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Yeah I got mine last week.  It's sex in a box.  Thanks a million Konami.

Maaan...I was opting to get this and changed my mind at the last minute. Post more details when you get a moment. See ya.

Haven't heard the OST yet but the music is highly effective in the game itself, which is the best Suikoden since 2.

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Judging by the music in the game, I'm not getting much of the same feeling at all as McCall. Better than Suikoden? Hah! Better than Suikoden II? Pshaw. Better than Suikoden IV? Even that's trying it. Now the Suikoden III kicking, that I can get behind. What Norikazu Miura has done with Suikoden V is, like the rest of the game, try to emulate the feeling of Suikoden II. While the rest of the game is very successful in this, the music falls a little behind.

The town themes, especially, try to capture that ethnic feeling from Suikoden and Suikoden II, but they just feel more bland, and the loops feel shorter. The instrumentation isn't up to par with the brilliant Suikoden, which is by now ten years old!

It's not that I hate it though, it just feels like a shadow of Higashino's work, unlike Suikoden IV, which felt more like Miura's original vision. There are a lot of good tracks already, and I think I'm just halfway through the game. A lot of the tracks do use familiar Suikoden motifs and many are new arrangements of classic tracks. There really seems to be a lot of the music as well, and the plot scene tracks are usually really fitting. I'm keeping off the soundtrack until I've finished the game, but I do believe that there's enough quality tracks in there for me to enjoy it.

Yeah, I'm still not done with Suikoden III so I'm waiting until I've finished that one to comment on the Suikoden series as a whole (I've marathoned I, II and now III, since I borrowed them all from someone during Christmas break).  Musically, I can totally see where a return to the style of Suiko1 and 2 is desired, considering Suikoden III is one of the weakest RPG scores I've EVER heard (and they lull you into a false sense of security with a really cool opening theme, too... then the rest of the score hits you like a piece of plywood in the face).

As an additional random note, I should really be getting better at this having lived in Japan and inundated with anime character imagery for so long, but so help me the IGN review referring to the main character of Suikoden V as "prince" and "he" was the first time I had ANY inkling whatsoever that the main character (Conn's avatar) is male.  I mean, this is par for the course for the series, I guess (years ago before I played any of the games, some of my friends had... they would play "male or female" with us and see how many of the stars of destiny we could correctly guess gender on... that's so much more difficult than one would expect :\).

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Let me tell you, I'm just glad I got to Suikoden V when I did because I had the misfortune of playing Suikoden IV for the week beforehand. What a rotten game. The first three hours were fairly good and then the whole thing just fell apart. In contrast, Suikoden V starts out pretty slowly but it's all necessary exposition and build-up and the characters are all great (which is more than I can say for the questionable bunch that populated Suikoden IV).

Hm!  These are lovely samples Conn, thanks!  (The new arrangement of "Into A World of Illusions" is totally for the win.)  Decided to treat myself for my birthday today, so I placed an order for this and the Kingdom Hearts 2 OST.  ^_^

Now I'm thinking I should pick up the Suikoden IV OST; what's the general consensus on that score?

And Wanderer, when you say "which is the best Suikoden since 2," do you mean the music or the game itself?  If so, I may have to pick up the game, since taking a hiatus after III.  Is playing IV a necessity to enjoy V?  And Suikoden Tactics..... is the game canon to the main story line?

McCall, curious. I find the similarities between V and II very striking, musically as well. I got VM Japan recently by the way, thanks!

Angela, I consider Suikoden IV OST to be pretty good, but the tracks are a little bit too short. Looped twice, they would have easily filled four CDs. Lots of great battle tunes. I think the Suikoden IV OST was generally pretty well-received.

There are some references in V to IV, which you'll appreciate more if you have played IV, but it's nothing critical nor major. There's over a hundred years between Suikoden IV and V, and Suikoden V stands very solid on its own feet. I would recommend Suikoden IV for its own value, I really liked it, but generally, it wasn't received as well as the soundtrack. It's not a long game though, and not expensive either, so it shouldn't be too hard to see about it yourself. Suikoden V on the other hand is huge, and will easily demand 2 to 3 times the play hours of Suikoden IV.

Suikoden Tactics is canon, I suppose, but the game is very lacklustre. It also felt longer than Suikoden IV, even though the play hours might actually have been less. I would recommend skipping it.

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Game. III was a fairly good game... but it didn't have the same emotional punch to me that II did and the gameplay mechanics were sometimes iffy. IV didn't even have the luxury of good characters (or plot).

On the other hand, V charmed me from the first three hours and I felt instantly connected to the plot and the characters. It's awesome. I'm not saying V is perfect. The load times are terrible, for one.

McCall, whaat?! I hope you mean bleak and depressing in the most positive sense! Slow and non-eventful I can't even agree with...

Pluus the whole scene, and a musical motif accompanying it, and another very pleasant musical reference, and a reference to Eleanor, and a minor character who keeps referring to the Island Nations, the location of IV... It's not just Lino.

Yeah, I can't describe IV as being bleak and depressing, myself. Unless you're referring to the gameplay.

(Okay, okay. Enough cheap shots)

The only thing I found interesting about IV was Snowe and he was dumped at the end of the third hour. I'm sure he returns later but I grew bored of the game even before I got the headquarters ship. And the sailing? Oh, good god, the sailing...

I will give IV some credit though. It was the first Suikoden game to implement voice acting (which V continues) and it did it generally very well. It added emotional punch to scenes that otherwise would have fallen flat without good actors.

Man, I wish II was available for a decent price. I want it...

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Hrm... I honestly can't decide whether I'd kill him or not. I liked him at first... and then he became a backstabbing whiny wuss. He's probably the most interesting character in the game, though. One of these days, I would like to finish off the game. I just haven't gotten Viki yet so the sailing is very discouraging.

I just kick myself for not buying it when I had the chance. I did go through the game when it was released but I never bought it. Of course, now it's impossible to get for a decent price. Pisses me off.

And er... yeah! The OST is lovely! I guess I have a habit of derailing threads without realizing it.

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I'd appreciate that.

I have the first game... I barely remember it now but I have pretty fond memories of it. It's just the second that I don't own and of course, it has to be the best one and the most valuable.

*grumbles*

Thanks for the comments, guys - though I did stop short of reading any of the potential story spoilers.  (What the hell were y'all thinking?? o_O)

And Wanderer, as far as Suikoden 2 goes; does your PSOne/PS2 have the capability to play backup/copies?  If so, I'll gladly make you one.

Yeah, I can play backup/copies and I do have a copy of the game. I just like having the originals whenever I can get them. It's the man in me who likes to have the original packaging and instruction manuals.

Thanks for the offer though.

(And I could have sworn I replied to this about an hour ago but it didnt show up. Odd...)

Out of curiosity, does anyone know why Higashino stopped scoring the Suikoden games?  It seems strange that they didn't keep her on board after she did 1, 2, and the Gaidens.  Did they not want her back or did she not want to go back or what?  Probably a long shot for that info being public knowledge, but I thought maybe one of you might know.

I can't remember the exact details but didn't she take time off for personal reasons?

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I'm looking for a track that doesn't seem to be on the soundtrack. It's the track "Return to Stormfist" in the music test, which plays in the Godwin castle. It's not "The Fall" which plays close to it. Does anyone know if "Return to Stormfist" is on the soundtrack? It's such a great track that it would be a real shame if it wasn't...