Suikoden III | My Disappointment is Immeasurable
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
- After nearly a year, it's back to the Suikoden series for Mike as he struggles to process the disappointment that Suikoden III has left him with. Can he pull an entertaining video out of this? I don't know, man. I'm just a description asking rhetorical questions.
#suikoden #jrpg #ps2
![[PS2] Suikoden III (Chapter 1) - No Commentary Full Playthrough (Part 1/7)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9KaEMEWErJY/mqdefault.jpg)
I'll admit I might be really biased. My first Suikoden game, hell, my first turn-based rpg game in general was Suikoden 3. Despite it's flaws I just can't help but love it. The music is a banger, the characters have really cool designs, especially the villains, and though a bit contrived I really enjoy the plot and love that some companions died and there was no way to prevent that.
I know the combat system isn't for everyone but I feel like it made fights, in a way, feel more strategic. You had to plan around synergies, combos, and make sure you had a good rune spread to deal damage or heal allies. And the magic just looks so gorgeous in this game. I was so disappointed when Suikoden 4 toned that aspect down. Speaking of, can't wait to see you cover that. I feel about that game how someone coming from Suikoden 1 and 2 felt about this one.
Enjoy what you enjoy. There's nothing wrong with that. As far as intros to RPGs go, you can certainly do far worse than Suikoden III.
I'm very curious about Suikoden IV myself. I've read that it was rushed during development, but my friend who got me into the series has told me that he enjoyed it, so I'm hoping I will too.
Being a fan of Suikoden I and II, I was pumped by Suikoden III's intro. After that, it went down faster than Vanilla Ice's career.
At least Vanilla Ice was able to reinvent himself as a home renovator a decade or so later. No such luck on a reinvented Suikoden III.
Was so happy to find you… subbed and all… then you attacked the cheeseheads… this is WAR!!! Probably a Bears fan, FIBS. (Still subbed, impressed with the content)
Vikings fan, actually. All the pain they cause me means I have to lash out at more successful teams. (That near collapse today proves to me that the Vikes are frauds like usual)
@@SwannyTheMike my heart goes out to you… I still remember when Cousins was going to change everything… history repeats itself.
@@chrisgee8441 I was salty about that signing from the second it got announced. Case Keenum got us to the Conference Championship (mostly because the Saints imitated us in the clutch) on the cheap and then we shell out for a guy allergic to winning in the postseason.
@@SwannyTheMike I think I spoke too soon though! Could be your year!!
@@chrisgee8441 I want to hope, but the Vikings are the Vikings. I'm saving my optimism for once they make it past the NFC title game.
I will always respect any and all opinions, so of course, I respect yours. I think that's the beauty of art, it's fun to see how we all resonate differently with different things. I love Suikoden II, but I've never felt how strongly most people seem to feel about it. I think this colored my expectations moving forward; meaning I had none. If the supposed "best" game in the series didn't speak to me as much (again, I still loved it), then I wasn't going to compare everything and anything to it so strongly.
I went into 3 with zero expectations and I'm glad I did. What people seem to feel with 2, I feel with 3. I thought the game was the perfect evolution of the two prior entries' concepts. I personally think Suikoden had done all it could with the silent protagonist and feel axing that was the best option for the series' first foray into 3D. By 2, I was already starting to feel the disconnect with the main protagonist, because the story so heavily relies on the relationships he has, but I don't really relate to him or feel he has any autonomy. I think 1 did a better job because you start off as basically a bystander, where the concept of the story is you slowly see the corruption of the government. The silent protag didn't inhibit my enjoyment of 2, I just felt like I was wearing thin on the concept of it in this series as the narrative continued to get more complex. I started to wish I could just see this character be a person outside of a self insert.
In 3, I personally LOVE the idea and execution of the character you name. I thought that was so creative and a nice subversion of my expectations when naming the character.
I understand and respect your opinion about the party customization the first 3 chapters for each character, but it never bothered me because I became so attached to each character's party. It's rare I'm attached to every party member in a game, yet alone three of them. So I actually felt the journey to being able to customize your party was worth it, and earned.
I agree with your criticism about the war battles, but I think they suck in literally every Suikoden game and Eiyuden Chronicle. They're the most useless gameplay element in the series to me, I never enjoy it.
