Malik
(4/21/04)
Suikoden III (PS2)
Konami
This review originally was
presented on lazy.GEEKS (9/19/03)
If I find a game I don't like,
I usually try to give it a second chance. That way I can tell if I
was just being bitchy when I first tried the game, or if it was
actually the festering pile of crap I initially took it to be. That
was the case with Suikoden III. I first tried to play it last
December. Unfortunately (for Suikoden III), Velveeta had just got me
Wild Arms 3 for my B-day, and of those two games, WA3 is the far
superior one. So, I, in my temporarily biased mind, took Suikoden
III to be nothing more than crap in DVD format. Well, I decided
after beating KOTOR that I needed a new RPG thrill...I couldn't
bring myself to play Arc the Lad Collection again (Arc 1 was good
and all, but I can't bring myself to beat it...yet), and since there
are no good new RPGs coming out for a while, I picked up Suikoden
III for it's final chance to wow me.
Story
Suikoden games are always ones
that use a good blend of character driven and world driven stories
that focus on a civil war of sorts. S3 is no exception. The story
this time focuses on three characters (S1 and 2 had only one primary
protagonist); Chris the Knight (who is the one part of the S3 plot I
could definitely do without...typical knight...honor, integrity, no
personality, etc); Geddoe the other knight (non-typical knight with
a more special ops type of group than the typical shining knights of
yore); and Hugo the little kid (I hate little kids as the primary
heroes of RPGs, but at least Hugo knows how to act more mature than
the usual lot of brat heroes). All three have their own missions in
the world to help protect their kingdoms in one way or another.
As you play, instead of pulling
a SaGa Frontier (playing as only one character each time through the
game), you play each chapter of the game as each character. I
know...this sounds like a ton of repetition, but surprisingly it is
not so bad. Each hero has a unique set of events with some
interaction from the other parties. This leads to interesting
experiences as you (for example) play through as Geddoe and see the
honorable Chris slay the innocent. This will help to entice the
player to next play through as Chris to see why she would do such a
horrible thing.
So, long story short, you are
given the overall plot of the region you live in going into a state
of war, but you also have the character driven events that keep your
perspective more down to Earth...all the while a mysterious prophecy
of "The Fire Bringer" looms in the background.
Graphics
Well, S1 and S2 were both 2D
games (as I like them). Usually when a game makes it's first game in
3D after being a 2D series, the visual game will suffer (look at
FF7...not saying the graphics sucked, but I could always make out
more details in the graphics in FF1-6 than I could in FF7...or look
at Zelda: LttP vs. Zelda: OoT). S3 nicely surprised me in this
regard. The 3D images are crisp and clean using a nice blend of
traditional polygonal characters with a hint of cell-shading. Not
only does this appropriately give you a visual sense of the world,
but it also sets the mood nicely.
Another nice innovation is how
the magical effects have been tweaked to a state beyond what most
RPGs will show. When you cast a spell (which can take some time to
do...if you're not too skilled at casting and you cast a high level
spell, prepare to sit for a few rounds chanting...), your character
will glow in an appropriate color according to the type of spell
being prepared (use this to prepare for enemy spells, since they do
the same thing). Then when you finally cast the spell, the visuals
are stunning and glorious, meeting the standards set by S1 and 2.
My only issue with the graphics
is the 3D dungeons. The dungeons themselves are nice and look
wonderful, but you are given a 3D camera with no controls and
horrible placement. An easy way to think of this is to think of a RE
camera that will slide parallel to you in long hallways. This means
you are often walking into the camera with no sense of what's coming
up, you are missing sight of treasures or people who are just barely
behind a pillar or tree, and you will constantly walk into people in
towns when you walk towards the screen and they walk away from it.
However, if you can get past this issue, then S3 will please almost
any player visually.
Audio
First thing I must say; no
voice actors. Sorry, I said that wrong; NO VOICE CATERS!!! I
personally am sick of bad voice acting and there is no better
solution than to read the text ourselves (even if being an
illiterate whore seems so much easier). That said, lets get into
what is there in the audio.
The music is just as any
Suikoden fan should expect. A nice blend of folk and traditional
sounding music set to a medieval theme. There are a few tracks that
lack in the content department, but all in all, the music is quite
listenable.
Sound effects are also pleasant
to hear. They are what anyone would expect from a typical PS2 game.
