wait this whole time i thought this thread was for programming ('koden as some fun form of coding)
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(I also thought this thread was for programming on first glance.)
Lot’s of hay has been made about Sabin suplexing supernatural vehicles, but Kasumi izuna drops a whole dragon made of bones and I am now just finding out about it with my own eyes.
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Hold up. What’s wrong with the MGS collection? I haven’t played those games and was going to start there.
At launch, there were a whole host of issues on every platform, with Steam and Switch versions being the worst for separate reasons. MGS1 on all platforms had really weird graphic settings that couldn’t be changed at launch.
I played on Switch and had some hard crashes in MGS3 at key points. Also the games on Switch are capped at 30 FPS instead of 60 like the other platforms.
Here’s an outline of the Steam versions at launch, which Konami has since fixed a lot of them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/metalgearsolid/comments/17f8i8i/currently_the_steam_version_of_the_master/
Also, at launch, games weren’t Steam Deck verified but now they are.
On one hand, kudos to Konami for releasing many patches over the months following release and listening to feedback. But on the other hand, why release them in this state in the first place?
All of this is to say, the Master Collection is a lot better now. That’s how I played them most recently. But I got it on sale for Switch. I wouldn’t play it on Switch. But it was a sloppy release. And the aspects of Suikoden HD that feel sloppy, like the music playing at 2x when you speed up battles, reminded me of the initial state of MGS HD collection.
Fan response to the MGS collection was vocal and people were pissed. So Konami fixed many issues. But with Suikoden HD, having read a bunch of reviews, it doesn’t seem like most people are bothered by the things that bothered me. Oh well! Hopefully folks are enjoying the games.
I continued playing Suikoden I on the Vita last night and am enjoying it. The character writing is quite strong. With very little text, each character so far is given a unique personality. But they don’t feel like straight up anime tropes. Is this because it was released in the mid-90s? I suspect so. I understand there are a lot of characters, so I’ll be curious to see how this progresses overtime as more and more get introduced.
I read in the Bitmap JRPG book I have about Suikoden and they recommended a guide to get all characters and the best ending. Never!!! I’d rather miss things and get the bad ending. Guides really change how I play a game in a way I don’t enjoy.
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I see some justified nagging but still, what a week for this thread.
And about MGS, nice timing! Digital Foundry has just released an update on the state of the collection.
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We’re looking to do a club challenge run of the first Suikoden game, and trying to think up a good set of challenge parameters. Any experts want to weigh in?
There’s a natural built-in one, which is to recruit all 108 characters. But that’s more a matter of following a gamefaq though. So idk, maybe something can be done with party composition to make for a challenge
Some nerds in other corners of the internet suggested a run where you can only use party members’ default Runes (or lack thereof), so, no equipping or removing Runes. A similar but more straightforward restriction would be default equipment too (though I’m not sure if that excludes weapon sharpening).
That sounds like the most interesting concept so far to me.
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Yeah, I agree. Sticking to default runes might be the most interesting.
I’m not sure how different the 108 heros are but nonetheless everybody can try to come up with some kind of limitation for their party maybe? Hard to say in advance. But it could be as silly as only using members wearing a certain color. Or do a fire emblem and pretend party members are permadead if they drop to 0HP in a battle?
Other than that I read about limitations like using only “Free Will” which basically means just basic melee attacks for everybody but that sounds dreadful and like it only makes the game grindy and long.
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I had another semi-related idea, where if it was possible to use Let Go at any point, you’d be forced to use it. Which, if I have it correctly, would basically be an overleveling control.
Or perhaps another way to accomplish something similar would be, whenever you’re presented with the opportunity to switch your party composition around (e.g. save points within towns or dungeons, or anywhere on the world map before you enter any new location), you’d be required to fill all slots in the party with your lowest level characters (or anyone tied with lowest lol). So you’d be bringing everyone up no matter what.
I did that while playing Breath of Fire III recently, and though that game has, oh, let’s see, a few less party members than Suikoden, it made me use and understand all of them better.
I like that idea!
It could possibly get a little unwieldy later on in the game but I don’t see a problem with adjusting parameters should we realize it would help with enjoyment while keeping the spirit of the challenge.
