Ok, I know there have been several topics like this one and if theres an active one still up somewhere (less than a page away I mean) just close this one please.

Anyway, I was just curious as to what features would you guys want in a new suikoden. I mean, of course we know your gonna have a growing HQ and at least 2 or 3 new True Runes reveiled but what else would you like to see make a comback from past Suikodens. Or, if its a feature that has been in all of them but changed in each one (the blacksmith or HP for instance) what would you do to it in this one?

HQ: First and formost, I like myself a growing HQ. Not like that crap in 4 that didn't really grow, just kinda filled in slots, I'm talking something like in Suikoden 2. Your HQ in 2 really GREW!! I mean, what did they have, Ninja Dwarves or something? You go from having this little mansion-sized house to a full on mini town. Sure, Suikoden 1 had a good growth too it as well and 3 filled out pretty well too but it was still more a fill in the blanks kinda thing. I understand that this is simply a visual thing and really has nothing to do with the gameplay at all but it made you feel...accomplished I suppose. When you saw your castle truely expand and grow due to your efforts in collecting stars, it makes you feel special. Well, makes me feel that way at least.

Cooking Contest(S2): Yep...I know. Some folks might not have felt it was fun but I friggin loved it. It was hilarious, really gave you a reason to collect those recipies and it was just down right fun. Of course, I'd liek to see a bit more interactivness with it was fine in its original state.

Playhouse(S3): >.> For those of you who've played...you know there is just something awe inspiring about seeing Chris as Juiliet in Romeo and Juiliet...ok, not really but its so damn funny I nearly cried first time I saw it. I'd love to see a comback of this. It was a seriously fun event and, if they pumped a few more scripts in, I think you could spend even more hours of your life in there.

Skill System (S3 and 5): I really liked the skill system. It really made you capable of customizing a character or pumping up stats that already made them uber. In a way, it made it to where all combat characters could at least be decent in battle so if you had a character who's personality or attack style you liked but they sucked stat wise, you could fix it and make them usable. I think a nice cross between the S3 and S5 system would be nice. Like, having multiple slots like in 3 with more slots and perminate skills coming on as you level up BUT, having the options to dump your extra skill points into a party pool for use with other characters. Yea...that'd be great.

Duels(S5): I know the duels weren't really changed that much in the past ones but there was something about the instilation of the timer that added a sense of urgency that I really liked for some reason. It just made it a bit more fun. Also, I'd like for there to be people in your castle that allowed you to do duel and strat battles whenever you wanted. Like how Elenor in 4 would let you do trial strat battles when you wanted for small prizes if I remember properly. I've always love the strat and duel battles so giving you the option to do them when you wanted would be really fun.

10 man party(S5) Yea....its a bit of overkill but it was still great to have 10 folks in your party at a time. Ok, only 6 could fight at a time but it really gave you a lot more freedom and usage.

Formations(S5): These just add a lot more depth to the classic random battle. Granted, it wasn't a huge leap forward by any means but it was still something fun to fiddle with and get the hang of.

Walkable World Maps(S1,2,5): Yea, I complain about this in a lot of games but I miss the old walkable world map. Just spending hours traversing the area looking for new things to discover and mess with (>.> before your suppose to know they exist mind you). That was always fun for me. In 3, they took that away and in 4...you still KINDA had it but it was so damn annoying sailing everywhere to fill up the map and make sure you didn't miss anything. In 5...they have it but its limited by all the damn rivers and stuff that you have to take a boat to cross. So yea, I'd like a nice open area with lots of little nuggets to find.

well, thats my rant.

108+ characters
HQ and mabye more HQ customization..
6 characters per party..
skill system

the usual

HQ

Of course this has to grow. It has been done, ever since Suikoden I and thus should remain. I do hope that they will refer to the Suikoden II castle, as it really felt as you were building something, with the new shops and all. Also the fact that this game had the stars wander around for the first time. Suikoden V had a huge castle and it was too big, especially with the loading times. Also, the fact that you had cutscenes, showing an automatic update was kinda odd.

