One of the greatist RPGs...ever.
Written: Dec 16 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Everything
Cons: Nothing
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| Jello77's Full Review: Suikoden II for PlayStation 1 |
Note: yes I did have a Suikoden 2 review posted before. Yes, it was highly recommended. However, it was my second review ever and does not deserve the HR plastered all over it, nor does it do this game justice. So I deleted it and kicked up a new, more enjoyable one for you readers to read. Enjoy.\
This is one of my favorite games of all time.
The Plot
As the game first spins, you are in a military camp sharing a tent with your best friend, Jowy. I wasn't sure if Jowy was a boy or girl, but I figured it out. Anyway, it seems you are a small, nothing soldier for a big army and country called Highland. You are working for a small division, not very important, called the Unicorn Brigade. So you go to sleep and then, a couple of hours later, Jowy wakes you up and tells you that the small Unicorn Brigade is being attacked by the enemy, the City-State of Jowston. Anyway, you run up the mountain near a cliff with a gushing river at the bottom, and you find out that Prince Luca Blight (hey, that's my first name spelled wrong!) attacked his own troops and killed them so that there would be a heated war.
Then your quest begins as you actually turn toward the City-State's side, make up a section of the army that you get to name yourself, and fight many different enemies (Luca Blight, Neclord the vampire, and a mysterious rune). The hero (who has no name until you name him) and Jowy each get powerful runes (magic). The hero gets the Bright Sheild and Jowy gets the Black Sword rune. Black Sword is meant for attacking and killing, while Bright Sheild is healing. These two runes are destined to fight one another. Can you overcome the challenge and remain friends? We'll see.
The Gameplay
If you're not in it for the story at all, you need gameplay and a good battle system. This has all of that. There are in fact three battle types. The one that is most often used, and is in fact your "regular" battle, is the Party system.
Like Final Fantasy, you can have multiple people fighting for you. Unlike Final Fantasy, you have six people instead of three. It's not Real Time, where your enemy attacks multiple times in one turn a.k.a. Final Fantasy VII. It's a turn based battle system, where when you finish your rounds, your enemy attacks as many times as the game says him to. There are a lot of options in battle. You have the basic "Attack" command, where you just do the little sword, fist, or whatever you have hit. Doesn't do too much damage, a lot less then runes, but some fighters, like Viktor, are there soley for this. You have the basic "Item" command, which lets you pull out either the items for the whole group, that you share, or, and this is good, you can use items that some characters keep to themselves. Like if you give Kahn a bunch of Mega Medicines, it won't take up space in the group item inventory, but when it's Kahn's turn, you can use whatever he has.
Then you have "Auto", which will make everybody do a basic attack without having to go through the screens for everybody. The "Rune" part is where you use magic. You can get Runes equipped at Rune Masters places, or Rune shops. You have a "Defend" option too, but unlike such games as Legend of Dragoon, all this does is take off the damage from the next attack. Don't know why anyone would ever use it? You won't, most of the time, but against Luca Blight, you should use some strong magic users, like Luc, in the back row, and put Gadget (this machine dude) in front of him, and Gadget, with a billion defense, can stay alive by just using Defense the whole time, making space for Luc to slay that bastard. Which brings me to another point. The rows.
This time, front row and back row DO make a difference. Three in front, three in back. Now, unless the enemy has some long-range attacks or runes, they can't touch you in the back. The front gets constantly bombarded with attacks, and so you should have your strongest defense people in front, and the magic users in back, because you usually can't attack from the back. If somebody from the front row dies, his body will magically move to the back and the person in the back will hop over his body and move up to the fron.
The second type of battles is the Strategy battles. These come up with wars against Highland, with troops and everything. Wondering what good that character you just got is when (s)he can't fight? There's a good chance that (s)he has a troop in the strategy battles.
These are pretty easy, you can do the work yourself, or you can "Leave It To Apple", who is your strategist before Shu comes along, and still win most of them.
Third is the "Duel" battles, which come up very rarely, but they still come up and some important fights are Duel fights. These you can either "Attack", which will hit no matter what, "Wild Attack" which will hit if the enemy if "Defend" is not used, and "Defend" hurt the enemy as much as "Wild Attack" if you use it when the enemy uses Wild attack. These battles are one on one, hero versus the enemy.
Here is a way that can make Duels a lot easier. Before a move is made, the enemy will say something. Study what they say and you can anticipate their next move. For example, *** (name starred out to protect people who are afraid of spoilers) says, "Feel the bite of my sword!!!!" later in the game, and therefore you know he's going to use Wild Attack. Here is a basic summary of the Duels:
Attack beats Defend
Defend beats Wild Attack
Wild Attack beats Attack.
The Graphics
Sorry, "new skul" junkies, this game is not nearly as pretty as Final Fantasy or Legend of Dragoon, and the only FMV is drawn anime styled FMV, not the 3D graphics you are so used to. The characters move nicely and you can actually see where you are going, as opposed to some games which stop you because of an invisible wall (see: Jade Cocoon). The characters are sprites, which work a hundred times better than Final Fantasy VII's ugly characters. The battle graphics, like the Runes, are amazing. (The first time Luc used the "Empty World" from the Blue Gate rune I fell out of my couch!!) So, in conclusion, the graphics are nothing special but not bad enough to be listed as a Con.
Little Side Notes
Some old characters from the first game make an appearence too, from Flik and Viktor to Hix and Tengaar. It's pretty much the same thing with the 108 Stars of Destiny, who are characters that are scattered all through the game, and the only way to get the best ending is to get them all. But some are SO complicated to get that I had to ask my friends for help, but some are easy and all you need to do is talk to them and say the right things. There are a ton of side quests, such as getting Bonaparte for Millie, killing the vampire that is ruining the world, and recruiting some of the Highland army on your side. This is an amazing game which will eat up your hours on the PlayStation. Come to think about it, this game would make a great book.
There are mini-games to play, not like the Gold Saucer, but things like fishing behind your castle to send to the chef of your castle so that he can make food and you can then win a cook-off against another chef. My favorite enemies are Seed and Culgan, by far.
OH! I almost forgot. This game has THE BEST music ever. From a captivating opening movie song to great songs throughout the game, this game is one game that I turned on just for the music.
I hated myself for finishing it. I felt so sad when I finished it, partly because of some particular part of the game that I won't spoil, and partly because I had completed everything and couldn't play the game anymore. :-(
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Jello77
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Reviews written: 55
Trusted by: 26 members
About Me:
I hate the Lakers even more now that Malone is on that team.
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