Suikogaiden Vol.2 - Duel at Crystal Valley
Sep. 8th, 2014 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe second of a pair of visual novels featuring Nash Latkje, man-at-arms, rogue, spy for Harmonia and shameless flirt. The story starts three months after the events of Suikoden 2, as Nash (eventually) returns to Crystal Valley, the capital of Harmonia.
This ties together various characters and events from Suikoden 2 with some other characters and locations from Suikoden 3; though mostly it's just four relatively-unconnected vignettes starring various Suikoden characters, and Nash is kind of secondary for half of them.
You can carry over save data from Suikogaiden 1, and Suikoden 1 and 2, which mostly affects character names, though apparently there's a McDohl cameo if you've run together saves from all four PS1 games. (I didn't do that; I'd love to replay Suikoden 1 and 2 at some point, but it wasn't worth trying to cram in just for a tiny bonus in this game.)
The fact that you can't die (there seems to be all of one alternate ending, and you really need to work for it) means that you can try out any stupid option the game gives you and be okay. Not that there are many options, and even fewer of them come up during action sequences, so you don't really have useful control over what Nash does.
Basically all of my comments and complaints about the first game remain: Nash is a Mary Sue, there really isn't much "game" versus an extended cutscene you get to watch, the graphics make poor use of the medium, the fan translation is decent but the font choice is irritating. Heck, there seem to be fewer choices and forks in this game than the first one. The only "game" is being a completionist about collecting all of the hidden point values by trying a dozen choices in different configurations.
And really, I liked it even less than the first game. I'd rather it had been a comic book or even a text adventure, so I could read it faster and not care that it pretended I was somehow providing input.
Overall: See my review of the first Suikogaiden. This is more of the same; and really not worth your time unless you're a Suikoden completist.
This ties together various characters and events from Suikoden 2 with some other characters and locations from Suikoden 3; though mostly it's just four relatively-unconnected vignettes starring various Suikoden characters, and Nash is kind of secondary for half of them.
You can carry over save data from Suikogaiden 1, and Suikoden 1 and 2, which mostly affects character names, though apparently there's a McDohl cameo if you've run together saves from all four PS1 games. (I didn't do that; I'd love to replay Suikoden 1 and 2 at some point, but it wasn't worth trying to cram in just for a tiny bonus in this game.)
The fact that you can't die (there seems to be all of one alternate ending, and you really need to work for it) means that you can try out any stupid option the game gives you and be okay. Not that there are many options, and even fewer of them come up during action sequences, so you don't really have useful control over what Nash does.
Basically all of my comments and complaints about the first game remain: Nash is a Mary Sue, there really isn't much "game" versus an extended cutscene you get to watch, the graphics make poor use of the medium, the fan translation is decent but the font choice is irritating. Heck, there seem to be fewer choices and forks in this game than the first one. The only "game" is being a completionist about collecting all of the hidden point values by trying a dozen choices in different configurations.
And really, I liked it even less than the first game. I'd rather it had been a comic book or even a text adventure, so I could read it faster and not care that it pretended I was somehow providing input.
Overall: See my review of the first Suikogaiden. This is more of the same; and really not worth your time unless you're a Suikoden completist.