Mini-game
As max said, the cooking contest should return. This is by far the most enjoyable and interesting games I have seen, within a game. I think many fans, if not all, will agree with this. The cooking contest is fun and must return.

Interactivity
A thing I always miss in Suikoden, is the interactivity with the castle. There is nothing to do with the castle itself, apart from walk around and see what has changed and talk to cats (who say "ho humm"), npcs and SoDs.
The castle itself doesn't do anything. A good example is the scope in the tower in Suikoden II, where you can see the castle.

Farm
This might sound stupid, but I liked the farm. I liked that you could collect animals and seeds for the farm. Sure, they had little importance, as they provided food for your restaurant, which you hardly used, apart from the cooking contest, but it was still fun to see what you had collected.

Duels
They have to come back, I mean they have been another Suikoden thing. They were majorly improved in Suikoden IV and Suikoden V took the step even further.
However, I always find it that there aren't enough duels. So, again as max said, you should be able to play training matches. To make it even better, all characters that can be in your party should be able to compete. This can bring more variety into the game, as well as more things to explore.

Difficulty
This is a thing I always wanted for Suikoden. Overall, the games aren't that difficult. Sure, there are challenging parts, but I can't say that the games ever caused me much trouble. I think they should be more difficult, or at least add a hard mode option to it. It can't hurt to do so. Also, maybe a bonus dungeon would be nice, as that hasn't been done before, or maybe some unlockables. RPGs tend to have a crappy replay value.

Story
Overall, the stories should be close together, no off shoots like Suikoden IV. We'd love to see returning characters, returning places and even just names.
This is a very nice nostalgic feeling. Heck, maybe even have Suikoden games released over here that cross between two events of Suikoden. Think Suikogaiden, but sort of like Odin Sphere.
I also reveal some light on the mysteries of Suikoden.
Before the director and his team left near the end of the Suikoden III production, he mentioned that Pesmerga and Yuber were too important to reveal their identities before the final game. Please, reveal their identity at some point, as well as Jeane and Viki, although the latter ain't really difficult, but some background info would be nice.

i actually agree on the farm idea, i thought it was just something extra where sure it didnt have really any importance but it was fun to keep up with the farm. Give players a lot of options on activites to participate in that dont even have anything to do with the game, just fun stuff to do here and there.

ill also elaborate a bit on my HQ customization... I'd like to see things where mabye you could build buildings, mabye when you recruit a cook, you can pick where the kitchen is in your castle, stuff like that. I know that might be kind of hard especially if story events happen in buildings that you placed where you wanted, but it would give each person's castle a look of its own. Mabye give an option of where to build your castle, like give you 3 locations and you can choose what best fits your style, etc.

I couldn't agree more about the castle customization, like Voyou described. It's one idea I've been thinking of and wishing for the Suikoden series for a while now.

That's all I have to say at the moment, but I should have more to say later. Just too much thought and time required for me to do so right now, haha. So yeah, expect a better (and probably gargantuan) response sometime later.

The Playhouse? I totally forgot about that in Suikoden III. That was fun and totally hilarious. I had one with Chris in a Shakespeare type play. Watching her struggle through the lines and her robotic motions were pretty damn fun.

Give me the ability to sharpen my weapons and to increase my skills and I will be totally happy. Those are my favorite technical aspects of the game besides the story. Some abilities to customize or equip different weapons would be a great and rather new idea.

I can't believe nobody mentioned this.

Tactics Battle(S2) : How could we not forget about this wonderful feature in S2!

For me the next Suikoden has to be a pivotal role in the Suikoden universe, or else I'll probably abandon the series. That sounds bad and I'll get flamed for not being a true fan of the series, but it really is true for me.

The creators clearly had a PLOTLINE in mind as shown thru Suikodens 1, 2, and 3. Leknaat, Luc, Hikusaak, (Luc and Hikusaaks roles), the Silverbergs, the Northern Continent Wars ALL had something in common with each other in the broad scheme of where the series storyline was going.

