“Circle, circle, circle, circle.” It’s hardly the catchiest of chants, is it? And yet it was a pivotal part of summer, 1997 – a summer spent playing Suikoden with my friend, Tom. You may well have not heard of Suikoden before. It’s generally the game I mention to people in passing and they’re left thinking how it rings a vague bell but that’s about it. If I’m lucky. From what I can gather, it’s better known in the USA (and Japan, of course!), but it’s a title and franchise that few in the UK will know as well as many other JRPGs.
I stumbled across it in a secondhand shop in a fairly scruffy part of town. For some reason, the games were piled up on shelves behind the counter so you were entirely reliant on liking the sound of a name, before asking the grumpy man who worked there to pass it over. It was a system hardly designed for encouraging 12-year-olds to be brave and request a game. Perhaps that was the point. You had to be really keen to say anything.
Its cover art was and remains quite beguiling. A circle filled with terrifically drawn characters on a white background. Almost simple in its implementation, yet so intricate too. I’m no artist but I can appreciate the wonder of these colourful characters, expressing so much heroism in their faces. That was it for me. Let’s see what this is all about. It was the summer before I would discover Final Fantasy 7, an important time for shaping what I loved about games, and I had no idea Suikoden would be so crucial.
Source: Eurogamer My summer fling with Suikoden