"War. War is hell. You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it..."
Yup, we're starting this one out with a historical quote. Fancy. I'm sure most of us have heard at least part of that quote, attributed to Union General Willam T. Sherman. It's fairly common and pretty precise. Media often glorifies war and video games are no exception. Call of Duty didn't become one of the most popular franchises in the world for no reason. But games have done their fair share of looking at the horrors of war as well, how it tears apart families, leads to untold destruction and pits brother against brother.
In case it wasn't immediately apparent, Suikoden II is, at its core, a story about the personal and societal impact of war. The game puts us smack in the middle of the ongoing conflict between the City-State of Jowston and the Kingdom of Highland, a war that it appears may soon come to an end. You control a nameless protagonist (he's called Riou in some other media related to the game, all of which is apparently non-cannon) who serves as a member of the Highland army's youth brigade. The hero, alongside his lifelong friend Jowy, are currently deployed with their fellow soldiers awaiting the announcement of a cease fire between the two factions. A brief walk away from camp to collect their thoughts sets in motion the plot, as they return to find their tents aflame and many of their colleagues slain. A sneak attack by city-state forces? That's what the duo thinks at first. But they soon learn the truth is far, far worse. Under the order of Luca Blight, Prince of Highland, and with the assistance of their captain Rowd, the youth brigade has been massacred by other Highland soldiers to undermine the cease fire and prolong the conflict. And since the hero and Jowy know about this false flag operation, they can't be allowed to live.
I'm actually going to leave it at that for the plot right now, as I want to switch things up for this review. Normally I cover plot first and mechanics second when I deal with RPGs, but I am going to reverse that this time. I have a lot to say about the plot, but I can't really do it without some pretty massive spoilers and a lot of picking on what seem like minute details. There are going to be times in this review where it borderline seems like I didn't like Suikoden II and I will tell you now, that's definitely not the case. This game is going to get a very high score and it was an absolutely great experience. I'm also going to come out and say I was the victim of the Mandela effect with Suikoden II, I've made some passive recommendations of this game in the past and I very honestly thought I had played it before. At least I don't have to retract any of those recommendations, because I still think it's great even after having, you know, actually played it. Anyway, on to the actual game mechanics.
The first mechanic I have to bring up when discussing Suikoden II is what would become the series' calling card: the 108 stars. The Suikoden games are all based around the legend of the 108 stars of destiny, the central plot point of the 14th century Chinese classic "Shi Hu Zhuan," translated as "Water Margin" (which is rendered as "Suikoden" in Japanese, hence the title of the series). That means that you can recruit 108, yes 108, potential party members in your travels. Not all of these characters are useable in combat, but probably about half of them are and they all bring something different to the table. I honestly think it's a bit shocking how good a job the developers did at making so many characters feel so different in battle. The flipside to this is character development suffers a little bit, we will discuss this more when we get to the plot, but in a pure mechanical and even combat sense, it's really cool. Even the characters that are not used in combat offer something to your group, which is yet another thing we will discuss later in the review.
The 108 stars may be Suikoden II's calling card, but its graphics and sound are the first thing most gamers are going to notice. I'm just going to come out and say it: this may be the best looking 2D style game I have ever seen. The sprite work here is so detailed and so colorful I couldn't help but just stop and look at them. The characters are so expressive and their movement is so natural that I was shocked it was even possible with sprites. The combat screens look amazing and the 2D characters blend with the 3D effects completely seamlessly. The enemy design is excellent and they are also incredibly detailed, the amount of effort that was put into even normal enemies shows almost fanatical attention to detail. The same can be said of special attack animations, these are breathtaking, but also concise, which wasn't a given for RPGs at the time. The towns are some of the most unique I've ever encountered, with each offering its own unique and memorable style. Towns often feel the same in RPGs, but not here. I think it's also nice that there's a variety of different styles of architecture in the towns, there's a good variety of western, eastern and everything in between. The dungeons are less impressive, but still pretty good looking. The sound is also excellent, the tracks really help set the stage for various locations and events both positive and negative. It offers some truly memorable tracks, though it would have been nice to see the dungeons have unique music. The dungeon track is mysterious and menacing, but it's the same for every single one. I don't think there are quite as many top-level tracks as there are in other RPGs, but this may be the most consistent soundtrack I've heard in a while.
