Suikoden II, a video game about being a sous chef, finally came to the PlayStation Network last month, and it totally flopped, proving that Konami was right and that nobody in the West wants Japanese role-playing games because they are garbage.
Wait, what? The PlayStation Blog just put up their top-sellers for December?
Good work, everyone. I’m proud. It’s almost like people appreciate great role-playing games and maybe Japanese companies would do well to put more effort into the lucrative western market. It’s almost like people are actually willing to spend a few bucks on an RPG that many consider to be one of the greatest ever designed.
Also, in case you’re wondering, I’ve spent the past month replaying both Suikoden games and can confirm that they are both still excellent, despite the truly awful localisation job.
Comments
20 responses to “Suikoden II Finally Gets Its Due”
now if only it was available on the Australian psn store…
Whaaaat? You’re saying a game released from Japan takes longer to release in Australia? Get outta here.
But it’s not like this is a new release game.. All the localisation has already been done AND it’s a digital release.
It’s coming to PAL PSN some time this month.
Waiting for each Wednesday has been excruciating. There are are still so many to go this month as well… Hopefully it’s before Australia day so I can spend all day playing them.
Square: “Hmm, looks like Bravely Default only sold 800,000 copies. I guess nobody wants to play JRPGs anymore”.
Business rep who loves gamers: “That’s because you only made 800,000 copies, we sold out”.
Square: “Sorry, but I’m looking at the graph, the numbers don’t lie”.
Rep: *seizure*
EXACTLY! I struggle to keep any good JRPGs in stock because the demand far far outweighs the supply, and companies wonder why they don’t make money from them. Suikoden II would have had a lot more sales by now too if it were available on the Aus store!
I’m a big RPG fan, but I just find the plots of JRPGs utterly baffling and find the characters incredibly hard to relate to. The cultural barrier seems to be just too high for me to get over.
It generally boils down to:
1) You are a teenager, filled with angst and unsure of your place in the world – you would do anything to make your senpai notice you.
2) You are a teenager, filled with angst and unsure of your place in the world – you and your friends team up to kill god.
Fair ‘nough. To me, some of them are the best storylines outside of a Bioware game. Maybe it depends on when you play it and what type of stories you like (and if you can get past the localization)
Then Suikoden is the jRPG for you. Unlike all the Final Fantasy clones with their nonsense saving the world stories Suikoden 2 is a deep story about friendship, politics, betrayal, war and loss. And it actually makes sense. The story is the greatest thing about the game. Easily the best JRPG story ever written.
*checks URL*
Yep, not Reddit.
As great as it is that Suikoden has done well… The ‘alterations’ made to that picture are atrocious.
Number list in text or a clean screen grab?
I would say the image was sourced straight from the US Sony blog itself.
Edit: Seems that it’s a screen grab because the Playstation site has it in pure HTML.
The table I’m cool with… It has a purpose, gives me relevant information.
The juvenile red arrows and MSPaint scribbled ‘holy shit!!’ not so much…
This is good news. I really hope this inspires Konami to release Vandal Hearts 1 & 2 on PSN. The first still remains my favourite RPG I have ever played. It has aged pretty well too given its Tactical turn based gameplay.
The only game that has come close to scratching that itch for me is Fire Emblem.
Okay, so it’s number 1. But how many copies did it sell?
Too little information to make such a strong conclusion.
I believe that the comparative measure point is having outsold the legendary FFVII.
Yeah, which given has been available for a while on many different platforms, may not have sold as much as one would expect? Again, it’s hard to tell without actual numbers.
Jason may be claiming this as a victory, but what if to get to the top of that chart it only takes 10,000 sales? That hardly proves the point that releasing these games is economically viable.
By the same token, it could have sold 500,000 copies. We just can’t tell. So we can’t actually make a judgement as to whether it is good or bad.
Resident evil 2 and 3 on that top 10 list. Capcom remake confirmed!!!!!!!!!
love these games, and no matter how much press or praise they get I still don’t think it’s enough. Although to be fair none of the other games caught me like 1 and 2 did.