Hey there everyone ,

I am as u can probably see a new member to the forum , thow not a new member to the suikoden series fanclub .

I've played Suikoden I and shortly after that game Suikoden II , which was to say I believe the greatest rpg experience I've ever had.
The overall graphics of a tokugawa-era Japan, the superb music , the characters that had so much depth to them , the unbelievable storyline of political deceit and romance , the incredably fun battles and the hours and hours of fantastic dialogue which , sometimes made me laugh , sometimes made me even sad.

Well u get the picture , I'm hung on Suikoden II and I'm still playing it every week ( I bought it 5/6 years ago i think ) , even though i have games like world of warcraft or counter strike source to keep me busy, this is not something a good game does to you , this is something a decent from rpg heavon does to you!

Now to get back to my initial question;

My sister recently bought a PS2 and as you know there have been released some great RPG's for that platform ( the final fantasy series come to mind ), but offcourse, the suikoden series were continued on this console.

Now , there are 3 suikoden games to chose from ; my question is ; which one has the feel-look and sound closest to Suikoden II

Seeing as u all llook like just as much die-hard fans of the suikoden like me i hope i will find my answer here

cheers

Well the one closest to Suikoden II would be Suikoden V. But I think Suikoden 3 is definitely worth playing as well. If you're a Suikoden fan you won't weant to miss out on that game, since it had such an interesting story and characters.

Well, considering you are from Belgium it is quite hard to get a hold of Suikoden III because it never was released outside America and Japan.
Besides the game is good but I would go for Suikoden V, it has a good story and good music which even has some songs from earlier Suikoden games, such as Suikoden II.
If you want the best feeling then Suikoden V is your choice, it is a new and updated Suikoden and yet they placed a lot of older things in it that came from older Suikodens.

Suikoden V is the most near like experience as in Suikoden II. So grab your copy now and start your suikoden adventure again

The only thing bugging me a bit is :

voice acting - something i feel is totally wrong in an rpg game
3d graphics - call me oldschool but i like my rpg's to be 2d

that been said i need a new rpg to play cuz wow is getting boring ( gruul down , up to the next same ol dungeons ) and i need to get pulled into an exciting and moving storyline again

i trust your opinions so i guess suikoden V will be the pick

The voice acting is well done in Suikoden V.
I prefer non voice over as well because when the characters are non voiced then it seems more personal to me. Though if a game has good voice overs (Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater) then I don't mind it at all.

The only thing that was odd to me is that the main hero is still silent and that whenever there is a scene that is pretty important and he is in it and doesn't say anything but only makes some wild movements, then it seems out of place. Like he is stupid and therefore can't talk.

The graphics in Suikoden V are good aswell and you won't be dissapointed. I am a love of graphics either and I'd rather see developers working on a good story then fancy backgrounds (those people that keep telling to read a book should shut up because there is a HUGE diffirence in playing a game and reading a book).

i bought suikoden V and it was good so far and i was planning to buy suikoden IV and III can anyone tell me if they were any good?

ah as to the previous post about the main character being silent the entire game that was a bit of a downer to suikoden V

Suikoden III is a fairly good game, though I prefer the first two and V over this one.
Suikoden IV can be called the 'black sheep' of the series because it had many flaws. It did had some good points but doesn't stand up to the Suikoden standard, most fans dislike it because of that.

Just found a PAL version of Suikoden V , gonna be playing it tomorrow,

kinda excited as it have been te same 2 games that ive been playing for 5/6 years now

You won't be disappointed.
Storywise it takes around 70 hours to complete Suikoden V and that is just a normal playthrough. Of course big maps and lots of random encounters add to that as well, but most people have beated this game around 70 hours.
If you would get all sidequest and 108 characters it will take even longer.

I do have to warn you that there is a very high rate of missing out on characters because a lot of them are timebased and will only be recruitable during certain events or for a certain period of time.
Of course this adds t the replay value, or you can use a FAQ if you do not want to miss out, I am sure there are spoilerfree FAQs on Gamefaqs or so.

Im gonna do the whole 108 stars when ( IF ) i play the game for a second time ; for suikoden II i took the effort , dont know if ill do it for SV

so far looks pretty nice , graphics are kinda sucky but i can live with them , i must say i am suprised how well teh voiceacting is

The graphics are sucky? I know they are not Final Fantasy XII, but they do look pretty good. Trust me that it is a big improvement over Suikoden III which had wobbly heads.
I still prefer the graphics in Suikoden I and II though, but I can't say that the graphics of V are sucky.

