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总结《Suikoden》系列游戏的5个成功要点

发布时间:2011-12-28 15:47:07 Tags:,,,,

作者:Jeremy Parish

1996年12月,Konami在美国发布了一款角色扮演游戏《Suikoden》。它是该公司发布的首款国际化RPG游戏,于PlayStation面世早期发布,处在Super NES的RPG巅峰和《最终幻想7》走红期间。

虽然《Suikoden》算不上是超级市场巨作,但其表现足以让Konami将其铸造成稳固的品牌,该公司在接下来的十多年中发布了4部续作和诸多序章。历史观和数量庞大的角色为该系列游戏赢得了数量适中但对作品充满激情的粉丝群体。逢此游戏原作发布15周年之际,我们来看看为何《Suikoden》当初显得出众独特。

Suikoden 1(from 1up)

Suikoden 1(from 1up)

不含无关紧要的多余设计

在《Suikoden》流行的年代,游戏过程历时较短就已经成为行业批判的对象,真正深入游戏的玩家只需15小时便可以了解到游戏提供的所有内容。这种批判折射出当时的行业趋势。随着CD-ROM数据容量的增加,开发商逐渐在游戏中添加累赘的内容,以此来满足那些希望用金钱换得更多游戏内容的玩家的需求。这种想法不断在游戏行业中蔓延开来(游戏邦注:RPG题材受影响尤为严重),它们只是将《Suikoden》中的故事重复两三次而已,以此来增加游戏时间。《Suikoden》并未采用这种无限膨胀的方式,正因为此它才算是较好的游戏,它的成功证明了简单亦可有大回报。

《Suikoden》开发者意识到,简洁就是游戏成功的灵魂。游戏最早以16位系统为平台,有传言称该游戏最初针对Super NES为目标平台来设计,游戏的美学堪比《最终幻想4》和《时空之轮》等16位经典之作。《Suikoden》大部分内容可以很快打通,因为游戏本身的节奏很快,战斗快速且只有少数任务。但是,游戏在秘密内容方面做得很不错。轻松的游戏设计和隐藏深度反映出这款游戏的设计师鼓励粉丝重复玩游戏,寻找最棒的游戏结局。现代RPG游戏的目标在于让玩家在游戏中投入尽量长的时间,与之相比,《Suikoden》的精神已经被今日的多数开发商所遗忘,那就是尊重和珍惜玩家的时间。

规模和效率的完美平衡

虽然《Suikoden》很简洁,但感觉起来的确是款游戏巨作。玩家在游戏中控制一小支反政府武装,构建军队,修建城堡,发动全面战争,集合部队参加大规模战役。游戏构建出庞大的王国,英雄手中军队的核心是108个可招募补充的角色。在这108个人里,许多人都可以直接带领或参加作战部队。

尽管规模庞大,但《Suikoden》的条理依然清晰。虽然可操纵角色数量众多,游戏的效率并没有受到影响。高效率体验和平衡系统使玩家可以通过数场战斗就组建起自己最喜欢的队伍。每个战士只使用1种武器,这个武器可以升级但不可替换,这使得在如此庞大的角色间调整装备的工作达到最小化。尽管这是款回合制游戏,但战斗速度依然很快。游戏还提供自动战斗选择,玩家可以轻松打败低等级的乌合之众。每个角色都有自己的特点和能力,玩家自定义游戏通过战斗角色限制系统来实现。每场战斗只能派出6名战斗者,你可以侧重于某个方面来构建队伍,比如速度和趣味等。因而,游戏显得灵活却并不混乱。

诚然,《Suikoden》的帮派和资源管理机制并不完美。但是,考虑到游戏为玩家呈现出的选择数量,这依然可以算是个非同寻常的成就。

suikoden 2(from 1up)

suikoden 2(from 1up)

