I tend to gravitate towards the games that are the black sheep in their franchises (like my favourite game Drakengard 2 for example). And yet my gateway game to the Suikoden games was Suikoden V, which led me to look into the other games in the series.

I have replayed this game many times, admittingly on my first playthrough 16 years ago, I may have dun goofed because I was angry at Snowe, yeah I started over after I realised maybe that wasn't my best choice...

Yeah, I did eventually get all 108 stars of destiny, unlike in Suikoden V where I didn't and I don't talk about that ending, but this game gets overlooked and the naval battles are fun, and when you get the chance go head to head with Elenor with more battles (though slightly harder if you're a masochist like me). And what I can say about the mini game Ritapon! which in my case really encourages my competitive streak (not for the better).

Now tangents aside, the story is about forgiveness and redemption. And yes we play as the nameless hero, who graduates and becomes a Knight of Gaien, and due to Snowe being jealous because of narrative reasons, we get exiled as a result, but later on we meet Lino en Kuldes and learn more about the unfortunate rune we possess (which I forgot to mention). Anyway my point is don't dun goof and kill Snowe and if you want the good ending, keep him alive and spare him.

I don't feel nearly as compelled to write a full review for this game, so I'll just jot down a number of bullet points instead:

Positives:
- Best war gameplay in the series
- Still good music (worse than the first two, but better than 3 in this regard. Still a good OST overall)
- Ted
- Being able to access your base from anywhere is extremely convenient especially when compared to the other games in the series.
- the run button is funny
- Ritapon is a fun minigame (though I'm pretty sure it's just Mahjong and I gaslit myself into learning how to play Mahjong)

Negatives:
- Worst overworld exploration in the series
- game reeks of time constraints
- visually insanely ugly
- normal gameplay is some of the worst in the series.
- lowering the party count from 6 to 4 was a crime
- The story was just nothing, and felt more like a pretense for gameplay than an actually interesting and deep story, a far cry from earlier games
- Lazlo is the worst protagonist in the series by a wide margin. His unique Rune just isn't useful in the late game and he doesn't have a single character trait, interesting or otherwise. If Suikoden 1 and 2 are how to do a good silent protagonist, Suikoden 4 is a case study on what to NOT do.
- some of the most obtuse recruitment requirements in the series on top of characters just generally not being interesting and more than ever feeling like a checklist more than anything.