Finished up Suikoden 3 after playing the first two in the series. I previously started this game way back when it was released some 20 years ago and never finished it. It was my first foray into that world. Replaying it decades later I can see a bit why I soured on it. The story isn't quite as good as 2. It does some interesting things like the 3 split main characters, their perspective in similar historical events, and playing through those scenarios. At the same time that leads to some overlap and repetitiveness.
Like the previous titles Suikoden 3 suffers from the incredibly large cast of characters, 108 stars as always to possibly recruit (Although you're not forced to find them all, unless you want the best ending). While it's always nice having a large cast of characters, Suikoden forces you to often take certain characters for story purposes, and Suikoden 3 may be the worst one yet when it comes to those limitations. In many chapters you can recruit new characters, but you cannot use them. For the most part your parties are kind of static until Chapters 4 and 5. Suikoden 2 got around this a bit with the "Convoy" character spots where you could bring a character along, but they didn't take up a combat party spot, allowing you some flexibility. That doesn't get used much in Suikoden 3 sadly. The one nice thing is that the fixed parties allow for more attention on certain characters, so rather than a huge pool of shallow characters we have a huge pool of shallow characters along with a handful of very fleshed out individuals.
There seems to be a real lack of strong casters too, which is a departure from previous games. You do get some, but it's mostly a bit late in the game. Even so, the casters are a bit overshadowed by some incredibly hard hitting melee characters. Melee is king, especially if the character's names are Emily or Juan. The Runes just don't seem to hit as hard as previous games, and some Runes like Fire end up hurting your own characters quite a bit.
Overall the game is okay. It does a lot of good things, but I feel like the transition from 2D sprites to 3D sprites took a toll. The characters seemed somewhat less expressive than 2 as far as facial animations and emotions. In general the characters were a bit more conservative in their emotions, rather reserved save for a few hotheads like Hugo. Combat is okay, although I still prefer the 2D battlefield of the first games. One area that was lacking was the transition locations, the Plains and the Mountain Pass in particular. You're CONSTANTLY going back and forth from town to town and traipsing through these spots, and they're pretty bland and unimpressive. The plains are basically just flat maps of grass with a path, and the mountain pass is long as fuck. Gets real repetitive. You do get access to the Blinking Mirror and Viki teleportation to help combat this, but you don't get them until very late. I won't be missing the Yaza Plains.
Biggest gripe with the game is the story. The split protagonists make things a little interesting, but they don't save a mostly bland plot. There's definitely some continuity issues too, and some of the motives for character's actions are sketchy at best. Part of that could be translation issues, from what I understand the game is plagued a bit with that, and it doesn't help one of the project leads left halfway through. There are parts that feel like a real slog, and the game is seriously lacking a strong antagonist like the one in Suikoden 2.
I think the game was still enjoyable, I'm not sure where I'd rank it, probably 3rd among the first 3 in the series I've played, but I wouldn't say it's far past the first one. 2 is still the best thusfar, although I'm not sure it lives up to the major hype it got. I plan on finishing the series by playing Suikoden 4 and 5, but for now I think I'm going to take a break and replay some of the Breath of Fire games. I love some Capcom RPGs, and the trailers for Dragon's Dogma 2 have me fired up.
I've been playing a bit of Payday 3 as well, which just came out. As expected it's lacking a lot of content that Payday 2 had, but that was also a game that had 10 years of DLC. There's only about 7 heists to do right now, and the game was plauged the first week with server issues. There's been a lot of complaints about the progression system, which is tied to Challenges currently, as well as a weak Perk system. Supposedly the developers have heard these complaints and plan on retooling the game already, we'll see how that goes. Right now I can't recommend the game until it's a bit more stable and there's more heists to do. The heists that are available are fun, and the challenge of stealthing or going loud are equally difficult on higher levels, but there needs to be more available heists. It's great to play with a buddy or 3, excellent co-op. Here's a trailer if anyone is interested.
NSFW for language