The story, that's always the most controversial element of this game and it's obviously just a matter of taste. I personally adored the structure of the story and never lost interest. I wasn't bothered by Geddoe feeling like an outsider because one, as you mentioned,I think his party dynamic was the strongest, and 2, I thought it was actually interesting to see the perspective of a supposed outsider. Plus as his relation the conflict was slowly revealed I thought he got even more interesting. And when it comes to the main antagonist, I personally didn't think it was a flaw that I knew who it was, I could read a lot of the twists and revelations in the two previous game and that didn't inhibit me any. Instead, I was immediately intrigued to see why this was happening. It's all a matter of perspective, it simply worked for me and didn't for you which is cool.
Lastly, I agree with you, I think the graphics really hold up. And I'm not personally bothered by the models. I always tell people they remind me of claymation where you can almost see the flaws and love and care put into them, plus they're really expressive for a game of that era. In hand with some of the best shot composition I've ever seen in a video game, the presentation of this game imo is pretty phenomenal.
I dunno, I'm probably just yapping at this point. As you can probably tell, this is my favorite game of all time. I played this series back in my early days of college about 9 or 8 years ago, so this is far from my "nostalgic" opinion. I have all kinds of unpopular opinions and I just think it's fun to hear and share our perspectives. Great video, I enjoyed hearing yours.
I just wanted to say that I'm really happy to get a well thought-out response from a Suikoden III fan and I agree wholeheartedly that hearing other perspectives is fun. I do struggle to rein in my snarky tendencies, but the last thing I wanted to do with this video was make any fan of this game feel bad for enjoying it. Growing up on the Star Wars prequels taught me firsthand how miserable it is when people shoot down your opinion immediately because you like a sequel that they don't. All I want to do with my Suikoden videos is give my own honest thoughts on each game. So it's honestly a relief to get a comment like this to provide counterpoints!
Interestingly, I've been working on a Suikoden IV video and I've found that it has the opposite problem that III did for me: IV feels more Suikoden-y, but it's a worse overall game thanks to Konami rushing it out the door.
@@SwannyTheMike Your snarkiness didn't bother me because you're making a RUclips video and you're obviously trying to make it entertaining. It never came across to me as condescending.
I definitely feel that sentiment regarding people being dismissive of other people's opinions or the "mob mentalities" that come with certain dedicated franchises like Star Wars, or even Suikoden. I definitely used to be bothered a lot more by it, but I've tried to embrace my unpopular opinions, whatever they may be. No one can take away someone's personal experiences.
Suikoden 4 I basically echo the popular opinion from within the community. I agree with you it does feel more "Suikoden-y" but it also felt like a step back. Silent protagonist returns except this time the story is not nearly as interesting (to me) and the encounter rate severely hinders the gameplay experience as well. Also, why only 4 party members? The whole gimmick of the series is kinda hindered by having such a low party count. And now more than ever, at least from memory, there are far less important/memorable characters to feel inclined to keep in the party. I'll give the game it has great music, and Junko Kawano's art style evolution from Suikoden 1 to here is pretty great. In fact, I think 4 has my favorite designs of hers, even compared to Eiyuden Chronicle. But the overall experience just felt very mediocre to me. I certainly didn't regret playing it, but it's for sure my least favorite in the series.
Keep on truckin, yo. This is good stuff. I also was turned off by this game after the first two.
I'm hoping that Suikoden IV will be more a enjoyable for me when I get around to it.
as a big veteran of the series i'd say this is a spot on review. sure 4 will let you down even more, and that you'll love 5.
The little bit I played of 5 for footage in my video about 4 (cheap plug!) definitely impressed me and I'm looking forward to when I'll have the time to really sink my teeth into 5.
@@SwannyTheMike i wont even give tou my toughts about 5 as i wish to hear your unbiased analysis about it. Just know that without a FAQ for recruitment, its nearly impossible to 100% blind (some recruitement widows or conditions are borderline insane)
@@alvercaine8893 I appreciate the heads-up! I usually wind up using a recruitment guide, but it's good to know in advance that I'll need to be cautious about recruitment windows and the like.
Canonically, Hugo is the flame champ that is chosen. Geddoe has the true lightning and Chris has the true water rune.
It makes sense that Hugo would be the canonical flame champ. He fits the mold the best for the typical Suikoden protag.
this is my favorite in the series lol. i mean watching that annoying side kick get offed in the first chapter is AMAZING lol. thank god we didn't have to listen to him throughout the game.
He was annoying enough that I was surprised that the game managed to make me feel bad for the other characters when he died.