I need the next game to continue that, or at LEAST be some kind of cornerstone for the rest of the franchise. At this rate the series is going to take forever, and if thats the case then sadly, I could see the fanbase dying off as well (Seeing as the Suikoden fanbase is minimal in comparison to other RPGs).

If it's going to be some noname Island with some internal political conflicts and 1 true rune introduced with some random appearance of Viki and Jeane, then I'm gonna have to ditch the series. It's just taking too long, and as AWESOME as Suikoden 5 was, I fell in love with the Suikoden series because of 1, 2, and 3, not because of 4, Tactics and 5.

And there's a lot of pressure on them for this, which is good, because they're taking their sweet ass time too, which I REALLY hope means they're making it quality.

After playing Persona 3 (Which I consider the best game I've ever played), I really want to see Suikoden get back to its DEEP Story and DEEP character roots. That was a CRITICAL component of P3 in terms of making realistic, believable, lovable characters that made you share their sadness and fears, which in turn made a science fiction plot very lovable and very believable.

If Suikoden could pull something off like that with a REALISTIC time of war, it would be a very touching game on a level that most games don't achieve.

In terms of gameplay, I'd love to see a huge HQ with TONS of mini-games (Farming, fishing, card games, racing games again, quests, and extras like the Suggestion Box and whatnot). I'd also love to see a more intricate battle system of Tactical Battles and real-time battles. I liked FF12's system of battle (not with the gambits) necessarily, but being able to SEE your enemy. The 3 games I can think of that were like that are Chrono Cross, FF12, and P3, where you could SEE your enemy and initiate battle. I prefer that system SO MUCH more than the random battles.

There are a lot of little things I'd LIKE to see, whether or not they're realistic is different. But bottom line: This game will make or break my fandom.

1> cooking contests. after playing S2, it's just stuck their at the top of my list. it doesn't have to have a story like that in S2, just a cook who's confident about his skills and opens up a challenge.

2> Duels. a great aspect of the game, just so rarely and infrequently used. [i only remember half a dozen duel in S3 and S5.] I think it'd be cool of during the map battles, if main forces outnumber a main enemy force, the two would dual instead of just wipin' em out.

3> difficulty. make it like in Valkyrie Profile, if you play the normal mode, the characters that join have a set level. if hard mode, the enemy- especially the bosses- tougher, even map combat relies on the combined strength of your troops. and there's the kicker- when you recruit someone, they're level is proportional to yours.
[in S5, when i recruited Richard (just before Lelcar), i was level 35 and he was level 50... made some fights really easy.]

4> more Maximillan Knights.

Oh oh oh! I think I know what your talking about. Have you ever played a game called Sky's of Arcadia? Well if you haven't, there comes a point in the game where you get your own base. nothing near as extravegant as a Suikoden base but still, its a base none the less. Anyway, in the game you get 2 carpenters, a dwarf and a chick from an asian-ish country. When you talk to them, they give you the option to change the look of various portions of your base to fit their countries home style. I think that'd be really kickass. Nothing major, just a few different skins for the areas and what not. That'd make it sooooo damn cool. To truely have a base that is your own.

Oh,and I remembered something else. Remember the statue room in S3. Where you could put in various statues and a giant one and get different little useless effects (like the screen'll change color while your int he room or something) I think a combination of that and the Guardian statue from 2 would be fun. Making your own guardian diety for your flag as well as getting a free item if you make the right combination of items.

I don't think thats going to far at all really. When you play such great games as Suikoden 1, 2, and 3 and see how well they link and mesh together and work to strengthen each others story, it makes you want to play the others (say if you started at 2 like I did. ) When I found 1 in a local game store(ment condition no less) for only 30 bucks, I nearly freaked man. >.> I was broke and went into my savings account to get it. I was NOT gonna let a gem like that get away from me. And god if I wasn't happy I did.

But I digress. In all truth, I think you have a valid point in that the games have started to taper off. 4 was a horrid example but I think they're trying to come back around with 5. At the very least you have to admit that 5 went a long way towards trying to gather up that hell known as 4 with the rest of the series. I think if they keep on the trend they are going, they'll be just fine but they do need to hammer out a seriously killer plot for the next one.

