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Suikoden III is so bad it makes me rethink ever touching a PS2 RPG ever again. And I have like 12 I still need to beat lol

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I actually like Suikoden III. It's an interesting take on the series that doesn't stray too far from the initial intent, nor retread the same footsteps. Sure, there are things that could be improved - having to travel through dungeons over and over again, for example - but for the most part it had a lot of great stuff in it.

The war system, while not as great as Suikoden II's imo, is a lot better than 1 and 4's. The skill learning system was interesting and expanded on the affinities that were in II, taking more than just rune affinities and allowing you to add a bit of customisation to your characters aside from levels/armour/runes.

The story telling was very well done. The three view points helped to tell the story from the three pertinent point of views and depending on how you played the game and which order you did the story, you saw different parts. The fourth (fifth) view point was a neat addition that helped show off the other side of the war as well.

The return of many beloved characters was great, too. Though we didn't see Flik and Victor, we did get to hear of them via Star Dragon Sword. Viki and Young Viki were cute as always, Jeane was sexy as she always is, Yuber sans his armour was a wonderful joy for any Yuber fangirl (hurr hurr~<3 ) and even just relations of previous characters, hints about other areas that we visit in the latter games and learning more about not just the True Runes, but also how they affect their bearers mentally, as well as the world and it's ruling parties gave an interesting background to the whole war. Add in Holy Harmonia, the Fire Bringer and Karaya Village and the story was really well done.

That's not mentioning the various themes that they managed to put in the story - loss of loved ones, living on after others have gone before you, slavery and lower-class citizenry, religious order, honour and what it means to be true to yourself vs being true to your country, loyalty, fighting for what you believe in, doing what is right, knowing when to give in and when not to... among many others.

It did a lot of things right. I do wish that they'd cut the dog (even if it was cute) view and actually gone ahead with showing Sasarai's view like they were going to do, but alas, time constraints.

It's not my favourite of the series, not by a long shot, but it is still a very solid game and really good.
To each their own, but I personally can't find one thing I like about it. The things that stick out in my head the most are:

-The slow walk speed
-The big, empty areas, coupled by the fact that it doesn't let you explore big dungeons, but instead opts for the long linear paths found in FFX.
-The world map. Again, there's really nothing to explore on your own anymore, it's just go here, here, or here.
-Stats. I leveled up my characters 15 levels from the beginning, trying to save some money by rarely upgrading equipment. Their stat increases did absolutely nothing. I still died a few times in the first dungeon at levels 25, 24, and 25.
-The graphics. I'm not a graphics whore by any means, but compare it to the previous entry, and it looks like a downgrade. The big empty areas do nothing to help.
-The dialogue is really badly done. It's probably the translation (one can hope), but wow.
-No real direction is ever given (granted, this is a staple of the series).

I probably haven't played enough to judge the story fairly, and music is entirely subjective, so I won't go into that. However, the whole game just feels completely unfinished to the point I've reached, like maybe half finished at most.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
The thing that really ticks me off about Suikoden III is the combat engine. Sure, you can have six people in your party, but you can only enter commands for three of them. That, and the AOEs always seemed to be more effective in the hands of enemies than they did when I tried to use them.

Giving your characters stat stones are okay, but skills will do more for you in the end. For example, an S-class Swing skill (I'm mostly sure Ace can get this) is ten times more effective than plain old agility stones. Though, if you combine the two, and you have holy-heck-what-is-that-thing.
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