The History of Suikoden IV

The series goes to sea, a century and a half early, and nearly sinks.

Suikoden IV (PlayStation 2, 2004) is the series' prequel and its problem child: a return to a single hero and a simpler story, set on the open ocean roughly 150 years before the first game. Junko Kawano, the original Suikoden's chief designer, produced it; Noritada Matsukawa, who had finished Suikoden III, directed. What it attempted was a back-to-basics Suikoden. What it is remembered for is the sailing.

THE GAME

PlayStation 2, August 19, 2004 (Japan)

A trainee knight of Razril, in the Island Nations south of the mainland, inherits the Rune of Punishment, one of the 27 True Runes, governing atonement and forgiveness. It is the cruelest of the runes: its power consumes the life of whoever bears it, and when a bearer dies it leaps to someone nearby. Framed and exiled, the hero builds his rebellion from a ship, island by island, against the expanding Kooluk Empire.

Release dates: Japan August 19, 2004; North America January 11, 2005; Europe February 25, 2005.

THE CHANGES

Smaller party, bigger ocean

Four, not six

The battle party shrinks from the series' six to four fighters, the change players felt most in every fight.

The ship is the castle

The series' growing headquarters becomes a vessel: recruitment still builds a community, but the community sails, and travel between islands is by sea in real time.

Naval war battles

The army battles move onto the water as fleet engagements fought with elemental rune cannons.

Voices, at last

The first main Suikoden with extensive voice acting, though its hero stays silent in the series tradition.

THE RECEPTION

The coldest a main Suikoden ever got

Metacritic · 63 / 100

The aggregate that defines the game in reference works: the lowest a numbered Suikoden has scored.

Famitsu · 30 / 40

A Silver Hall of Fame score at home, level with Suikoden II's panel mark: Japan was kinder than the West.

GameSpot · 6.7 / 10

The Western case against it, in its own words: "a horrible seafaring travel system and an often outrageous enemy encounter rate."

Sales · about 311,815 in Japan

Gensopedia's figure: a real audience, smaller than Suikoden III's, for a game many had decided about from previews.

THE AFTERLIFE

Tactics, and a slow reassessment

Konami did not abandon the setting. Suikoden Tactics (2005) works as prequel, side story, and sequel to Suikoden IV at once, and the two games exchange save data. The era closed by IV was later revisited when the series' chronology was mapped: IV remains the earliest point in the main timeline, the founding age of the Island Nations Federation its ending creates. The game's defenders make a fair case today: the Punishment rune's chain of bearers is one of the series' darkest devices, and the ocean setting nobody else in the genre was attempting. The sailing, even its defenders concede, is the sailing.

The History of Suikoden III The Suikoden games, in order What are the 27 True Runes?

The History of Suikoden IV

THE GAME

THE CHANGES

THE RECEPTION

THE AFTERLIFE

THE FIRST WORD