良好的技术展现尺度

《Suikoden》呈现出16位到32位设计的过渡。与PlayStation多数早期RPG(游戏邦注:如《Beyond the Beyond》、《Revelations: Persona》和《Arc the Lad》)相似,它看起来就是个Super NES游戏。虽然游戏大部分视觉效果来源于简单位图精灵,但《Suikoden》的程序员对这个多边形世界做了些许修改,提升了游戏的战斗效果。战斗在动态3D平面上进行,镜头可以倾斜、拉伸和聚焦,呈现出动态效果。从理论上来说,以Super NES为平台也可以实现此类制作目标,但是《Suikoden》以更有风格的方式来执行这种效果,而且与老式硬件相比更为简单。

新硬件设备还使游戏的视觉效果、音效和多数音乐的效果得到提升。发射出的法术带有火焰效果,击中目标后燃烧,整个过程伴随着精心制作的音效。PlayStation使得游戏的音频团队能够呈现出质量堪比CD的音乐。现在看来,《Suikoden》的音乐似乎并不是十分出众,但在15年前确实是非常棒的。

然而,在展现这些技术时,《Suikoden》并未让其影响到游戏设计。相反,技术成为了游戏的优势所在,战斗系统的快速节奏的实现很大程度取决于PlayStation的技术。角色动作在镜头聚焦到某次战斗攻击时依然能够完美重叠,《Suikoden》的设计师将呈现绝妙用户体验置于炫耀编程技术之上。相比较而言,《最终幻想7》之后的RPG类游戏设计中,虽然每次战斗动作都有着华丽的特效,但是往往会出现动画缓存暂停。通常情况下,《Suikoden》中整场战斗的持续时间与《最终幻想9》载入动画的时间相差无几。

不幸的是,这种注重战斗效率的手法并未被其他RPG游戏采纳,甚至《Suikoden》系列作品也将其放弃,游戏的第3和第4章对战斗系统做出改变,节奏大幅变慢,侧重角色动作。

史诗般的规模,个性化的故事

《Suikoden》主要讲述英雄将手下不甚精锐的反抗者群体转变成精锐的军队,最终通过战术、战略和计谋撼动当局政府的故事。游戏的动作背景为整个国家,涉及到数百个人物。然而,《Suikoden》的中心内容并没有因此而受到影响和忽视。

相反,游戏的故事核心十分突出。游戏中的英雄发现自己拥有强大的魔法符文“噬魂者”,他能够凭借该符文获得强大的力量,但个人也要付出很大的代价。随着故事的发展,少领主McDohl失去了他的好友,他终生的卫士和他的父亲,他对力量的渴望使得符文吞噬了这3个人。尽管游戏的情节很丰富且对话相对简单易懂,但《Suikoden》在呈现令人悲痛的时刻方面做得很棒。Gremio在身体被食肉孢子吞噬时说出的临终之语让你百感交集,你会责备McDohl与自己父亲的决斗,因为他父亲的死亡是必然的结局。统治帝国本身也称不上是邪恶的,问题的根源在于皇帝因失去妻子悲痛欲绝,因此不理国事。巴巴罗萨皇帝无法控制反对派的造反,但包括McDohl父亲在内的帝国中的许多人仍然勇于抗争,尽量保全帝国。

无论你在游戏中作何表现和决定,游戏的结局都是Scarlet Moon Empire灭亡,新的自由之邦Toran Republic建立。但是,如果游戏过程是完美的,那么在结局到来之前会出现个性化的胜利:借助108 Stars of Destiny的力量,McDohl的忠诚卫士Gremio复活。这对未来新共和国的建立不会有任何影响,只是对英雄放弃所有东西让自己的父亲曾经捍卫过的土地恢复自由的奖励而已。

suikoden(from 1up)

suikoden(from 1up)

在大型框架下讲述完整故事

《Suikoden》的最佳结局设计还有个好处:有利于续篇的制作。《Suikoden》系列讲述了在相同游戏世界中发生的许多故事,用历史和重复出现的角色将各部作品联系起来。以首作结局为基础,《Suikoden II》将前代的保留数据融入到自己的故事中,玩家可以招募McDohl以及体验整个支线故事。以108人全满打通《Suikoden》的玩家还可以招募Gremio。

