Suikoden IV

We've yet to have a thread on this game, so I thought I'd go ahead and make one. Has anyone played this game? I just picked it up yesterday, and I've only played about two hours, so I can't say much, aside from a few general complaints.

First off... random battles? *sigh* I thought those had been more or less relegated to the past. And Final Fantasy. But no, they're alive and kicking in this game, and they're pretty darn frequent, too.

And speaking of things relegated to the past... come on. We don't need silent heroes. They work in games like Zelda (though when it comes to comparing Zelda to other things my thoughts are more or less rendered invalid ). It worked fine in Chrono Trigger, because it wasn't a dialogue driven RPG, and Crono was a complete grey slate. But half-and-half is just about the worst it can get - they've given the main character gestures, facial expressions, and probably a ton of stuff I haven't seen yet, but no voice and no dialogue. It annoys me.

The graphics look like early PS2 games. Heck, FF8 and FF9 looked almost as good as this. Normally I don't care so much about bad graphics - Xenogears is my favorite RPG, and I didn't play it until well into this generation - but in this case, the game <i>should</i> have good graphics... and the visual experience has so much potential, from a thematic standpoint. Potential which it does not live up to. The graphics are not technically good, but they're also lacking that sylistic flair that often makes up for technical inferiority.

Moved around in the world is kinda jerky, too. Seriously, what is it with RPGs and making characters that look awful when they run around? I can't think of a single RPG where the character walk smoothly or look good while doing it. What is keeping them from making it look and feel as smooth as Zelda: tWW or something? It's as if there's some rule against making a smooth-looking walking animation in RPGs.

The music is a bit lackluster, too. And some of you know about the Suikoden series' 108 Stars of Destiny thing... and I seriously think that, out of 108 potential party members and characters, they chose the ugliest one to be the main character.

Of course, I've been looking around some Suikoden fansites, like http://www.suikosource.com/ , and I am finding myself extremely interested in the overarching story and world which has always entranced Suikoden fans so much. I think that not only will I finish this game, but I'll finally get around to picking up Suikoden II and I, and III if I get the chance. Though the first two sell fo like 150$ bucks on Ebay, so maybe I'll stick to less... legal... means of playing them.

Though I didn't get into them much, this game does has some redeeming qualities - the experience system, for instance. I remember a friend explaining and praising this same system in three, but I honestly can't remember how it worked. I haven't been able to figure out how it works exactly, but it seems to give characters that are behind in levels an easy way to catch up with others, which is nice. Being unable to use characters because they're underleveled has always annoyed the hell out of me, and that doesn't look like it's going to be a problem, in this game.

And considered there are 108 of these characters, that's definitely a good thing

Once I borroed Suikoden III from my friend and I played approximately 1hr. and 30min. of it. A couple things: The story was sort of confusing, some of the events and things I had to go through were boring and predictable, and the random battles were annoying. Suikoden IV I have yet to play, but I heard from a friend that it is a good game, even though I don't agree with him only because of the third one, I have yet to think of it has a ''good game''

-TFS

I personally chose to pass on this game, between the facts of mediocre reviews and all the other games I'm playing right now. If you think that the overall experiance may be worth the buy, then I might be interested.