Konami did it again, the 4th installment was worth the wait... Here it comes, 108 stars back in action. A powerful rune in the hands of the leader and world's fate as well, just like the old installments. Suikoden IV is the 2nd Suikoden in the PS2 and as far Suikoden series in PS2 is concern, imho, it is way better than its predecessor. The controls and camera are user-friendly, the music is not sleepy and sloppy the characters even have voice-over and still the main character is a mime (what's up with that) and the main story line is very interesting though not so revealing and helpful for the series that started back at PSX. The story is similar to the previous series, particularly the 2nd one. Your bestfriend becomes your rival, you being exiled etc, etc, etc. Its main course runs along islands which puts a lot of water around it, so instead of running around the map, you practically sail over it with a lot of random battles to boot. The gameplay(battle system) is more similar to the psx versions, the difference only is that it only holds 4 characters instead of 6 and you can change team in some instances. The one on one battle is still present but the sentences of your opponents are more revealing on what they'll do next therefore it is much easier but the cutscenes in it is way too cool, check out the scene when you and your opponent defends at the same time...cool. Also instead of the traditional castle thingy was replaced with a huge moving ship which you can barely customize. The map battle(major battle) also takes place on the sea and practically different from all the series(but hey no major battle was the same anyway). Runes were a little weaker as far as I can remember, but the graphics of the magic are way better. The replay value is not so high since once you played it and you completed the stars you'd probably play other game and the only possible reason you'll play it again is to clarify some scenes, scripts, storyline, or some other thing you didn't do the 1st time you played. Also, the additional feature of you can choose your leader character(the one walking) and keep items on your next game is something to check out but with that alone, you'd probably play it twice, once and then try the new game. Mini-games and the classic "finish the game immediately" is something to try out for fans of suikoden series. The graphics is way better than its predecessor, that should be sufficient. And all in all its a great game, not so much of the replay value as Suikoden I & II, nice story and finally I can say Konami did it again. The score that I gave is reasonable, at least for me, since I am a fan of Suikoden series and as far as the whole series is concerned, the addition of the 4th installment in the series made a big help to the suikoden popularity for the 3rd one wasn't much of any help and some people didn't like the trinity system of the said game, that's why i gave it a perfect score.
Suikoden IV seemed plagued with problems from the get-go. Previews of the game panned it for losing that magical quality that made the series as a whole such a memorable experience. Released features such as the reductio... Read Full Review
This game could have been much more than it ended up being. The mechanics were bad enough to shoo away casual RPG fans, and the severe departure from the Suikoden franchise alienated Suikoden fans. In every Suikoden ... Read Full Review
