Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Suikoden minigames: Part 1

Yay more minigames. Yay more complaining about stuff in Suikoden. Yes, I still like this series anyways, but things must be said. I'm still not a fan of most minigames, although some aren't too bad in this one. I'll only cover ones that originated in the original Suikoden though.

Chinchirorin (Triple Toss)

So this is the "toss three dice in the bowl" game that is pretty much reliant entirely on the RNG. Wonderful. I'm really not too much of a fan of it, but in Suikoden 1 you can bet a good amount then bet your winnings, scum this game and be rolling in the money. You can't do that in 2 or 4 though, as the maximum bets are lower and you can't get consecutive bonuses for wins. Heck, in Suikoden 2 they made it harder to savescum (but it is still possible to do). The game's rules are basically throw the three dice into the cup, if for some reason a dice falls out, it's an automatic loss. If it's a pattern of three, it's a triple win except if it is all one in which it's a triple loss. 4-5-6 is a double win, 1-2-3 is a double loss. Otherwise, when you have two same numbers and a different, the number on the other dice is your value. Higher wins of course. No score on three rolls automatically gives a score of 0. This game makes the opponent go first. Overall though, there's nothing really important out of this game, and I can't understand of all gambling mini-game opportunities they went with this one. Suikoden 4 has the "Down to One" option, but you bet no one actually played that due to the nostalgia of playing the original "Triple Toss". Having to recruit Tai Ho, Gaspar, and Shilo with this did make it the most memorable minigame. I don't believe you actually have to play against Gunter in Suikoden 4 for him to be recruited though.

Memory cup game

Along with the Chinchirorin above, this one is quite the time-waster. It's exactly what you expect, three cups, one is hidden under a coin, shuffle them around. First time you play this with Marco, it's super easy. When it comes time to recruit him, it's computer-flash speed which is impossible to figure out even with a human eye, but you'd still likely savescum it just the same. Somehow, it fairs better than Chinchirorin because of the fact it is shorter. Still though, who would actually earn boatloads of money doing this? Sometimes I like to keep it real.

Card matching game

This is one that is likely played only once, and then never again because it is terrible. All this just to recruit Georges, a pretty much useless character otherwise. It's a weird card game where you have to match cards under some record time he sent, except that upon a match, adjacent cards get turned over and several other matches disappear. It's pretty interesting in how it is programmed, but it sucks gameplay-wise. I don't know if you actually earn anything important for winning besides recruiting the character.

Spinning wheel game

Yes, this counts. Yes it is probably the worst Suikoden minigame. Yes, it is unfortunately required. Though to be fair, all the minigames I listed are required, but at least those are mostly for recruiting characters. This one though is in the middle of the subquest for the Kirinji to get Lepant's attention. For some reason, there's this huge wheel right outside the Kirinji's room, and stepping on it spins the character in whatever direction it takes you. The problem is, you really only want to get from the south end to the north end, and it will likely take 10 rounds to go through it all. Sure, the ultra-rare Dragon Seal Incense is a possible prize for landing on the lucky treasure spot. But what about those other ones? So you like a random battle for landing on the wrong spot? What about losing experience? Being at the full mercy of the RNG once again. Except there's just no fun in doing that. In fact, the next time I do a blog post involving Suikoden series minigames, I'll once again mention RNG-related things, because it seems that almost every minigame here is going to involve that.

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