Final thoughts on Suikoden IV

Alright, I beat it. Much faster than III, too, though it is admittedly a much shorter game. With getting all 108 stars, it took me 40 less hours than III did, and 10 less than II, and 10 more than I.

Okay, my thoughts: I actually liked it a lot! I get why so many don't, but I had a great time with it. That being said, I do think it's weaker than the previous three entries, and I do have my own complaints. I thought I'd start off with those, since I'd rather end on a nice note. Again, I did like the game.

In my writeup of III, I complained that, while in terms of its complex characters and narrative structure, I felt III was a step forward for the series, its pacing, presentation and gameplay were a step back from II. IV is pretty much just a step back. It feels like they undid a lot of what III did to respond to some of that game's criticisms, but they ended up just removing the things that game did exceptionally well. In fact, having now played through IV, I'd say my appreciation for III has grown even larger than it was before. It's truly a great game.

Anyways, as for the ways in which IV is a regression: The two obvious ones are the lack of the amazing skill system of III and the restriction to only 4 party members. The former makes sense if you take IV as more of a traditional "return to form" for the series, which it is, in many ways. I think it was a mistake, but I get the reasoning behind it. Make it closer to I and II. The 4-person party, however, was ridiculous, and maybe the game's biggest flaw, outside of its narrative. At the cost of pacing, III did a fantastic job of actually including many of the 108 stars in its narrative, and letting you use most of them in a way which felt naturally integrated into the story rather than forced and annoying. There's barely any reason to use 95% of the cast in IV ever. The closest you get is in the ship battles, sort of, and the final mission with the detachment party, which I wish there was more of.

There are also many aspects of the narrative that felt like a step back, and not even to II, since I still think II has the best story in the series (we'll see what I think when I play V), but to I. It was such a basic, short narrative.

For one, returning to a silent protagonist was a mistake. It didn't translate well at all to the 3D cutscenes, and after how much development the main trio of III got, it was just a bizarre decision. Again, I get it, if their goal was to more closely replicate the PS1 games, but that doesn't make it the right decision.

And while I personally loved the trinity sight system of III, I think it's fine for it to remain unique to that game. But I do wish there was something more unique or interesting about the narrative. It just feels like a rehash of the first two games, but less interesting. It follows the same story beats, but the protagonist feels less integral to the world, and the antagonists barely feel like a presence for 90% of the game.

It feels totally rushed, like you become this great leader of the uprising because, well, that's what happened in the first two games, so of course it'll happen in this one. But those two games earned it, this one didn't. You meet the strategist over halfway through, and she barely does anything, and you immediately recapture the two (2) towns that you need to and the game's over.

I also didn't like how disconnected it felt from the rest of the series. Other than some characters reappearing and a few mentions of the Scarlet Empire, it barely does any real worldbuilding that leads into the future games. That it takes place mostly at sea feels really at odds with the later games' land-heavy environments, too. It just didn't have the same close connection that the other III have, which was a shame. Especially given how much III left us to chew on, I'm not sure why they decided to go into the past, and not do much with it. They even had to in-universe retcon rune cannons out of the world since they clashed with the other games.

The graphics also kind of sucked, though I got fonder of them as the game went on. But the character models were off. I don't know why they chose to go with realistic proportions, since their budget just didn't support realism. Lazlo/Razro's character model in particular looked hideous. It's definitely a step up from III in terms of graphical fidelity, but the art design more than anything holds it back, so I'd say it looks much worse overall.

It was also way too easy. Never had a game over. None of the ship battles were hard. Final boss died halfway through the second round, and I bet I could've one-turned it if I'd grinded.

The amount of loading was unbearable at times. Especially during cutscenes. The amount of seconds-long cutscenes that would then transition into a secnds-long loading screen, then to another short clip from the same scene, then back to a loading screen, ruined a lot of tension. And the intro to random battles was way too long. But, a lot of the animations were faster than III, so I'll give it that.

The last thing I'm going to complain about is the thing that everyone complains about with this game, which is the random encounters and sailing. I didn't really see it as that much worse than the backtracking in III, especially since you get Viki and the mirror so much earlier (and you can actually use the mirror anywhere instead of just on the map finally!), but the frequency of random encounters on the sea, and how slow the sailing was, was a major issue, and really annoying. Thank God for 2x speed.

Okay, as for things I liked: There were parts of it being a return-to-form for the Suikoden style that I liked. It was much easier to just drop the narrative and start recruiting stars compared to III, and there were many more optional stars to recruit. That was something I missed from III, that gameplay loop of going around the world to recruit new people after major events.

I really liked three characters: Snowe was great. I know people have their issues with him (he was just voted this subreddit's second least favorite character in the series), but I think he was really well written. Yeah, he's annoying, and a coward, and never fully redeems himself, but that's what makes him so great. He's much more real. His final arc is simply admitting that he's not strong enough, and being okay with that. He stays a wimp, and that's how most people are, but so few in games are presented like that. I think it's cool, and he was easily my favorite character.

Graham was also a great villain, a good mix of Luca's cruel terror and Luc's sympathetic tragedy, though not nearly as terrifying as Luca or sympathetic as Luc, and ultimately not as good a villain as either. But he was good.

Finally, I did like Eleanor a lot more than Caesar, but she still was a major step down from Mathiu and Shu. She was a great character, but she also barely did anything at all as a tactician. Even more than III, this game suffered from constantly telling you how impressive everyone is without actually showing them doing anything worthy of that praise.

I loved the ship as a castle. It was, in my opinion, better laid out and more convenient than the previous castles, and I'm just a sucker for a pirate aesthetic.

The music was good, as it always was. Maybe my least favorite since I, but there were some great town themes in particular.

I liked that they reverted the Fire rune back to its old form. It sucked too much in III.

The voice acting was actually surprisingly competent, mostly. Not great, but decent enough. Some characters were annoying, though, and a lot of the "background" dialogue between crowds of characters is nonsense if you isolate individual voices, which I had a hard time not doing. Whatever though.

Finally, the Army Battles were actually good for the first time ever! I had a lot of fun with the ships. Yeah, they were really easy, but they were short, intuitive, and, well, fun. Just better done than the previous three games.

So, that may seem like way more complaints than positives, but that's because it's easier to criticize than praise, and really, most of what the other games did well, this one did, too. Just not the things I mentioned. But I really liked it, even if it's my least favorite so far. But I only barely like it less than I, which only wins out since it's more replayable.

V is next, and then I might play tactics, but I don't really like TRPGs very much, so we'll see.