Suikoden II: Difference between revisions

However, Jowy becomes convinced that only one nation can safely protect the region and joins the Highland side, usurping it from within until he becomes King. Meanwhile, the hero, based on his heritage, becomes leader of the forces opposing the Highland advance. Bearing the [[Bright Shield Rune|Bright Shield]] and [[Black Sword Rune|Black Sword Runes]], the two are destined to oppose each other. The player's forces eventually emerge victorious, but the war will not end until the hero and Jowy meet at [[Tenzan Pass]] for one final duel....

The demo was described as a "Demo" on packaging and in its manual but as a "Trial Version" in the game itself. The demo came with two selections; New Game (also referred to as 'Story Mode') and Battle Mode. Saving is disabled in both modes. Story Mode is merely a full gameplay slice of Suikoden II, from the beginning of the game until the boss battle against the [[Mist Shade]] on [[North Sparrow Pass]]. After naming the [[Hero (Suikoden II)|main character]] there is no option to import [[Suikoden]] data. As the demo was released overseas virtually concurrently with the full game, the English language localization is identical to the full game.

There were no strong differences between the Japanese and overseas versions of the game, save for dialogue adjustments for localization and such, as well as a handful of bugs introduced in the different versions. In Germany, the game would be translated and localized into German, the first time this was done for a Suikoden release in the country (in most situations for Europe, games would ship in English with only the case and instruction receiving translations into other languages).

An audio glitch present in the North American version of the game prevented certain tracks, most notably vocal songs sung by [[Annallee]], as well as '''Battlefield Without Light''', the game's predominant war battle theme, from playing. Another bug prevented the name of the [[Hero (Suikoden)|hero of the first game]] from being imported correctly. Instead, the first letter of the hero's name would replace the first letter of the placeholder name "McDohl" only. With the popularity of the name "Tir", this would result in the character being named "TcDohl". These bugs were rectified for the European and Oceanian releases.

Positive comments centered around the size of the game's cast, the increase in graphical fidelity, as well as the reduction in loading times from [[Suikoden|its predecessor]]. The variety of gameplay and optional minigames were also praised highly, as well as the quality of the game's plot and story. Criticism was usually directed at the game's sprite-based graphics, the perceived blandness of its environments, and a sloppy translation. Suikoden II's similarity in all respects to its predecessor was both cited as a positive and a negative from various review outlets but overall, it was felt that gaming had moved on from the style of RPG Suikoden and Suikoden II represented.

Lauded by many fans as the best game in the series, Suikoden II spawned no less than three spin-off games before its next direct sequel, [[Suikoden III]], was released in 2002. It was also around this time than Suikoden publications began to be printed in earnest, including a quarterly magazine devoted to the series. Merchandise began to be produced and a collectible card game was released. The four years between Suikoden II and its successor saw the greatest concentration of merchandise and publications produced in the series' history.