listen to those 120 musical tracks and hear how wonderful of a full collection of musical soundtrack in an rpg game is like. It gives you a whole new appreciation on just how much effect is put into a soundtrack for an rpg game. Of the 120 musical scores I would say about 80% of them are really good ones that you can enjoy. However there isn't really one track that stands out the most on its own from that collection and probably the most favorite ones in the entire Suikoden V musical scores are in fact the remix of the original Suikoden scores. Since the birth of the original Suikoden soundtrack, the following 4 sequels after, including Suikoden V, seem to fail to produce any new enduring stand alone tracks for fans. But that's a tall order to begin with because the original Suikoden soundtrack is probably one of the best rpg musical soundtrack around. Still as a whole, Suikoden V musical presentation is probably the best one since Suikoden II.
Score: 9/10
GAMEPLAY
With our Co-Op Attack we strike as one.
No match for me in a duel fight.
Game Information
Genre: Traditional Rpg
Publisher: Konami
Disc: 1 DVD Disc
Memory: 113 KB
Players: 1 Player Mode
Analog Control: Yes
Vibration Function: Yes
Rating: Teen
Release: March 2006
This is the fifth installment of a Suikoden game so by now all fans should be very familiar with how a Suikoden game works. Suikoden V is pretty much an improvement of past Suikoden gameplay with some new expanded features. The concept of how the gameplay work and what to do in battles are still the same. Like with past Suikoden games, your objective is to find and recruit the 108 Stars of Destiny as part of your growing army. This is the heart and soul of a Suikoden game. You'll be traveling to different towns and visiting certain characters in those towns to progress the story. Each town will have various shops such as an item shop, equipment shop, rune shop, and blacksmith for you to fully upgrade your party members with the best equipment and magic. Once you establish a castle or headquarter, the 108 Stars of Destiny will be gathered there. When traveling in dungeons or on the field map, the battles are done through random encounters. In battles you can have up to 6 party members with the option to swap in back up members during battles. So in essence you can carry around with you up to 10 party members, 6 actual party members and 4 back up party members in the entourage slots. However the battle system is actually broken down into three possible battle features. The first battle feature is the regular 6 party member turn base battles. The second battle feature is the now infamous one on one duel that is unique to the Suikoden Series. The last battle feature is the warfare or strategy feature. The warfare feature now consist of both land and sea warfare. The gameplay itself is pretty straight forward and isn't too hard to complete or master. To be perfectly honest, all the boss fights are pretty easy. Some of the traditional Suikoden features have been tweak for improvement in this game.
Runes: Once again Rune Orbs are your main source of magic. You buy
and equip Rune Orbs at a Rune Shops. A couple of changes here that needs to be
mention. First is that you can now create Rune Scrolls for party member to use
in battle buy disassembling a Rune Orb. The second is that during your travels,
you will find rune pieces from chests or by drops from enemies. Once you have
a certain number of rune pieces, you can than assemble them into a Rune Orb. Skills: For the first time ever, a skill system is introduce to the series.
The Suikoden V skill system is basic, simple, and customizable but yet very effective
in the game. Each party member can equip up to 2 skills only. However some party
members come with their own unique personal skill that they can't unequip. In
this case those party members can only equip 1 skill. Now skills come in 2 different
categories, Magic Enhancement and Physical Enhancement. You'll need to unlock
and level up a particular skill in order to equip them on a member. After the
end of each battle, your members will gain SP. Once a member has the right amount
of SP, they can use their SP to unlock or level up a skill. Formation: One of the new feature is the ability to put your entire party into various different formations. Each formations gives a boost to certain stats for all your party members allowing you to decide which formation is best suited for your party in certain battles. The great thing is that you can actually change your formation during battles as well. Another good thing is that each formation has a special formation group skill attack that you can use. These group attacks can do massive damage to an enemy or group of enemies making them perfect usage in dire situation or right at the beginning of a battle just to get rid of your enemies faster. The drawback is that formation group attacks are basically one time usage for each battle. Cooperative Attack: Co-operative Attack works in the same way as in Suikoden IV. When certain characters are in the same party together, they can perform a combo attack on an enemy together. Co-operative Attack can consist of a 2 party member combo attack or up to a 6 party member combo attack. One on One Duel: In One on One Duel, Special beats Attack, Attack beats
Guard, and Guard beat Special. Just like in previous games, your opponent will
give you a hint on what they may attack you with allowing you a chance to counter
attack with the right move. The minor tweak here which is really nice, making
it more of a challenge is that there is now a 3 seconds countdown timer for you
to decide on what move to make. This means you have a few seconds to decide on
what move to make before your opponent attack you. Warfare: The warfare system is back. This time around the game uses both
land and sea warfare. A combo of both types of warfare used in previous Suikoden
games. Both land and sea warfare is set up pretty much the same way. You create
your units prior to the battle. Each type of unit is strong and weak to a certain
type of unit. For land warfare, Infantry beat Archery, Archery beat Cavalry, and
Cavalry beat Infantry. For sea warfare, Combat beat Rams, Rams beat Archer, and
Archer beat Combat. You'll be creating your units base on your 108 Star of Destiny.
