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Our Flame Champion must be Iroh.
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Jan 4, 2013 20:05
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The game really wastes Sword of Magic. It's a neat concept but there's nobody who actually gets much mileage out of them because the intersection of Characters Good with Sword of Magic, Characters with Multiple Rune Slots Open, and Characters Who Aren't Mages is, if memory serves, exactly one character. Who isn't all that good. You actually can attack on the same turn you cast the enchantment, but you have to be a lot faster than Hugo's team is at this level.
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Jan 6, 2013 10:42
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The Zexen folk tend to be more... venomous about their racism. You get the impression that the grasslanders (and really mostly the Karaya and the Lizard) don't like Zexen because they're enemies and fight a lot so you don't like those guys much, while the Zexen don't like grasslanders because they think they're sub-human scum. When we see some of the higher ups in Zexen they are... pretty much exactly what you'd expect if you played through Hugo before meeting them. Also... vilkacis posted:
Roland: Carrying on a proud* tradition. *Why elves are proud of this tradition makes no drat sense. loving elves man.
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Jan 8, 2013 03:37
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I rather do like the random racism in the castle, though.
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Nah. Suikoden V is basically Suikoden II but made in 2006 so they knew a few more things. Regardless of whether you like it or not Suikoden III was definitely trying to be something a bit different from Suikoden II.
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Jan 10, 2013 17:43
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The upgrades to the duels and war battles were definitely palpable in V. That said it had its own flaws relating to overall gameplay (encounter rates, crummy town layouts, load times, piss easy bosses) where Suikoden II had more issues with things like absurd high end twinking being a bit too... available. I like the overall difficulty curve in II (disclaimer, I like my story-driven games a bit on the easy side), where bosses aren't too bad if you play casual but putting thought into how you set up your party rewards you with shiny numbers, but the stuff the game just hands you gets very silly too easily. But no mistake, Suikoden as a whole is a series where you pick which flaws you find forgivable. Suikoden III is one of my absolute, best-game-ever favorite games, and the issues I take with it really haven't even cropped up yet so it's not meaningful to talk about them for now. (Although if you think about the main conceit of the game, you can probably guess the biggest issue that's going to crop up.)
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Jan 11, 2013 09:58
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A lot of folks detest this part. I suppose I can kinda see it? But all things considered it's worth seeing once. But considering you can just head up to the inn and rest a few times to skip to the next event, not really worth getting upset over. On the whole it's part of one of Suikoden III's bigger strengths. The game is just loaded with little options that, while they don't truly shape the narrative, do effect how scenes play out and provide a sense that what you do lets you see different aspects of the story. Generally speaking a good way to nod to the earlier games' silent heroes but still moving past it.
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Jan 13, 2013 10:10
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General Antares posted:Thats my biggest gripe about this game is that its really easy to get forced to start over. At some point you're forced to use geddoe and co. and I hadn't leveled them in a long time and kept getting slaughtered by random mobs. Rage quit the game after that and haven't really felt like picking it up again since. ... really? I assume you're talking chapter 5 here? Not to say there aren't some relatively decent randoms in that area but... man. I'm not sure we played the same game.
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Jan 17, 2013 07:33
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If memory serves, you DO get locked into a dungeon once you go there at that stage. Just... regardless of how long it's been since you used Geddoe or his team you should be able to win fights and catch up in levels. While levels are relatively less useful than equipment or skills they're still useful when you get 5 of them in a shot, which characters you haven't used for a couple dungeons will definitely do.
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Jan 17, 2013 07:50
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I remember playing around with this Guillaume duel once, trying to figure out if there was actually a pattern to his callouts (and they were merely mixed up since he's a lying liar who lies) or if the game randomized it. Sadly I don't remember which it was. I do however remember the fight lasting long enough that he berserked and I think I just got bored and intentionally lost, so probably it's the former. Likely they just did the duel as normal then jumbled the callouts and attacks to create something random. Given he's going to OHKO Melville anyway, a lot of players probably don't realize he's rigged to only take that one or two damage before becoming invincible. Anyway, the game actually does treat the sidequest here as the two days its portrayed. Normally you'd need to rest at the inn three times to trigger the next story event, but with the sidequest it becomes one. I'm wondering if resting at the inn after trying to meet the council causes you to miss the trigger here? I can't really remember. But certainly you could go to the end of the shops here, realize the city is basically a circle, and never pass by the alleyway to trigger the scene with Alanis and Elliot. Since there's a few other recruitables you just cannot get at this time (in fact we can't recruit yet), it's reasonable to see the confrontation between Melville and Guillaume and think it's just a hook for a later chapter. Never put that together with the sirens. It... explains a whole loving lot. Lulu's an odd character. He'll never really be great, his Swing skill isn't high enough to get that many attacks out of a 1H Sword (despite having the same knife-thing as Hugo, mechanically he uses a 1H Sword where Hugo's weapon is unique, slightly stronger and more importantly lighter than that weapon) and if memory serves he has the generic Karaya magic affinities with like B+ in Earth and Wind and B-C in the proper attack magics, but for right now when raw stats matter more than half-developed skills he's really quite decent, dodgy and enough damage to not be completely irrelevant.
