I'm only about 3 hours into Suikoden IV, but I'm having a heck of a lot of fun with it so I thought I'd give some impressions.
First I'll get the few negatives out of the way:
--Loading is a problem. Slow loading into battle, slow loading out of battle, slow loading between cutscenes (Character A: Hey look out the window! -> 4-6 sec black load screen -> look outside window for 2 secs -> 4-6 sec black load screen -> Character A: wow!).
--The game has the longest beginning ever in a rpg. I didn't hit the first plot cutscene until 1:30 mins into the game, and IMO Suikoden games don't even start until your character gets his rune and that's not until near post 2 hours into this game.
Ok so despite a slow start, once the plot cutscenes start up you start really liking the game. The story is really great so far and has this big 'tons of characters in the world, tons of sides, tons of conflicts, and the powerful and deadly runes". It really feels like the first 2 games in the way that the plot is unfolding. Next the cutscenes are short but great and include TONS of branching. Because there are so many party variations with the 108 characters, I was wondering how they would pull off group dialogues. Well during a cutscenes if your party members decide to have some lines, the camera cuts to a real-time scene of the camera at some angle and then all your current say their lines FULLY-VOICED! This means that you can play through story parts with all kinds of different characters in your group and get fully voiced cutscenes which just add a ton of personality to the side characters IMO. Especially since the voice acting in this game is great so far, it's like they hired every Japanese voice acter/actress out there. Anyhow I like the character writing so far. A few of the characters might be pretty standard, but the character designs and their dialogue make them really enjoyable to watch and interesting. Couple that with 108 of them on your side + all the NPC important characters and you have a game that is just filled with great characters.
Visually is the opposite of S3. The game runs at almost 60fps all the time unlike the sub 15fps in the previous game. To do this they basically made everything low poly. The environments are about PS1 level of complexity...but you can have like 10+ characters on screen walking around or doing things while still moving around at 60fps. The cutscene graphics are also smooth and utilize this bizzare filter that makes everything in the background focus extremely pixalated. Like beyond PS1 pixelation, think NES or even Atari 2600. I think this is supposed to give the game a 'retro' look and feel a little closer to the old games. I think it actually works pretty well and gives it a unique feel to it's cutscenes.
The general animation in the game is quite good IMO. What was really cool to see was that in battle all 108 characters have their own unique (and often cool) attack animation. Even the enemies get nice animation and it's great seeing them crumple to the ground when they die Also the camera swoops around during battles and kinda follows the action, it's a pretty neat little effect that just adds to the game. When the camera is the best is the Duels...
The Duels rock in this game. They are the exact same as S1&2 but when the 2 characters attack/defend/deathblow the camera swings around as they dance around fighting almost with great choreography. For instance if both of you defend you'll get a cutscene of both characters slowly circling with their sword raised to defend, keeping a stern eye on each other. Also all the duel quotes are voice acted which works great hearing the opponent shout his lines.
The regular battle system is also pretty fun. It's basically the S1&2 battle system but with 4 people instead of 6. You input all the commands and then hit go and everyone does their thing. The team attacks are visually nice and it'll be fun trying to find them all. They seem to level up by the amount you use them.
So Duels rock, battle system is sold, next is the ship battles! The ship battles so far are actually quite fun. They're a mix of the old land strategy battles, the rock/paper/scissors chain of what cannon beats what, and actually real battles where you jump onto the enemies ship and fight their leaders vs. yours. It really seems like a fun system and it'll be interesting to see if you can upgrade your ship by buying parts or even other ships throughout the game.
Speaking of ships, the whole sea based story is actually being used very well so far. You see all different varieties of ships on the sea and everything from 1 on 1 ship fights to armadas intent on destruction. Also you use your ship to go everywhere in a Wind Waker sort of thing. I guess it was the solution to having a full world map, yet still maintaining realistic proportions. Anyways you can open the map, point at your next location, and set the ship on auto-sail in that direction which is pretty convinent. Also the world doesn't seem that huge so I don't think we'll have WW length trips.
The music is back! Despite music being such a major part of S1&2, in S3 it kinda disappeared to the background. Well there seems to be a ton of music and while I haven't really heard enough to judge it, it's just nice to have full loud music everywhere you go.
Anyhow it just seems, like what was mentioned here a while ago, that the team was well aware of all the issues with Suikoden III and went out to make a game that felt NOTHING like it (sorry S3 fans)
The game really does feel like it was made using Suikoden II as a base and I can't think of a single thing that was carried from S3 into this game. So in other words it's like we can just forget S3 happened and go back to liking the series
Though given how early in I am, the game could fall apart. But the feeling it's giving is a very good one at this point!
