The Quarterly JRPG Club - Q4 2016 - Suikoden!

Pages

IMAGE(http://invisioncommunity.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/en_postimage.png)

Hi Everyone! The cage has spoken, and we are playing Suikoden through the end of 2016.

Buckle up and grab a walkthrough if you want to make the most of this one, because there are a whopping 108 characters for you to get. Here's what we're looking at for playtimes.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/bF7z4Kh.png)

For your convenience, here is a guide for full completion (108 stars): http://www.suikosource.com/games/sod...

This seems to be one of the more organized walkthroughs I've found:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/198843-s...

If anyone has any suggestions on how to split up the game, that would be helpful. I can't really see any clear defining lines here.

I've never played Suikoden before. Is there anything lost by using a walk through the first time and not really being surprised by things?

Just installed it, ready to go!

If you guys want to start now, I'm not going to stop you. I don't think this club is one to have very strict guidelines. I might start this weekend, even.

Wembley wrote:

I've never played Suikoden before. Is there anything lost by using a walk through the first time and not really being surprised by things?

Here's my experience so far (I played about 35 minutes last night), spoilered just in case:

Spoiler:

Met the emperor, went back to my home in the game, got 5 characters in my party, followed the story to the magician's island, then back, and then walked to Rockland village.

So, overall, it's pretty fast paced, which is fine, really. Then, I went on Gamefaqs and looked at the exact same guide that Damnable Bear linked above, and realized that I had missed

Spoiler:

a rune that can give me more XP, a run that can give me more money, missed some non-essential stuff in the surrounding villages.

And I didn't even look at all the detail in the guides. For all I know I may have already missed a character or two. So, I think I'm going to use a guide for this one. Especially since I intend to carry over my save into Suikoden II when I get to that one, and I'm not sure I will like it enough to play the game twice.

I named my character Reginald. I'm not sure where that came from. I don't know if there is a canon love story in this, but in my mind he's

Spoiler:

in a romantic relationship with Gremio.

It warms my heart to see this game being talked about still after all these years. This was such an amazing game and I remember playing it back in 96-97 and then being blown away that Phycho Mantis called me out on it in Metal Gear. Might just fire this up again on my Vita!

Downloading to Vita now. I'm going to finish Freedom Wars and then jump into this one.

God, I get overwhelmed by games like Persona 3 and Final Fantasy 6 having a bunch of characters. 108? Oh, hell no.

One Persona 3 character probably has the amount of dialog of 50 Suikoden characters ;).

Mr GT Chris wrote:

One Persona 3 character probably has the amount of dialog of 50 Suikoden characters ;).

But am I expected to use and level those 50 characters? I don't care how much they talk (or don't). I just want to know if I'm going to have to devote time to making sure everyone gets equal time or else I'll be in trouble.

I can't say exactly how many you would need to level in Suikoden 1. But, I can speak about Suikoden 2 which also has 108 characters. Many of them perform functions in your castle, for example opening a bath house. So, you'll see them when you go to that part of your castle. You can't actually put them in your party. The number that you can put in your party is, off the top of my head, 50 or so. But, in reality, you can get through 95% of the game with just 4-5 well levelled and equipped characters. However, in Suikoden 2 there is one event where you are required to put together 3 full parties, each to perform a separate mission. At that point, it's helpful if you have at least 10 or so pretty strong characters that you can spread across the groups.

Like any good JRPG, there are times where it will force you to include a certain 1 or 2 characters in your 6 character party. There are 2 reasons why this is never a problem though. 1 is that you'll always have your core 2-4 characters who will be fully levelled. Another is that characters gain exponentially more experience based on their level. For example, say your average party level is 30 but you suddenly have to add a level 10 character. That character will gain 5 or so levels per encounter (and encounters are often less than 10 seconds in this game) until they get to within a couple of levels of the party level, at least for the area you are in.

Basically you can rest assured it won't be an issue.

I'm skeptical, but I'll trust you.

For me, one of the worst parts of Final Fantasy 6 (and one that nearly ruins the game) is how often you're surprised by a sudden need to have devoted time to grinding your larger cast of characters. You can use a core team until suddenly you need to have an equally well-leveled B or C team because the plot demands it. I got tired of underleveled and underequipped characters getting creamed.

Persona 3 does this a bit, too, but the requirement is usually less driven by plot than by the need for certain skills. It's also really frustrating.

Spent some time wandering around the overmap after the opening scene, visited a town and a village. I always liked how games used to let you walk off and do your own thing from early on.

