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I have decided that you all need to play Suikoden. Ideally, you should play Suikoden V (it's for PS2), as it has good writing and music and graphics and has many major female characters who pass the Bechdel test many times over and so on and so forth but while I would like to wax poetic and post five and a half billion screencaps, I haven't actually gotten around to playing it. (I've watched my stepdad work on multiple playthroughs; I just haven't gotten past the first half-hour myself. I know it is very good! I have probably watched about two-thirds of the game be played! But ... haven't done it myself.)
But given that I just finished replaying Suikoden I, that is what I will talk about today. For the purposes of this post, I clearly do not know where to download a rom of the game and pSX and the BIOS (this runs perfectly well on my (ubuntu) netbook! You can probably run it on your box, too!) and if anyone actually finishes the first game I will definitely not link to the second. (If you don't have an endgame SuikoI file on the same memory card, you can't recruit Tir in SuikoII, and Tir is really good.) Unfortunately, this particular emulator's not too great at handling SuikoII, but it can do it. It's just very choppy. (ETA: Originally I had trouble getting it to recognise my suikoI file, but that's apparently because my suikoI rom is european and my suikoII rom is american.) Also if you count having played Tierkreis as having played a Suikoden game I may make a face at you. It's probably pretty good (... haven't ... actually ... played it ...) but the mechanics are very non-standard for Suikoden and it's alternate universe so. You still have the 108 Stars of Destiny (did they rename them to Starbearers?) blah blah but I am definitely making a 'what are you doing' face at it. Suikoden games in a nutshell! You play a teenager who through some series of unfortunate events ends up with one of the 27 True Runes! The True Runes contain infinite magical power, grant limited immortality (don't age; can get stabbed the death), and very good reasons to angst while remaining a silent protagonist. (Seriously, there is one time in SuikoI where Tir says something without you picking a dialogue option. This is his line: ".........." Very eloquent.) You then end up forming an army, hopefully including all 108 Stars of Destiny, and then have to fight wars to save the world! Or at least your part of it. But sometimes you have to save the world from guys like this. Fucking ladders. Or is that a stepladder? No, it's pretty definitely a ladder. In the first game, you play as Tir (you pick his name; Tir's the name he gets in the novelization and what I stick with) McDohl! He is very mature. See? ![]() ![]() Yeah. Definitely mature. The blond haired guy is Gremio, Tir's FAITHFUL SERVANT and dedicated stew and laundry guy. ... There's probably something else he's useful for. No, not reading Tir's diary.... Oh, right: worrying forever. And going like this and then like this ten minutes later. Honestly I didn't much like Gremio on my first two playthroughs, but each time I play through it again (I just finished my seventh; that might tell you something) I love him more. And yesterday for the first time I actually had Gremio in my party to beat up the final boss. Fuck yeah, Gremio. WHO NEEDS DECENT STAT GROWTH WHEN YOU HAVE UNDYING DEVOTION. Also don't ask me what side his scar is actually on; fuck if I know. This is Ted: ![]() He is Tir's best friend. He is also filled with good reasons to angst (and a really great one's mentioned in the epilogue for Suikoden IV), but prefers infinite snark. The dragon, by the way, makes elephant trumpeting noises. I love Black. Futch (the guy in front of Tir) is great, too, but he's not important most of the time. But eeee elephant dragon. You know how I mentioned TRUE RUNES earlier? Ted is super lucky! He's got the ~SOUL EATER~ which ... I will give you ten seconds to figure out what it does! If you guessed "kills everyone you love", you were right! Which he gives to Tir, because he's a nice guy. Viktor exists. ![]() Odessa also exists, and while she's important to the plot, she doesn't have many lines in general and few I find particularly amusing (there's a bit where she's talking to a ninja about pigeons, but I didn't cap all of that). She's the brown-haired girl in the following few caps: ![]() Gremio's thoughts, and Cleo's thoughts. Cleo is fucking awesome, but she tends to get the straight lines which don't work so well out of context. She has good stats, and she's very reasonable and sensible and probably has more brains than most of the cast put together. Fuck yeah Cleo. ![]() (By the way? He's lying.) ![]() ![]() LATER, THEY REQUIRE FAKE NAMES. As such! They are Roi, Maria ("You don't look like a Maria," sez Viktor), Schtolteheim Reinbach III, and one of these. Viktor is a good actor. See? ![]() I am getting slightly bored (mainly because I'm trying to avoid spoilers) but! Mathiu exists! He is your ~military strategist~ (which the script refers to as a 'military surgeon' half the time, what the fuck), and for some reason (possibly because he's probably supposed to be the smartest major character) he gets the bulk of the bad translation, like so. ![]() ![]() Some notes on gameplay! Every game has 108 Stars of Destiny