80%PlayStation

This game is undeniably a masterpiece for the time, while still having a few flaws IMO. There is probably a 9/10 gaming experience here if I had used a guide. Alas, I did not so I got soft-locked into a bad ending.

+ Fun gameplay - the one on one battles are so epic
+ Excellent sprite art & hand-crafted portraits
+ The story of this one really hit me. I'm still distraught about Nanami
+ No padding

- A guide is required to avoid literally dire story consequences
- Music got a bit grating with the high flute
- This game is harsh on the eyes with many full fade-to-whites in battle. I'm guessing they fixed this with the re-release.

90%Emulated

Wonderful game! This was a truly special experience. I loved the art. Combat was fun. Music was good. Great ending rewards. Not great localization

75%PlayStation

Gameplay: 7.5
História: 7.5
Gráfico: 8
Música: 8
Replay: 6
TOTAL: 7.4

100%PlayStation

The only game in which I would rate it a 10/10. The only flaw to this game is the translation is not perfect but it wasn't enough to dock any points. Anyway, from start to finish, this game brought a story filled with emotion, gave you choices to make in ways of directing the story and executed in all aspects you could ask for. One of the few games where I cared not only for the main characters but also for the villain and what will happen to him.The battle system was simple, yet enjoyable. 108 characters gives you variety in parties like no other game, plus the pace of the game is just right. After I beat this game, I kept thinking about it for weeks, and plan on replaying it in the future and reliving all those good memories of it. I will admit that the story is not something completely unique in any way, but the execution is just right, the dialogue on point and fitted right with each personality in the game. There were no fetch quests where I didnt feel like playing or were annoying, the game managed to balance out everything, and for that I thank Konami. This game has an extremely high price on Amazon and Ebay, which might be a problem for some, but if you have the patience, wait it out and stick around until the price drops a bit then get this game.

75%PC

The game is an improvement over the first, certainly, but going back and replaying it I feel like the gameplay is dated. The game is so easy that it's actually kinda boring most of the time, even on hard mode. Also, the fact you pretty much need a guide to get the true ending is something I'd consider as a negative factor.

Also, the fact I got all achievements also lessened my enjoyment of the game, as the minigames were all tedious and annoying to get the achievements for.

100%PlayStation

Where to begin is hard. This game improves on Suikoden 1 and every way. The story continues with your saved data on a perfect ending. Battling, Duels, and War battles are improved greatly. One of the best Evil characters I have encountered. There are parts when I first played it on release that made me cry. Once again you can transfer your saved data to Suikoden 3. I base all my reviews since this game based off this game.

Story - 10/10
Level Design - 9/10
Characters - 10/10
Gameplay - 10/10
Music - 10/10
Battle System - 10/10
Reply - 10/10

Rating - 9.8/10

75%Emulated

A great game but bogged down by two big negatives in my opinion

Pros-

- 2D sprites are really top notch, whether it's for runes and unite specials or story based character specific animations.
- Story is decent, but I feel like story isn't this game's biggest strength
- Combat is pretty solid although magicians with three free runes dominate pretty much everything relatively easily. There's decent variety in runes and upgrades.
- The game's biggest strength imo comes with some novel scenarios it comes up with - like Flik acting as the adult master to kids trying to infiltrate Greenhill, Apple pursuing Shu to no end etc.. Shu as a character was great as well. Most of the recruit-able characters have unique personalities.
- The soundtrack was decent although not something I would consider as too memorable.
- War battles don't seem too accurate or logical but they were pretty fun and interesting tbh
- Cook off mini-game is incredible with the variety of recipes and the manner in which they are judged. Rest of the mini games are a miss due to the inherent luck factor
- Appreciate the world-building through NPC's with unique dialogue, a lot more variation in scenery than Suikoden 1, the castle looks great at later stages and there's even variance in non living objects when interacting with them.
- I really like Nanami's interactions with us, her desire to just run away from everything and live in peace. Our dynamic with Nanami and even the trio dynamic with Jowy in the beginning was pretty good.

Cons-

The two big ones for me personally are-

- Jowy's character arc was pretty meh in my opinion and that's unfortunate since his character is tied to the overarching plot in so many ways. The game kind of shoehorns his "destiny" of opposing you by forcing a symbolic divide due to the runes granted and not really a genuine opposition of ideals (or at least no attempt at making this part of Jowy conspicuous to the player before he decided to switch sides). It would have helped massively if a lot more of his rationale was expanded on pre him becoming pro Highland or even during his time as a captive there. There was a lingering part of me that always believed that Jowy behaving this way was going to be justified once he succeeds in dismantling Luca Blight's evil, but continuing to be this edgy guy who continued down this path after Luca Blight was done made the remainder of the game pretty hollow in my opinion.