Actually compared to three and four, five has the best graphics out of them all. You are used to 2-d and prefer your games that way. This is probably swaying your view. I hated fours graphics the worst of all of the four released on the PS2. They were not horrible persay, but going from three to four the graphics seemed downgraded.

Five is the best one I have played since the second version was released. Although, I do agree with Hiku, the third one is a good game as well. To be honest, I had to play it through twice just to make sure I understood everything correctly and had no problems beating the story. The foruth one, the story seemed rushed. The remaining questions i had was later explained in Tactics though. If your a hardcore Suikoden fan, then don't dismiss the fourth one as a game to pick up though.

Well , u know, when i say sucky i dont mean sucky

i mean that ; for me being used to games like CSS - FEAR - Quake 4 - Oblivion - WoW - etc... this is a huge step down , just takes some getting used to i guess , i know however that i am not gonna let this stop me from injoying the game as a whole !

Suikoden V is definitely the closest to Suiko 2. I like Suiko V more than I even. III is definitely worth your interest, even though its not as good as I, II, and V. we won't talk about IV.

It is indeed no WoW, or CSS or even close to that. But Konami isn't a company that longs for awesome graphics when it comes down to games. Metal Gear Solid did a great job, but that was not Konami's decision but Kojima's decision himself.

Konami is a company that pays a lot of attention to detail and always tries to add as many things as possible.
Also, they are not really that experienced with 3D games because they mainly had 2D games and when it comes down to 3D games they are still rookies.

But you should indeed not let graphics ruin your gameplay. The story is what is important in Suikoden and V is really a good one.

I'm gonna hijack this topic a little...

I just bought Suikoden IV... and so far it's made me appreciate just how great Suikoden V is a lot more. The storyline of Suiko IV had a chance to be good with the whole being exiled business but then you go to some island and the king gives you a massive cave and just randomly tells you to gather people... Wow... could that storyline suck any more? You don't even know why you are gathering people aside from the fact that you have a true rune. Even if there is a better reason behind it that you find out later I'm annoyed at the willingness of the characters "Yeah ok... we'll do that without questioning you AT ALL". Honestly I liked the opening story but it's gone downhill a bit.

I can't express how much I hate over world exploration that bloody boat which turns away from everything automatically and then gets you into 5 random encounters while you can't even control the bloody thing.

I've only just got up to the homebase/cave place so I've got a long way to go but it's not as terrible so far as everyone is making out. It SUCKS having only 4 characters and in Suiko V you could place your characters strategically in formations but sadly in IV that hadn't been thought of yet.

It's not that the graphics in Suiko IV are bad... but everything just looks so empty and it's just badly designed. The battles feel very static but they still work just fine... As with Suiko V, normal battles are quite mundane but boss battles are more fun (Although it's mostly just a case of using your most powerful rune magic.)

Still it's not a terrible game and I'll stick with it (I got it very cheap anyway)... but you definitely made the right decision with Suiko V over Suiko IV

The good thing about Suikoden is that the battle style has stayed the same the entire way through meaning that u can have only played Suikoden 1 but pick up 5 and feel like youve missed nothing cept a few new runes


Voluspa

I feel you mate.
I know how it was when I first played Suikoden IV. I was all anticipated and then it had a nice beginning. Then I saw the running animation of Lazlo and I got a bit scared.
I also found the magic ridiculous, it looked pathetic.
The battle animations are indeed static but I do have to praise the duels, because they are great and it was continued in Suikoden V.

The naval battles are fun as well and remind me of Suikoden II a bit, just far lesser numbers.
Suikoden IV lacks many things, such as a good story, character development and other things.
The worldmap is also ridiculously big for only so few places, sailing takes a lot of time and I do not recall ever being so happy to meet Viki, she'll teleport you AND the ship, like OMG!

I am also very disappointed in your castle....or boat in this case. When I heard that water was going to be very important here and that you'll be gathering the SoD's on a boat I feared the worst and that was a floating fortress...I really dislike that thing.
Plus it looks ugly.

Also, the game had so many pointless characters, such as the mermaids who sold you the same stuff and were all a diffirent shop. So 5 diffirent shops with the same stuff, not even that useful either.
Plus a character to decorate 1 room and 1 room only...what happens to the rest of the ship?
So many flaws and yet I played this game 3 times, because it still has some decency and little spark that could entertain you.

The music is nice in this game as well and even though not my favourite, it has some songs I really like, especially the final boss them which you will hear eventually.