S5 - Beaten yesterday! Butterfly~ cost me a reset because I forgot S5 polish fails and didn't rearrange the reset formation for the last battle, making Miakis miss everything. Second time, I abused one formation that dealt MT 9999 damage. <_< But anyhow. Final party was Freyjadour/Miakis/Lyon/Cathari/Nelis/Killey. Balanced for magic and physicals, Miakis for MVP forever with Cathari right behind as the other damage goddess. Lyon also killed things with her physical, while I twinked Frey for magic. Nelis/Killey were mages, although I do recognize Killey would be pretty strong as a physical twink, too. Anyhow, rant time!
If I may: Suikoden 5 in a nutshell is EVERYTHING IS FABULOUS~: The Game. The fabulous-o-meter implodes in the early game with Arshtat+Ferid alone, and it just escalates from that (although Arshtat+Ferid are the most fabulous of them all). I've never seen such a collection of pointlessly, incredibly pretty people crammed together, and the game even hangs a lampshade on that. Past that... well.
First, the bad. Suikoden 5 polish FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAILS. As in, fails like Suikoden 1 polish, sometimes more. At times, it felt like I was playing a PSX-era RPG, with clunky navigation, poor menu memory, obnoxiously present loading screens, constantly resetting formations and DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAL Y/N. Not to mention the graphics are poor. I'd call them sub-S3 in a heartbeat, and while I don't ask for the game to be pretty like S4 (hey, pretty was like one of three things S4 had going for it), it was horribly rushed in that regard and it shows.
S5 recruitment ALSO fails hardcore, which really ties in with polish. The requirements for some units are impossibly retarded, there are obscure recruitment windows and obtuse tangentially related side requirements by the gallon, and there are many annoying to get, perma-missable characters who are tied in with OTHER annoying to get and perma-missable characters. Layering obnoxiousness is the way to failure. Even with a FAQ, recruiting is a pain, and don't you dare begin S5 without at least the Stars of Destiny FAQ from Suikosource handy if you want to get all the SoDs. *Punts Djinn for S5 recruitment hype.*
Continuing on the bad, S5 continues S4's tendency of going steps backwards in gameplay. Adding skills back to Suikoden is yay and adding Party SP mechanics as well as more flexible SP management is also yay. Severely limiting the effects, uniqueness and versatility of skills is very not yay (two skill slots? No relevant in-battle uniques? Fail). This makes them ultimately not matter much, and they certainly don't matter as character distinction tools - which sucks, since S3 did this pretty well. The bad outweighs the good here.
Now, for the inoffensive: gameplay is essentially non-existant, but I certainly didn't mind it. The game is impossibly broken and drops evil twinking runes for both magical and physical ends like candy, which makes the twinking in S5 rather versatile, since you can make things explode in a very practical manner no matter which way you choose. Since I generally like Suikoden's rune micromanagement in its raw simplicity, this works. Also helps level the character balance and amount of people worth using in the game: S4 was annoying because it had S1 syndrome - i.e. most everybody sucks to the point of uselessness, and the really good people are few and far between. S5 makes so that the vast majority of people can be made at least moderately effective, and more than a select few downright monstrous. It's mindless, but sometimes, I find mindless fun. The game is certainly way too easy to warrant even one third of the broken it provides, but hey. I mean, Circle Formation alone rips the game in half. >_>
Now, for the good: the writing is a -joy-, particularly for console RPG standards. Snappy dialogue, well-defined and colorful personalities, and, for most of the game, a noticeable, satisfying sense of internal consistency that seeps through the writing - along with generally superb execution in most areas. The character work was, sadly, at its best in the early game, but that sharpness makes the slow, plodding beginning non-annoying to pass through. Honestly, while S5 pacing isn't fast at all, it's good: the story itself doesn't feel like a horribly rushed supercompressing storytelling disaster like, say, S4. And the game doesn't feel dragging because of it - far the contrary, the game feels fairly constantly dynamic and adding layers in a nice pace. I also dig the setup and atmosphere of Falena: it felt well-executed and very distinctive. Characters are also generally good and consistent (Arshtat and Ferid are -wonderful-, and Lymsleia is probably the best-written child I've seen in a game), although I have this feeling of "what the hell" with Marscal and Sialeeds. I have the vague feeling some Perfect Works retconned the vagueness of Sialeeds's true objectives, which probably shatters the effectiveness of the character with a sledgehammer, and Marscal feels way out of the left field. Otherwise, though, it's all fine. However, I have to say that the poor graphics hurt a few scenes, particularly the ones with crying. OHGOD THE RENDERING IT BURRRRRRRRRRRRNS kinda takes out the impacts of scenes like Lym's breakdown, since the ugliness tosses the effect right into the uncanny valley.
The rest is just typical Suikodenness, but this isn't bad, at least not to me (I have a vague positive bias towards Suikoden in general. My constant ragging on S4 shows how badly they screwed it up considering the series sorta caters to me in a primal level). Backed up by good writing, it's downright damn good. Certainly no Suikoden 3, but S5 certainly lived up to my expectations in the sense I was expecting, and I had tons of fun even in spite of the horrible polish. 8/10 because the writing just hit my good spots that damned much.