Although, I do have one thing to mention. When you see all the hell that Prince from S5 goes through by the end of the game, if he had just walked off into a corner and took a good 5 minutes to cry, would you really have been mad at him? I mean, sure, we don't want whiny main characters but till, if you knew your parents were dead, your sisters being held hostage, your branded a traitor, betrayed by like 50 folks including your own aunt, and having the fate of the world dumped on your shoulder cause a damn rune decides it likes you...thats a lot of #####.

no i havent played that game but yes something like that is what i am going for...now if this was a ps3 game *crosses fingers* i would think it would be cool to let you add in stuff from mabye your ps3 harddrive. Like instead of putting some random picture up on your castle wall, mabye put a picture from your ps3 HD. Little stuff like that would just make the game different for every player in a good way.

would also like to see them mabye take a page from Persona 3 and have relationships. Like mabye have it where you could build special relationships with certain players somehow and by doing that, you could learn combos between those two players. Like mabye you hang out with this girl or guy and you grow your bond together and after a certain bond lvl you obtain a combo attack. Now i dont mean to make it a dating sim like Persona 3 was, I mean that you as a leader are building friendships and whatnot with your followers.

Well, I guess I can squeeze out some ideas now. Will probably still have more to add later. Just to note, though, this isn't my idea of "the perfect Suikoden," but simply things I want to see as new or returning features.


Headquarters

Customization: As I said before, I would love to be able to customize your castle, in the sense of selecting where to place the shops and such. I'm sure this would probably have a huge impact on the loading times around the castle, but personally, I wouldn't mind, if they're not much worse than Suikoden V's. If it's for the sake of a well-done castle customization, I'd gladly pay that price. It's really a hassle sometimes, when you have to run, like, 3-5 screens away just to buy some new armor or sleep/save, so being able to pick where you want your shops and whatnot could really help there. Plus, of course, the simple concept of the customization is great to have as an extra, and as others have said, it adds a sort of uniqueness to each player's experience around the HQ. I imagine something along the lines of Dark Cloud's town-building system would be swell.

Growth: I, too, really liked the gradual "growth" of the headquarters in games like Suikoden II. I liked watching even the town sprite on the world map grow as you progressed. The upgrades in Suikoden V were somewhat lame, since there were only 2-3, and the slow camera pan was just kind of annoying, really. Of course, I loved exploring the expansions afterwards, but I just preferred the frequency of expansions in some of the previous titles.
On a somewhat related note, I'd like to have a headquarters more like in Suikoden II and III. North Window and Budehuc had more of a town-y feel to them, rather than simply a big castle. I really loved the feeling of running your own whole town/city, and the idea made things seem much more open than just a castle (or colossal ship, in IV's case).

Interactivity: Like Pes said, more interactivity would be great to have. Even if it's just something little like the watchtower from Suikoden II. The decorations that were introduced in Suikoden III were great, though I would love to see more of that in a larger-scale headquarters. Suikoden V had a few things, though not nearly enough, IMO.
- I really like the statue idea from Suikoden II, and was really glad to see that Suikoden V brought it back, and even added two more, for best healer and most damage dealt. ...Though the statues were in a really odd place in Suikoden V. If you didn't explore the lowest floor much, you probably wouldn't even know they were there. That sort of thing should be, like, in the strategy room or something, if you ask me. Somewhere you'll be able to see them often, without going out of your way to do so. The statues are a must-return feature for me. In fact, I'd like to see one or two more, if possible.
- Y'know what, let's just go Smash Bros.-style and get a whole set of "trophies" while we're at it! That would be great, and would add a ton of extras value. Being able to choose where to put them on display would add to the interactivity of the castle, as well. If you ask me, trophies are simply an awesome idea for Suikoden. Give us something special for completing a mini-game in record time, or hey, for collecting all 108 Stars of Destiny. (Having a full tablet to view is nice, but I think a specialized trophy to represent your accomplishment would be even better.)