It might incentivize intentionally not recruiting characters, which would be funny lol
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Saying this with much affection for it, but, Suikoden kinda plays and feels a lot like a small handful of buddies put their whole heart into making one of the greatest traditional JRPG made in RPG Maker VX Ace ever. Also one of them was a concept artist at Konami and another one was a composer and sound designer, also at Konami.
It’s kinda threadbare! Which isn’t to say that it’s bad, but, I guess my expectations for it were much higher than it could ever have reached, and those expectations had been set by Suikoden II, a game I have built up in my head over the years from never having beaten it but usually getting pretty far in it before drifting away from it. It just all feels like it moves way too fast, especially compared to… at least… the more substantial feeling narrative beats and plot threads of Suikoden II. I mean, how much of the total percentage of a standard play’s run time does it take for the protagonist to stumble into becoming the leader of a revolutionary liberation army, in either game? That’s happening in, like, the first ~15 of Suikoden… with the sequel it feels like there’s so much more, you know, narrative justification for that…
Nevertheless, damn Flik is hot
Like isn’t it hot when bishy boys still got a bit of meat on em?
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I was iust talking with a friend about this. Its hard to go from 2 to 1. I think 1 is good and also very short and breezy and then it brings you to 2 one of the best rpgs of the time its definitely not that great in comparison!
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I don’t want to even remotely suggest I’m not enjoying it or anything, but yeah, it’s really got that feeling of having been made with too few people or with too little time, or with too few people with too little time. Probably doesn’t help that the translation is bad but I can’t really see how the original language version has much time or space to feel more substantial with just so few textboxes even.
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Boy, Suikoden II really is an all-time great, huh…
I’ve surely played the first bit of the game (probably up to the Highland occupation of Muse City, usually, so hardly into the game at all) a handful of times, but as I get further in the game and my memories of what happens become vaguer and vaguer, I am realizing that this is probably the first time I’ve gotten this far in the game since I was going through puberty.
I’m probably repeating much of the existing discussion in this thread, but whatever:
- I don’t want to act like Suikoden wasn’t chill as hell but the jump in quality from Suikoden to Suikoden II in, well, pretty much everything, is mindblowing. The narrative in particular is so much more fleshed out and has exquisite pacing, which both has sections where things move at a blazing pace, and then other sections where things are left to stew until they boil over, and both ways are handled well.
- I know this has already been mentioned back when I was really only a hanger-on to the discussion, but I greatly appreciate how grounded and concerned with materiality, both social and even just logistical, the whole fiction of the game is. It makes Suikoden II really stand out in a genre that is awash with plucky teens of destiny using various configurations of deus ex machina to confront existential threats to the world when Suikoden II is like “of course you can’t just disembark from your boat on some random shoreline, you need to be able to dock the boat at a port.” An invader’s intentions can be determined from how much provisions they have brought with them, the loyalty of conscripted soldiers from occupied city states will be fickle, racial tensions can be stirred up and taken advantage of with a fake peace treaty, that sort of thing. There is some Child of Destiny stuff but it is very understated and I really think it works very well.
- Like @tapevulture said in their first post it is instantly charming to see a sprite set that is used exactly once, and it really speaks to the level of care and attention that went into this game.
- I wonder if it was Suikoden II after all that instilled this fascination in me with Stunning Military Strategies and Dramatic Turnarounds. I absolutely love the Zhuge Liang (courtesy name Kongming) type of guy and I pretty much never get tired of seeing what the next Battle of Red Cliff is gonna be. Because I am just about to start the Greenhill section I feel I still have a good number of dramatic twists and turns to come.
- The music is so, so good. The music for Suikoden was fantastic too, actually. My favourite kinda shit is when the melodies and instrumentation invoke things like Celtic folk songs, where of course the instant association for me is rebel music, spiked with a little bit of medieval flavour (though I suppose that’s consistent with Celtic folk music too). To me the simple instrumentation in Those Who Work Must Eat, or one of the tunes that plays in the Mercenary Fortress near the beginning of the game and other tracks in the game like it, evokes things like bodhran or the use of tambourine and pipe instruments in military contexts. Very cool. Tiocfaidh ár lá, Luca Blight.
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