LogFAQs > #966121112

EchoBaz posted...

So when I think Suikoden, I don't think "oooh, you can have over 100 people join you. I get to watch the number of my collection go up!"

I think if you're going to compare any RPG to Suikoden, it kind of needs that. Otherwise, it's not Suikoden-like at all.

Like Far-Queue mentioned, what most people think of when they think Suikoden is the recruiting an army and building a base of some kind. Whether that means recruiting tons of support characters (who live in your town and give you bonuses of some kind), or actual combat characters (who you can swap in and out of your active team), or both. You don't necessarily need 108 possible recruits - but there should probably be a lot. Games like Chrono Cross or Fire Emblem sort of fall into that vein.

A secondary trait that might make a game feel Suikoden-like would be if there was large-scale tactical combats involving rock-paper-scissors style combat. That's also pretty core to the Suikoden feel.

Without any of those things, I don't think I'd ever describe it as a Suikoden-like game no matter what the game looks like or the music sounds like.

And I don't think being a short RPG makes it feel like Suikoden either - Suikoden's always been a large sprawling experience that takes tons of time, even in eras when that wasn't as common as it is today.