Obscure RPGs you've probably never heard of, or will unlikely ever play - Suikoden

So, It's been a little while *ducks from all the "boo"s and bottles being thrown*. Unfortunately, life gets in the way sometimes.


Anyway, on with the show.


So, it has come to my attention that my two main areas of expertise in nerd culture, is mildly obscure anime, and very obscure videogames. Particularly RPGs. As that list is very long, and very geeky, I thought I'd show it some love on the blog. So this might become a regular (for me at least) section.


So...Suikoden.

For the purposes of this blog, I'll talk only about the first 2 games, and not mention 3, 4, 5, or any of the spinoffs.


So, Suikoden. Made by Konami for the Playstation (3, 4 and 5 on PS2, and one spinoff, Tierkreis on DS).
So, shocking that it's Konami yet you haven't heard of it? Strangely, it has always been quite a 'cult' game, never becoming as massively popular as Final Fantasy.


So why am I bothering talking about it?
Not just because I'm a hipster gamer (No, I'm not, I just love JRPGs).
It's just that these games have amazing story, great gameplay, (Oldschool JRPG battle with an 'Auto' attack button? Thank you so much!) and amazing characters.


Oh the characters...I should really mention that. Every Suikoden game has one thing in common. Recruitable characters. Not a shocking prospect. However, the sheer amount. 108 is the usual number, with it occasionally going higher with 'bonus' characters. Now I don't just mean there are 108 characters you just befriend. How about a diagram?

There we go. The 108 recruitable characters in the first game. The ones with blue borders are your shopkeeps, mapmakers, etc. that can't fight in your battles. Those in red? Those can be in your party. Up to six at any time (with the top left being your player character, so he has to be in it).
A nice added bonus is that, due to the games taking place in the same world, you begin to see familiar faces if you play multiple games, and occasionally, if save data from previous games exists, you can get their old, awesome equipment, as well as some other bonuses on occasion. But the best part about these characters? They all have their own stories, varying from a ditzy teleporting magician, a family of blacksmiths all working to become better than each other, a former enemy army commander, to a little old gambling lady.




I mentioned army commander. Because that is essentially what you are making. An army. You see, while this is mainly a normal RPG, there are several army segments, different in each game.




These army battle however are rather important, as they are the only time that your recruited characters can die permanently. And that means bye bye to your completion bonus, and your good ending.


Yes, these games also can have multiple endings, or at least added bits, normally simply by getting all 108 characters, though in the second game at least, certain actions, along with whether or not you recruited everyone, can give you many different endings.




So that shows the interesting gameplay and the characters, what of the story? This time, I really won't give spoilers, as I'll talk of the series as a whole. Simply stated, they are all about war, usually caused by runes, like the 27 True Runes, which give people immortality, as well as untold power. So, war inevitably breaks out over them, and so begins several stories of betrayal, friendship, war, death, and glory. Enjoy. Oh, and here's a nice little opening video from the second game and a reminder, it's a rare game, yes, but there is the internet. I'm sure you have your means.

And as an added note, I'm kinda going as the main character from the second game to October's London MCM Comicon expo. Should be fun to see if anyone recognises me. The tonfa will make it quite fun too.