Collection essentials #382: Suikoden II (PS1)

Here we have what is probably Konami’s most revered RPG. It’s a direct sequel to the first game, taking place a few years later, and you’ll see some familiar faces, but you play as a different main character and there are a lot of newcomers. You start out as a young member in the army of a kingdom called Highland. But turns out the prince of Highland is up to no good and wants to carry out a bloody invasion, so you and your best friend Jowy flee, and get involved with some mercenaries including a couple familiar faces from the first game, and the plot takes off. 

Suikoden II has much in common with the previous game. There are again over 100 characters to recruit and a base for them to live in. The basics of battle are quite similar, with some tweaks such as being able to equip up to three runes simultaneously. There are also occasional grid-based strategy battles that more resemble a game like Fire Emblem. 

You can really see an extra level of polish when compared to the first game. When you see the improved graphics and artwork, you right away feel like this game is an improvement, and upon spending time with the game you’ll find that indeed it is. Most importantly, the story and characters are better and more memorable this time around. The cruel prince of Highland, Luca Blight, is a very good villain, something that is quite a boon in an RPG. 

One cool feature is the fact that you can load your data from the original Suikoden for various bonuses, such as returning characters getting benefits and some new dialogue being unlocked. I love it whenever sequels do stuff like this.

The game’s localization, unfortunately, is a bit disappointing, and there are various spelling errors to be found. I’ve definitely seen worse in an RPG, but you’d think Konami by the late ‘90s would be on top of that sort of thing.

I’d like to talk about more specifics in Suikoden II, but I’m afraid this is also a game that I haven’t played through in very many years and is one that definitely deserves revisiting. 

This game wasn’t a commercial success, which is not a huge surprise given the enormous amount of RPG competition on the PlayStation. This game launched around the same time as Final Fantasy VIII, which was highly anticipated and boasted (what were then) impressive 3D graphics. But fans raved about its quality and this game certainly became one of the most revered RPGs on a console that had a whole lot of them.

In 2005, I wanted to collect all the good PlayStation RPGs, and I wanted to seek them out at GameStop stores since their prices were typically better than eBay. I was able to use their “store locator” feature on their web site to find out which stores had certain RPGs in stock. Not very many stores had Suikoden II due to high demand and low supply. Around this time (especially since I couldn’t drive yet) my dad was awesome and supported me in this endeavor. I saw that there was a store probably roughly an hour or so down south, and I think my dad was going in that general direction anyway one day so he stopped by that GameStop in hopes of finding the game. When he came home, he gave me the apparent bad news that somebody had bought it. Well, come that next Christmas, guess what I opened? Suikoden II! HE was the one who had bought it! That was one cool Christmas surprise. Unfortunately it didn’t come with the instruction manual, but I found one shortly afterward on eBay for a very reasonable price. The copy shown in the photo is the same one from back then.

As of this post, an HD remaster of Suikoden I and II is soon slated for a release on modern platforms, making these games much more accessible in modern times! If you like RPGs, I definitely suggest you consider supporting that release. 

I love Konami and a good RPG, so Suikoden II is an easy pick as an essential. And there may be more good times ahead between me and this game as I intend to play it someday in adulthood.