First I'll get the few negatives out of the way:
--Loading is a problem. Slow loading into battle, slow loading out of battle, slow loading between cutscenes (Character A: Hey look out the window! -> 4-6 sec black load screen -> look outside window for 2 secs -> 4-6 sec black load screen -> Character A: wow!).
--The game has the longest beginning ever in a rpg. I didn't hit the first plot cutscene until 1:30 mins into the game, and IMO Suikoden games don't even start until your character gets his rune and that's not until near post 2 hours into this game.
Ok so despite a slow start, once the plot cutscenes start up you start really liking the game. The story is really great so far and has this big 'tons of characters in the world, tons of sides, tons of conflicts, and the powerful and deadly runes". It really feels like the first 2 games in the way that the plot is unfolding. Next the cutscenes are short but great and include TONS of branching. Because there are so many party variations with the 108 characters, I was wondering how they would pull off group dialogues. Well during a cutscenes if your party members decide to have some lines, the camera cuts to a real-time scene of the camera at some angle and then all your current say their lines FULLY-VOICED! This means that you can play through story parts with all kinds of different characters in your group and get fully voiced cutscenes which just add a ton of personality to the side characters IMO. Especially since the voice acting in this game is great so far, it's like they hired every Japanese voice acter/actress out there. Anyhow I like the character writing so far. A few of the characters might be pretty standard, but the character designs and their dialogue make them really enjoyable to watch and interesting. Couple that with 108 of them on your side + all the NPC important characters and you have a game that is just filled with great characters.
Visually is the opposite of S3. The game runs at almost 60fps all the time unlike the sub 15fps in the previous game. To do this they basically made everything low poly. The environments are about PS1 level of complexity...but you can have like 10+ characters on screen walking around or doing things while still moving around at 60fps. The cutscene graphics are also smooth and utilize this bizzare filter that makes everything in the background focus extremely pixalated. Like beyond PS1 pixelation, think NES or even Atari 2600. I think this is supposed to give the game a 'retro' look and feel a little closer to the old games. I think it actually works pretty well and gives it a unique feel to it's cutscenes.
The general animation in the game is quite good IMO. What was really cool to see was that in battle all 108 characters have their own unique (and often cool) attack animation. Even the enemies get nice animation and it's great seeing them crumple to the ground when they die Also the camera swoops around during battles and kinda follows the action, it's a pretty neat little effect that just adds to the game. When the camera is the best is the Duels...
The Duels rock in this game. They are the exact same as S1&2 but when the 2 characters attack/defend/deathblow the camera swings around as they dance around fighting almost with great choreography. For instance if both of you defend you'll get a cutscene of both characters slowly circling with their sword raised to defend, keeping a stern eye on each other. Also all the duel quotes are voice acted which works great hearing the opponent shout his lines.
The regular battle system is also pretty fun. It's basically the S1&2 battle system but with 4 people instead of 6. You input all the commands and then hit go and everyone does their thing. The team attacks are visually nice and it'll be fun trying to find them all. They seem to level up by the amount you use them.
So Duels rock, battle system is sold, next is the ship battles! The ship battles so far are actually quite fun. They're a mix of the old land strategy battles, the rock/paper/scissors chain of what cannon beats what, and actually real battles where you jump onto the enemies ship and fight their leaders vs. yours. It really seems like a fun system and it'll be interesting to see if you can upgrade your ship by buying parts or even other ships throughout the game.
Speaking of ships, the whole sea based story is actually being used very well so far. You see all different varieties of ships on the sea and everything from 1 on 1 ship fights to armadas intent on destruction. Also you use your ship to go everywhere in a Wind Waker sort of thing. I guess it was the solution to having a full world map, yet still maintaining realistic proportions. Anyways you can open the map, point at your next location, and set the ship on auto-sail in that direction which is pretty convinent. Also the world doesn't seem that huge so I don't think we'll have WW length trips.
The music is back! Despite music being such a major part of S1&2, in S3 it kinda disappeared to the background. Well there seems to be a ton of music and while I haven't really heard enough to judge it, it's just nice to have full loud music everywhere you go.
Anyhow it just seems, like what was mentioned here a while ago, that the team was well aware of all the issues with Suikoden III and went out to make a game that felt NOTHING like it (sorry S3 fans)
The game really does feel like it was made using Suikoden II as a base and I can't think of a single thing that was carried from S3 into this game. So in other words it's like we can just forget S3 happened and go back to liking the series Though given how early in I am, the game could fall apart. But the feeling it's giving is a very good one at this point!
