Suikoden V Review! (PS2) - The Game Collection!
1,322In this Suikoden V Review, SuperDerek takes a look at the final Suikoden released for PlayStation 2! This is without a doubt the best Suikoden title on PS2!
Welcome back to The Game Collection! It's still pretty hot out and summer is still in full swing, but it's time to start winding down the Summer of Suikoden. I am SuperDerek, and this is Suikoden V!
Suikoden V started off its life as a gaiden, or side-story to the Suikoden series. Gradually the project expanded and grew until it became Suikoden V. This time Suikoden was written and directed by a new team, consisting of Director, Takahiro Sakiyama, writer Kazuyoshi Tsugawa, and character artist Kaori Fujita. Junko Kawano was not involved with the project, probably because Suikoden V was released in February of 2006, only 5 months after the release of Suikoden Tactics, a game Kawano was heavily involved in. Perhaps this was for the better, because Suikoden V was to me, and to many others, a return to form for the series!
In Suikoden you play as the Royal Prince of the Queendom of Falena, a country governed by the matriarchal Queen Arshtat. As prince of Falena, you begin the game fulfilling duties acting as a representative of the crown, performing menial tasks, and so on, alongside your aunt Sialeeds, bodyguard Lyon, and Georg Prime whom some of you might recognize from Suikoden II. All is not well in the Queendom, however. During an uprising before the events of the game, the Queen donned the Sun Rune, a true rune that grants immeasurable power, but is causing her to slowly lose her mind to the power of the sun rune. Throw in some political intrigue, manipulation and scheming, and the stage is set for the story of Suikoden V which tells a complex tale of civil war full of twists and turns that actually kept me guessing every step of the way. And I loved it!
The overall scenario of the game was pretty unique, even for a Suikoden game but for reasons that would spoil key points of the game if I were to just tell you. But suffice it to say the game is a very emotionally driven one, in the great tradition of the titles that preceded it. Of course we continue to see the horrors of war, but while some of the Suikodens of the past have given us sympathetic antagonists, this game kind of does the exact opposite, letting you glean just enough of the events on the other side of the curtain to get the player riled up. The game also forces you to team up with some of the sleaziest slime-balls in video game history, but the relief you feel when you've finally won your heard-earned freedom and finally get to start building up your base is something that just cannot be beaten. The game contains political commentary that's I think is well written and timeless, and feels just as relevant today as ever, if not even more so than when the game was released.
The story that Suikoden tells though is one that held my full attention from start to finish. The beginning definitely had a slow start, but only because there was so much exposition to get through, to lay the foundations for the story that would unfold throughout the rest of the game. The events which don't feel entirely realistic were at least internally consistent enough to allow me to suspend my disbelief long enough to really enjoy the game. Suikoden V had an absorbing plot that I was excited to uncover and just couldn't wait to see what would happen next. The characters were expertly written, and most of the plot twists I didn't see coming! If Suikoden V was a book, you might call it a page-turner.
But perhaps most important of all, the game is really, really fun to play, though not perfect. Many Suikoden fans will be happy to see that your party can consist of up to 6 characters who can participate in battle, plus up to three extra characters in your entourage, who can perform support roles such as provide healing during battles, increase potch earned after battles, and perform services like item appraisal, trading in items for potch, or providing skill training. With up to 9 slots with which to fill in your party, you finally get to really use a good chunk of those 108 characters you recruit over the course of the game!
While we're on the subject of those 108 characters though, you WILL need a guide to get all of the Stars of Destiny. And in order to get an ending that doesn't suck, you WILL need to get all 108 stars of destiny. And to complicate matters, many of these characters are permanently missable, so be sure to keep extra save files as you go, just in case.
Battle within Suikoden V is great! Auto-battle returns from previous entries which helps remove tedium from some of the grind, and additional party formations which affect stats and abilities add an extra layer of strategy that you should definitely not ignore!
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