Suikoden IV?

[Knightshade Dragon]

Its been pretty quiet on Suikoden IV.  Anyone hearing anything? Its one of my 'high anticipation' titles, but I can't read Japanese yet so imports are out of the question. :/

[AgtFox]

I've heard it's not as good as Suikoden III, that's about all I've heard.

[Knightshade Dragon]

Why do you say the things that hurt?   :cry:

[Andrew Mallon]

There's a Suikoden IV demo on this month's OPM disk. It... did not have much to recommend. The graphics are worse than Suikoden III (the textures are extremly poor) and the character animations are so bad it's funny (if you play the demo, watch how the main character runs).

Of course, graphics and such are the only thing on which the demo can be judged, because all the characters' stats were deliberately jacked up for the demo and most of the inventory and stat screens are locked.

I'll wait for the reviews before giving up on the game, but the demo did not inspire confidence.

[Qbe]

I played the OPM demo too.  The initial battle was kind of cool, but once it hit the deserted island I had nasty flashbacks to FFX.  I disliked the "one way only" maps and having to stumble around to find the right triggers to move the thing along.

Yet by the end of the demo I was starting to look forward to the game.  It has some unfortunate similarities to FFX, but it isn't FFX.  It has more charm and fun than FFX, I thought that the graphics were somewhat better and I did like the music, such as it was.

The demo was too short and hopefully not representative of the rest of the game.  I'll be waiting for the reviews.

[Big Jake]

Please, if there is a god in heaven, let them fix whatever is wrong in the game before release here.  I love Suikoden and S4 was one of my most anticipated titles this year.  Seeing as I've suddenly had a massive increase in interest in console gaming ( :wink: ), I want to see the franchises I love be good.

[Calvin]

God did I hate Suikoden III

[warning]

God did I hate Suikoden III

Have to agree.  It did nothing for me.

[RamPanther]

Suikoden IV is supposedly the weakest of the entire series. Very shallow. Very disjointed. Well, what can you expect when several of the team, including the project's main director, leave half way through development.

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

God did I hate Suikoden III

Yeah, it sucked.

Suikoden IV is supposed to be crap.

[Gratch]

God did I hate Suikoden III

 Didn't like it either.

I actually bought it for a second time a while back to see if I could figure out what all the hype was about.  Didn't like it the second time either.

[Purge]

Why do you say the things that hurt?   :cry:

He says hurtful things to make you cry. And when he's done, he might even smack ya in the ear.

As I understand it, this thread has gone from "Suikoden IV, where are you?" to "I hear your retarded older brother III sucked ass, and you're going to be better... at sucking ass." I'm not being hurtful; just making an observation. I've played neither; I'm not a good resource to determine square-inch-of-ass to mouth ratios.

What was so wrong or right about III? And no, I'm not going to read the 12 page glowing review of it... I want the coles notes version.

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

As I understand it, this thread has gone from "Suikoden IV, where are you?" to "I hear your retarded older brother III sucked ass, and you're going to be better... at sucking ass."

Kitsune at QT3 has written numerous times on how awful Suikoden IV is (Kitsune is fluent in English and Japanese and lives in, or at least frequents, Japan).

I'd link to some threads, but QT3's having issues atm.

[depward]

God did I hate Suikoden III

Have to agree.  It did nothing for me.

Count me in with all of the other "did not like III" votes.  I don't know, it just didn't do it for me at all.  I was preeeeetty close from buying it a second time but convinced myself not to.  It just wasn't fun like other RPGs have been, like recently Shadow Hearts Covenant or even like FFX.  It didn't really excite me, but rather, kinda bored me   :?

[Fellow]

This thread makes me sad.

Suikoden 1&2 rock my world.

[EddieA]

I thought 3 was great, especially the varied and wonderful character designs.  There were problems, like the odd pacing, stiff animation, and the "pair-up" combat system, but I thought it had the same "Suikoden" feel that made the first two games special.

I've heard vague comments that 4 isn't that good, but I haven't heard any specifics about what supposed to be bad about it.  It's supposed to be out in January (for $39.99 for some reason) and unless it gets really bad US reviews, I'll be picking it up as soon as it comes out.

