Suikoden V
Fifth time's the charm?
Published: February 3, 2006
Konami did a good thing with Suikoden: they arguably kick-started RPGs on Sony's little wunderconsole. Sure, sure, you could say Final Fantasy VII really got things going, but Suikoden let little 2D sprites dance all over the place and drizzled personality and adventure all over the screen first. In fact, the series stuck with 2D all the way up until the PlayStation 2 -- which is when most feel it started listing rather badly.
Suikoden III finally took the plunge into 3D, and brought with it a host of problems; it ditched the six-party system, made members pair up to do attacks, and reduced the world map to little more than linked points with no real freedom of movement. It wasn't bad, really, the Trinity Sight system that let you experience the storyline from three interweaving points was actually pretty cool, but there are some that would say the magic was lost in the translation.
Suikoden IV took the magic and crapped on it, by most accounts. It again wasn't bad bad (depending on who you talk to), but it screwed up a lot of things; killed the world map for island hopping with paper/rock/scissors random encounters and generally lagged on just about every other part -- making for an utterly mediocre game.
Suikoden V wants to change that. Suikoden V loves you -- or at least the development team does -- and they're willing to go back to basics to redeem the series. At Konami's Gamers' Day 2006 event last week, they were all too happy to point out the series' return to grace. Six-person battle system (with handy-dandy co-op attacks if you so choose), full overworld map, increased difficulty, epic storyline, and those 108 characters (the Stars of Destiny, if you will) that have become the staple of the series.
The story starts with the queendom of Falena -- no, queendom isn't a real name, but Konami is a progressive company with love for the fairer sex and making up new words to prove it comes natural -- a happy, groovy peaceful place. Everyone digs the queen, you're the prince, all is we--oh crap, the normally loyal Lordlake seems to be having a bit of an uprising. No matter, the queen will simply head down there and OH CRAP SHE ROASTED THEM ALL. Queenie tapped into the power of the Sun Rune and more or less fricasseed Lordlake, thus ending the revolt with extreme prejudice.
Zip ahead two years (and where we got some play time in), and it's time to check in on the survivors of Lordlake. Seems they're a bit pissy and understandably filled with the heeby-jeebies for our dear queen. Given that you're the son, you catch a lot of Princely shite. Oops, bad mom, and mommy dearest hasn't been all there in the ol' noggin for a while now, and there's a good chance that the rune -- one of three that keeps things in Falena all honkey dorey -- miiight just be the cause.
So, off you go, checking out the landscape, noting the new faster, zippier battles and the return to the six-party (four on standby) setup -- this time sporting formations that allow you to customize attacks based on how you stack your peeps, like surrounding a magic user or putting long-range attackers at the rear (and you'll get combat bonuses based on the formations too). You'll probably notice that battles are now split between the usually turn-based numminess, some naval duels (hopefully more complex than the last game) and epic near-Kessen level army clashes. You're probably intrigued, as are we.
A mere 10-15 minutes isn't nearly enough time to get into a game like Suikoden V, but we'll have more as soon as we can get our hands on a preview build in the office. Updates then.
Suikoden III finally took the plunge into 3D, and brought with it a host of problems; it ditched the six-party system, made members pair up to do attacks, and reduced the world map to little more than linked points with no real freedom of movement. It wasn't bad, really, the Trinity Sight system that let you experience the storyline from three interweaving points was actually pretty cool, but there are some that would say the magic was lost in the translation.
Suikoden IV took the magic and crapped on it, by most accounts. It again wasn't bad bad (depending on who you talk to), but it screwed up a lot of things; killed the world map for island hopping with paper/rock/scissors random encounters and generally lagged on just about every other part -- making for an utterly mediocre game.
Suikoden V wants to change that. Suikoden V loves you -- or at least the development team does -- and they're willing to go back to basics to redeem the series. At Konami's Gamers' Day 2006 event last week, they were all too happy to point out the series' return to grace. Six-person battle system (with handy-dandy co-op attacks if you so choose), full overworld map, increased difficulty, epic storyline, and those 108 characters (the Stars of Destiny, if you will) that have become the staple of the series.
The story starts with the queendom of Falena -- no, queendom isn't a real name, but Konami is a progressive company with love for the fairer sex and making up new words to prove it comes natural -- a happy, groovy peaceful place. Everyone digs the queen, you're the prince, all is we--oh crap, the normally loyal Lordlake seems to be having a bit of an uprising. No matter, the queen will simply head down there and OH CRAP SHE ROASTED THEM ALL. Queenie tapped into the power of the Sun Rune and more or less fricasseed Lordlake, thus ending the revolt with extreme prejudice.
Zip ahead two years (and where we got some play time in), and it's time to check in on the survivors of Lordlake. Seems they're a bit pissy and understandably filled with the heeby-jeebies for our dear queen. Given that you're the son, you catch a lot of Princely shite. Oops, bad mom, and mommy dearest hasn't been all there in the ol' noggin for a while now, and there's a good chance that the rune -- one of three that keeps things in Falena all honkey dorey -- miiight just be the cause.
So, off you go, checking out the landscape, noting the new faster, zippier battles and the return to the six-party (four on standby) setup -- this time sporting formations that allow you to customize attacks based on how you stack your peeps, like surrounding a magic user or putting long-range attackers at the rear (and you'll get combat bonuses based on the formations too). You'll probably notice that battles are now split between the usually turn-based numminess, some naval duels (hopefully more complex than the last game) and epic near-Kessen level army clashes. You're probably intrigued, as are we.
A mere 10-15 minutes isn't nearly enough time to get into a game like Suikoden V, but we'll have more as soon as we can get our hands on a preview build in the office. Updates then.
