Having played the remake for Suikoden 1.
This game is complete ass,
Same, took me about 20 hours and Suikoden 1 is really rough.
This came out in 1995. That's a year after the 2nd Fire Emblem game, a year before the third one. A year after Breath of Fire II and the same year as Chrono Trigger. It has some pretty good sprite work but since there's 70 interchangeable battle characters that the game just vomits at you, you use maybe 5 or 10 as a core team. The game forces party members into your team like Viktor and Flik, with Tir being included means you can only have 3 other people in.
So you're given a large roster like Fire Emblem and are told to utilize unique attacks yet only have 3 slots to put people into. You have to juggle armor and items for all these people too.
Difficulty scaling is all over the place. That zombie dragon in the base was a legitimate roadblock because you're supposed to face him at LV17 with no full party heals because a Water Orb doesn't give Lv3 spells till Lv 20 at least. I go off to the elf forest and fight a few battles there and suddenly I'm level 21 and can easily wipe out the dragon.
There were points where I was stumped with what I was supposed to do next. For example you're supposed to find a way to get into Milich's castle. At no point does it say "Take the boat down the stream, encounter rapids, go back to the ship builder and get a better ship." If I wasn't following a guide, I would not have known what to do next.
Drop rates on items are also absurd. Apparently it was real easy in the original to get a Caledon Urn from the fluff balls around Gregminster, those are used in the baths or can be sold for 100k. I saw reddit posts saying they grinded for 6 hours and didn't get one. End game orbs like Thunder or Mother Earth are also dropped by enemies. So if you want more than one you get from a chest, good luck with that and knowing which monster drops it.
The story was likewise confusing. Odessa for instance
said to toss her body into the sewer. I thought she was part of the 108 and would wash up somewhere later to rejoin the group but no, apparently Tir ate her soul with the Soul Eater Rune and I missed that somehow. I kinda realized halfway through that they were making things up as they went along and really stopped caring.
I think back to Trails in the Sky. How you have a core roster of 2 with Estelle and Joshua and can swap with other people in the story. How simple things like a quest log, party inventory and character driven story that just pulls you through it. With Suikoden 1, it's a mismash of different systems that seem to play against each other. We want big roster and individual inventories for characters yet only offer 3 or 4 party slots for you to use. We want a big epic story with good character designs and sprite art yet it comes across as stupid sometimes. Milich for instance appears on a dragon right as you find Liukan, kidnaps him and then rides off. No battle or anything.
It's just a really rough JRPG. I'm hoping Suikoden 2 is better.