I haven't (re)started yet, but I did play Suikoden before already, and I don't recall ever having a problem with being underleveled or forced party splits or anything.

I've got this pulled down onto my Vita, not sure when I'll start (I'm caught up in Dragon Quest fever right now and don't want to let Persona Q completely drop off my radar), probably sometime later in October.

(re)started last night, and just got a little ways in - not quite to Mt. Seifu yet. Gah, the translation in S2 was pretty bad, but I'd forgotten just how awful it is in S1.

Suikoden 1 and 2 are such utterly terrific games. I consider them to be my favorite JRPGs ever. And I really think it is unfortunate we have not seen more games in a similar vein. Political/war RPGs where you lead an army seem like they would bear a lot of fruit.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm skeptical, but I'll trust you.

Trust him. You can get away with just a core group.

BoogtehWoog wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm skeptical, but I'll trust you.

Trust him. You can get away with just a core group.

Yeah, and most (all?) character story content isn't gated behind levels. Some of it is sidequest gated, I think, and some relies on having enough characters recruited for the home base to advance to a higher tier of completion (I may be wrong on these - I'm relying more on S2 memory)

I don't have time right now to play an rpg I've beaten quite a few times again but I'll say Suikoden & Suikoden II are two of my favorite rpg's I played as a kid. Building a base with characters you befriend throughout the world still seems novel to this day. So good.

Even if you're in a situation where you're training up characters outside of your core group, one of Suikoden's best systemic features is its dynamic level curve, which adjusts experience gained based on the character's level versus the strength of the encounter/area. It discourages grinding because the EXP gain plateaus in a hurry once you're at level and it makes the "catch-up" process for lower-level characters much less painful.

OzymandiasAV wrote:

Even if you're in a situation where you're training up characters outside of your core group, one of Suikoden's best systemic features is its dynamic level curve, which adjusts experience gained based on the character's level versus the strength of the encounter/area. It discourages grinding because the EXP gain plateaus in a hurry once you're at level and it makes the "catch-up" process for lower-level characters much less painful.

Oooh, yes. I love it when games do that!

Another cool thing is, once you reach a certain level, you get the option to "Let go" monsters that are weaker than you.

I've just been messing around, exploring all the nooks and crannies that the game lets me with the MC. So far, got to level 14, weapon to level 5. Found some runes as well! Also, there's a guy who gambles with you, so I have almost 100k in bits, somewhat unnecessarily. I think there's just one more area to check out before I actually progress the story.

Huh, started this this morning. Following the advice of this walkthrough, I'm going for the item that gets you more Bits from battles. The beginning can be really unforgiving if you choose to venture off the beaten path and do this. I reloaded saves a good 5-10 times just to try and farm a single or double-easy monster fight which wouldn't kill both of my party members. But, once I got one, I went up 4 levels and was able to take on a bit more diverse of a monster lineup. My main is now around level 8, and the other character (right, because I'll remember his name too) is 4. I'm looking to get up to level 15 or so with a sharpened weapon around 5-7 before carrying on.

I did that with just the main character, yeah took a few reloads to get that first encounter down! After that it was pretty smooth sailing. There's a guy who you can gamble with to get as many bits as you want so I now have almost 100k but nothing to buy. I'm not using a faq so I didn't realise you get a second party member in almost the third conversation you have in the game.

The blacksmith you have access to in the first area can only sharpen your weapon to level 5.

Noted - thanks for the heads up!

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Also, there's a guy who gambles with you, so I have almost 100k in bits, somewhat unnecessarily. I think there's just one more area to check out before I actually progress the story.

I did that yesterday (although I stopped at 50k) and then I felt bad for creaming poor Marco so badly. (Yes, I am aware that he is a videogame character who does not have feelings and has an unlimited amount of money.)

I think I'm level 9, but haven't started the story yet, I'm just trying to get the rune that gives more cash.

Started Suikoden a few times, never got around to finishing it. Been about a year since my last attempt, so I could give it another crack before the end of the year, maybe try a guide this time.

I just actually started the story portion today after receiving the Prosperity Rune or whatever. Got 3 more characters pretty much instantly and I'm ready to head out! (though, like sneaking downstairs on Christmas morning, I've already worn in my adventurer's boots!)

I was thinking of progressing the story now we're in October but didn't want to get ahead of everyone. Guess I'll start sometime this weekend!

I tried to start it this weekend, but I'm so tied up with Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel 2, that I may have to wait till after I'm finished with it, good thing there is prenty of time left.

Pages