I still have vivid memories of the summer in '00. Being alone for a month and a half, my parents away for the summer, my days boiled down to a simple routine; Wake up around 10-11, eat breakfast while playing Suikoden II and continue playing; spending the afternoons at a questionable telemarketing firm, no really giving two shits; go home and squeeze in an hour or so of Suikoden II; meet up with my friends and go for a swim or out drinking in the balmy Swedish summer night; come home late and play some more Suikoden II until I started nodding off. Rinse and repeat. And on some days I skipped the middle part entirely and just stayed at home. Playing Suikoden II, naturally.
So my impression of Suikoden II is biased, to say the least, being a cornerstone in The Best Summer EVER™.
Forever having lived under Final Fantasy VII's and its 3D-contemporaries shadows, Suikoden II was something of the last hurrah for big-budget sprite-based jRPGs. At least for a couple of years, until pop culture's obsession with all things '80s kicked in. If you didn’t play it the first time around – which not many people did, to be honest – you probably know it as “that game my RPG-playing friend won’t shut the f--k up about”. I'm pretty sure I was one of those people, myself.
Suikoden II is easily one of the best entries in the genre (at least during its 16-bit era; I can’t speak for more modern games since I haven’t played newer jRPGs) and a huge improvement over the ‘95 original. It definitely reinforced my delusion of jRPGs as a favorite genre, when in reality I actually just liked 5-6 games with Suikoden II sharing first place with Chrono Trigger (something I discovered later, though).
Better and more engaging writing with more fleshed-out characters, broader scope, and more varied gameplay, crispier graphics, and sprites. Where Suikoden felt like a quaint change of space with its USP of a 108-person character rooster, Suikoden II is like a Tolstoy epic about war, peace, friendship, and betrayal.
That’s not to say it doesn’t struggle with localization issues and some of the characters really being one-note stereotypical RPG cliches. I wouldn't go as far as calling them outright offensive but definitely dated. Overall, though, it’s a more mature game that has aged quite a lot better than its predecessor.
So my impression of Suikoden II is biased, to say the least, being a cornerstone in The Best Summer EVER™.
Forever having lived under Final Fantasy VII's and its 3D-contemporaries shadows, Suikoden II was something of the last hurrah for big-budget sprite-based jRPGs. At least for a couple of years, until pop culture's obsession with all things '80s kicked in. If you didn’t play it the first time around – which not many people did, to be honest – you probably know it as “that game my RPG-playing friend won’t shut the f--k up about”. I'm pretty sure I was one of those people, myself.
Suikoden II is easily one of the best entries in the genre (at least during its 16-bit era; I can’t speak for more modern games since I haven’t played newer jRPGs) and a huge improvement over the ‘95 original. It definitely reinforced my delusion of jRPGs as a favorite genre, when in reality I actually just liked 5-6 games with Suikoden II sharing first place with Chrono Trigger (something I discovered later, though).
Better and more engaging writing with more fleshed-out characters, broader scope, and more varied gameplay, crispier graphics, and sprites. Where Suikoden felt like a quaint change of space with its USP of a 108-person character rooster, Suikoden II is like a Tolstoy epic about war, peace, friendship, and betrayal.
That’s not to say it doesn’t struggle with localization issues and some of the characters really being one-note stereotypical RPG cliches. I wouldn't go as far as calling them outright offensive but definitely dated. Overall, though, it’s a more mature game that has aged quite a lot better than its predecessor.