尽管游戏续作中有些许不足之处(游戏邦注:《Suikoden IV》受到玩家的普遍指责),但PlayStation原作定下的标准成为该系列作品的模板。首作奠定的是游戏框架,而不是形式。尽管每款《Suikoden》系列游戏讲述的都是政治冲突,某个英雄带领的军队不断崛起,但具体内容都存在差异。场景也是各不相同的,这或许更为重要。《Suikoden》原作中Toran Republic的土地与《Suikoden IV》的海上战斗和《Suikoden III》的野外战斗大为不同。在这些不同的王国里,系列作品呈现出各种独特的文化。首作采用的是标准的人类、矮人和精灵3种族,但随后的作品中有更多的部族,比如丛林猎手、奇怪的鸭人和吸血鬼。玩家可以在游戏续作中更深层次地探索Yuber和Persmerga等神秘角色,同时Viktor、Flik、Jeane和Viki等首作中的亲密战友在续作中仍与玩家保持良好关系。

尽管一开始就规划庞大的故事规模,但《Suikoden》成功地通过续作呈现出完整的故事。看看游戏中的英雄McDohl的故事,我们就可以发现单个作品的故事的不完整依然能够成功,故事可以有更大的框架通过续作来完善,但人物的故事需要在单部作品中完整呈现。McDohl从无忧无虑的童年到付出极大代价成为军队的领导者,随着Toran Republic的成立,他的故事也算进入尾声。

这个极富创意的故事最终被Konami放弃,确实很可惜。诚然,新的《Suikoden》游戏即将面世,但是对于玩家而言,2006年的《Suikoden V》是真正的最终续作。现制作这款游戏的许多开发者都已经离开公司,2009年的《Suikoden Tierkreis》放弃了整个故事的框架,只是偶尔提及魔法符文等内容而已。《Suikoden》或许并未改变游戏世界,但是它成功地创造出我们显然依然铭记的精彩故事。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Retrospective: The Five Secrets of Suikoden’s Success

Jeremy Parish

In December 1996, Konami did something unprecedented, at least for them: They released a role-playing game in the U.S. The company was no stranger to the RPG genre, with both traditional variants (Super Famicom’s Madara) and action-based iterations (King Kong for Famicom) under its belt, but those games had never escaped the irresistible gravity of the Japanese market. This new effort, Suikoden, was the company’s bid to develop an international RPG presence. Launched in the early days of the PlayStation, Suikoden arrived in the fallow period between the Super NES’s RPG pinnacle and Final Fantasy VII’s explosive debut.

While Suikoden wasn’t a runaway hit, it did well enough that Konami turned it into a steady franchise, releasing four direct sequels and almost half a dozen spin-offs over the following decade. Its sweeping sense of history and enormous cast of characters earned the series a modest but passionate fanbase. Though the series has become something of a footnote these days — a PSP spin-off is due in Japan in 2012, though its prospects for Western localization are grim due to the platform’s effective demise here — the games still command a loyal fan base who look back at Suikoden’s heyday and remember all it did right. On the occasion of the original game’s 15th anniversary, let’s look back at what made Suikoden both great and unique among its peers.

No-Nonsense Design

Suikoden was criticized even in its day for its short length; a determined player can easily see everything the game has to offer within the span of 15 hours. This criticism was a sign of things to come for the industry. The increased data capacity of CD-ROMs encouraged developers to explore artificial padding to satisfy gamers who demanded more content for their dollar. The issue of bloat continues to plague games (especially RPGs), which often stretch the same amount of story featured in Suikoden across two, three, even five times as much duration. Suikoden was bloat-free, and it’s a better game for it: Proof that sometimes less is more.

The creators of Suikoden recognized that brevity is the soul of wit. The game had roots in cartridge-based 16-bit systems — rumor tells that it was initially designed for Super NES — and it reflected the same lean, compact aesthetic as 16-bit classics like Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger. Suikoden could be completed quickly in large part because it was quick, with speedy battles and few needless fetch quests. But it wasn’t short on secrets, either. Its breezy design and hidden depths reflect a game that was intended to be played then replayed by avid fans eager to seek the best possible ending. Compared to modern RPGs, which tend to be painfully drawn out in the hopes of keeping players invested for as long as possible, Suikoden embodies an ethos that’s largely been forgotten by today’s developers: A keen respect for players’ time.

