Suikoden Tactics Review (Sony PlayStation 2, 2005)

By and large fans of the Suikoden series consider the fourth installment to be one of its big blunders. After experimenting with part three Konami returned more to the roots of the franchise. Unfortunately it felt low budget and was competing against some other heavy hitting releases at the time. I loved it. The game felt like classic Suikoden, but can recognize that it has some issues. Konami made the strange decision to follow it up with a spin-off. Suikoden Tactics was a strategy RPG game unlike any other game in the series. It too is considered to be one of the black sheep in this franchise. Today we’re going to make a return to the Island Nations and see if Suikoden Tactics is still worth playing. Let’s take a look.

What makes the Suikoden series unique is that each installment takes place in the same world, but in a different part of it and at a separate point in the timeline. Suikoden Tactics takes a slightly different approach to this concept. It is both a prequel, and a sequel to Suikoden IV. The first few hours of the game take place a few years before the events that led Lazlo to save the Island Nations from the Kooluk Empire, and the rest occur afterward. Because Tactics shares many of the same locations from IV the two are extremely interconnected. This time however you’re playing as a youth named Kyril. He, along with his father and a few other adventurers are seeking out the rune cannons (a major plot point of Suikoden IV) while exploring the Island Nations.

After some tragic events befall Kyril’s group the game skips forward several years. He’s now an adult, but has the same traveling companions and his goal remains. The group sets out to discover the truth about the rune cannons on a quest that takes them across the Island Nations and even into the Kooluk Empire itself. The time skip mechanic is one that we had not seen in the series up to this point. While I feel like it’s an interesting change of pace the whole thing feels largely unnecessary. Suikoden Tactics could have just as easily began at where the action picks up after the skip. I feel like the developers included the long winded set up in order to tie this one more closely to Suikoden IV. Unfortunately it’s too slow and I can see how many gamers would be turned off by this.

Every mainline Suikoden title up to this point included strategy based army battles. Suikoden Tactics is based entirely around this idea, but more closely mirrors more traditional games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. Battles take place on grid based battlefields and the action is strictly turn based. When it comes time to input a command for a character you can move them to another square within their range of movement. If they’re next to an enemy they can attack them. You can also use commands like items, and spells (or runes as they’re called here). There’s a fair bit of strategy here as you want to keep your characters out of harms way, but also need to strike back against foes. It’s a pretty basic set up as far as strategy RPGs go, but there’s are a couple of new things here.

For one thing every character and enemy is assigned an element. These include all of the classics from the series such as fire, water, electricity, wind and earth. Each of them is strong against one, weak against another, and neutral to the remaining. Basically if you attack a fire based enemy with a character imbued with water it’s going to do more damage. The terrain can also be charged with specific elements with the use of runes or items. If your character is standing on a square imbued with the power of their same element they get stat bonuses and recover hit points at the end of each turn. The opposite is true if they’re left standing on a square with one they’re weak against. This adds significant layers to the strategy. It’s possible to set up elements to give you an advantage, but the enemy can also do so.

In fact, they do this a lot. In many of the later encounters the elemental grids play a huge role in combat. Enemies will constantly paint the terrain to their advantage often undoing any preparations of your own. Typically you will have a party of characters with varying elemental attributes. You have to pay constant attention to what kind of enemies you are facing. To be successful here you need to ensure they’re being matched up against a character that will be effective against them. In the beginning I assumed this was some minor gimmick but Suikoden Tactics takes it very seriously. A sudden change in element can make or break your party in battle. Some of the later battles even have environmental factors that change this on their own. The elemental attribute mechanic will keep you on your toes from start to finish.

Despite being a spin-off Suikoden Tactics feels remarkably like a mainline game in the series. Many of the mainstays are in place here. For one thing you have access to town areas wherein weapons can be sharpened, items/weapons purchased, you can interact with NPCs, participate in side quests, etc. Even the runes function similarly to how they have in the past with the same spells, and different levels. Specific characters also have combo attacks that allow you to unleash powerful strikes at the cost of both of their turns. Unfortunately Tactics lacks the 108 Stars of Destiny of the previous games, but there are still over sixty characters to recruit which is an astronomical number for a strategy RPG. Konami did an excellent job of keeping implementing many features that make Suikoden, well, Suikoden.

