How would you rank the Suikoden games?

[H-Virus]

I was browsing through PSN for the first time in years and noticed that Suikoden 1-4 are all on sale for six bucks each. I've never actually played any of them before but I've heard good things, so I thought I'd buy one, but not sure which one I should I start with. What's your opinion on how they rank best to worst?

[chronocross]

For me, I'd rank them:

2,1,3,4 (I wouldn't bother getting 4 as I didn't think it was good at all).

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

for me its as follows

2 - improved the formula started with the first game, with a greater helping of moral ambiguity and one of the most memorable and detestable villains in video game history
5 - and gameplay wise, 5 is the best in the series. after the previous 2 installments' silly experiments with combat and sea travel respectively, this installment went back to basics and perfected the combat style of the first 2, and plot-wise offered another great experience. for the first time in the franchise the army battles were actually fun to do. its lone failing is the utterly milquetoast and pathetic villains who spend all 60 hours routinely getting curbstomped into the dirt.
3 - plotwise probably one of the deepest installments, and the character focus was never stronger. it's hampered, though, by its less than optimal battle system, terrible military battle system and villains who come off as inexplicably invincible for way too long.
1 - the first installment has a lot of rust and is way too short but it's still a perfectly enjoyable game that served as a template for its amazing direct sequel.
4 - bad game all around. characters and plot are both comically underdeveloped. changes to the combat engine meant you could only use 4 characters instead of 6, which made it very hard to properly build up multiple teams for the final dungeon. traveling between the tiny islands on your very slow moving ship combined with a way-too-high encounter rate left most of the game a chore to get through. compounding this was the relative lack of diverse enemies to fight, meaning you ended up fighting the same fish people over and over and over and over. the naval battles, while a neat twist, felt underdeveloped as well. and on top of that you are given absolutely zero proper context for the end-game boss, a giant tree you're fighting for... some reason. I will say that Suikoden Tactics rectified a lot of this game's problems by essentially telling almost the same story with the same cast but just plain doing better job of it.

[asellus]

1 is the diamond in the rough for me, it lacks a number of elements that got very prevalent later in the series, or hell, just one game later. Lacking the multiple rune slots so customisation is limited, branching paths on character recruitment and story events. Speaking of it's story, it is is very simple compared to the later games that increased on the political aspect and fairly straightforward. Also the art is very rough on this one. Even so though, it's a very fun game that shows a depth of greatness to it that later games really tap into.

2 is the one in the series that is the most popular. It started a lot improvements on graphics, animations, combat, customisation, story, but it also has stuff I hate. The army battles are slow as f*** and personally not fun. The translation is god awful and can take you out of the moment quite easily which sucks as the story is one of the best ones in the series.

3 is the most unorthodox entry in in the series, storywise you choose whoose story to follow and there are about 6 of them throughout the game, so it's jumping around the place at varying times with different events with different viewpoints and multiple parties to keep track off. Because of this it has arguably the most characters developed in the series. Gameplay has the 6 person limit, but all those 6 people are put into three teams of 2 where if certain characters are put together they will combo together better. It's really weird and a video probably would show it better. 

And 4 you can ignore pretty much. Gameplay wise it's a generic JRPG compared to the rest of the series as it trims the party limit to 4 and puts them all on the same lane, making mages and wizards even more squishy targets than before. Plotwise it can be interesting with it's location and characters, but the legacy characters they added they had to really stretch to make work and even so doesn't necessarily, the war battles is among the worst in the series and the limit on the party severly limits party customisation that the previous games had.

[Cyno]

I'd rank them 5, 2, 1, 3. 4 in terms of gameplay, and 3, 5, 1, 2, 4 in terms of storyline.

[Fundertaker]

2 is my favorite game of all time, so I can't recommend it enough.

After that, 5 is the best game and the story is good, even if the villains are kinda week. 1 is indeed a diamond in the rough, but it clearly has a lot of soul and it's clearly its own thing that no one game at the time replicated. 4 by itself is meh (I don't think it's as bad as many think, just half-baked) but gets a bit better with Tactics.

Never played 3 because I'm in Europe and I don't have a PS3.

[El Cokehead del Knife Fight]

2
5
3
Tactics
1
4

2 is easily on the best rpgs of all time, 5 is basically Konami trying to recapture the spark of 2, 3 is clunky but the storytelling is on point and it has great characterisation, 1 is rough and short but it has a great soundtrack and 4 is just a bad Suikoden game. You should play it if you want to play Tactics though since that game does a lot to redeem 4 by expanding on the region and offering a bit more characterisation.

[El Cokehead del Knife Fight]

Jan 7, 2018 13:05:52 GMT -5 asellus said:

And 4 you can ignore pretty much. Gameplay wise it's a generic JRPG compared to the rest of the series as it trims the party limit to 4 and puts them all on the same lane, making mages and wizards even more squishy targets than before. Plotwise it can be interesting with it's location and characters, but the legacy characters they added they had to really stretch to make work and even so doesn't necessarily, the war battles is among the worst in the series and the limit on the party severly limits party customisation that the previous games had.

The dumbest thing is that 4 does away with the range system almost entirely except for one frigging boss that you wouldn't know requires ranged fighters until you actually fought it.