Collection essentials #381: Suikoden (PS1)

I have talked so much about Konami already in this series. By the mid-’90s they had made quite a name for themselves, but one genre they hadn’t dabbled in very much was RPGs. They had made Madara 1 and 2 on the Famicom and Super Famicom, games based on a manga series, but that was it. Suikoden was to be their first RPG that would get a worldwide release, and it would be one of the early PlayStation RPGs before a huge tidal wave of them came crashing down.

This RPG is an interpretation of the classic Chinese novel “Water Margin” which was written in the first half of the last millennium. In fact, that’s what the name “Suikoden” means, and I guess a foreign word made for a better title for an RPG than the lame-sounding “Water Margin”. 

I want to comment for a moment on the game’s front cover, as this is one of those amusing examples of when publishers in the ‘90s felt the need to change a game’s box art to be more friendly to American gamers at the time. What you see on the instruction manual there is true official art for the game that served as the front cover in other regions, but the image on the front of the case itself is entirely new for this localization and is of a much different style. Some of the things are based on stuff from the actual game, but some of it isn’t and just seems really random.

The setting of this game is not quite like most other RPGs. It seems much closer to something that could be considered a medieval Oriental  world, I suppose, with some fantasy elements mixed in. But you won't be dealing with any advanced technology or huge super-powerful enemies that threaten to destroy the entire world. You play as a character who is the son of a general in the Scarlet Moon Empire, and you yourself are about to start your career in the army. But before long you realize the evil that lurks among the higher-ups of the empire. You also come into possession of a powerful magical “rune” called the “Soul Eater” which is coveted by many villains in the empire. And so, we get another one of fiction’s many rebels vs. empire stories.

The game has a lot of the basics of a JRPG, such as random battles which are turn-based. You can have up to six party members fight at one time, which is more than average. Formation matters in this game, as the three characters in the back row must be proficient in long-range attacks in order to actually hit the enemy. Magic is in this game when characters wield magic “runes”, though there is no “magic points” system and instead have “spell slots” with a certain number of uses for spells. There are also some special battle scenarios that don’t use this type of combat and instead use a sort of rock-paper-scissors gameplay style 

The biggest thing that sets Suikoden apart from other RPGs is the “108 Stars of Destiny”, a concept from the novel the game is based on. There are over 100 recruitable characters that you can find in this game! Many of them are typical RPG party members that can be used in combat. However, some of them instead don’t fight and instead live at your base and provide some kind of service or resource. It’s pretty cool to see your base slowly populate as the game goes on. A large number of these characters are missable, and certain conditions must be fulfilled to get them. It can be pretty fun to try and “collect” them all, and that’s part of Suikoden’s appeal. Although it would be pretty difficult to find all of them without some kind of guide.

Suikoden’s sales didn’t set the world on fire in any region, but the game still managed to garner a respectable fanbase. Not too many people would consider this game one of the top RPGs on the PlayStation, although to be fair the competition is very strong. When I played through the game, I thought it was pretty good, though it left room for improvement. The game’s 2D graphics aren’t especially impressive, and the character portraits do have their own style, but to me they left something to be desired. 

It’s been very many years since I played through this game as a young teen, though, and I suspect I would enjoy it more if I were to play it again. I think I would grasp and appreciate the storyline more in adulthood. The game’s paced pretty well too, with loading times coming mainly when you’re booting up your game leaving transitions in and out of battles actually being pretty quick. 

The thing that makes this game essential, really, is the direct sequel which I’m going to be talking about next. And it does also help that there’s an Easter egg for this game in Metal Gear Solid if you have its save data on your memory card. 

Someday I’ll likely replay it, and it will be very interesting to see what my impressions are at that time.