- The second big negative for me is not entirely the game's fault itself but rather a prevalent trend from that era with many games - dialogue choices which you have no clue would affect the ending of the game, impossible to recruit all the 108 stars unless you're referring to guides. Now one could argue that you could achieve both of these by covering and interacting with every nook and cranny in the game or doing replays, but nobody who's trying to have a simple reasonable experience of a game is going to do that. This leads to pretty much a pick your poison situation-

- Either you play blindly to have an authentic experience but it's highly probable that you'll miss out on at least one of the absurd pre-requisites to have Nanami live by the end, which is ESPECIALLY going to suck considering that the root cause of it would tie back to Jowy deciding to be an emo edgy kid in a very unsatisfying way, making your apparent attempt (for most reasonable people who are going to play such a long game only once) at a blind playthrough pretty bitter. Bitter is probably too harsh since there salvageable aspects to the ending, but still...

- Or in the attempt to fulfill a lot of these obscure criteria and complete your character set, you pretty much spoil yourself in the process and completing those criterias and tasks becomes a forced checklist of sorts, which also ruins the experience. I do recognize that this type of game design was pretty normal for its time, but that doesn't mean it affects your experience regardless.

Despite these critiques I still think the positive aspects dominate the overall experience and how you're left feeling by the end of it all.

100%PlayStation

10/10 Story
09/10 Level Design
10/10 Characters
10/10 Gameplay
09/10 Graphics
10/10 Music/Sound

Battle System 10/10

Difficulty MEDIUM

Overall 99%

40%Xbox Series X/S

I'm gonna try to be delicate here because I don't want every JRPG fan on the internet all over my balls, but I found most of this game to be a bad time. Let's start with the positives, that won't take long. The story is phenomenal, phenomenal. Almost every character has real depth to them and there are a LOT of characters. They are expertly written and fully believable in almost motivation they express. And the collectathon-esque gameplay loop of going out into the world and looking for all of them and having to figure out how to get each of them to join you, that is fun, or it would be, but here's where things get unsavory. The party management system, especially early in the game, is way more trouble than it's worth - you have to go to like 4 different places and spend 30 minutes just to get your team the way you want it. And even when you do they're always resetting your party to just you, taking people out, restricting who can join you often for no apparent reason. It ended up not mattering much in the end though because the combat is so brain dead easy that I only died twice - once on a rock paper scissors style luck duel and the other time against the final boss on a fluke. By the way the boss battles are bad, like more than half of them are just some bug you found in a sewer that has zero plot implications, and you really can just auto battle through the whole thing. Speaking of auto battle, they did make this elaborate war strategy mini game with all these rules and complexities that seems super fun. Problem is, every single one of those battles except for maybe one is rigged from the start for you to win or lose, so have fun stressing about it for half an hour just for it to abruptly end because somebody gives up. That stuff is just the tip of the iceberg but I'm running out of time so let me end with this - I learned something about myself playing this game, and I did not like what I learned. My guess is that the people who really love this game, which is a lot of people apparently, adore the story so much that they can just overlook all of these annoyances. Plus it doesn't hurt that a lot of people played this when it was new and back then most games were at least a little bit clunky in that way. And like I said I agree that the story is excellent, but I don't think I have the imagination to really appreciate a story that's just still portraits and text, so the annoyances are more like full on fun killers to me. I think maybe a reason I prefer newer games and different genres usually is that a lot of those do most of that heavy lifting for me - you can hear the characters emoting, you can see them interacting. Now that is a me problem and ultimately just a preference thing so we can disagree on whether the game is good overall. But can you really disagree about what I said about the stupid easy combat? The UI with way too many steps? The mostly meaningless boss fights? The rigged mini games? I would challenge any fan of this game to tell me one thing that's really great about it that isn't the story, or just the fact that there's a bunch of characters to find.

100%PlayStation

hmm yes please

100%Emulated

Unfortunately I only knew about Suikoden series this year, but I'm glad I did.
This is one of the best jrpgs I've ever played, with one of the best villains ever.
The combat is fun, the characters are awesome, the story is amazing and dark, the music is gorgeous.

Please play this masterpiece.

85%Emulated

Taking the hint from the previous game, Suikoden II shows an even darker side to the original's theme of wartime cruelty. Here, the tragedy of war is pronounced to terrible extremes, with cutscenes that are almost uncomfortable to sit through, due in large part to the actions of Luca Blight, one of the most effective RPG villains of all time.