in it! You don't need to recruit all 108 Stars into your army, but if you don't, you don't get the good ending, or, in SuikoIII's case, the ability to replay the game as Team Villain. (SuikoIII is pretty big on the LET US SHOW ALL POINTS OF VIEW thing. It also has talking ducks, and a gryphon named Fubar. What kind of person names their pet gryphon Fubar?) The normal ending (and I think SuikoIV also has a bad ending if you're below 60 Stars of Destiny) isn't awful, but it's still usually pretty ... :( A major character is dead, or is staying dead, and it is your fault for not grabbing them all. This series provokes a lot of DAMMIT I NEED A GUIDE and while I am sufficiently badass that I can remember where all 108 are in SuikoI (I did just for this last playthrough!) there are consistently a few stars you will need to look up. Do not expect to get the good ending on your first playthrough. I got the SuikoI good ending on my fifth playthrough because gods-fucking-damn Leon is a picky bastard and there's a tiny tiny window of opportunity to recruit him. If you don't get him immediately after the arc where you get Soul Eater level 4? You are not getting him. While a bunch of the Stars of Destiny you end up recruiting mainly because they're Stars and you need them to get all 108, that's probably actually not the majority. Most of them are plot relevant, and if not plot relevant, at least developed a little. Even a bunch of the completely optional ones (I'm thinking of Crowley and Clive and Meg and Pesmerga and Kasios offhand) get mentioned somewhere. Incidentally, Kasios is canonly gay and in love with Milich, though the dumbass translators missed the memo that Kasios is male. It's obvious in the official art that Kasios is male, but not so much in the sprite, so I'm not sure if they were trying to hide the gay or simply didn't notice. Given that SuikoI's translation is sloppy in general, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't notice. They certainly didn't notice when Vincent referred to himself as Vansan for the duration of a cutscene. It's kinda neat that a bunch of the early- or mid-game Stars who don't seem like they'll be important later then end up being so. There are very few cases of recruitable characters who serve one plot function and that's it, and out of those, they nearly all still have lines later. This is actually rather impressive given this is about a 20-hour game if you know exactly what you're doing and you'll probably have at least 40 Stars without trying at all. One of the things I find pretty interesting about more minor mechanics bits is that, unlike many other RPGs, your characters do not repeatedly replace their weapons! Instead you go to a smith and get them to improve your weapon level. ... This means that you have to keep upgrading individual characters, which is a pain in the ass when you have 108 of them (most of which you will never use in any given file) but I gotta say it makes more sense. There are three types of battle: regular encounters (I have very few caps of battles since TSR has most enemy sprites already; you might want to scroll down past the Stars of Destiny to avoid spoilers for who you recruit), which are the bulk of what you do, and you've got a fairly standard Attack / Defend / Rune (ladida magic) / Unite (combination attacks involving two or more specific characters; the only ones I recall offhand as far as names go are Master-Pupil attack, which is Tir + Kai and does ... 1x damage to all enemies? it kills most random encounters in one shot, anyway, and Pretty Boy Attack, which is Flik + Alen + Grenseal and sucks ass but I like the name) / Item, plus the Free Will option you can see there where everyone does a normal attack to a random enemy (in case you don't really care what you're doing); war sequences (like the one with the SEE THE POWER OF THE SCIENCE cap), where you have to pick between Charge / Bow / Magic (Charge beats Bow beats Magic beats Charge) and it's sort of like rock/paper/scissors except you can use Thieves who will sometimes tell you what your opponent's doing and you can eventually use Ninjas which *always* tell you, and there are a few other things; and duels, which are also rock/paper/scissors-like except instead of sometimes being able to use actions to determine what the hell the opponent's going to do, the opponent has a QUIP. So if, say, spoiler says "My killer blade..." you know he's going to use a Desperation Attack. Defend > Desperation Attack > Attack > Defend, though there's a certain duel where you want to defend unless he's defending, in which case you want to attack, but either way you ignore that usually you're supposed to Desperation Attack in response to an Attack. War sequences and duels are always plot-determined, and they're only really rock/paper/scissors-like in SuikoI. The sequels made them more complicated and cool. I didn't cap any of the duels in this game since the sprites get skewed a lot and it wouldn't be very pretty. I don't know offhand what else I should say. I've gotten a few people to try SuikoI, like Espeon and Vixie! I found a Let's Play that looked pretty passable of the first game recently! I'd recommend actually playing the game, particularly since the music's great and those little sprites are surprisingly good at emoting a lot of the time, but ... it looks passable.