Mini-games:
- IRON CHEF. Bring it back. Now. I've gone over this so many times before, but it was just such an awesome idea. It was fun to play around with, and gave you so much more of a reason to collect recipes (as well as the condiments). Not to mention aiming to actually earn some of the better recipes. A lot of those were actually pretty useful in battle. (It was also hilarious having some that resulted in Fire magic being used in battle. XD)
Really, that's the only specific one I want to return. I actually enjoyed pretty much all of the mini-games in Suikoden II. The Whack-a-Mole game at the farm was pretty intense, and a good excuse to give you the Mole equipment set. The rope-climbing game was simple, but fun for what it was, and some of the rewards were great. (Only way that you could collect any of the Unite-support accessories, I believe.) The fishing was okay, though Suikoden V did a nice job with improving it, I think. ...Well, okay, let's add this one, too:
- Chinchirorin. (The game with the three dice.) Again, a pretty simple game, but I always had fun with it, and it was a nice way to try for some extra cash. Suikoden IV actually added a bit of a twist to it, offering two or three games to play with the dice, which was nice (though I always stuck with the game used in the previous titles).
Most of the mini-games that involved cards/tiles were always quite fun, so I'd love to see more of those show up again, as well. A new(-ish) game that I would like to see, though, is one that's been brought up already (by Pes, I think):
- Duels. One of the three forms of combat that the series is known for, and the recent improvements have been awesome. (Especially in V. Loved the full-motion attacks, as well as the countdown.) There never seem to be enough of these, though, so a mini-game featuring them would be awesome. Hey, let's take after the training dojo from Suikoden IV. Only, this time, have it based on duels. Especially if we're to ask for fully-animated scenes like we saw in Suikoden V, I won't ask for every character to be an option, but at least most of the melee-types. It'd also be amazing if you could not only choose from these characters as opponents, but as playable characters. On that note, why not take after Suikoden V's chess/checkers with Egbert? Whoever you defeat in a duel will be unlocked as a playable character in the training duels.
- Dojo. Since I mentioned the training dojo from Suikoden IV, I'd like to see something like this again, as well. While it was somewhat of a cheap way to level up (especially with the level 99 trick), it was still a grand idea, if you ask me. Let's just have a dojo in our headquarters again, where we can choose to either duel or spar with full-party battles. Sounds nothing less than awesome, to me. Who's with me on this?

Battle

Party Battles:
- Six members. I won't settle for less than this "standard." With the exception of IV, the series has kept this, and I would like them to continue to do so. Aside from just being a unique trait of the series, with so many characters, having a nice-sized party like this is practically common sense. I just ask that the enemies are able to put up a good fight against such a party.
- Formation. While the formation has always been a part of these battles, Suikoden V introduced a whole new aspect of the party formations. I would absolutely love to see these formations reappear in coming titles. The concept as a whole was just awesome, and I don't think I would change any of it. The only different idea I would think of is a free formation, where you could choose exactly where to put any characters. (Maybe throw this in as an unlockable later in the game.)
- Entourage. As far as an actually useful entourage goes, Suikoden III technically introduced this idea, with its support characters. Suikoden IV kept the idea, and Suikoden V brought it a step or two further: Rather than just one support character, you had four extra slots to fill with your choice of support/bonus characters and/or extra characters that could be swapped in mid-battle, taking after a great idea seen in titles such as Final Fantasy X. Again, would be overjoyed to see this return, and I pray that it does. (Again, I hope the difficulty of the battles will actually give us more of a reason to take advantage of this feature, though.)
- Another idea, similar to the entourage: A whole extra party that can be swapped. One again, this would only be good if the game's difficulty actually calls for something like this, but if the difficulty is high enough, then I think it'd be an awesome idea. (Personally, I'd prefer that if one party is wiped out, the others don't automatically replace them. That would make things too easy, despite it making more sense.)

