Good but generally overrated. The script and direction are as good as people say. The folks at Konami had a pulse on presenting an interesting story, but they screwed up a bunch of little things-
The game never convinces me Riou is a charismatic leader- He starts out as a kid at the start of the game and his portrait does him no favors. Army battles are pre-determined and once the illusion of your efforts mattering is shattered they're just a chore to deal with. The game arbitrarily locks you out of using certain characters sometimes. The Buddy Attack skill trivializes a significant segment of the encounters. And the actual adventure part of the RPG varies in quality, usually for the worse: Probably the worst example I can think of is sending the leader of the revolutionary army on a stealth mission into a library town to get one guy.
Allot of these things are done by the first game better. I think Suikoden 2's missteps are an attempt to write a more engaging story but some of the choices have aged particularly poorly.
Edit: Also, allowing multiple runes per character is too much imo.