Suikoden 2 Who says there can't be an RPG just as good as Final Fantasy? The 108 stars of Suikoden march in to attempt to win the war of the RPG kings. You are an unnamed boy (you name him) who starts out as just an average boy but soon into a respected leader bringing his troops into a well crafted epic plot of war and betrayal which even rivals FF in some ways, the story follows your characters as they attempt to group together the 108 stars of destiny to defeat a rival country and bring peace to the world, its certainly not the average mediocre plot which most RPGs around seem to have separating it from the average kind in its genre to just about FF status, many twists in the plot will keep you playing right until the very end with a good but maybe not perfect translation helping things out in a big way. Just like the original, Suikoden 2 has three battle types. One of them is the standard random RPG battle with the only major differences to most other RPGS being that you can have up to six team members travelling with you and also characters who have a close relationship with one and other or who are related in anyway at all can team up and pull off an attack together to critically damage the enemies/s, these are known as unite attacks which you can use whenever you want and is the first thing about Suikoden 2 that I'm not completely satisfied with as when you have compatible team members it sometimes can make the regular battles far too easy but still there is 108 guys to pick from so if you keep switching your members it improves things. Duels are the next you will encounter, moments like these are where you have to guess more then anything, your opponent will talk before he attacks to give you a clue of what his next action is going to be and sometimes its pretty obvious for example if a character says "feel my blade" you should choose defend and your character will avoid the incoming wild attack (which is a devastating chain of attacks) its kind of like papers, scissors and stones. The final type of battle you will take part in are huge strategic war battles, this is where nearly all of the 108 stars will get a chance to fight, but sadly much skill isn't involved in these as they are here to move the story forward more then anything else meaning the majority of the time you are either forced to surrender or made to win the battles, but on the good side they certainly did a lot to the superb story so they aren't all that bad in that respect. One of Suikoden 2's main objective is to find all the 108 stars of destiny. The more important ones such as Flick, Viktor and Nanami join you automatically at certain points in the story while with the less important ones you usually have to accomplish some sort of quest to be able to earn them as team members, these quests range from fighting a certain amount of enemies to finding items and usually the better the member the harder the quest is. Finding every 108 star along with the multiple endings adds much replay value to Suikoden 2. Suikoden 2 is an incredible experience that matches and even beats FF in some ways and if you�re a real RPG fan you certainly won't be disappointed.Simon Wigham 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Opinions Round-Up A story of a war with a country in search of peace, obviously there is more to the highly entertaining plot then that, but I won't say anymore, all I will say is it is a very original plot instead of save the damsel in distress, or save the world from dark powers. The lifespan is utterly amazing, 108 stars of destiny to find, multiple endings, this is one amazing game, that you should not let pass you by, if you are a fan of RPG's! Chris Wigham |