Duels: See Suikoden V. I think they did it just about perfectly. Also, the training duels I mentioned as a mini-game would be terrific.

Full-scale War: Suikoden V, once again, really impressed me here. I had plenty of fun with Suikoden II's strategic battles, but Suikoden V's introduction of an active battle was great, I think, and the features provided were all pretty great. I'm not sure I would change much here, but if Konami can think of something better, then by all means, I would love to see what they have in store for us.


I suppose that's enough for this post. I've got some other things, such as character customization and such, but I'll save that stuff for a later post (seeing as this one's already pretty huge).

Wow...dude that's a pretty kickass list. I like it. You got a lot of ideas that I really agree with as well.

HQ Customization: Going to this, I like where your going with the Dark Cloud system. It'd be really cool if like you got little bonuses for putting things close to each other. Like if you put the resturant close to the farm then the prices would drop. Or if you put the inn close to the bath house, your characters automatically take a bath before bed and wake up with the toasty status without you having to get into the bath yourself. Little extras to help out like that. And again, we could use the idea from the Guardian Statue in S2 where the first one you build gives you an item. Maybe when you get certain shops and put them in the right order the first time you collect all of them, you get a special...prize from the shop owners. You don't have to keep them in that formation. Its like this, say you get the Weapon, Armor and Item shops already. Now the chain requires that you also need the Trade shop to finish it up. When you get the trade shop and come back home, they ask you "Where would you like to put the shop" you can move the others around and set them up, get your item and then put them where you like.


Duels: Yea, now I think that'd be fun. I do believe it'd take too much memory to do battle animations for EACH and EVERY combat character as well as voice overs. But there are some folks I'd like to see. THe hardest one, I think, would be Jeane. Hear me out: Obviously she has low defense so a few good hits would take her out no problem. But it's figuring OUT what she's gonna do thats gonna mess with your head. They get the voice actress to record 1 voice over of her laugh. They play it for each and every saying she has. The only way to determine what she's gonna do is to pay close attention to the text. Like if she laughs and has the three dots, shes gonna defend. If she has exlimation points behind it, then she's gonna do a super. Get the idea?

Also, on another note, I think they should keep the same amount of Duels in the game. Life or death duels I mean. I do want to do training duels whenever I like but if they made it to where all the duels, even the ones in homebase were possible gameovers, it'd cheapen them to me. Now also, what this means is that, if the regular duels can be used for training, they should definitly increase the difficulty of the real ones.


Dojo: I think the dojo would be great if they didn't make it so cheap to level like in 4. If they fixed it properly, it'd definatly kick ass.



Extra stuff: Maybe even allowing you to select your own flag would be cool. Just small stuff like that. I like the idea someone had about putting in your own pictures from your harddrive for the pictures in the game. That'd be great. And maybe, just maybe they could expand on the idea that they had in Suikoden 4 about the one room that you got to completly decorate. now, I don't want to completly decorate my whole castle, that'd take to much time (but if it didn't take away from the game time and story, I'd love it) But maybe make a bigger room the focus. Like one of the main rooms you constantly go through(main hall for instant)

Wow, somehow, I forgot about that room. Yeah, agreed, I've been wanting an improved version of something like that ever since its appearance in IV. Of course, no big deal if it's not there ever again. It's just something neat to have. I mean, come on, who doesn't wanna go out to slay some tough optional boss just for a leopard-skin sofa? XD

in S5, you could decorate the prince's room, with a couple painting, plants, and vases... and put various statues on the pedastals [though, i only ever found the Angel bust]. a system like S3's would be better- ya'know hang paintings, and place plants or vases... and i'm not including the one 'trophy' room.

i wouldn't mind the return of the play house. could be something like the dancer's stage in S2, where you could dance with her and get a trophy. that'd add more to the interactivity of the castle.
heck, why not bring back the travelling minstrels? i don't remember any in S5 [and i'm not including Cornelius]


6> return of the bath scenes. i found the Nikea/Bernadette/Zerase and the Lelei/Eresh/Chun Min bath scenes

7> return of Treasure monsters.

