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Let's Play Suikoden III ~ It begins for reals

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Untouchable:



Suikoden? This title intrigues me!

As it should. The Suikoden saga was one of the top names in the Japanese RPG genre. Debuting on the Playstation in 1995, it was one of the earliest RPGs released on the console and was arguably the best until the release of Final Fantasy VII. With a cast of 108 recruitable characters and some genuinely interesting writing, it is fondly seen as a strong start to the series.

This was followed by Suikoden II, considered by many to be the pinnacle of the series. Set three years following the events of the original, it improved upon everything that the original did and is a benchmark of quality in the series and is considered to be one of the greatest RPGs of all time. It received two side stories in the Suikogaiden games which fleshed out the City State and Harmonia.

There was also Suikoden Card Stories, a TCG which received a release on the GBA which told the story of Suikoden II. I can't really say much about it because I've never played it and it didn't receive an english translation.
Then the series started to drop off a little.

Suikoden III was released in 2002 on the PS2 and was a pretty good game overall. The series had made the jump to 3D although not without some tradeoffs. The story is well crafted for the most part thanks to the trinity sight system, which allows you play three different storylines as well as a handful of side characters, but it falls apart in the fourth and fifth acts.
The battle system was updated (and not for the better although I'm not crying ruined forever like some fans out there. Suikoden 4 covered that problem easily) and dungeons developed a tendency to be corridors with miminal exploration.
The departure of the project developer Yoshitaka Murayama late in the project is also cited as something responsible for a decline in quality during the game.



I'll get into that when I need to. For now let's move on to Suikoden IV which nearly killed the series. Throwing away the series' already established interconnected storyline, the fourth in the series was set 150 years prior to the events of the original. This means that there were a handful of reoccurring characters, the setting was drastically different and the conflict felt on a smaller scale. This only scratches a few of the problems behind the game as its flaws means that it's an average RPG at best, and a terrible Suikoden title.


*The writing wasn't very interesting. There is nothing as well written as the Suikoden II plot, nothing as heartbreaking as the events of the original and the villains are barely noticeable in comparision to Harmonia in the third title.

* The character designs are pretty goddamn bland. I'll show you the figures of the main characters of the series up to IV and you tell me which is the lead of Suikoden IV.



* The gameplay sucks. That's the biggest problem for me as it is incredibly simple to fill a party with flatout broken characters since you have a party limit of four characters which had been cut down from the series standard of six. It also removed the row system so you didn't have range issues that you would have in the first two games if you flooded the party with short range swordsmen.
The game also takes the sailing of Wind Waker and somehow makes it more tedious by having a sky-high encounter rate and having only a handful of locations that you could travel to and these were often spaced out around the world map. Once you recruited Viki, there was no need to sail until the very end of the game.

*The Boss was confusing as fuck. You're barely told anything about what it could be and then BAM GODDAMN TREE FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION! It's actually about as strange as Necron from Final Fantasy IX. I can handle a strange boss if it's set up well but there's minimal explanation given to it.

It  really says something when the spin-off title Suikoden Tactics was far superior by fleshing out the Island Nations and the Kooluk empire. The setting problems still stands but most of the problems with the setting were fixed up although there were problems with the villain and final boss being rather underwhelming. It was also a much more difficult game the first time around albeit it became much easier when you transferred save data from Suikoden IV to it.

Suikoden V should have saved the series. It was well written except for it taking forever to kick into gear, the music was quite strong and the battle system was fresh and updated but still was similar to the more popular system from the earlier titles. Considered by most fans to be the second best in the series, it did this by retreading old ground from Suikoden II by borrowing some plot devices and characters while updating them a little such as Childerich being Luca Blight.

And yet that's the last entry in the main series. Suikoden Teirkreis was released in 2008 on the DS and is one of the better RPG offerings on the console but offers little to do with the main series outside of the name and recruiting 108 stars of destiny (now called Starbearers for some strange reason). Then there is Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki which will never receive an engilsh release since it's a PSP game not made by ATLUS so I do not have an opinion on it outside of the fact that they decided to have another spin-off instead of continuing the main series.


Reign it in man. Let's get back to Suikoden III

Suikoden III had three main characters that you could play as with three overlapping storylines.



-Chris Lightfellow-

The first ever female lead in Suikoden history, Chris is the captain of the Knights of Zexen and a true badass. From a gameplay sense, she's a complete tank that can deal crazy amounts of damage thanks to her Falcon rune as well as having the ability to tank hits thanks to her heavy armour and high parry stat.

-Geddoe-

He's pretty awesome and has the most interesting background which I don't want to spoil. Gameplay wise he's a magical knight type of character thanks to his high attack and magic stats.


-Hugo-

The son of Lucia, a minor villian from Suikoden II, Hugo fills the old hotblooded teenage hero archetype. He's actually more than capable of  frontline combat thanks to being able to dish out ridiculous amounts of damage and having a skyhigh repel and dodge stats. His storyline sees you focusing on the grassland side of things and getting to check out the smaller tribes around abouts such as the ducks.


What type of LP will this be?

Images for the most part unless there are scenes in which screenshots cannot convey what is going on right. Then I'll upload videos for those bits as well as bosses.


So what do we do?


I will of course require your input on whose storyline to follow as well as who we should have in our party once we get the option to do so.
That's not going to be a problem until the third chapter for most storylines. Not only this but I'll need a name for a hidden character and the castle when we eventually get it.



------------------------------------------
INDEX
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Hugo Chapter 1

Part 1~ Hugo Begins
    http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=117908.msg3714154#msg3714154

Bluerobin:
Whoa. I was literally looking up the Suikoden games yesterday trying to figure out which one to play next (I've played 2 and 4 and I'm working on Tierkreis now). I might have to play along with you now. Looking forward to it!

I feel like people are going to vote for Geddoe because he seems pretty sweet, but I'm gonna go with Hugo because you said something about a tribe of ducks. Is this a choice you make at the beginning of the game?

Neonivek:
What I kinda find odd about Suikeoden 3 is while you can play it a certain way (It gives you some freedom), you can almost feel what the intended route was supposed to be. Since if you break the intended path the story sections seem weaker.

Mind you Chris is my favorite of the three.

Unfortunately Chris is the worst of the three in terms of battle by a large margin (Geddoe being #1 by far)

Hugo feeling more like a classic Suikeoden protagonist and Geddoe feeling the least like a Suikeoden Protagonist.

And YET he isn't the most "Classic Suikeoden Protagonist" in the game.

Zrk2:
We need to be duck-guy. It's the only logical option.

Darvi:
I am actually wondering how much characterisation the 108 characters would get.

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