I cannot say it enough. Suikoden 2, Suikoden II, Suikoden Two. It is, and probably will always be, my favorite game ever. Everything about the game was flawless and enjoyable, and I am about to go absolutely bonkers with the fanboyism. So you can either skip the rest of this post, seeing as you already know what my favorite game is, or you could read on and mock me for being a fanboy of a game probably only a few of you have heard about.
FANBOYISMS!
First of all, the characters. All 108 of them are beautiful, each in their own different way. They do not all get equal backstory, and I am fine with that. With a cast as large as this game has, it would be ridiculous for any sane person to expect every character to have a moment in the spotlight. The major characters have their stories, the minor characters do not. But each and every one has their uses, regardless of how useless they may be. Right down to the lady who gives you poor hints about where to go or how to find someone. With the expection of a few, who are made to look like each other on purpose, they are also fairly different in their designs.
The storyline is another thing that catches my eye when I play the game. Crazy guy wants to kill things because he suffered earlier in life, people oppose him. It is the same story that has been told in countless other video games, but that does not matter. The Suikoden series has never tried to bring anything new to the table or the RPG genre, it just tells a story and it tells it well. It offers twists and submerges you within itself.Building off the first and second paragraphs, the storyline and characters combine in such a way that I actually felt sorry for a few of the characters. Mainly Jowy Blight. In all honesty, I hated him at the beginning when he betrayed me. But towards the end, and upon reading more and more about it all, I began to feel generally sorry for him. It isn't everyday that I actually feel real emotions for a character in a video game, and I am willing to admit that I felt some for his character in particular. A few others, too, but I won't bother naming them all.
The music was grand, the controls were not clunky and difficult to get down, the sidegames were enjoyable, and the game possessed just the right amount of difficulty. I hate playing a game that is incredibly difficult just to be challenging, and Suikoden II isn't one of them. That isn't to say that you can float by the game easily enough, but you do not get to the point where you cannot beat a character so you throw your controller across the room.
So yeah. I could go on and on and on about why Suikoden II is a great game, and my personal favorite, but I won't because.. well.. it doesn't matter. I highly suggest this game, and the entire series, to any serious gamer. That is, if you are willing to pay the price it costs to obtain both Suikoden I and Suikoden II. The third and fourth games are not too difficult to find, and the fifth was just released a few months back. Tactics is somewhere in the mid-difficulty range.. but not overly so.
I type too much!