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Jan 18, 2013 07:12
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What he's really complaining about is the combination of characters needing skills as well as levels to perform, and that characters now have effectively 0 defense if you don't give them armor. The thing is, the latter shouldn't be an issue if you just want to try out new people; the game routinely shoves new characters at you whose armor you can steel, and if you're just experimenting you strip the characters you kicked out of the party. Sure, you need cash for weapon forging, but that's every Suikoden and III is better than some (*ahem*hellosuikodeniv) in that matter. Skills can be a concern, but if you understand the skill system (And let's be fair, the game doesn't indicate very well that the most critical and important skill in the game is Swing for physical fighters) the default skill points the character starts with will get you started on their key skills (Swing and Heavy Damage for fighters, [Element] Magic for mages, Shield Defense in addition to Armor Defense for any character who has it). If memory serves, what the game actually does is give each enemy formation a set amount of skill points it drops and divides that among active characters, so if you were especially daring you could have just your main and characters you need to level and speed the process. More importantly any character you're absolutely required to use is forced quite regularly (unless I'm seriously forgetting someone), meaning that you shouldn't be in a situation where a character is shoved in your party late in the game and they have no real skill training. Any grinding is really for characters you haven't used and want to try out, and while the process could certainly be streamlined given that the required characters are generally solid and, thanks to the game's main conceit, there's plenty to choose from it's really just not an issue. At least, I never had one.
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Jan 20, 2013 06:43
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Speaking of these characters, did you have a plan for chapter order yokaiy?
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Jan 20, 2013 08:13
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:
That sort of thing is basically the point of the game, yes. Really, the entire series shoots for this sort of feel, but Suikoden III gets it very, very right thanks to its' central gimmick.
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Jan 24, 2013 01:36
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Suikoden games use stat tiers. Each tier will have a range of stat bonuses you can gain at each level. I forget Suikoden III's in particular, but it'll generally be stuff like 0-1 for bottom tier, 5-6 for top, that sort of thing. E: Actually, hell, more numbers less talking out my rear end. Here's Hugo's growth chart. (Thanks, Suikosource!) Hugo PWR SKL MAG REP PDF MDF SPD LUK HP Growth Rate 04 07 04 06 x 04 06 05 04 Starting 12 14 12 13 x 12 13 13 20 Level 01-02 0-1 0-1 0-1 0-1 x 0-1 0-1 0-1 1-3 Level 03-21 2-3 3-4 2-3 3-4 x 2-3 3-4 2-3 7-9 Level 22-61 1-2 2-3 1-2 2-3 x 1-2 2-3 1-2 6-7 Level 62-99 0-1 0-1 0-1 0-1 x 0-1 0-1 0-1 2-4 Ending 90-188 151-249 90-188 150-248 x 90-188 150-248 91-189 470-626 Hugo's a fairly well rounded character. Bottom tier would be 01, top 08, so we can see he's just kinda okay in most stats but very good at hitting things, dodging, and has a lot of speed. I was a bit off before, I forgot that the game actually alters stat growth through the game (although we'll see later that for the most part the fastest area of stat growth is one we don't spend a lot of time in; Suikoden III has a weirdly high initial level for most characters). I'm not sure what to make of those ending numbers, mostly because of the magic score. I guess you would need to basically roll low on every single level up, but even then I wonder if the game doesn't have checks for this sort of thing. Like, if you're too far off an average it may start rigging you to roll high in that stat, that sort of thing. CmdrKing fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Jan 24, 2013 |
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Jan 24, 2013 08:35
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The weird ones are always best. I greatly look forward to recruitment opening up and hitting Iksay village. Anyway, one of the things Suikoden III does much more noticeably than the rest of the series(due to the skill system) is have racial archetypes. That is, characters of the same race/nationality will tend to have fairly similar base stats, equipment options and skills, with each having minor variations to differentiate them from their peers. So other Karayans we get will be able to use light armor, hats, have above average wind and earth magic and tend towards being a bit frail but dodgey and speedy. Other Ducks we encounter will have medium armor, the duck halberd, and have fairly rounded stats with an emphasis on water magic. Makes sense right, game has like 70 playable characters to make. Here's the interesting part, with what people have said in the thread. Of the characters designed this way, the nationality with the most interesting and highest number of good usable characters? Ducks. The Zexans have their strengths but in general I'd definitely rather stick all the Ducks in my party than all the Zexans.
