A game probably only for a true Suikoden fan. An in depth review.
In every Suikoden game, you were allowed to bring a group of six characters with you into battle, able to strategically position them in the battlefield for maximum power. You couldn't do either in Suikoden IV. Some characters were more fitted for rear attacks, such as magic users or long ranged attackers, but the best you could do was put them in a 'back row' to take a little less damage. It really was nothing more than in games like Final Fantasy VII where characters took a little side step back to take less damage...and less attack. In all other Suikodens, there were entire rows set for certain character types, this was not the case in Suikoden IV however. Also, while every other game offered six playable characters at a time in battle, you were only allowed four.
This may not sound like much, but that alone was a massive departure, and a huge turn off to many Suikoden fans.
To further the humiliation, the mechanics were quite bad. Mostly it was the random encounters. Even at the time of its release, random encounters were slowly starting to make their final exit in RPG's, where seeing your opponents is now much more attractive. Most RPG fans are used to these random encounters though, even when they do get a little annoying. But I dare say the game was practically broken when it came to this. Every few steps you would get into a battle.
The main problem with the encounters was when you were in your ship (I will get to the story and setting in just a bit), where traveling along the sea you were put into another battle sometimes before you even really started going. On top of that, you had to check your map very often to make sure you were going the right way. Not to mention, 'clearing' the map by traveling on your ship was so mundane and asinine it alone was enough to drive you insane. The random encounters only made it even more unbearable than it already was. As if the map traveling couldn't get any worse, it was when you ran into an island where there was some kind of invisible barrier that would push your ship away. The same would happen on the borders of the map. And so you would have to navigate your way around, which is especially frustrating if your trying to find the port, having to fight a couple more idiotic random encounters before you can even enter.
Eventually, its the frequency of the random encounters that doesn't become the problem, its how easy your characters level up. With each 1,000 experience a character gets, they level up, of course the higher the level, the less your experience will increase. But you can still level quite frequently, weaker characters leveling by as much as 10 times in one battle from a simple encounter. Also, with each level you get, your HP increases and is automatically restored. So instead of going to an inn or what have you, just level up, which happens so frequently anyway, that you hardly need to heal except during boss fights mostly. This breaks the game in its own way, making nearly all battles incredibly easy, regardless of who you choose in your team.
One final addition, would be the elimination of the 'war battles' which are now replaced by ship battles. It's an extremely simplified system, mostly dealing with elements. You fire Rune Cannons at the enemy, while they fire back at you, depending on the element, they can block each other out, or one element will be stronger over the other. That will cause you to do damage to their ship, while you sustain nothing. The only remotely difficult battles here however, would be the final ship battles. It's like they take the difficulty from Very Easy and turn it into Very Hard out of nowhere that it almost seems random. There was no progression of difficulty really. The ship battles are overly simplified and hardly replace the war battles of previous Suikoden's, its just a lackluster replacement to try and spice the game up a bit.
Shying away from the mechanics, the story actually wasn't so bad. It had the usual intrigue of war that has been included in every Suikoden, although the story is a bit short in comparison to most of the other games. Still, if you intend on finding all 108 Stars of Destiny, it'll probably only take you about 40 hours or so. Sadly, the story can be finished in around 25 or 30 hours, somewhat of an insulting length for being Suikoden. I'm about 70 hours into Suikoden V and I still haven't finished the game, as an example.
A couple issues fans also have with the story would be how its nearly non-canon. It takes place a couple hundred years before the other Suikoden's (not positive on the exact date) and the setting is in the Island Nations, which has played zero part in any of the other Suikoden games, not even mentioned until Suikoden V. Also because of the massive time difference, there were very few recurring characters. Jeane and Viki were there, but there probably would have been a massive outrage if they didn't show up. The game does get a little boost for me though since you can recruit Ted from the original Suikoden.
As is usual, the main character is a silent protagonist. However, the main characters in each of the Suikoden's do look at least somewhat dashing or interesting. However, Suikoden IV's protagonist just looks kind of goofy. He has this 80's hair band over his forehead, a bowl cut for hair and his run is a little...odd. His look was just strange to me, so I never took it entirely seriously, which was too bad since his True Rune probably carried the darkest storyline, which could have been really interesting. The other characters part of the main storyline I also found to be interesting. Elenor, Kilia, Lino en Kuldes, Graham Cray, Troy; I found their stories and characters pretty cool. But the story just didn't bring that epic appeal that the other Suikoden's had, despite the impressive conclusion. So regrettably, the characters felt lost, a little too big for the lackluster story's britches.
The mechanics were so bad every which way that it made the game unnecessarily frustrating, ease of beating the game, pointless replacement to war battles, the story was far too short, a lack of recurring and all around enjoyable characters, the loss of what made Suikoden what it is...ended up mostly killing the game. The asinine random encounters make it nearly unplayable for even long time RPG players, and Suikoden fans will be turned off by just about everything else. You can hardly call it canon, I would consider this game a skip. There are many better RPG's out there, and I would even tell a Suikoden fan to skip it, there is really little to nothing missed. The only reason I rated it so high with all of these negative remarks would be that the characters and story were interesting, despite the story being short. Plus Ted helped a bit. But mostly because I consider anything rated at around a 5/10 to be unplayable, so this isn't really much better.