Video Game Review - Suikoden IV (2005 - Sony PlayStation2)

I had been really distracted with the creation of my second animated feature and I had completely lost track of when Suikoden IV was coming out. It took a reminder from my college friends to bring back into the fold of the 108 Stars of Destiny.  When I heard it was finally out, I went right out and bought it. Needless to say, it's become one of my favorite games to relax with.
Upon watching the intro movie, I thought that the game would suck. I also thought that the sailing would be peripheral to the main gameplay. How wrong was I about this prequel to the first Suikoden? Plenty wrong, on both counts.

Our story follows the exploits of a young knight-in-training and his fellow classmates. The most notable of his classmates is the young man called Snowe. Snowe, while not truly your rival, is very jealous of the praise heaped upon you. He's instrumental in your banishment from your home of Razril upon your receiving the rune of this game -- the Rune of Punishment -- from your dying commander. Blamed for your commander's death, you are set adrift at sea. It looks as if you're done for, until you realize the beauty of true friends that is the driving force behind the 108 Stars of Destiny. And that's where the most awesome island-hopping adventure begins.

As previously mentioned in the Suikoden III  review, I hoped that Konami would take a page from the Pirates of the Caribbean game and improve upon it. I also hoped that they would go back to the original type of World Map, instead of the "point A to point B" interface. The game designers have done one better and did it their own way. Not only did they combine the free-roaming World Map of older games and the "point of interest" format from Suikoden III, they have cut out the micromanagement of the sailing system in Pirates of the Caribbean. While some have said that sailing is a pain in the ass, it's one of the most visually relaxing and constructive things I have had the experience to do. Why? Because the game has done something that I never thought they would do: the castle from all previous Suikoden games is now a large sailing vessel--almost like a cruise ship.

Above: The current wielder of the Rune of
Punishment, a Rune that has an unfortunate
side-effect of slowly killing its host.

Speaking about the ship, the ship allows you to do another thing that has me torn. The game designers have eschewed the traditional six-man party and brought it down to a four-man team. While this would be a pain to me, I have realized that the four-man team holds true only on land. When on the deck of the castle-ship you have access to all 108 characters, so the ship allows you to create two auxiliary parties of four to call topside. This increases your World Map party to TWELVE, double the previous sizes in Suikoden and three times as large as the Basic Party. This creates a way to level up scrubby characters you don't want in your Basic Party (aka "the landing party") and allows you to work out the one problem I have with this game: earning team-up attacks.
Team-ups happened whenever people with common traits got together in the same six-man party. If two people with uncommon traits had a team-up attack, the results were usually hilarious (see Nina and Flik's "Groupie Attack" from Suikoden II). Now, the people marked for a team-up attack must stay in the same party for a number of battles until the team-up attack is discovered. This wastes a lot of time where deciding who should go in what team is concerned.

There are a lot of great things about Suikoden IV that easily overshadow the having to earn your team-up attacks. The minigames are totally awesome, and fun to play. They still have Chichinronin for the old-school gamblers and some new games to burn hard-earned cash on. You can make your own accessories and armor on your ship, and look around at everything and everyone with a first-person camera option. Most importantly, some of the characters you meet in your quest to gather the 108 Stars are references from the previous games. It's great to learn that rune mistress Jeane was always a hottie, Viki was always scatterbrained and the name "Scholtenheim Reinbach" is not just a name that Viktor made up in the first Suikoden to get past the guards.

With all that's available to you in the course of your career of "privateering" (licensed piracy in the name of the kingdom of Obel), this game is a grand addition to the Suikoden storyline. I anticipate Suikoden V, yet I have no idea where it could be headed. Perhaps the story will take a cue from the Final Fantasy series and sail into the far-flung future, bringing extraterrestrials and cyborgs from across galaxies into the fold of the 108 Stars of Destiny.

RATING: 9/10