the resigned gamer, everything I hate about the thing I love the most

Suikoden Tactics: The nameless, faceless, eyeless underclass

Posted by Sir Cucumber at 8:05 AM on Wednesday, April 15, 2009

video game design critique from the resigned gamer, manhunter

If a quarter-century’s worth of video gaming has taught me anything, it’s that people take shortcuts. Time is finite, and work infinite; it’s understandable. We all do it.

But most of us don’t do it like this:

suikoden tactics eyeless merchant, resigned gamerno, no that’s alright…


That’s right, eyeballs. Suikoden Tactics features over 50 playable characters, each with their own semblance of a personality, but I guess there wasn’t any left over for non “plot” related characters…


suikoden tactics asshole, resigned gamer You rich, white, heterosexual males are all the same! With your power, and your privilege, and your eyeballs!


I mean, okay, overlook some frame skipping here, unbalanced enemies there, it’s expected. Unintelligible interface, unskippable animations, unavoidable loopholes, whatever...


suikoden tactics, the eyeless guys always die firstCouldn’t have seen that one coming…Oh, wait. I guess he couldn’t…



But is it that hard to slap a couple eyeballs in an NPC’s skull? It’s not like you aren’t going to recycle their faces a hundred times anyway!


suikoden tactics, isn't it sadDoesn’t it just break your heart? The young idealistic hero really cared about that guy, in the blue, who was a merchant…what was his name again?



Oh and by the way, that plot? It's about a kid looking for a bunch of cannons that turn people into fishmen. No, seriously.