I'm nearly 20 years late to the party on this game, but I'm glad I finally gave it a shot. Suikoden is a traditional turn-based RPG that possesses the infamous gimmick of containing 108 party members (not all of them are used in the party, but they all become part of your forces). When I've thought about this series in the past, I figured there was no way this could be done adequately. I like media with ensemble casts, but the idea of 108 characters seemed ridiculous. Fortunately, I was very pleased with how the developers handled it in this game. By the end, I didn't feel like too many characters got the short end of the stick. It's true that a lot of them weren't as important as the principle cast, but what's great about Suikoden is everyone has something to contribute. The main characters all fight, the innkeeper heals you, the thieves and ninjas are critical to getting information in castle battles, and so on and so on. Having 108 characters also makes the game great for completionists--there are a lot to people to find, but it's not such a high number that doing so gets tedious, or worse, impossible like in some of the Pokémon games. Although the game is obviously primitive and some ideas are sure to be improved in sequels, I love what it was going for and think the army aspect of the game is pulled off beautifully.
Some of the game's worst problems come down to poor design decisions. Obviously, it's hard to conceive of a system with so many options that feels properly tweaked and fine-tuned, and while Suikoden tries its best, it comes short here. The game is laughably easy; no battle took any kind of planning ahead or tactical know-how to complete. Status magic is unimportant, and most characters are strong enough to hold their own with the materia-like runes the game gives you. The duels and castle battles are also not very engaging: the former requires a guide to play without screwing up and the latter just feel like scripted events after a point. It's great to have the whole army involved in a battle, though, so I can easily look the other way and hope these are improved in the sequels. In truth, the biggest problem with the game is how clunky the interfaces are for assigning runes and passing equipment around. In many ways Suikoden was treading new ground for these systems, but that doesn't make it more fun to deal with a primitive menu nowadays.
Suikoden's story is a little on the generic side, but it kept me engaged. It wisely opens with the introduction of a character (Ted) who is more than he seems and leaves the player wondering about his origins for quite some time. That, combined with how his special rune is so important to the villains, left me curious to know more as I played. On a more negative note, the game relies a bit too much on mind control as a plot device to avoid killing too many of the bad guys. It's nice to add the generals to your entourage after facing them, but it felt pretty cheap from a reader's perspective for them to be forgiven immediately because of magic. The use of this device is a big problem with Final Fantasy IV's story, and it's just as bad here. Late in the game, the story starts taking a darker turn and poses the question of whether Tir (the main character) is doing the right thing by attacking the empire. I enjoy developments like this, but the game doesn't go anywhere with it and ends after defeating the emperor anyway. While that may be addressed in the sequel, I still felt peeved that the plot would bring up an interesting concept and not follow through on it. I should also note that I greatly enjoyed the game's sense of humor. I expected the dialogue to be very serious and not have many light moments, but many of the characters' antics really put a smile on my face. None of the humor felt overdone, just like the kinds of things kids caught up in a war would say.
All in all, I can see why so many think this game is a classic, and it left me wanting to play the rest. Collecting the characters was fun (though some were near impossible to find without a guide) and the game had enough variety in tone and gameplay to keep me engaged the whole way through. If you never played Suikoden, I suggest giving it a try.
7.5
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