[warning]

But the $64 question is: Does it have a duck?

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

But the $64 question is: Does it have a duck?

And by duck, warning means, "Duck in plate mail."

[Knightshade Dragon]

I loved Suikoden III, I couldn't put it down until I found every character.  I put 110 hours into the game!  Did it have problems, sure.  I dunno, I just was pulled in.  As they say, your mileage may vary.  I'll have to get ahold of this Kitsune character....

[Valhuerdi]

I'll have to get ahold of this Kitsune character....

Just be ready for a thirty page essay on why he dislikes the placement of the dialog boxes.

[Fellow]

Well yes, he is quite... verbose.

[Calvin]

But the $64 question is: Does it have a duck?

And by duck, warning means, "Duck in plate mail."

Stupidest, most annoying character ever. An effing duck.

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

But the $64 question is: Does it have a duck?

And by duck, warning means, "Duck in plate mail."

Stupidest, most annoying character ever. An effing duck.

I actually only saw him in screen shots (I found I hated the game enough to quit within 30 minutes), but jesus, way to give J-RPGs a bad name, Konami.

A shame that shit like Suikoden III gets localized while utterly ingenious games like the MegaTen series go ignored (yes, I know SMT: Nocturne is a MegaTen game, but we need MORE!).

I don't want a frickin' anthropomorphic duck, I want a trippy apocalyptic demon-infested Tokyo!

[Kevin Grey]

shame that shit like Suikoden III gets localized while utterly ingenious games like the MegaTen series go ignored (yes, I know SMT: Nocturne is a MegaTen game, but we need MORE!).

The last true MegaTen game came out for the SNES so the series wasn't passed over too much during hte PSX generation- we even got both Persona titles here which are spinoffs of the MegaTen series.  We also have Digital Devil Saga, another MegaTen spinoff, coming up.  A PSP Persona has been announced and I would expect that we'll receive that here too.

[Big Jake]

For LE:
Absolutely!
Especially seeing as Demons & Tokyo have never been in the same game/movie before.  :lol:

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

For LE:
Absolutely!
Especially seeing as Demons & Tokyo have never been in the same game/movie before.  :lol:

/shrug.

Unless you live in Japan, I find it hard to believe you could complain about the setting.  It's not as common over here as it is over there.

Besides, that's not even really my point.  I'm saying I wish we'd get the more "mature" Japanese selections, instead of being force-fed an anthropomorphic, stony-faced, dead-serious DUCK as a character in a storyline.

[Big Jake]

Ok, I don't know about you, but that duck (which I admit was unbelievably stupid) was used in my game for maybe 20% of the time, if even that.
He was a minor character and not central to the game.

To answer Purge's question (which no one did): S3 is most often cited for its opening third of the game, where you see the story unfold from several different perspectives.  One of the most important events happens at the beginning of the game, and depending on which group you started to play as (there are three main collections of people), the incident has massively different views.  Personally, I liked the fact that if you chose to work at it, you could make a viable adventuring party out of dozens of characters.  There was no 'uber-arrangement that everyone uses' in it.

And LE, I fully agree that I would love to see more mature japanese rpg's here.  I wanted to ask you: what's your opinion of FFX-2?

[EddieA]

Why is Suikoden 3 any less mature because it has an anthropomorhpic duck in it?  It's not like he was some kind of Donald Duck "wacky" character; the character itself was serious.  SMT : Nocturne has plenty of anthropomorphic creatures, and I even have a talking mop in my party, but it still has a very mature tone.  
I take it as a given that Japanese RPGs are going to have odd things in them.  Early in FF7, you're fighting your way through a corrupt megacorporation fighting giant houses with arms and legs.  They're weird, but I don't think they make the games any more or less mature for their presence.

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

Ok, I don't know about you, but that duck (which I admit was unbelievably stupid) was used in my game for maybe 20% of the time, if even that.
He was a minor character and not central to the game.

...

And LE, I fully agree that I would love to see more mature japanese rpg's here.  I wanted to ask you: what's your opinion of FFX-2?