8> weapon/rune slots... i never used those status ailment runes because a> the rarely worked, b> they more often backfired and affected the character.

LESBIAN!

and the Nikea/Bernadette/Zerase doesn't have that stigmata?

Nope, and for very good reason. Lelei has already proven that, if given the chance, she'd hop Lucretia's bones in a heartbeat. So you take that and couple it with two young, impressionable girls...well ok, 1 young impressionable girl and 1 unknown factor who might be so old that she doesn't mind taking up the whole sexual exploration thing. Mix that all together and you got the set up for one good old fashion lesbo orgy.

However, with Nikea/Bernadette/Zerase ...well Nikea...and I hate to say this cause she's one of the few black folks in video games but...well she'd be too busy tryin to get something to eat. And she already proved earlier in the game that she's straight(freaking out at learning what the purpose of the Sacred games was). Bernadette...while she looks like she might be a lesbo (she's kinda butch don't ya think?) she hits on the main character enough to let you know she's at least bi. And last but not least...Zerase is so ##### annoying there's no way in hell anyone, gay or straight, would want to bang her unless she steals Jeane's Charm rune and uses it on them.

Oh, forgot that I wanted to add more in here. May as well do so now, while I remember to (and have nothing better to do).

Rune Slots: Up to three is a must at this point. The series started with only one rune per character, which even without playing the others, I imagine must've been as annoying as if you had played the others beforehand. (Look at characters like Kasumi and Stallion, who have permanent runes, yet enough Magic to be decent mages earlier on.) However, as much as I love having the full three slots, I'm not sure what to think of how often characters had all three in Suikoden V. Having all three slots used to be a sort of special treat, mostly for casters, and specially customizable characters like Killey and Sheena in Suikoden II, but in V, there were so many characters that were able to be so jacked up thanks to rune slots. The only case in which I wouldn't mind having more characters with all three in future installments is if the difficulty of the game is brought up to match the strength characters could be given through runes. Otherwise, I'd rather have most characters with only one or two, except those special few.

Skills: I loved the system in Suikoden III, so I was overjoyed to see that it was returning in some form or other in Suikoden V. I'm not sure if I favor one over the other, but the general idea of having skills is great, especially since it helps to make the characters more diverse. (And, in some cases, more similar, when you want some hybrid characters.) Again, though, I only want this to return if the difficulty of the game is brought up beyond that of V's, so that skills will actually be of more use. I think I would rather have skills like the ones in Suikoden III, though, simply because I kind of prefer the idea of skills directly affecting counterattack rate, shield defense, and whatnot, rather than increasing characters' stats. I guess some sort of combination of the two would be nice.

Unite Attacks: I'm always happy when there are more of these, though I would prefer if they were more diverse. Suikoden V had tons of 2-person 1.2x damage attacks, and most others were just 0.5x damage to all or something like that. They were mostly the same effects, y'know? I'd like to see some that use weaker characters, but have higher multipliers, and ones that affect a group of enemies or all enemies, but also have chances of inflicting certain status effects or something. Just having similar damage multipliers, with not much else, is kinda lame, if you ask me. It also kinda discourages you from using many different characters. ...And on the note of damage multipliers, yet again, I need to bring up the difficulty level. Don't make ridiculously powerful unite attacks, made up of some of the game's most powerful characters, with high damage multipliers. If the characters are already powerful, then make the multiplier lower than some others, but high enough to still be effective. Overall, I would just like to see a lot of changes made with unite attacks, because they could do so much more with them. (Things like elemental damage and status effects would be great to throw in here.)
Also, each game usually has an attack performed by two of the game's better/best mages, which deals damage based on their magic stats. However, as far as I've seen, this attack is nearly useless in most of the games. I'd like to see them do something interesting with this one. Either amplify the damage effect in some way or other, or add something special to it, like a status effect or elemental damage.
One thing Suikoden V made me happy with was the fact that the main character had a few unite attacks (though mostly centered around the knights), rather than only one or two, like in previous games. I'd love to see them carry this over into other games, as I feel the main character is often very left out of the fun of unite attacks.