Besides presenting the horrors of a genocidal madman in all its twisted glory, Suikoden II is in many ways the emotional journey of two soldiers. These characters experience lives full of incredible hardship, one that brutally and unfairly tests their resolve, courage and ultimately their friendship as their ideals slowly drift apart. The moments between the player character, Jowy, and Nanami constitute some of the most emotionally excruciating scenes in video game history. The maturity found within its morbid vision of war allows the game to confidently implement some more disturbing themes in its narrative, all while avoiding unecessary shock-value, that once again revolutionizes JRPG story. The game also succeeds in the details, with 'microstories' involving various towns and cities that effectively turns them into meaningful locations, not just spaces to buy equipment and restore HP. All-in-all, it was a crucial point in the evolution of political JRPG story. Whereas Yasumi Matsuno's brand always held a chilling, detached (yet paradoxically in-your-face) philosophy, Yoshitaka Murayama presented a humane, warmer, ideal outlook. However - this was neither naive enthusiasm nor brooding 'maturity'; this was old-school idealism tempered and fueled by sheer grief, remaining hopeful despite all the trauma.

While the combat system remains lacking, the base building of the original is expanded to include several more minigames and more inventive means of recruiting allies. Despite being a strong visual and mechanical upgrade, its gameplay remains cast in the shadow of the plot, unable to stand apart from the story's gripping emotional wasteland.

Suikoden II is a grand achievement, one that - in its cascades of tragedy, effectively represents a hyper-realist take on human conflict.

War and politics were ultimately the common themes that directed Suikoden's initial two releases, themes that disposed of the previous era's epic sense of adventure but nonetheless fashioned some of the most tragic, touching, poignant, and brutal concepts of its genre. Suikoden II in particular almost completely jettisoned the fantasy stereotypes of their ancestors, and stretched the 'medieval' aspect of JRPGs to its horrific terminal point.

100%PlayStation

Best game in the series

100%Emulated

Um dos melhores JRPGs de todos os tempos! Tem um dos melhores vilões que já vi em um rpg. A história principal é cheia de revira voltas emocionantes. Quem quiser ver o final verdadeiro vai ter que soar um pouco pra conseguir. Recomendo muito jogar acompanhando algum guia. Joguem essa obra prima subestimada!

75%PlayStation Vita

By 2016 standard, it is more of an 7.5 or 8 at best.

The random battles is such a hindrance to the best parts of the game which is the plot. I actually stopped playing and watched a let's play.
Story is great, music is great. Characters hit or miss, they are still more like collectible Pokemon cards than actual characters.

100%PlayStation

This might be my favorite game of all time.

100%PlayStation Portable

Best rpg ever

90%PlayStation

This is a very good game, which improved on the first in many (minor) ways. The story is pretty good for the era, and the game is very enjoyable. I only have two main issues with it- first is that it is mostly just "more of the same" as the first game, and the second is the secondary market price, currently around $120, and its lack of availability on PSN, unlike the first game. For that reason, while this game is somewhat better than the first, this game just doesn't live up to the price and most people interested in this series would be fine with just playing the first Suikoden and skipping over this one, if price is an issue.

80%Emulated

Nice way to integrate 108 playable characters. Nice battle system, and nice story, but nothing too surprising.

100%PlayStation

So fantastic. There's a little bit of jank, but the story and characters make up for it.

100%PlayStation

https://mybrainongames.com/2020/12/26/suikoden-ii-playstation-review/

100%PlayStation

Underrated for its time as many other JRPGs in its class have leaped into new heights in terms of graphics, but Suikoden 2 tells a gripping tale of betrayal, war, love, friendship and more, but in a grounded way. The story has many characters to meet and recruit, mini games and guild building. Awesome soundtrack to fit with its comical and emotional moments. The battle system is a unique turn based with team abilities amongst party members. It's been a while since I revisited this game, but I know it would still hold up to this day.

80%PlayStation Vita

Story = 2/2
Gameplay = 1/2
Presentation = 1/1

Overall = 4/5

100%PlayStation

Even better than the first game. Everything's been improved, except the graphics I guess. The story is awesome yet again, the characters are fantastic, especially the main villain, there's more stuff to do, and they kept the same leveling system from the previous game. Definitely play this one if you enjoyed the previous one!

90%PlayStation

Great combat system, soundtrack, and story. Marred by being extremely easy, nearly devoid of any challenge.

90%Emulated

Suikoden II improves on the formula of the previous title in almost every way. Best of all are the story, characterization, and pacing, which are all exponentially better than the first game. Plot pacing is improved mostly due to how the game handles introducing and recruiting each of the Stars of Destiny: lots of characters return to play significantly stronger roles in the story, and the new arrivals are fleshed out enough to keep from feeling like the multitudes of shallow filler characters that were present before. The Headquarters also feels much more lively, partly as a result of having a more recognizable cast, and some characters can be found in more than just one spot.

