Suikoden 2 is not the best Suikoden game (PS1) review | Cannot be Tamed

Today I'm reviewing Suikoden 2! I loved the first game and many people have told me this one is even better. I beg to differ.

00:00:00 Intro
00:02:12 Length and pace
00:04:49 Combat
00:08:00 The best parts and improvements
00:10:25 Visuals and music
00:11:44 Bugs
00:12:45 Story thoughts
00:14:29 More story - with major SPOILERS
00:17:40 Final thoughts

#Suikoden2 #JRPG #PlayStation

Suikoden was played on a PS2 with a Framemeister and recorded on a Hauppauge HD PVR Rocket. All music comes from the game soundtrack.

Intro artwork, logo and banner by: @theMagdalenRose

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

[KoeSeer]

"Suikoden 2 - Not the best Suikoden game"

alright, you just crossed the line. Straight to the chopping block.

[saqerabdallah]

I've been playing so many JRPG games over the many years and Suikoden 2 is the best JRPG game I've ever played.

[cravis]

Suikoden 2 is a masterpiece! One of the best story in a video game, incredible beautiful music! Love this!

[docholidayproductions]

I had this game years ago when it came out I beat it twice the second time getting every I consider this one of the all-time greats and definitely in my top two favorite games of all time the story is timeless and holds up even today... Years ago I sold the game before I realized it's value and before it's value skyrocketed... This past year I repurchased the game and we all know that isn't cheap these days but it's well worth it!!! Awesome to see someone playing still in 2020... But I have to disagree it's the best suikoden hands down and many people agree..

[DadKids]

Suikoden 2 is masterpiece for me. Thta's all.

[ErickLandonRPG]

Love people who have the courage to speak their thoughts, even if they go against the general consensus. Welcome to the club :) Hope you can play Suikoden V one day (if you haven't). It's my favorite in the series, better than 2 in my opinion. I adore 2, like many others, but I do believe it's somewhat overrated nowadays. Also, glad to see some love for the first one; it's truly an underrated gem.

[Ryan-zskd]

To me, Suikoden 2 is the definition of "It's like the first one, but better!"

Hell, being able to equip 3 runes per character, inventory change and the longer game length alone makes it better. Now obviously I'm sure writing-wise, some of their best ideas from a narrative perspective were used up in the first one and they didn't want to completely retread, but the director was quoted as saying that fans of the first focused on the characters so that was what he had focused on in the second game. A big reason why it's the most popular in the franchise.

To me, a game that focuses on recruiting 108 people SHOULD BE longer. Otherwise, it's just a whole lot of non characterization. Which one can probably argue is kind of the case anyways. Not every character gets much focus. Only a handful like Victor and Flik, etc. Complaining about game length and that a bunch of side stuff you don't even have to do exists is a bit weird to me.

For example, doing Clive's side story means that you HAVE to get through the game basically in 20ish hours. If it took you 40, it means you were really going out of your way to collect every little thing that had no bearing on anything. The only flying squirrel that was a star of destiny, you get at the very beginning of the game. Having to win that card matching game in a certain amount of turns in Suikoden 1 was much more of a hellscape than any recruitment in 2.

To each their own, though. 1, 2 and 5 are all great games.

[KK_]

Hi Pam. One of the things that I love about your reviews is the wonderful way that you articulate your thoughts and the way that you edit your videos to support those thoughts. I enjoyed hearing your thoughts on this game.

[Borderose]

I respect your opinion. ^_^

But, if I may explain, Luca Blight's character stuck out to a lot of people not so much for his depth as a character but for what he represented as a concept. Yes, Luca is evil. Ridiculously evil. He's a man driven by hate and rage and vengeance and little else. I agree, he's not very deep. Even taking into account what was implied to have happened to him and his mother. It's when he's explored as a character concept that makes him stand out: in a world with magic, beastmen, runes, and monsters? A single human warrior is, to this day, canonically the strongest being in the Suikoverse. It took sneaky tactics, 3 teams of heroes, several volleys of cutscene arrows, and a duel with The Hero to take him down. All he had was himself. His men were barely a factor. Luca wasn't possessed or the Devil in disguise either: he was a broken child who grew up to be a hateful man who, unfortunately, also just happened to be the mightiest, and most prodigious swordsman his world had ever seen. He's done nothing but train and prepare for the day he sets his fangs on Jowston, prepped and beefed up his then weakened army, basically wresting control over it from his father as crown-prince, and when he did? No one and nothing stood a chance against him. In an open battle, he was unmatched. Hurt him? And he ends up rallying his men or fighting so hard everyone in your army takes damage. To the soldiers fighting with him and watching him work? He must've have been quite a sight. He was partly able to mount the kind of offensive he did because, according to Rowd, Luca was very popular among the men of Highland and his rise as king was seen positively as they were unaware of what he and Jowy did and his cruel nature. Highland mostly didn't know or particularly care. All they knew was that they had a Warrior King who was going to avenge their people. Nothing Jowy did was ever on the scale and speed that Luca did. Jowy was a king of an enemy army, Luca Blight? Was treated more like a force of nature. And all this, again, despite just being a guy with a sword and a horrible agenda. His character design also leads fans to speculate: Luca wears white armor and a blue cape. Colors and affects usually associated with heroes. And yet, he's the villain. It's ironic. People speculate what could have been had Darrel, the old mayor of Muse not ruined him as a boy. Han Cunningham noted Luca's talent as a warrior even before that. While it doesn't excuse or change what he did, people wonder if there was ever a chance or a world where Luca could have been a hero instead? A great king? Or perhaps he was destined for the warpath from the start?

