Suikoden V

I finished Suikoden V today, and was rather disappointed w/ the ending. This is probably largely b/c I didn't bother to follow a walk-through and get all 108 characters. The ending w/ ~60 completely blows. I don't mind characters dying (in fact, I think I prefer having characters die at the end), but I want an ending that lasts longer than 1-2 minutes. I guess I can't complain too much, b/c I watched the best ending on YouTube and it was too damn happy and cheesy.

Aside from the lackluster endings, the game was pretty tight. I really enjoy being able to have some say over my characters' actions, and there were plenty of opportunities here to do that. (This even though I tried to avoid having some lame ass characters join, but could not prevent them from doing so.) The political intrigue toward the beginning of the game is very entertaining.

The large-scale battles are also fun at times, but the mechanics could have used some tweaking. There were a few times when I was supposed to protect a city, and would be defending close to it, fight and beat an enemy division, and then that losing enemy division would run away and right through the rest of my lines into the city, causing me to have to start the battle again. That really pissed me off. The duels are also a nice addition, even though it's essentially rock-paper-scissors w/ your opponent giving you hints b/f you decide what to play.

The characters were fairly interesting, despite the fact that there were so many. They just didn't have that 2d feel like the ones from FFXII. I could believe that most of them were characters existing in the game, instead of just some drone that only repeats 1-2 lines and lives solely in 1 town w/o ever traveling. (btw, does it bother anyone else that there are only ever, at most, a couple hundred characters in RPGs? How could the species survive w/ all those monsters and a world populated w/ only 200 people?) Speaking of characters, Georg Prime reminded me a lot of Guts. It seems fairly obvious to me: (1) both only use 1 eye; (2) both wear brown capes at some point; (3) both are loners; (4) both serve royal armies' commanders (Ferid and Griffith); (5) both are swordsmen; and (6) both are badasses. So, of course, being a huge Berserk fan, I was rather fond of Georg.

Also, the protagonist just looks deformed. I know they tried to manipulate his androgynous, monkey-like face into having expressions, but I think they just failed miserably. I hated the scenes w/ him in them b/c I was always thinking about how stupid he looked. No one would take someone who looks like that seriously. And what's up w/ his lame-ass costumes? I know he's a prince and all, but he still could've been wearing something cool like the Queen's Knights.

Overall, the game was worth the ~$25 I paid for it, but it certainly would've been better if I'd done everything necessary to get all 108 stars. It would've been nice if there could've been a more conclusive ending b/t Lyon and the protagonist, but ambiguity is seemingly how Japanese handle the resolution of the vast majority of relationships in fiction. (See e.g. Ranma 1/2).