Really enjoyed your video. Great edits, and just a really great review!
Thanks! I honestly do a lot of the edits to amuse myself while editing, so it always makes me happy to know others enjoy them too.
I'm so happy we've crossed internet paths. Fantastic as always buddy.
Me too! Glad you enjoyed it.
Excellent review, and a rare use of If the Emperor had a Text to Speech Device as a reaction. Bravo.
Love me some TTS! Shame that Games Workshop had to be all Games Workshop about fan projects.
@@SwannyTheMike it sure is good that they hired the guy that made Astartes. I’m so glad we got to see…. So much more of that series! Haha… ha.
As much as I miss TTSD, I gotta say Hunter the Parenting has been fantastic so far, as someone who knows even less about world of darkness than 40k.
@@Threvlin Oh God, I'd finally stopped thinking about how they wasted Astartes...
And yeah, Hunter the Parenting is fantastic! Never in my life did I think I'd be so captivated by a man's quest to purchase a blender for 99 pence.
@@SwannyTheMike absolutely enthralling.
This was good. Take a break. Enjoy July.
To top S-II you need to top Jowy, Shu and Luca Blight himself. They only managed to do something at level of Nanami by S-V and then the series died to a heart attack.
No kidding. I wasn't even the biggest fan of Jowy (mostly found his reasoning asinine, but hey, he's the villain after all) but Luc was such a weak villain that I'm reassessing my opinions on Jowy.
I disagree with some of the problems you have with the game in your review. I never really found the forced parties to be a problem since they were trying to create a tighter narrative and address complaints that others had about Suikoden having too many "disposable" characters, but I would have preferred the option to have more variety.
While I enjoyed the story, the last two chapters feel exceedingly rushed compared to the pace that was given to the previous chapters. Seriously, why is Geddoe even here? His chapters are boring as hell. They should have just stuck with Chris and Hugo who are much stronger characters.
I get that they were trying to address the criticisms of party members in previous games and it did result in characters I really liked such as Sgt. Joe. However, I felt that it wound up undermining having so many recruitable characters in the first place. It's sort of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" problem stemming from the 108 heroes concept. You can either have a large roster for the player to pick from at all times at the expense of character development, or you can have a constrained selection with greater character depth at the cost of the other recruits feeling superfluous. And I'm not sure if there's a "correct" answer here.
Though I do agree that Geddoe is the dullest of the three PCs and that we would have been better off exclusively focusing on Hugo and Chris. In fact, if you replace Chris's simps with Geddoe's mercs (or just give the Tier 3 Sub Knights their personalities) then I would have had zero issues with Chris's early chapters.
My first Suikoden game was Suikoden 2, then went back to 1 to get the extra character in 2...
Then a few years later I grabbed Suikoden 3... And was disappointed as well... I remember being turned off by the 3D and not being a huge fan of the new characters.. I think I didn't even completed Chris first chapter..
Chris is such a wasted character in her own chapters. The first female protag of Suikoden with a whole stoic knight commander thing going on and the game wastes so much time forcing you to read endless prattling about how much all of her knights think she's hot.
Suikoden II is my favorite video game of all time. This game? I have tried to play it and like it multiple times, but I could never torture myself to get even halfway into it. 4 also sucks.
........5 is actually surprisingly great, but I didn't learn that for at least 10 years because I refused to play it after 3 and 4.
Knowing my weird brain, I'll wind up somehow enjoying 4 lol. Flawed and rushed games I can fuck with. Games that should have been all-time greats, but botch the execution drive me up the wall.
Used to live in Wisconsin. Definitely knew some packers fans. Hahahaha.
Also, good video. I happened to like this entry, but that was years ago. Mostly I liked the ducks.
As a Vikings fan, I'm contractually obligated to insult Packers fans.
And honestly, who could blame you for liking the ducks? The ducks are the best part of the game!
Will you do 5 too?
Of course! I plan on doing the whole series. And once I've covered 5, I'll go back and look at the spinoffs.
Never did get into this franchise but I kind of continued on with breath of fire still pissed we still haven't a complete version of the breath of fire Games not cool Capcom not cool at all
You'd think Capcom of all companies would be all about selling another big collection of games. But I guess they'd rather churn out the hundredth Mega Man collection instead.
Text Adventure
I have been meaning to play Zork, but I don't exactly know what that has to do with Suikoden III?
But they fixed everything in IV, right? Right??
