I listen to the 1upyours podcast on 1up.com religiously, and one of their segments is called “What have you been playing lately?” Since I have been a lazy bastard recently, Here’s 3 quick reviews of games that I’ve been playing for the past few months on my PS2. Yes, PS2, you really think I could afford a PS3 and an HDTV? Dream on.

Suikoden 3:

Suikoden is like the adopted stepbrother of Final Fantasy, being one of the more well known and lasting console RPG franchises, right alongside the like of Lufia and the “Tales” series. 3 was Konami’s first Suikoden for the PS2, and the the first one to make the jump to full 3D graphics. The earlier Suikodens were known for their 2D graphics, and are probably some of the best examples of sprite based RPGs for that era.

The jump to 3D wasn’t without its flaws, as the camera angles S3 are hideous at times, and the frame rates atrocious. That aside, the graphics did look good for its time (circa 2002) but were definitely dwarfed by the sheer eye candy that Final Fantasy X had on hand. Traveling from different location sis also made inconvenient, as teh game forces you to go into select locations when moving from area to area without giving you the option to just skip it.

However, there have always been two things that have drawn players to the Suikoden series, that being the political intrigue and narrative along with the character collecting. Every episode in the Suikoden series gives you a castle where you can collect 108 characters to fill it up. These characters will have jobs ranging from a blacksmith to a cook to a theater director, and the more characters you have the more spruced up your castle will look. You can literally spend hours chasing after a specific character, and it’s a lot more fun than you’d think, especially since all of the characters are well designed and many have very interesting back stories.

The bottom line is that Suikoden 3 is certainly an old game, but it’s still worth a play through for any fan of console RPGs.

I actually meant to do more than one game, but since this has stretched on for a bit, I think I’ll save the other 2 games I’ve been playing for later.