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Jan 30, 2013 21:22
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I was just thinking combat PCs. Which there are *check* 78 of including Lulu, albeit some of those don't really count.
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Jan 30, 2013 22:19
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Speaking of the manga and the ruling body of Zexen, at a later point in the game I'm tempted to find some scans because... reasons. Glorious reasons.
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Feb 1, 2013 05:25
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Just in case you played Chris before Hugo, we again establish out of the gate that the Zexen Council is basically the worst.
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Feb 1, 2013 23:26
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I'm pretty sure that's correct. The opportunities to use it are pretty rare so I can't say for certain, but pretty sure. That said I don't think it's ever directly stated whether or not the Zexen council was conducting the peace agreement in good faith. Certainly, the offhanded comment about disposing of Chris and their treatment of Hugo suggest it was not. However, it could be they were legitimately interested in peace, but didn't particularly care if it fell through. If they get peace, well good, save money on military expenses. If they go to war and do well, good, they take over new lands and don't have to hire out to grasslanders to protect their convoys. If they go to war and things go south, good, the dangerously popular knights are quietly sent off to die while the council secures the home front and quietly makes some other scheme to ensure their own survival.
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Feb 2, 2013 10:42
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While there's several good unites from a mechanical perspective, this is very true. Only one, maybe two are remotely interesting from an artistic standpoint, and that involves using a full team of joke characters.
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Feb 2, 2013 18:55
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Generally speaking, a unite requires the character involved to be in a pair. Since most unites are between characters of similar fighting styles (two tanks, two front line fighters, two command rune users), you would never do this unless prompted to by an outside source. So you'll probably only see the 3+ person unites which, on the whole, aren't very good. There's really only one unite in the game that you should be using constantly for any stretch of the game, and it's something of a backhanded compliment because the reason you should be doing this is because both characters suck and need the help. Suikoden III has an inherent advantage when it comes to developing the cast. Normally some of the better characters in a Suikoden game are the hero's posse, the strategist, and one or two of the major faction leaders right? Well, since it has three heroes (and they themselves have a leg up on the others in the series since they have dialog), each one has a posse. And since the primary cast is so large, similarly there's a lot of developed characters for the secondary cast to interact with, giving them more opportunities to shine. There's still some complete duds in the cast, but on the whole I could rattle off most of Suikoden III's cast and tell you a bit about them where any other game in the series gets pretty fuzzy after the first 30 or so.
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Feb 3, 2013 10:52
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Are you sure? We get Bazba, Dupa, and Shiba, but I'm pretty sure there's only the three lizards, putting them in a tie with Ducks among the non-human races.
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Feb 7, 2013 08:59
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Did you have any plans to talk about the trick with this strategy battle?
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Feb 10, 2013 10:41
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As is usually the case in Suikoden III, it is possible to win this battle. That is, the enemy units here can be all be defeated, and there are a finite number of them. The Karayan units are the only reinforcements in this battle. However, as you may have noticed, all the grasslander units here badly outstat you and, as a practical matter, you just aren't going to beat all of them. However, the boars and such you can fight at the Amur Plains are actually very good experience. With a little grinding, you can level up to about 35 here without too much trouble. With that, getting some of the better armors available at the Council Headquarters shop, and raising your Armor Protect ranks, you can give yourself enough stats to reasonably fight the Grasslanders here. Pointless, since you just did the fight? Nope. Like every Suikoden game, if you wipe in Suikoden III, you're given the option to continue, which kicks you back to the last save point with any levels and inventory you gained intact. Anyway, so you make a save before resting and going to the treaty signing, you can level up at the plains, go back to this strategy fight, and win. The game continues as normal (your off-screen troops are still in trouble!), but winning gives you a Major Victory, which in game terms means you get a bonus. The bonus here... is +2 levels. Since Suikoden III defense is, for any non-animal character, 0 without equips, as long as you don't go nuts raising Repel or similar skills it's pretty easy to be killed at your inflated levels at the Amur Plains again. And do the battle, and gain +2 levels, repeatedly. Now, in every Suikoden game, due to the way experience scaling works, getting levels much above 60 is monstrously impractical. So doing this is actually the best overall way level up to 99. And since Chris is level 99, the handful of characters who join at [Main Char Level+/- modifier] will similarly be ridiculously overlevelled. It takes a lot of time, but at the same time Suikoden III really enjoys throwing 'battles you can technically win but are rigged against you' at you, and if you want a simple way to win those, well here it is.