Weapons: Suikoden V failed miserably when it came to weapons. Not only did they make almost all characters way too powerful at higher levels, but all weapons were extremely similar in attack power. Even several mages had rather high physical attack power if you sharpened their weapons. I mean, it's nice that they were able to actually be of use physically, but they were a bit too powerful physically, since magic is supposed to be their strength. More diversity in weapon attack power, please.
Also, I'd really like to see the return of embedding runes into weapons, from Suikoden II, or something similar to it. The status effect runes are simply a waste of rune slots if they're kept as regular runes, especially since they rarely even work. Also, while Magic Sword runes are a nifty idea, and I liked where they were going in Suikoden V, they're ultimately sort of useless. (From what I remember, they were somewhat decent in Suikoden III, though.) Perhaps make something similar to the Rune Pieces from the original Suikoden (and IV, I believe), where you could use items to add effects to your weapons. If something like this returns, though, I'd rather such items be more common, and I'd like to have the option to remove the effects at some point. Was annoying only having a few of them, and then being stuck with them after you used them. Otherwise, I like the idea of gradually increasing the effect by using more of the items. Just for that reason, I think I might actually prefer this idea over the whole weapon rune idea. I'd be fine with either, though.

Uhh, that's all I can think of at the moment. Just for emphasis: DIFFICULTY. Lol. Suikoden V was an awesome game, but it was just too unbalanced. Specifically, enemies need to be much more powerful. (The HP values of many bosses in the game were pitifully low, considering the kind of damage you were able to deal. Especially in the final boss's case.)
If I think of anything else, I'll be back.

Hmmm ahh yes the weapons. All those 'weapon effect' runes that almost always backfired in V were so much better in the earlier installments and really helped out a lot. I'd like a return of that.


so let me try asking a different question. As we've seen in previous suikodens, some unique runes do make reapperances (not neccisarily True Runes but unique ones none the less). So, can you think of any runes you'd like to see more of or less of? Or even better, can you think of any ideas for True Runes?

All of them backfired? The only one I recall having a backfire effect was Venom, which... I think it was a more effective poison effect than Poison had, but it just had the drawback of a 20%-or-so chance of also poisoning the user. I don't recall any of the others having negative effects... Unless you're also talking about ones like Titan, which sealed its ability and Slowed (I think) the user?



I liked the way the Angry Dragon Rune in Suikoden II worked for Oulan. 2x damage, but only once per fight. However, while Berserk, it had unlimited uses. Of course, runes like Falcon and Shrike had unlimited uses anyway, but I kinda prefer having some sort of effective restriction placed on such runes. On that note, I'd like to bring up Zamza's Fire Dragon Rune as well, which amplified damage against one foe, but backfired a percentage of the damage (as fire damage, which could be reduced through resistance), so it discouraged the player from using it too much, while not hindering the usefulness of the ability too much.
I'm not sure I like the idea of them all being once-per-battle, like in Suikoden V, but I guess... I like having ways to "unlock" the rune's abilities beyond the basics, using Oulan's Angry Dragon Rune for example.

I liked Valeria's version of the Falcon Rune in Suikoden II, as well. 2x damage, at the price of decreased accuracy (though I wish it'd lower by more, since it almost never made her miss, thus rendering the balancer pretty much useless), but specifically in her case, there was a chance of dealing 3x damage instead, which I thought was a really neat bonus. Immediately giving 3x damage is completely ridiculous if the rune had unlimited uses, and the character's already fairly powerful in the first place, so just having it as a chance is a great idea.

Richard's version of the Swallow Rune in Suikoden V was pretty neat, as well, I thought. While the Viper Rune is just hit-or-miss instant-kill, Richard's Swallow Rune either pulled this instant-kill or it dealt 2x damage to the target. Of course, something like this, I would like to see some sort of drawback on, just to balance things out. I'm not sure if once-per-battle would be going too far with one like this...

I'm sure I'll think of more to touch on later...