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#2
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Have you played Suikoden Tierkreis for the DS at all?
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#3
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I said I have not! From what I have heard, though, the protagonist is not silent and you can change what types of weapons characters are equipping so I am considering it not properly Suikoden. I've heard it's pretty good, though. (... the protagonists in SuikoIII aren't silent, either, but they're exceptions.)
I decided I might as well include more caps! ![]() ![]() GETTING YOUR CASTLE: ![]() ![]() ![]()
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pearl (u) 1289 4685 3598; platinum (j) 3566 4513 8338; platinum (i) 4383 3839 7305; soul silver (j) 4383 1211 4378; soul silver (j; ロケットだんよ永遠に) 1076 4655 0015; soul silver (u) 2880 1770 5916; white (j) 4469 6423 7718; black (u) 3653 9840 7445; black (s) 5157 2486 1674; white (i) 1163 4521 4228; white 2 (j) 0175 7505 7489 Last edited by surskitty; 03-24-2011 at 06:20 PM. |
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I've always wanted to play one of the big console Suikodens, but the original game runs for $40-50 at the local used game store.
Suikoden Tierkreis really sucked me in--I played for days just to see what happened next in the story
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#5
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I completely did not link to where you can download the first Suikoden in the first post. Yes.
Pick up SuikoV if you can find it; it's probably the best in the series. SuikoI is very good but also dated.
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#6
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I just started a SuikoV file and got to where I meet Euram Barrows (skip to 1:45 or so), so in honour of Suikoden narcissists everywhere (yes, they DO have theme music, excepting Euram who is so narcissistic that he gets "Suddenly, It's Euram Barrows" instead), here is a post devoted primarily to Vincent de Boule and Milich Oppenheimer from the first game.
These are our friends the narcissists! I don't know the artist; I found the fanart on the Let's Play I linked. From left to right: Milich, Simone (who is in the second game), Vincent, Esmeralda. ![]() Of course, you already knew that, didn't you? One simply must recognise their ... innate qualities. ![]() Particularly when they're trying to get out of paying the bill for their lunch. ![]() ![]() The translators forgot his name. :( AND NOW FOR SOME MILICH AND MILICH RELATED THINGS At the beginning of the game, you can go into Milich's house! He has, among other things: "Lame tuxedo", "Rainbow-colored pantaloons", "Fruit-printed tie", "Pink boots", "Leopard patterned cape", "See-through body suit", "Negligee", "Elegant party dress with peacock feathers". I would post a cap of him in the beginning of the game, but he's not that interesting right then and honestly if I start up a new file again I'd rather look up whatever Sonya says right at the beginning. I never remember that you can go to her house then. ![]() ![]() And he has fucking great stats. idk, I just think maybe if I post enough caps people will tell me they're playing.
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#7
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I've never played any games in this series (mainly because I've never owned a Sony system), but I've recently been thinking about going through and playing some of the PS1 RPGs I missed, so it's kind of convenient that PS1 emulation would get mentioned right now. And based on the screenshots they actually kept using sprites instead of stupidly switching over to that horrible blocky jagged-edged PS1/N64-era polygon-crap 3D that most other RPGs had at that time... which might make the game more tolerable for me than something like FF7 with its weird deformed-Lego-man-looking people and 5-polygon birds.
