Product description
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Suikoden 2 Disc Only. Played the game from beginning to end and
works great.
Review
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Because the original Suikoden was one of the first PlayStation
RPGs to grace the US shores, it garnered more attention than it
deserved. Despite being a respectable enough RPG, Suikoden was a
relatively shallow, quick-play RPG that was light on content and
heavy on combat. Suikoden II addresses a number of the problems
of the original Suikoden, and although it feels somewhat
rehashed, it still holds its own nicely in today's cutthroat RPG
market.
Suikoden II takes place several years after the first game's
revolution, a time when the evil Highland empire is terrorizing
the innocent, burning their villages by the handful to satisfy
the bloodlust of the maniacal Prince Luca Blight. You hop into
the medieval-styled britches of an idealistic young imperial
rebel who is out to right the wrongs of the world. To help you
defeat the evil prince, you'll have a bit of ancient magic and an
army of friends. Sound familiar? Suikoden II's story mirrors that
of many other RPGs, but it adds a few twists all its own for good
measure. While RPG purists were disappointed by the lack of
development of the first game's myriad characters, Suikoden II
focuses fairly heavily on character development, preventing party
members from turning into mere power-up satellites. The game
still retains the quest to collect the 108 stars of destiny from
the first game, but many of the characters serve more use than,
say, welcoming the player to Toran Castle. The game's sense of
is impressive, encompassing a huge world war and letting
players build and staff their own castle.
Basic gameplay is very similar to that of the first game - your
party can hold up to six of the game's many characters, each of
whom has his own attacks, spells, etc. One of the cooler features
of Suikoden's battles was the unite ability, which let two or
more characters combine forces for a super attack. Suikoden II
emphasizes these one-two attacks, giving players more of an
incentive to experiment with new characters. Unlike those of some
RPGs, Suikoden II's random encounters are quick and relatively
painless - load time from the overworld or dungeon is almost
nonexistent, and characters usually attack all at once,
preventing the game's battles from being too big of an annoyance
when one simply wants to advance the story. Magic, gained from
rune crystals found throughout the world and in stores, earns
experience similar to Final Fantasy VII's materia system, opening
up more spells as you advance. Suikoden II doesn't use magic
points; instead, it gives you a set number of uses for each spell
per outing, making it one of the least magic-intensive RPGs on
the market, another welcome break from the current trend.
As was the case with its predecessor, it feels as though an
international conflict just can't be fully realized in Suikoden
II without some large-scale battles. Instead of the strategy-free
battle scenarios of the original, Suikoden II adds an actual
strategic element to the game's battles. The end result can
easily be likened to the TurboGrafx-16's classic,
Madness - you position your units on a and tell them to
attack enemy units, defend, or use magic. These scenarios are far
more interesting than the almost instantly winnable scenarios in
Suikoden, but they still don't a to much more than filler
minigames, and many victories and defeats are determined by the
game's story alone. While it's a minor point, some players will
think they're winning and but then be forced to withdraw because
of some random story event.
Aesthetically, Suikoden II is a few notches above its
predecessor. The graphics are displayed in a noticeably crisper
resolution than its predecessor. The game's town and overworld
are entirely 2D and sprite-driven, while the battle engine
combines polygonal terrain and spell effects with 2D characters.
Brief CG cutscenes are sprinkled throughout the game, as well,
bringing a little more life to scenes that just wouldn't have
carried the same impact with simple 2D spritery. Nice hand-drawn
portraits are shown for all the game's notable characters, as
well. Even though the overworld graphics are beyond bland, the
overall effect is an appealing one. The game, despite increased
graphical detail, has little to no load time to speak of once
you're in the game, an always welcome bonus. Suikoden II's sound
is on par with the original's, sporting well-instrumented RPG
fare, occasionally flaunting a vocal twist. The game's sound
effects are nice and crisp, containing actual digital samples
instead of the screechy synth noises of even Square's most
expensive endeavors. The game's translation fares far better than
the first title's did, overall. However, the competent text was
obviously rushed through proofreading, marring what would
otherwise have been a perfect translation. Fortunately, other
than the text, nothing has been localized for the US version -
characters actually drink alcohol, not soup or coffee, as many
characters were forced to drink due to the heavy-handed censors
of the Nintendo era.
Fans of the first Suikoden game will love the sequel - it
improves on everything that had made the first game memorable.
Suikoden II brings nothing new to the genre, but it executes well
enough that no one will really care. --Peter Bartholow
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
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