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Review:

23rd February 2005:
Suikoden IV
Take to the seas and discover what the runes have in store for you and the world.
Posted by Chris Snook - PlayStation 2 - UK and Europe

It is a time of turmoil for the Island Nations. It is seven years since the defeat of the Gaien naval forces by the First Fleet of the Kooluk Kingdom, lead by the enigmatic Troy. Now you stand on the brink of becoming one of the latest muster of the Knights of Gaien to emerge from its famous academy, along with your friends, Tal, Keneth, Jewel, Paula and Snowe - your longest standing friend and the son of Lord Vingerhut, master of the Port City of Razril.

Found as an orphan many, many years ago the Lord and his family took you in and raised you. Placing you on the path of the noble Knight and as a stalwart defender of seas, helped on your way by the commanding figure of Glen, the Commander of the Knights and someone who may know your past or what the future may hold for you, he also suffers a quirk of destiny.

Set one hundred and fifty years before the events depicted in the original, Suikoden IV is quite possibly one of the best games of its genre out there. There is a feel right from the very first part of the opening introduction, a panoramic montage of seascapes and battles, that Konami have gone all out to deliver a fresh experience for the series. Everything has undergone an overhaul from the graphics through to the combat system used, there are familiar strands and new elements of gameplay that have been built into the fabric of the game. Each adding a little to things.

Ship to ship combat is the most obvious of these additions. One of the very first encounters in the prologue involves the learning of the combat systems including how the ships combat works and how different the different runes your party has will affect the outcome. Different runes affect other runes in different ways, some amplifying their effects others nullifying them totally. This adds a tactical edge to things that can turn a combat as you fire and counter fire. Things can progress with boarding actions taking place as the opposition come swarming over. At this point it slips into more familiar territory. Pick your party's actions, wait to see what happens, change tactics for next round - unleash a rune's ability on someone, see what happens. Repeat until one side is defeated, luckily there are over the course of things plenty of options and combos to cause mayhem with the enemy. Looking for party combo attacks is part of the fun. Lastly there are one on one duels where you face a single opponent in what is essentially a mano a mano boss fight. Your choice of whether to attack, guard or perform a special move determines your success as each has a chance of defeating one of the other options. Guard is your friend.

What is most impressive is that all these elements hang together, often joined by a cut scene but they do show the fluid nature of battle and how ultimately it can descend to just one person against another. A nice piece of gameplay.

Exploration is divided up between land based wandering around the towns and markets of the islands, finding better weapons, smiths, people to adventure with you, runes and all the other bits and bobs you'd expect. The second is on the ocean waves, where you conduct missions as simple as 'kill three sea monsters' through to 'escort this ship to Iluya' and many more in between. Travel time is long as the archipelago is extensive, here too you can gain combat experience as monsters and pirates roam the shores of the Island Nations.

The graphics are the most obvious difference. From the backgrounds to the cut scenes and the actual models themselves. Taking advantage of the PS2's abilities gone are the cartoony and disproportioned character models to be replaced with more anime styled characters that blend in more with the over all anime feel of the game structure. The water kicks up spray and there is a wake when you travel by boat. Here the camera angles can grate, when fixed it is almost impossible to judge where you are going, however when in free camera mode you spend time wondering which way to turn to get the best idea of what is going on. No happy medium and having the camera fixed to the stern of the vessel would have solved this nicely. Backdrops are detailed as are the cities and the watery ripple effect as you blend into combat is nice as is the touch of having cats and dogs meandering around town.

To complement the graphics the sound has also been beefed up, with voice acting all the way and tings of battle, booms of the cannons and the expected. Things synch up nicely and there are no obvious failings. Music is a delight and whilst martial is often light, no heavy beats to distract from the action.

Controls are simple and easy to use. Running is comical at times, with the main character running like he was in a Benny Hill episode. Very useful for rapid level rising.

Suikoden IV is simply huge, there are many, many hours of play here as getting past what is effectively the prologue and chapter one will take half a day to complete. There are problems, whilst the sea exploration can be almost limitless, the land areas are more limited often two or three streets in size, which makes it easy to find your way around but makes you want to do more, certainly after the adventures on the waves. The biggest flaw is the plot. It has the feeling of being linear. There are choices that can be made but for the most part they are simple one or the other selections with some appearing to glaringly say 'this is plot follow it', even when there may be a real choice. This gives the feel of in consequence, which is a shame as the story on the whole is very good, neatly constructed but let down by the feeling that despite everything, the real choices you make may at periods be undermined. More so when things seem to be a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Other than that it is the sheer size of the story that

Cut scenes in combat are another unavoidable problem, after the fourth time you trigger the combo attack you have with Snowe and hear him utter, 'Let's Go' you wish you had the option to turn it off and get on with the combat already, minor but enough that it jars you and interrupts combat too much to bother using it.

Suikoden IV is a large improvement nonetheless, it blends a strong story with a nice looking engine and a simple but brilliant sea combat system. One to look out for if you are suffering from RPG withdrawal symptoms.

Chris Snook

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Review Summary:

Impressively updated version of the seven-year-old series with new tricks and a vastly overhauled graphical look. Plenty of puzzles and combat missions, including naval combat between ships add to the mix in a fun if at times linear but well plotted through RPG adventure based in the Island Kingdoms.

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Suikoden IV
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