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#8
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I've only played PMD Blue, and no, I wouldn't count that as a pokémon game. If all you'd played was PMD and considered that having played a pokémon game, I would be moderately confused. It's having played PMD. They're related, but not comparable. SuikoIII's also pretty oddball, but that's more like comparing Colosseum and XD to main series.
Suikoden I came out a year or two before FFVII, but yes, Suikoden I is almost entirely sprites (there are polygon backgrounds in battle screens sometimes). Suikoden II is mostly sprites with a polygon opening and probably polygon FMVs. Seems to be remarkably pretty for PS1 polygons, though. Helps that for the opening they use drawn art alongside polygons. III-V are on PS2 and are very pretty.
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pearl (u) 1289 4685 3598; platinum (j) 3566 4513 8338; platinum (i) 4383 3839 7305; soul silver (j) 4383 1211 4378; soul silver (j; ロケットだんよ永遠に) 1076 4655 0015; soul silver (u) 2880 1770 5916; white (j) 4469 6423 7718; black (u) 3653 9840 7445; black (s) 5157 2486 1674; white (i) 1163 4521 4228; white 2 (j) 0175 7505 7489 |
#9
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You're probably the first person that likes V more that II or III that I've ever met. And might I point out that if you have a PS3 and can connect to the internet, you can purchase the original Suikoden in the Playstation Store's PSOne Classics section for $5.99! It can be put on a (hacked or unhacked whichever~) PSP to be made portable too!
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I've not played II at all, nor have I watched much of III being played. But I trust my stepdad's taste and he played III once, IV twice, and V at least four times. I started playing V the day before yesterday and I've just fled the castle; this game is awesome but takes forever to get the ball rolling. And then once it does it's down a cliff. P O L I T I C A L *~* I N T R I G U E and I have yet to go "you are so dumb" or "IT'S A TRAP"
Really? Cool. I knew there's a Japan-only PSP remake of I and II!
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pearl (u) 1289 4685 3598; platinum (j) 3566 4513 8338; platinum (i) 4383 3839 7305; soul silver (j) 4383 1211 4378; soul silver (j; ロケットだんよ永遠に) 1076 4655 0015; soul silver (u) 2880 1770 5916; white (j) 4469 6423 7718; black (u) 3653 9840 7445; black (s) 5157 2486 1674; white (i) 1163 4521 4228; white 2 (j) 0175 7505 7489 |
#11
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The duels are pretty cool too, thanks to motion capture and general awesomeness; Are we like an Asian country? Yes. Does our country and its history seem a little similar to China's? Yes. DO WE HAVE MARTIAL ARTS? OF COURSE. Oh yeah, and I'm sure you've noticed, but there's lots of orange, lol And I heard about that remake. I think they were both on one UMD? I might look into that more soon.
