Suikoden

Suikoden is a role-playing game published by Konami as the first installment of the Suikoden series.

Developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, it was released initially in 1995 for the PlayStation in Japan. North American and British releases followed one year later.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) It combines both role-playing and strategic elements, with those gameplay options pertaining to large scale confrontations, such as between two armies.
 * 2) Over 100 recruit-able characters.
 * 3) The player can also recruit new characters to his cause, often involving a short side-quest to do so.
 * 4) Weapons are unique to each character and require sharpening in towns that have blacksmiths.
 * 5) The game´s battle system involves six-person parties.
 * 6) A grid and unit based tactical battle system, akin to Tactical RPGs.
 * 7) Two other type of battle system exist: duel battles and war battles.
 * 8) Magic can be used by using Runes, which are upgradable to allow for more magic usage.
 * 9) Multiple endings depending on how many characters were recruits.
 * 10) Balanced difficulty (it is easy, but still provides a good challenge).
 * 11) Characters carry out their actions in the order of their speed, similar to the ATB system from Final Fantasy IV.

Reception
At the time of its release, Suikoden was considered to be one of the best RPGs on the PlayStation. It has averaged a score of 82.32% on GameRankings culled from 14 reviews. Game Informer ranked it the 82nd best game ever made in its 100th issue in 2001.

In a retrospective review, RPGamer stated that the game was original, breaking out from the typical "Mysterious stranger saves the world" story-line, and also pointed out that it was a relatively simple game suited generally for "novices" and for "die-hard fans" of the series who hadn't played it yet and rated it a 7/10.