A set condition is place on the Warfare battle prior to the start of the battle.
Once the condition is met, the Warfare battle will end. The interesting thing
here is that warfare is actually done in real time which is different from the
rest of the game, making it quite an interesting challenge.
Suikoden V gameplay is clearly the best gameplay of all the Suikoden games so far. This is understandable since the gameplay is a complete package with features from all previous Suikoden games combine into one better and improved gameplay system. Not only that, but the gameplay is much longer and more challenging than other previous Suikoden games. Usually the drawbacks of the Suikoden games were that they were too short and too easy. Here it's a bit more different as you will spend over 40 hours on the game. The gameplay of party battles are still relatively easy, but the one on one duel and the new warfare system is more difficult in achieving success due to the change into a real time system. You no longer have all the time in the world to decide on what course of action to choose in one on one duels since there's a 3 second countdown timer for you to input your choice of action or else the game will default to the NPC choice of action. This literally means you have to make a split second decision on how to counter your opponent moves, making things much more challenging and interesting. The new sea and land warfare system is probably the hardest part of the gameplay. It's only hard because the battles are done in real time and you have to try and manage all of your units on the battle map to fight against the enemies. Enemies are also more aggressive and smarter that trying to move around on the battle map and inputting commands for each of your own units becomes very difficult because you just don't have time to input some of your commands for all your units that the enemy units end up attacking some of your units that are still waiting for commands. And that's where the challenge is. Trying to move from unit to unit to input movement and commands can be very difficult that you don't have enough time to react to what the enemy is doing. If it weren't for the real time feature, warfare would be very easy to complete. Suikoden V gameplay still isn't the greatest gameplay out there but in terms of comparing it to the standard Suikoden Series gameplay, it's much better with more to do. Bigger and better is always the way to go to improving things and that's what we have here.
Score: 8/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
Care for a game of cards?
Most of the in-game extras come from the usual scores of mini games that you can play at your Castle to win more money or prizes. As for extra dungeons, there are a couple of them that you can explore to gain valuable items but those dungeons are more of a required type than side quest ones since you do need to complete them if you plan on getting all 108 Stars of Destiny. The interesting thing about this game that is different from past Suikoden games is that it actually does have a lot of multiple endings base on different factors as you make your way into the game. Granted most of the different endings aren't spectacular besides the really good ending but hey if you are up to the challenge of trying to unlock and see all the different endings, than it's something to shoot for.
If you plan on doing a replay of the game, the game does give a New Game+ feature for you to use. Using the New Game+ feature will allow you to carry over all your money and items. It's not a great incentive but at least it's something. And something is better than nothing. LOL.
Personally there wasn't anything of any real interest for me in the extras and replay features that were presented. I barely touch the mini games and the New Game+ feature is hardly something that will make me want to replay the game right away.
Score: 7/10
Suikoden V is definitely the bounce back that the series needed which isn't a big accomplishment since Suikoden IV was just not that good at all. A short term bounce back doesn't equal to a long term come back. We can only tell if the Suikoden Series really is on a come back when we get a look at a possible Suikoden VI on the Playstation 3. But for now, how does Suikoden V stack amongst the rest of the Suikoden games? It's better than Suikoden IV but not as good as the original Suikoden and Suikoden II. It borderlines between being equally as good as Suikoden III or better than Suikoden III but I don't think Suikoden V is worst than Suikoden III. As a Suikoden fan, this is one game that you can pretty much be certain that you will enjoy the most since Suikoden II. It's too bad that due to the series falling out of favor amongst the rpg audience that Suikoden V was release with little notice at all within the rpg community because this game deserve a lot more credit than it's getting.