The animations are much improved with a lot of added charm, giving the characters and the world around them a lot more personality. Idle battle animations are used to good measure, birds will individually fly off when approached in towns, NPCs train and spar, and some characters exhibit unique animations to add visual flavor to the moment. Prerendered cutscenes are used occasionally, and while most are quite short, they add a good amount of emphasis to some late game attacks and exciting plot scenes. Inventory management is a culmination of a party based inventory found in most JRPGs and the personal inventory system used prior. Characters now have fewer slots to hold items, but can manage items in a separate, combined pool that cuts down a lot of time when swapping equipment.

Large scale army battle mechanics have been altered from the Rock Paper Scissors system to a one more akin to a turn based strategy game. Despite their scope and plot significance, these battles are some of the the lowest points of Suikoden II, taking second place only to the forced gambling mini games. The game becomes very hand-holdy in these sections, really taking its time (six battles, to be exact) to give full control of the army. This may be fitting for the story, but it kills the gameplay—it gets boring watching the computer make decisions while I sit waiting my turn to make a single move. In addition, these battles are treated like interactive cutscenes more than anything, but often times no music plays thanks to bugs in the North American version, making them feel unimportant and incomplete.

There are still some awkward translation issues here and there, but nothing to the extent of the first game. Suikoden I data can be imported over to affect stats on the returning characters in Suikoden II, and under certain circumstances, it is possible to unlock the protagonist from Suikoden I, but due to a rushed translation effort, gameshark must be used to display his name correctly as “McDohl.” Since I used the canon name “Tir” in Suikoden I, I was stuck reading the name “TcDohl” whenever the character was mentioned.

80%PlayStation

A huge improvement over the first game, this is a game I can truly call a classic.

100%PlayStation

A better version of Suikoden 1, captivating storyline with good plot twists. Really great combat mechanics with Runes and Unite ablilties, and scaling with enemies doesn't require grinding. One of the greatest games ive ever played. Plus the most badass villain by far in any video game.

90%PlayStation 3

A great rpg that everybody should experience once. The story is great. It felt like I was playing a Game of Thrones game because there are so many twist and turns in the game.

The only downside I have with this game; and I'm nitpicking, is that there are so many playable character you can recruit. I find it hard to pick and choose who to have in the party. But overall a top tier rpg.

100%PlayStation

Absolutely fantastic game. Even though I've played this in 2016 it didn't lose any of it's magic. The story and characters are absolutely amazing, the game is content heavy, the soundtrack is great and the gameplay is fun. Really nothing to complain here.

90%PlayStation

One of my favourite games.

100%PlayStation 3

Best Game Ever.

90%PlayStation

A definite improvement on the first title on every front, Suikoden II stands as one of the finest JRPGs on a platform that already has many to brag about. Just beware of those missable characters!

90%PlayStation

Great game and pretty fun overall. The biggest flaw in the game is the translation, it feels like a very rough and rushed first draft. Some parts are even untranslated or totally incomprehensible to english speakers. If you can get past that then there are a vast number of unique and interesting characters to recruit and use in battle. The most fun part of this game is always having a group of new people in each different dungeon. As for the story it is pretty good full of politics but it seems like a lot was lost in translation, also the main villain was great. The music is hit or miss really, many songs sound pretty good but many are just annoying. If you liked any of the other Suikodens then definitely give this one a try. Also look for the patch that fixes many of the bugs in the game if you are playing on emulator or modded PSX.

90%PlayStation

A clear upgrade from the previous installment. Almost everything is better.
The story deserves a 10, but some aspects are a bit tedious.
Would only recommend to JRPG fans.

100%PlayStation

This is my personal favorite game of all time. It has its flaws, but all in all I'd choose it over any other RPG any day of the week. It's responsible for my transition to being a hardcore gamer, and holds many iconic and nostalgic moments for me. Truly incredible story, unique magic system, 3 different battle modes throughout the game. Highly recommended for any RPG fan.

100%PlayStation

The perfect roleplaying game of it's day. Simply beautiful in many aspects - scenery, music, art style. The game really shines in the collective aspect of gathering all of the 108 Stars of Destiny and building your army. The story is also very good, I won't spoil anything by going into detail. There are also many secrets that you may never discover, adding replayability into the game if you are looking to aquire every rune, every recepie, see every scene, etc. I really love this game - couldn't reccomend it more!