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Feb 10, 2013 19:56
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Well, it's more "burn down buildings and hope the fleeing civilians distract their army", but it's certainly a plan with needlessly high body count potential.
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Feb 16, 2013 09:35
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Suikoden on the whole is better about it than some games (A lot of the SMT spinoffs get a mention here), but by the PS2 era it definitely wasn't holding up. Like, in the original game, I can kinda buy Tir just being a really quiet guy who only speaks up when he absolutely has to. The ratio of dialog choices to scenes where he needs to say something is really good, and there's a handful of times when words just wouldn't be the right choice to start with and the game does well with those. Your life-long caretaker is gone, not even leaving a body to mourn? Yeah, that sprite pose conveys that emotion. Sneaking off in the middle of the night to spare your friends and nation the curse of the Soul Eater? The scene conveys that intent without a word being spoken. That sort of thing. Freyadour meanwhile... expressive as he can be, I feel like they crossed the line between "he's showing emotion without words!" into "he clearly should be saying things but the words don't come out because of stupid silent main conventions" territory. It stopped being part of the character and became an obvious limitation imposed on the game due to whatever reason, probably a really loud and stupid bit of the fandom.
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Feb 18, 2013 08:21
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Truthfully I thought he was one of the things that actually worked in that game. The "gently caress subtlety" approach to the whole destiny thing they took required that sort of character. Now why the gently caress they put voice acting in the game if they were just going to compress it down to chipmunk I'll never understand. I definitely questioned why the hell I was still playing the game every ten minute or so in the opening act thanks almost entirely to that (the game got better after that! Not good, but better.)
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Feb 18, 2013 08:35
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As Suikoden games go, III is fairly resistant to breaking. The level 99 trick does give you more-or-less immortal characters, but the effort to reward ratio is terrible; you'll spend far longer doing it than it's really worth. While the usual array of awesome support runes are in the game, they're available much later than in Suikoden II, and even then they aren't worth anything without investing the time to raising your skill ranks as well. You don't really get any of the high-tier magic runes early on, and relatively speaking magic is probably at its weakest in Suikoden III anyway so getting an early Rage or Thunder rune would be useful but not really game-breaking. No mistake, you can break this game, but it's not until a long ways in, well past the half-way point. I think it's one of the biggest reasons series fans sometimes dislike III; no Suikoden game has had inspiring gameplay, and the ability to search the nooks and crannies and achieve ultimate power and finding different ways to break the game over your knee were the non-plot appeal of the series. Suikoden III holds out on you quite a while in that department, so someone going into it from Suikoden II wuold probably be miffed.
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Feb 19, 2013 05:34
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This little scene in the church is one of the things that makes Chris work as a character. It continues on from the scene in Karaya, where cutting down a child clearly bothered her. She shrugs it off to do what needs done, and while it continues to bother her when she's left alone with her thoughts in this scene, she again mulls it over and decides that while it might be distasteful, it's in the past and all she can do is move on. She manages to be an emotional, responsive character without wallowing in her emotions unchecked. It's the sort of nuance and subtlety that Suikoden as a whole was surprisingly good at, and one of the key ingredients that made Tierkreis not feel like a Suikoden game; it has some of the broader themes and trappings, but little of the politic and none of the subtle character moments. Very much in-your-face sledgehammer style storytelling.
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Feb 23, 2013 09:41
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In a lot of ways Suikoden III is the followup to the Suikogaiden games rather than Suikoden II, so yeah, there's a ton of Harmonia in it.
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Feb 26, 2013 21:46
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I always forget what happens in which Suikogaiden (not being able to play them has that effect), I always end up thinking the first is a direct followup to Suikoden II while the second is moreso about Harmonian stuff, but it could be more evenly divided.
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Feb 26, 2013 22:05
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That's really the crux of the matter. While Fire Spells have better AoE, Lightning spells are rarely just single-target in this game. You can still clear crowds with them fairly well, which intrudes on Fire's niche even before the friendly fire aspect kicks in. Overall this is the worst showing in the series for the Fire Rune, which is hilarious. Mind, they can be effective on the right characters and with the right preparation, but even then most of those characters can use Lightning almost as effectively with a lot less effort.