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I've been fairly thoroughly spoilered, and it's still like I SUSPECT A GODWIN PLOT. PROBABLY THE ASSASSINATION TYPE. and guess what? SO DO THEY. Though so far they haven't gone I SUSPECT A BAROWS PLOT as far as I've seen. Eh, whatever, I SUSPECT A GODWIN PLOT is correct 80% of the time. That's definitely passing. FILTHY GODWIN DEVILS
... though I am kinda amused by Lyon going like WELL MAYBE GEORG FEELS BAD BECAUSE THEY THINK (SPOILER) HE KILLED ARSHTAT AND FERID and it's like ... no, Lyon, he feels bad because he DID. (SPOILER) Well, okay, not Ferid. Close enough. But that's still not WHY ARE YOU AN IDIOT it's simply that she has insufficient information and there's no reason she'd have sufficient information. Go get your Stars of Destiny! DON'T LET (SPOILER for I & V) GREM-- I MEAN, LYON DIE! (They are like 80% the same person. You know it is true.) I bet everyone recognises the Prince based on him wearing day glo orange and having white hair. I'm still not quite sure how everyone recognises Tir, though; his outfit's distinctive but not ... day glo and white hair distinctive. Though at least Frey's switched to red. Much better than safety orange. Where the hell does he even get his safety orange outfits, anyway? I mean, sure, he's the prince, but .... I've only done the ceremonial duel with Shoon so far and it was pretty cool! I miss the SuikoI form of rock/paper/scissors, though. The war sequences in V seem fucking awesome, though. ... I haven't gotten to any yet, but I've watched my stepdad do a few of them so. Makes much more sense than WOUND ALL OF THE OPPOSING ARMY THROUGH THE POWERS OF ROCK/PAPER/SCISSORS. Fuck yeah Suikoden protagonists and the tendency to talk rarely and carry a big stick. WHO NEEDS SWORDS, ANYWAY. (Yeah I know a bunch of them have swords but I definitely think of Tir and Freyjadour first when I think of Suikoden protagonists and IF BIG STICKS ARE GOOD ENOUGH FOR THEM, THEY SHOULD BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE ELSE.) They were indeed! They are, however, Japan-only and likely to remain that way. Bastards. WHY IS SUIKODEN OBSCURE IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORRRRRLD
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pearl (u) 1289 4685 3598; platinum (j) 3566 4513 8338; platinum (i) 4383 3839 7305; soul silver (j) 4383 1211 4378; soul silver (j; ロケットだんよ永遠に) 1076 4655 0015; soul silver (u) 2880 1770 5916; white (j) 4469 6423 7718; black (u) 3653 9840 7445; black (s) 5157 2486 1674; white (i) 1163 4521 4228; white 2 (j) 0175 7505 7489 |
#13
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I started playing Suikoden I once, and then I stopped. Then I started again, and I stopped. I should try to play it all the way through for once.
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#14
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That 'should' is more of a 'need' :P
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#15
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Well, Luserina doesn't seem to be too up to something ... but yes Salum and Euram are definitely ... themselves. Man I want Frey to just hit Salum over the head. It'd be like playing bowling. Except with him as the ball. ... wonder what Euram's good for. Cleaning toilets? Being a very bad star of destiny if you're unfortunate enough to skip Eresh? Quote:
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Speaking of which, do you know what Lu says instead of 'noob'?
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pearl (u) 1289 4685 3598; platinum (j) 3566 4513 8338; platinum (i) 4383 3839 7305; soul silver (j) 4383 1211 4378; soul silver (j; ロケットだんよ永遠に) 1076 4655 0015; soul silver (u) 2880 1770 5916; white (j) 4469 6423 7718; black (u) 3653 9840 7445; black (s) 5157 2486 1674; white (i) 1163 4521 4228; white 2 (j) 0175 7505 7489 |
#16
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'Boob'?
...Did someone say Godwin? KING GODWIN I WILL KICK YOUR ASS WHEN I GRIND SOME MO- Wait. This is Soiukuden Siouku Suikoden, not DQ D:
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#17
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Very true. Tonfas are still very underused in games though. The only other RPG I really saw them used in was in Tales of Rebirth, and the tonfa user was a mage! Quote:
And uhh, that I dunno. I'll have to look into that!
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#18
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I started Suikoden II about an hour and a half ago! It's pretty fun so far. The animations are really detailed! It's pretty awesome.
Also Riou and Jowy are smrt. So far they have jumped off a cliff together and Jowy has staged a RESCUE ATTEMPT!! because Riou is being held prisoner by Flik and Viktor and made to clean up oil spills and buy flour. THE HORRORS. And so: ![]() FAST FORWARD A BIT ![]()
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pearl (u) 1289 4685 3598; platinum (j) 3566 4513 8338; platinum (i) 4383 3839 7305; soul silver (j) 4383 1211 4378; soul silver (j; ロケットだんよ永遠に) 1076 4655 0015; soul silver (u) 2880 1770 5916; white (j) 4469 6423 7718; black (u) 3653 9840 7445; black (s) 5157 2486 1674; white (i) 1163 4521 4228; white 2 (j) 0175 7505 7489 Last edited by surskitty; 04-06-2011 at 07:12 PM. |
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