Nothing too exciting, but sometimes you should just appreciate
quality over innovation. The only noteworthy part of the sound
effects is the sound of fire (and you hear that plenty in this
game). Often times people will use fire as a marker for how well
defined the visuals are in a game; I on the other hand think fire is
a good standard for the sounds of a game. The fire crackles, pops,
and sizzles with a good amount of audible (and visual) realism.
Long story short; take out a
few of the music tracks that were sub par, and this could be one of
the nicest sounding games I've ever heard.
Game Play
Now this is where S3 starts to
stand out...and fall down. Unfortunately, Suikoden 3 uses a few too
many innovations and dumps off on what was so perfect about it's
predecessors.
The Battles; The original S1
and also S2 had a great battle system. You had 6 people in your
party (3 in front, 3 in back) and each one could do whatever they
wanted, provided you keep the range of their weapons in mind; a
short blade could obviously do no good in the back row. Besides
that, you had total freedom. That is now a thing of the past. Each
person in the party has a partner (so you have 3 pairs...one in
front and one in back). During a combat round, you give an order to
one person in each pair while the other person does whatever they
feel like (and often times they will feel like getting themselves
killed). This is especially bad if you have a magic paired up with a
fighter. As the mage is casting, the fighter will not only fail to
defend the mage, but he/she will often times drag the mage to the
front lines (or bring the front lines to the mage). This is bad
enough, but sometimes this will cause the mage to cast a spell that
will hit himself/herself...yes, magic that has an area affect can
and will hurt friendly targets (I learned that the hard way...in a
boss fight when I had not saved for a good hour...sigh). So that's
how they used innovations to mess up combat on a small scale.
Suikoden games have always had
army based battles. In these fights, you would control a good amount
of your 108 stars of destiny (ok...quick explanation of Suikoden
games...you have to find 108 people called the Stars of Destiny to
join you in returning peace to the world...thus you will use around
108 characters throughout the entire game...and it's not as bad as
it sounds) and use them to fight you opponent's army. In S1, this
was done in a paper-rock-scissors type of format (cavalry beats
archery beats magic beats cavalry...). S2 used a more Shining Force
style of combat in which you used some more strategy (a more
involved method that S1, but not as fun). Well, S3 is just plain
weird. I think the best representation of this method is seem in
Ogre Battle. You move on a rather crappy map (that's not from OB)
and then have a RPG style fight with limited control like seen in
OB. This new battle method is weird and a bitch to understand (and
even harder to explain), so I'll put this bluntly. Not nearly as fun
as S2 and just plain crappy compared to S1.
Magic and skills; Now we have
to chant to get magic to be cast. The higher the level of spell, the
longer the chanting is done. However, we now have skills that let us
specialize our characters to being either better in physical combat
and/or better in spell casting of certain schools of magic. These
skills are acquired with SP (for the idiots out there...that would
be "skill points") and are purchased from tutors like how
you would purchase items. Each skill can be leveled up a few times
(depending on how well suited said character is to using said
skill...let's see a barbarian become a master at magical skills).
This means that will some SPs you can make your mages quicker and
more proficient. At first, I found this system to be a time
consuming waste of programming, however, with time this system has
grown on me and I must say that this type of development meets the
needs of Suikoden perfectly.
Conclusion
Besides those few aspects, this
is deep down the same old Suikoden that we all know and love from
the PSX. It will take a hardcore Suikoden fan a few days to get into
the 3D format and to accept the battle changes. However, when it's
all said and done, S3 is just what the RPG fans have been needing. I
wholeheartedly recommend giving S3 a try if you're a fan of the
series or if you just like RPGs. However, if you're not into RPGs,
this battle system will only drive you to madness. So, I
have to give Suikoden III a 8.25/10
(it would get a 9.5 if not for the "innovative" battle
mechanics). The only final thought I can throw in is this; Why did
they make a race of half ducks half people? Now that was a little
too silly (the game lost 0.25 for these annoying characters).
TC out.
UPDATE! (10/16/03)
After finishing this game, I
have seen the light. I was not only happy with S3, but I was
even happier with it that I was with S2 and even put in over 80hours
of playing without taking more than 36 hours off at a time.
For this and because the story gets...put simply...hella sweet, I
give Suikoden III, in retrospect, a 9.75/10!
Malik
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