That, I feel, apart from his boss fight is what makes him fun.

[rekkazan]

Really enjoyed this review! Although I disagree with many of your points especially regarding the story. I suppose finding out that Viktor and Flik didn't die left you a bad first impression, and Luca Blight's almost comical evilness made you lost interest to explore the story deeply. Which is too bad, because the rich story and lore is why Suikoden 2 fans love this game!

Some of the important elements of the story are showed in subtle manners, like Luca's motivation, his humanity that he showed before he died, Jowy's desire of power and his arrangements with Leon Silverberg, and many more. When you interpret Jowy's reason for fighting as "because destiny" and called it lazy writing, it broke my heart a little lol. I hope one day you can revisit Suikoden 2 with a new point of view and take your time to dig deeper into its world and characters, and maybe fall in love with this game a little bit harder, like its fans.

[CielBlanche]

talking about not understanding why jowy continues to fight the city states while showing footage from the scene where he explains the political and sociological reasons he continues to fight that have been meticulously established since the opening hours of the story

[Reginmund]

In the case of Suikoden the importance of destiny is not lazy writing but at the very core of the concept. They're not called the 108 Stars of Destiny for nothing, and there is a strong element of determinism in how these stars follow a set course towards the inevitable. That's why it's poignant when friends like Riou and Jowy fall under stars that set them on the course to kill each other. Of course there's also a small chance of defying or altering destiny by gathering all 108 Stars. Regardless, destiny is such an important aspect of Suikoden's world building and this makes it very different from those stories where destiny is thrown in as a lazy plot device when needed. This holds true for the first Suikoden as well, where the star Tir is born under makes him end up as the leader of the Liberation Army despite all odds.

I agree with the criticism of the new war battle system and I completely agree that the scripted battles are meaningless (Suikoden 3 is even worse in this).

Luca should have been developed more in the story to explain how crazy he is (which as you might know comes from seeing his father flee while his mother was raped by city-state soldiers), nevertheless I still find him to be a terrifying villain. When I played through it the first time I assumed it was because of the Beast Rune.

Some characters have ridiculous recruitment criteria, but this is true for every Suikoden. I don't think we're really intended to be able to get all 108 characters on a first time blind playthrough.

The regular battle system I think is perfect precisely because it's a traditional turn-based system that lets you use 6 characters with up to 3 runes each, which opens up for a lot of strategies. It's especially nice to play these days when more and more JRPGs opt for action-based battle systems.

As for the quick time event with Nanami, you could say it was a bad decision to suddenly have something like that at such a crucial moment when there had been no quick time events prior, but you could just as well say it was a clever design choice for the very same reason. You're supposed to be caught unawares and you're not necessarily supposed to be able to save Nanami, but perhaps you'd remember it for a second playthrough and save her then (which is what I did, and thus experienced two different outcomes).

Finally I'm surprised you didn't mention the worst aspect of the game which even the most hardcore fans would agree is bad: the localization.

[kc-kmdu]

Not only is it the best Suikoden game, it’s a strong contender for best JRPG of all time.

[anthonyjohn]

I gave up on critiquing JRPG's (Religion) with friends years ago as it never went well lol Brave video

[williamdasilva]

Most of the "negative" things mentioned are completely optional and more of a second play-through thing.

Some of the comments were just erroneous. Flik and viktor weren't assumed dead in S1 for example.

She makes it seem like you "must" collect the very optional & additional squirrels. Or that you must play the mini games in the castle.

Anyway, thanks for reviewing it, just have to disagree entirely.

[sophialovecraft]

Funny story from when I played this as a kid, when Ryu and Jowy jumped from the cliff at the beginning I thought I died, so I restarted a few times before I finally sat through the cutscene and the story progressed. Probably did it about 3 or 4 times before figuring it out. Still One of my favorite games of all time, I still haven't played 5 yet so I really need too.

[VornDe]

Good review. I agree with you completely in that I found Suikoden 1 much more enjoyable. The story in 2 is more complex and it had some nice upgrades gameplay wise and better character design / portrait art, but I found the first one to be a smoother game with a more focused storyline. I also tended to like the characters in 1 better and didn't mind the forced party members as much.

If you haven't already, I recommend playing through 1 again and getting all 108 SoD. There's a nice story twist I think you'll appreciate a lot if you get all of them before invading Gregminster.

[DisposedHeroVGM]

Nice review, Pam! I played the first Suikoden several years ago and really loved it, and it's one of my favorite PS1 games. I played Suikoden II for the first time last summer and also thought it was inferior to the first. I still enjoyed it and thought it was a good game, just didn't quite hit the same mark as the first in my opinion. I thought it was just me for a while, but it seems there are others who feel the same way. You did a great job articulating the differences between them, and I agree with many of your points here.

[rbatesmotel]

"more tolerance for JRPG nonsense at 16" had me LOLing probably cause I feel the same way, but just never heard it put that way

[SobmicSSBB]

Good and thorough review!

Your complaints about Luca Blight though are exactly why Suikoden II fans insist he's one of the best video game villains.

When with so many others their villainy is just all talk (like Bowser and Robotnik, or even Castlevania's Dracula most of the time) or have 'sympathetic' backstories that don't quite work (like Sephiroth and his mommy issues), it's just refreshing to see someone who is absolutely, irredeemably evil and ravages everything in his path.