A Perfect Balance of Scale and Efficiency

Suikoden felt like a big game despite its brevity. Players found themselves taking control of a small rebel faction, building it into an army, fortifying a castle, launching full-scale invasions, and rallying their troops into combat for large-scale tactical battles. It stretched across a vast kingdom, and at the core of the hero’s army was a team of 108 recruitable characters. Of those 108, several dozen were capable of joining the active party and going into battle.

And yet, Suikoden never felt overwhelming. Despite the immense size of the playable cast, the game was all about efficiency. Thanks to the efficient experience and leveling system, a green recruit could easily be brought to par with the leader’s favorite team in just a handful of battles. Each warrior favored a single weapon that could be leveled up but never replaced, minimizing the need to juggle equipment across such a large cast. Though turn-based, battles ran at breakneck speed, with combatant actions frequently overlapping one another to reduce the time each fight took to play out. An auto-battle option made encounters with low-level rabble almost completely painless. Each character specialized in a specific role and their capabilities were similiarly focused, with a limited (and semi-permanent) rune system offering the bulk of true customization. With up to six combatants available for any battle, you could build your team for power, for speed, or for fun because you simply liked the characters in question. It was flexible but never fussy.

Admittedly, Suikoden’s party and resource management mechanics weren’t perfect. Considering just how many options the game presented players with, though, it was a remarkable accomplishment.

Showcased Tech Without Overdoing It

Suikoden represented the transitional philosophy inherent in the shift from 16- to 32-bit design. Like most early PlayStation RPGs (see also: Beyond the Beyond, Revelations: Persona, and Arc the Lad) it resembled nothing so much as a Super NES game on steroids — fittingly so, given the PlayStation’s tumultuous origin story. Despite the bulk of its visuals deriving from the tradition of simple bitmap sprites, Konami’s programmers made some tenuous steps into the world of polygons by spicing up the game’s combat effects. Battles were set on a dynamic 3D plane that allowed the battle camera to tilt, pan, and zoom in for dramatic effect. It was nothing the Super NES couldn’t have done in theory, but Suikoden executed the effect with far more style and ease than would have been possible on the older hardware.

Also benefitting from the newfangled hardware were visual effects, sound effects, and most of all the music. Spells glowed, runes faded into view and burned onto their targets, and it all happened with the accompaniment of whimsical audio samples that sounded like they’d been lifted straight from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon rather than scraped from the raw bits of a sound processor. And the music! Gone were the cold tones of the Genesis, the crisp but awkward Redbook loops of the TurboDuo, and the diverse but muddy samples of the Super NES. The PlayStation allowed the game’s audio team to stream near-CD-quality audio without the clumsy access pause of disc drives. Suikoden may not look like much today, but 15 years ago it was pretty sharp.

Despite its technical prowess, Suikoden never let showing off get in the way of making a great game. On the contrary, it used tech to its advantage; the combat system’s snappy pace was due in large part to the power offered by the PlayStation. Character actions constantly overlapped even as the camera zoomed in to focus on a combo attack; Suikoden’s designers prioritized presenting a great user experience over showing off their programming chops. Compare Suikoden to the post-Final Fantasy VII school of RPG design, where each and every combat action would be accompanied by glorious special effects that ate up processor cycles and often required a CD access pause to load into memory. A standard Suikoden fight could play out in its entirety in the same amount of time that it took a Final Fantasy IX battle to load into memory.

Sadly, the art of lean efficiency lost the battle among RPGs and even within the Suikoden series: The third and fourth chapters of the game imposed limitations on their battle systems while significantly slowing the pace at which the action played out. Polygons uber alles.

Epic Scale, Personal Tale

Suikoden’s narrative followed the rise of a rebellion against a callous, corrupt empire. The hero took charge of a ragtag band of rebels, transforming it into a mighty army that eventually undermined the empire through cunning, strategy, and tenacity. Its action spanned a nation and involved a cast of hundreds. And yet Suikoden never lost sight of its soul.

