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Suikoden
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Suikoden, a once beloved but decades dormant PlayStation JRPG franchise, just turned 30 years old.
In the story, a magical war befalls the realm and the bearer of a True Rune journeys to marshal 108 companions to assist in the fight or join the entourage. Many of the characters are hidden or locked behind side quests. If you can find all of them, there is a special ending where a character close to you is able to cheat death. As more characters join, your ruined castle is rebuilt and expands.
I played the first game with my mom back in 1997. She had her own campaign and found more of the 108 Stars of Destiny than I did, but neither of us found them all. This was a couple of years before our home got the internet; it was before people could just google walkthroughs or ask cellphones. A couple of times, when we got really stuck in one of our games, my dad stopped at Toys ‘r Us on the way home from work and looked our game up in issues of Nintendo Power on the shelves.
Suikoden remains a charming game due to its myriad of characters, but its gameplay hasn’t aged especially well. Much of it is leveling up your party by repetitively grinding the same random turn-based battles that lacked much or any tactical sophistication, and you can’t avoid these while just walking around. This issue plagued JRPG’s (Japanese Role Playing Video Games) of that era.
Something I especially liked about Suikoden was its music. Some of its tracts have continued to rattle around in my mind the long years since. I still sometimes whistle the Suikoden castle theme. A favorite melody was “Those Who Work Must Eat”. Some were interestingly exotic, like “Nahala Yam Koong”.
You start your quest in the capital city, Gregminister, which plays a melody titled “ Beautiful Golden City” plays vibrantly as your unassuming character runs a few cheerful errands. At the end of the story, you return to this city which is a shadow of its former self after all the civilians have left, for the final battle. The theme “Beautiful Golden City” plays very faintly, almost imperceptibly, below a sound effect of desolate, howling wind.
I heard that a 30 year anniversary remaster of Suikoden & Suikoden II might be released this year.