Oh totally! Brand new team in charge, rushed development cycle, Konami being Konami, Suikoden IV has all the ingredients for an unmitigated disaster- I mean, success!
Hopefully the low expectations will help that one hurt me less than III did.
This video made me realize that I didn't really enjoyed S3. I just love Suikoden franchise so much that I found it playable.
I honestly wonder if it was intended to be a Suikoden game initially. Because it distances itself so much from the first two that feels like Suikoden III doesn't want to be part of the series.
As someone who played the game on release, yeah, it was a pretty big disappointment. Dumping the more morally gray reasonings that Suikoden 2 prided itself on to instead focus on...Look, I thought Luc was okay in previous games, but to make him the reason...I dunno. Bad things are happening? Felt very...lazy. They had made an interesting reason for conflict, they just needed to drive it home, and utterly failed.
And yeah, the new army mechanic was painful to get through.
*Spoiler*
From what I remembered, the reason Luc was doing everything was to free Leknaat from being forced to be...I dunno. Bound by destiny...Basically he wanted to free her? Or something? ...Sigh, this game was dumb. I don't think the series gets back on a decent footing until Suikoden V, which...also has issues, but is...better...? Rose tinted glasses might be messing with me on that game though.
Luc's whole villain arc felt ripped from so many anime I watched as a kid. Especially the "he had a sad backstory and good intentions, so that makes him a complex character, not a monster" line of reasoning that Suikoden III seems to push. He and Sarah just ramble on and on about morality, fate, destiny, etc. without ever actually saying something meaningful regarding any of those topics. Nor do they ever get seriously challenged by the protagonists on their bullshit beyond essentially "lol nope".
@@SwannyTheMike Yeah, I agree. I think what also irritated me was just...HOW many times the villains pulled out a 'Nu uh, you didn't beat me, this was just my first form!' before bamfing out, or beating the party in the later cutscene.
As you highlighted in your video, Suikoden III really lacks that...followthrough of a punishment for bad decisions or bad actions that really highlighted in the previous game. You trusted the wrong person? Someone died. Did something bad? Came back and bit you in the ass. Good intentions? Doesn't matter if you don't have the strength to back them up.
For your sanity's sake, Suikoden IV and V might be better to compare them to THIS game over Suikoden 2, because...It gets better than III, but won't ever reach that same height of awesome.
@@jakl-em8df It always drives me insane when games pull that "you didn't actually win" crap. Just have me lose the damn fight if that's what your story demands!
And I'm definitely going into IV & V with much lower hopes/expectations.
I always saw so many people say Suikoden 3 was their favorite or second favorite and I always questioned why. I hated the trio protagonists, hated the way combat worked in pairs, didn't like the way war battles were. It was. So many characters were forgettable. I'm the fish, I know.
My order of preference was always 2,5,1,4,3... Three was the weakest, though seeing returning characters were nice.
Like I said in the video, I can totally see why someone who started with III viewing that as their favorite. It's the ones who played I and II before that and still prefer III that confuse me.
Suikoden 3 sucked so bad that 4 and 5 were never on the table. Honestly a really terrible game that i could not finish.
I can't quite bring myself to call it that bad of a game. It's still a functional product that'd be fine if it didn't have the Suikoden name. If we're talking shitty early PS2 RPGs, Suikoden III has nothing on The Legend of Alon D'ar.
None of those early gaming magizine reviews never actually finish the entire game before review and giving it a positive 80% isn't unusual and on early reflection fair.
If any of them completed the game, I'm sure their tone would have changed DRASTICALLY.
To this day, the thought of spending 70 hours on this game... Thank god for the speed throttle button on emulators now a days!
In fairness (God help me, I'm defending early game reviewers...), those magazines typically had about half a dozen reviewers at most. Doing a video every other week was driving me up the wall, so I can only imagine how rushed the process was for those folks having to review damn near everything that came out each month.
only disappointment would be you.
I tell myself that every time I look in the mirror. Get on my level, scrub.
Didn't like this entry. Every time I played it it put me to sleep so I was like nope
I didn't hit that point until Luc started showing up more. All that initially interesting story tossed aside so we can have cliche 2000s anime villain #34.
Hahahahaha, going after quite possibly my favorite jrpg and fitting in an anti-Packers joke? I think I've found my nemesis 🥲
The worst part is that I couldn't even enjoy that Packers joke for long thanks to JJ McCarthy's knee exploding after ONE PRESEASON GAME! Still better than another year of Cousins though...