On the contrary, soul was at the very center of the tale. The hero found himself in possession of a powerful magical rune called the Soul Eater, granting him tremendous power at immense personal cost. Over the course of the tale, young master McDohl lost his best friend, his lifelong guardian, and even his father: All three lives demanded by his rune to power up its ravenous hunger. Despite the immensity of its plot and the relative straightforwardness of its dialogue, Suikoden excelled at presenting heartbreaking moments. You can’t help but be moved by Gremio’s dying words as his body is consumed by carnivorous spores off-screen; nor can you but rail against the inevitability of McDohl’s one-on-one duel of honor with his father, a battle without animosity yet offering only one possible outcome. Even the empire itself isn’t evil; rather, the problem is an apathetic emperor, despondent and uncaring with grief after losing his wife. Emperor Barbarossa is unable to rein in the depredations of his less scrupulous underlings, but many of the men under his employ — McDohl’s father included — remain upright and noble, protecting an empire that had long since forgotten what it had once stood for.

No matter how you play Suikoden, the game always ends with the fall of the Scarlet Moon Empire and the establishment of the new, free Toran Republic. Yet the reward for a flawless playthrough is a personal victory that transpires shortly before the final showdown: McDohl’s loyal, selfless guardian Gremio is restored to life by the power of the 108 Stars of Destiny. This has no impact on the future of the republic; it’s simply a gift to a hero who gave up everything to restore freedom to the land his own father once helped protect.

Told a Complete Story Within a Larger Framework

Well, there was one other benefit to earning Suikoden’s best ending: It made the sequel better. The Suikoden series was designed from the beginning to tell a number of tales across a world linked by a shared history and recurring characters. To that end, Suikoden II included the ability to merge its predecessor’s save data into its story, allowing players the ability to recruit McDohl and access an entire side-story. Those who finished Suikoden with all 108 stars could also recruit the resurrected Gremio — a small, but heartwarming, perk.

Despite some missteps (such as the widely reviled prequel Suikoden IV), the standard established in the PlayStation original served as a template for the series as a whole. A framework, but not a formula: While every Suikoden revolved around political conflicts and the rise of an army led by a hero enabled by one of the True Runes, the specifics varied from game to game. Perhaps more importantly, the settings varied as well. The lands of the Toran Republic seen in the original Suikoden were quite different from the predominately marine locales of Suikoden IV and the wild lands of Suikoden III. Within those differing kingdoms, the series was free to explore a number of unique cultures; the standard human/dwarf/elf trichotomy of the first game gradually gave way to tribes of foraging hunters, strange duck-people, and hidden communities of vampires. Mysterious characters like Yuber and Persmerga were explored in greater depth as they reappeared throughout the various conflicts detailed across the franchise, while familiar comrades like Viktor, Flik, Jeane, and Viki added a welcome sense of familiar continuity to the sequels.

Despite being designed from the beginning as part of a grand saga, Suikoden’s tale was essentially complete. Focusing as it did on the tale of its hero, young McDohl, meant that the larger tales (like those of the True Runes and characters such as Luc and Leknaat) could be left incomplete without the story feeling inconclusive. McDohl’s personal arc took him from insouciant youth to leader of men at great personal cost, and with the establishment of the Toran Republic his tale was essentially told. There were no maddeningly loose ends, only pieces of a larger narrative that had only been glimpsed in part and whose full scope would be explored in subsequent chapters.

It’s a shame that this inventive, ambitious, yet modest and heartful saga was eventually abandoned by Konami. Sure, there’s another Suikoden game on the horizon, but for all intents and purposes, 2006′s Suikoden V is effectively the last “true” sequel we’re ever likely to see. Much of the original staff has long since left the company, and with 2009′s Suikoden Tierkreis the series abandoned its overarching setting in favor of tales told in “infinite universes” — which is to say, effectively unconnected to the original game but for occasional lip service and the vague involvement of magical runes. As so often happens, the realities of business and changing tastes got in the way of a well-intended epic. None of that, however, can take away from the excellence of a simple but compelling RPG that debuted 15 years ago in the early days of the PlayStation. Suikoden may not have changed the world, but it created its own memorable world that remains well-loved to this day. (Source: 1UP)


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