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Feb 27, 2013 06:39
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Joker has middling ranks in the other elements, sans being mediocre at Lightning. One thing that we haven't seen in great detail is how skills work, so I don't want to take up too much time, but we've seen already that characters have different numbers of slots for skills. What you might not notice until it's pointed out is that some skills are fixed, as in they cannot be removed from the character, while others are variable. While there are other types of magic beyond the five elements in this game, the skills to use them (and just to get it out of the way, NEVER use magic without training the skill rank in this game. It is NOT worth your time.) are fixed skills, which won't be unlocked until they gain some levels. Joker additionally has a good rank in one of these, but it won't be relevant until basically the end of the game for this reason. So if you want him as an attack mage, you pretty much have Fire. He's an adequate healer if you want, and his ranks in various combat skills are acceptable, so it's really where you need holes plugged in Geddoe's party. Related, personally I find Queen pretty effective as a wind mage. Her skill is fairly average, but it's her best one, and when you look at her stats she's really more of a mage. Although she does get one of the key combat skills so she too can work either way. That said, there's an upcoming fight where I've found Wind on Queen basically the simplest way to get the win, but perhaps there's better ways I never played with.
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Feb 27, 2013 19:53
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I forget if Wind of Sleep really works, but just having an attack spell on her to throw at the fight is enough.
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Feb 27, 2013 20:51
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Really? It expects you to grind out Geddoe's Lightning skill more than anything else. If you do that you have a fighting chance, but what you give Queen does boost your odds considerably to be sure. But yeah, like a lot of battles int eh game it's there to win for dedicated players, and you aren't expected to actually win it. Doing so just gets you little bits of plot earlier than you otherwise would. Although personally, I find there's only two battles like thsi that are really nasty, one in Geddoe's second chapter and the other in Hugo's. Hugo's in particular is horrifically stacked against you for multiple reasons, and Geddoe's just has a "gently caress it, you lose" moment.
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Feb 28, 2013 07:11
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There are bits of equipment that do raise skill ranks, but I forget if any of them have Swing. There's definitely a way to raise someone's Swing rank by one, but I'm not sure if there is to raise it by two. The difference between A (Hugo's natural rank) and S is pretty astounding, although even then I really doubt he'd get beyond six swings. That's because of how swing is calculated. What the Swing skill actually does is directly reduce the base time it takes you to execute a hit. That base time, however, is mostly based on the weight of your weapon, then adjusted by your Speed stat. Hugo's weapon is pretty light, lighter than a one-handed sword, but still significantly heavier than the weapon of the natural S rank swing character... well one of htem. There's actually two. Anyway, the natural Swing master averages about 9 hits by the end of hte game, although they attack so fast the game occasionally gets a bit confused and will do 8 or 10 even if they don't really move. That said, the theoretical max would be 100 hits I imagine. The game breaks each turn down into 100 'clicks' for lack of better term, and I suspect that if you hacked it so a character had 0 weapon weight and the like, their attack would take 1 click to execute and they'd hit every click thereafter. There might be some safeguards against this sort of nonsense though, so who knows, and of course that's not possible in the actual game because yeah.
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Mar 2, 2013 21:47
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I wonder how many players took the 'eh' option just to see what the hell Ged was talking about, only to be less than happy with the results. that said, Eh is the good and correct choice.
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Mar 10, 2013 10:26
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I find the lizards don't really shine as combat units. Mostly because while they're a big ol' pile of stats, they don't get much mileage out of skills, so other characters tend to overtake them by the time they join back up. That said, they are pretty good war units. it doesn't stand out in the Horribly Rigged Against You fight in Chris 1, but enemies in those fights are much tankier than monsters and the like, so one good smack of lizard damage, along with their buckets of HP, make them a lot more effective. (This might also be related to not being able to directly control units in war battles. Just a little.)
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Mar 11, 2013 01:33
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Goddamn I love Man in Blacks' outfit. Actually, the whole trio we see here has very evocative designs, but MiB in particular.
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Mar 17, 2013 09:36
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Personally I take the costs of sharpening as rock solid evidence of hyperinflation, so I imagine the only thing keeping potch in circulation is Harmonian tradition.
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Mar 21, 2013 06:48
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 18:21 |
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Thomas' core characters share a quirk that'll be easier to discuss when we have them and their stats on hand. Short version is that they're sort of the inverse of Geddoe's team. Shield Rune I find is really a mid-game kinda thing. 200 base healing is good but it doesn't scale up quite as well as the water runes do. Though the real issue is that most Shield Rune users have better skill ranks in Water, and those who don't are fairly average at both. The other thing to note is that Great Blessing is much slower than Kindness Drops/Rain or Healing Wind, so in some later fights it often just doesn't fire as fast as you might need it to. As well, it lacks an L4 spell entirely. So it synergizes well with Earth I suppose (where the only spell worth casting is the L4).
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Mar 22, 2013 08:21
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