Fair enough regarding the duck, but I was using him more as a sounding board for what's turning off mature gamers from J-RPGs and making those of us who do enjoy them despite their absurd, often childlike notions, look really bad in the process.

My opinion of FFX-2.  Hm.

Well, honestly, I didn't like it... but more because of technical issues than gameplay ones:

-Necessary load times on the PS2 cripple what could be fluid, frantic combat.

-Removal of the grandiose FFX "board" was disappointing.

-Rehashed areas weren't interesting enough.  I'm all for "re-visiting" a former locale, but jeez, things need to change a little.

-The game wasn't stable (on my PS2).  I froze at least three times in the six hours of play I got in before ditching the game.

Non-technical issues:

-Three characters with dynamic instead of defined roles seems like a cool concept for the Final Fantsy series, but fails in execution.

-"Pain" is a godawful name for a character.  Additionally, Pain looks like a guy, which leads me to my next point:

-The game is very... cheesecake.  Sure, the whole "Charlie's Angels" thing is cute and all, but good god, do it with some taste.  99% of the time, Rikku would actually be wearing MORE clothes if she was just shown in a bra and thong.   :shock:

[vagabond]

God did I hate Suikoden III

What the heck games do you like? Apparently not roleplaying games. Suikoden 3 is one of the best ones ever IMO.

[vagabond]

They called it FFX-2 but it wasn't hardly like FFX at all. They went to realtime instead of turnbased combat, they got rid of the cool levelup system, they got rid of all the custom weapons and character customization. They kept the whole world which was great the first time but not the second. Total disappointment.

[Big Jake]

vagabond - you captured part of my opinion.  From what little I played, horrible character development.  WTF, that's all I liked the FF series for!

I managed all of 10 minutes of FFX-2 before I turned it off in disgust.  My inital opinion of this game as "Fan Sevice: The Game" sure appeared spot on.  The 10 minutes I played this thing, I wanted to jab spiky metal things into my brain.  The duck, bad as it was, was no where NEAR as grating as the concept that I'm supposed to get excited about playing dress up with annoying, shrill characters.

Now, if I have the opportunity to KILL Rikku in the next FF game, I will pay double for it.

[warning]

The duck, bad as it was...

All I could think of when I was playing the game was

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

The duck, bad as it was...

All I could think of when I was playing the game was

By that do you mean Kingdom Hearts?   :wink:

One thing that bothered me, Jake, was the fact that Suikoden is supposed to be a tiny more "realisitic" than FFX-2 was.  Isn't Suikoden based on a work of Japanese literature?  Sure, it has fantastical elements, but a DUCK?!?

[Calvin]

I really did not like FFX-2 from the 3 hours I played. They took all the best parts of FFX and tore them out-replaced by J-Pop bullshit. Yuck. It spoiled some of my incredibly fond memories of FFX, so I doubt I will go back to it.

[EddieA]

About halfway down this page is the legend Suikoden was apparently based on.

[vagabond]

vagabond - you captured part of my opinion.  From what little I played, horrible character development.  WTF, that's all I liked the FF series for!

I managed all of 10 minutes of FFX-2 before I turned it off in disgust.  My inital opinion of this game as "Fan Sevice: The Game" sure appeared spot on.  The 10 minutes I played this thing, I wanted to jab spiky metal things into my brain.  The duck, bad as it was, was no where NEAR as grating as the concept that I'm supposed to get excited about playing dress up with annoying, shrill characters.

Now, if I have the opportunity to KILL Rikku in the next FF game, I will pay double for it.

I don't even see how it could be fan service because if you are giving people more FFX you give them more FFX. This game was just FFX in name alone, the voice acting for Yuna was the same but her character was NOT the same. She went from being some demure, thoughful, shy, pacifist nun to a popstar, action crazed superhero. Not even close
Rikku should die!  I am a brunette over blonds kinda guy. Yuna is the one I like. Hubba Hubba

The duck was probably my least favorite character in Suikoden, he was too absurd to take seriously as a warrior.  Who ever heard of a warrior that wobbles around?  However, there were tons of characters, stupid to hate the whole game for just one. Most of them were really cool.