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Suikoden 1 I Walkthrough

I remember playing Suikoden I for the first time in 1996, and feeling like I had never seen anything like it. All the characters involved made me think of Destiny of an Emperor to be honest. Looking back on it, considering there are four other Suikoden’s out, it seems to lack depth but still has that charm to it and that wonderful replay value.

Tir McDohl starts in the Imperial Army, as his father Teo is a top general for the Emperor Barbarosa. While running errands for some imperial lackeys, Tir realizes the corruption within the government and eventually meets with the Liberation Army, notably Viktor and Odessa. Tir’s relationship with Odessa is what starts the ascension to the top of the Liberation Army. Shortly after meeting her, Tir becomes the leader of the Liberation Army, the main enemy of the Imperials.

The bulk of the game really begins at this point. As you gain a headquarters (lake castle) the journey to recruiting all 108 characters begins. Throughout you’ll be fighting the top generals of the Imperial Army in both strategy battles and one on one duels.

Which brings us to battle. There are three types, the aforementioned duels and war battles, and then regular 6 party battle. Most of the time you will comprise your party of six members, 3 in front and 3 in back. It’s pretty simple, with characters being able to attack, use a rune to cast magic, or use Unite attacks with a related ally.

Maybe the best part about regular battle is how easy leveling up is. Considering there are 108 characters and several of them can be used in battle, it’d seem tedious to level characters up. Not true though. Enemy’s tend to level up your characters to a certain level easily, and then it becomes hard to level up past that until harder monsters come by. That said it’s easy to take a level 1 character and just have him survive in a tough fight to gain a quick 10-15 levels. Once enemy’s become too weak you can just use the Let Go command so you don’t have to bother fighting meaningless battles.

War battles and Duels are rare, but definitely fun. Duel’s are obviously one on one fights that generally involve Tir but sometimes other characters. Your enemy will say something and you are to guess whether they will defend, attack or use a desperate attack. It’s generally easy to figure out which is which though attack / desperate attack can be hard to distinguish.

War battles are of the same rock – paper – scissors strategy that duels employ. You use all 108 characters in war battles, and they are formed into groups. Some cast magic (strong against ground troops), some use bows (strong against magic) and some form ground troops (strong against bows). There are also Ninjas to spy on the enemy, strategists to raise attack power, thieves to steal potch, and so on.

It’s your typical war story with betrayal, death, and a focus on the Soul Eater Rune that his friend Ted passes down to him. With it, the hero Tir has the power to take down the Imperial Army, but those close to him suffer ill fates because of the rune.

This is definitely a top 5 RPG for the PS1 in my book. While it doesn’t have the depth of later RPG’s on the system, it was a godsend considering how early it was released in the PS1 lifetime. It was just a taste of what Suikoden could pull off, and this shows later on with the much deeper and basically flawless Suikoden 2.