Combat in Suikoden II is very strong. It isn't revolutionary by any means, but it's a top-notch turn-based combat system with just enough different elements to make it feel unique. You bring a party of 6 into each battle, with three characters in the front row and three in the back. Characters are divided into short, medium and long-range attackers. Short range characters can only attack from the front row but tend to be a bit stronger, medium characters can attack from either row but lose power if they are placed in back and long-range characters deal full damage from the back but tend to be soft defensively. Characters in the back row can't be hit with short range attacks and will shift forward if the one in front of them dies. There are plenty of each type of character and with such a large party, there is huge variety of lineups you can use. Just about every character is viable in some way, which is nice, though some are most definitely stronger than others. Character can attack, use runes for magic, defend and activate unite attacks. Some characters can activate team moves with others, though there were a lot fewer of these than I thought there would be. The game isn't too obtuse here, all the combinations make sense within the context of the story, but its often not worth warping your party around accessing these attacks. There's no MP here, each rune has a set number of attacks per spell and they are recovered by resting at an inn. Magic is pretty powerful, but I found it generally better to stick with physical attackers. Mages tend to be short range attackers, meaning they can only either use magic or defend if you want them out of harm's way. Almost all of them come with a rune that has infinite attacks, but these are usually very week.
Combat cuts a quick pace, as characters will sometimes perform their commands in unison to speed things up. It also seems like there is a pretty high critical hit chance and some characters will occasionally attack multiple enemies at what seems like random. With so many characters, you might think it would be difficult to keep everyone at a respectable level. However, under leveled characters seem to gain bonus experience, allowing them to catch up quickly. Each character has the ability to equip armor from your inventory, but they each have their own unique weapon that can only be upgraded at a blacksmith shop. Characters also need to equip items if they want to be able to use the on other party members. Items are plentiful, though your inventory is very small, and it's very easy to acquire money. Having to spread your equipment around to so many characters can be frustrating, but you have a character at your headquarters that will help you do this more easily. There isn't much more to say here, battle is awesome and preparing for it is fairly streamlined. It's about as well done as a 5th generation RPG can be.
Another major mechanic in Suikoden II comes in the form of your castle. Early in the game, you will liberate an old castle from an enemy and decide to use it as your base of operations. As you recruit characters, your castle will grow bigger and bigger, adding more areas and offering more to do. You can create your own shops and inn, earn funds from food sales at your restaurant and play a variety of mini games. These games aren't required, but most were interesting enough that I actually took some time to play them. For one, you can play a dice game called Chinchiro against some of your colleagues. Anyone from the New York City/Northern New Jersey area will quickly recognize the game by its Western name, but for those who have never played before, Chinichiro is essentially CeeLo (side note, I became massively distracted researching the origins of CeeLo when doing research for this post. Apparently it originated in China?). A video game that allows me to play CeeLo without losing any money? Sign me up. There are other mini-games too, like whack-a-mole and fishing and the fact that I spent some real time playing these when I didn't have to is telling. Even beyond the games, it's fun to just explore and you can learn more about your various party members.
While most of the gameplay takes place in the standard RPG format, there are other segments that offer plenty of variety. Many of your quests will start with tactical segments, where you engage your enemy's army in turn-based strategy style battles. It's no Final Fantasy Tactics, but it's fun and provides something different to break up the monotony. My one big issue here is the game sometimes uses these segments to simply advance the story, which is odd. I don't understand why they wouldn't just use the game's graphics or cutscenes for these, but that is a bit of a nitpick. There are also 1 vs. 1 duel battles, which are cool in theory but feel a bit tacked on. These are pretty easy once you figure out what you are doing, but at least they are cinematic and they really drive home the point of some of the more intense battles. Even if the tactical and duel battles aren't very well fleshed out, they provide something different from the norm and make Suikoden II stand out.
I can't say it's all good here though. I think the pacing here is a little bit uneven. In some respects, that's a good thing. Most RPGs fall into a pattern of town -> random quest -> dungeon -> repeat, which Suikoden II most certainly doesn't do. It's nice that it's different, but sometimes the game has you stuck doing the same kind of tasks for too long. You will visit three or four towns one right after another with little combat in between. Then you will end up in a series of hostile areas, fighting enemies with no end in sight. There are also very few traditional JRPG dungeons, which I found a bit disappointing. It's not an issue for me, but I could see it throwing first time RPG gamers off. My biggest issue though is that it's sometimes difficult to tell what attacks and items do. It's not the worse I have ever seen, but a lot of items or attacks will have secondary text that is just never properly explained. At least you know how much damage attacks do or hit points items heal, but I still can't for the life of me tell what the "toasty" or "boosted" statuses do. It's also a little bit too easy, though I don't necessarily think that's a major problem. At the end of the day, RPGs are about experiencing a story and learning about its characters, so sometimes I think it's better when they are on the easier side. Maybe it's just me, but I think Suikoden II went a little too easy.
Comments
Post a Comment