What’s cool is that you can even load your Suikoden IV end-game save for some bonuses. A huge portion of characters return from Lazlo’s story, and if you spent any time with them there they will be stronger here. If you managed to collect all 108 Stars of Destiny in Suikoden IV Lazlo and Snowe will even join your party in Tactics. This is well worth it considering they are the two best characters here. This feature pushes the connectivity between the two games further. The two games share so many of the same locations and characters that this is a neat bridge between them. With that said you can still enjoy Suikoden Tactics having never played the last game. You’ll miss out on many story references, and the aforementioned bonuses, but this release ultimately stands on its own two feet.

Suikoden IV had a number of issues that Tactics even manages to fix. Exploration in the last iteration was mundane and took far too long. Now you simply select your destination from a point and click map. No more extended sailing sequences here. Additionally exploration was pretty much entirely cut out. This isn’t something I’m historically a fan of but most of the environments introduced in Suikoden IV were boring and barren. Seeing them reduced to a mere menu is actually a net positive in this situation. One thing I did miss unfortunately are the one-on-one duels. This has always been a major part of the series. To make matters worse there are several instances where the main character faces off against one opponent alone in battle. These would have been perfect for those situations.

While I like Suikoden Tactics (I even consider it to be one of the best RPGs of all time) it isn’t without its problems. For one thing your party is limited to up to eight characters at once. While it makes sense in previous Suikoden games that number is very limited for a tactics title. It’s especially insulting given the large roster of characters you can choose from. Furthermore battles tend to drag on too long. The playable areas are too large. It can take several turns just to get to the enemies even with them charging head on. Mounts help with this, but not entirely. Furthermore the game absolutely loves to constantly spawn in new enemies. You never know where or when they’ll show up. This slows things down further because you don’t want to separate the group because you’re not sure what you’re ultimately up against.

Unfortunately the game is also a bit unbalanced. You can tell who has, and has not played this one to completion by comments about the difficulty. Things start off very simple but occasionally the battles get downright unfair. There are often too many enemies that can cast spells while being protected by a wall of monsters. In these instances being hit by one spell can sometimes be the difference between victory and defeat. To make matters worse Suikoden Tactics features permadeaths. This is nothing new for the genre, or even franchise, but they’re particularly annoying here. Characters unimportant to the story can be lost forever if they die in battle. With how easy it is to get completely surrounded, and the elemental field changed, this had me restarting battles pretty consistently. I wouldn’t be complaining if the game was completely balanced. Unfortunately it’s not.

Dealing with the camera can also be a burden. The game is displayed from a semi-overhead view. Because the graphics engine is completely 3D elements of the environment can get in the way. You can rotate the view using the right analog stick but not completely. It only moves a little. This caused problems for me in many of the multi-tiered stages. Character outlines appear when they are behind something but this can be easy to miss. The zoom in and zoom out function did little to alleviate the camera issues from which Suikoden Tactics suffers. The developers should have spent a little more time with this game to incorporate a 360 degree camera because it’s sorely needed here.

Suikoden Tactics is less technically complex than the previous two PS2 releases. The character models are composed of noticeably fewer polygons, and the battlefields are noticeably less detailed than the environments in III and IV. Personally I thought the last two iterations were ugly however because of their art styles. That’s not the case here. Suikoden Tactics uses a clean cel-shaded style that holds up remarkably well. The characters may lack detail but I couldn’t be bothered to care. This style is a departure from the rest of the series and helps Suikoden Tactics stand out from the pack. The battlefields also look quite nice with a fair amount of detail and great themes. The soundtrack is pure Suikoden, but this is honestly one of the weaker arrangements of music in the series. The voice overs, while a bit cheesy, are a clear step up from Suikoden IV.