Suikoden 5: Finally done. It took a while to grab all 108 stars, but its done. FAQ bait indeed. Summary of my opinion: Story's very good, characters were very much awesome. I think everyone from the main cast wins, except Prince since he's mute. A few others don't shine like Galleon, but the rest such as Georg, Sialeeds, Lyon and Miakis were all very well done.
Gameplay is fine. Challenge fails until the final boss though. Its like AI2 all over again! 95% of the game is cake, last 5% which is the final dungeon and boss are actually challenging. Still, not having played a single Suiko before, it was a nice intro. Although the fact that "spam big elemental damage" plus the fact that you get lots of broken twinking opportunities makes this like a cross between AI2 and AT altogether.
Overall...probably a 7/10 game. Score brought down due to some stupid polish issues. The ship sailing is a really big one. I still am not really understanding why they decided to do it. Another one is moving Luserina away from Ceras Lake Castle after the retaking of Sol Falena. God damn it, just place her in the same place as the blinking mirror. There were a couple of other things too like the retarded loading times, but game probably would be at least 0.5 higher if not for these things. Still quite fun (and frustrating!) for the most part.
And now, to decide what to play or continue next.