The History of Suikoden III

Three heroes, one war, and no side the game will call wrong.

Suikoden III (PlayStation 2, 2002) is the series' leap: its first fully 3D entry, its last under creator Yoshitaka Murayama, and its best seller. Set fifteen years after Suikoden II in the Grasslands, it tells one war three times, through a Karaya youth, a Zexen knight, and a Harmonian mercenary, and lets the player assemble the truth from the overlaps.

THE GAME

PlayStation 2, July 11, 2002 (Japan)

The Grasslands are a borderland of six clans pressed between the merchant federation of Zexen to the west and the theocracy of Harmonia to the north and east. When violence flares between Grasslanders and Zexen, each side blames the other, and into the crisis walks the legend of the Flame Champion, the hero who once drove Harmonia back with the True Fire Rune and then vanished. The story becomes a race for that rune, and for the right to define what happened.

Release dates: Japan July 11, 2002; North America October 22, 2002. A manga adaptation by Aki Shimizu followed, published in English by Tokyopop in eleven volumes.

THE TRINITY SIGHT SYSTEM

One war, three viewpoints

Konami's name for the structure is the Trinity Sight System. Hugo of the Karaya Clan, Chris Lightfellow of the Zexen Knights, and Geddoe of Harmonia's Southern Frontier Defense Force each get three chapters, playable in the order the player chooses, and the same events recur from opposed sides of the field. Further viewpoints unlock as the game proceeds. There is deliberately no unambiguous right side: the device the series' political writing had always wanted.

THE CHANGES

3D, and a divided fan base

First 3D Suikoden

The sprite look of the PlayStation games is replaced by full 3D models and environments, the most visible break in the series' presentation.

A new battle shape

Parties fight in pairs with a shared command structure, and a skills system replaces the older rune-and-level progression for character growth.

The argument

Reviews were mainly positive, but the Trinity structure and the gameplay changes split the audience: invention to some, dilution of Suikoden II's formula to others.

The creator leaves

Murayama departed Konami a month before release and his name came out of the credits; this is the last Suikoden he made. The story is on his page in this shelf.

THE MISSING CONTINENT

No European release, for thirteen years

Suikoden III is the only main-series game not released in Europe at launch, a PAL version reportedly falling to the cost and language requirements of the era. European players imported the North American disc or went without. The gap closed digitally: the game reached the PlayStation Network in June 2015, with a European release on June 23, 2015, thirteen years after Japan.

THE RECEPTION

The series' best seller

Japan · 377,729 by end of 2002

Famitsu's count for the first sales period, the strongest Japanese performance any Suikoden posted.

North America · about 100,000

A respectable cult showing on a new console, against the era's much larger RPG franchises.

The verdict since

Series references record Suikoden III as the highest-selling Suikoden game: the experiment outsold the classics it was accused of betraying.