Been meaning to pick this up but 100+ characters seems kind of

>>3408758
OCD trigger warning, Finding all those pricks is frustrating enough to make you actually read a wiki

They're not generic, but some are far better than others as characters. You get a broke circus troupe, flying squirrels, a rastafarian wereworlf, drunken oarsmen, the works.

It's pretty fun, go for it.

>>3408789
And TcDohl. Glorious TcDohl.

Close to impossible to get 100% without reading a guide. Really grinds my gears and has put me off replying these games.

In suikoden one of your characters dies and later on you get to revive him if you get every other star of destiny.

In suikoden 2 one of your character dies in something that can only be explained as a quick time event except that the game doesn't tell you that you have to be quick. I assumed that it was part of the story and I was like: Oh fuck it.
My good ending was ruined, but I still got the second best ending.
Anyways... OF COURSE most of the characters are shallow, but the story is brilliant and it is rewarding collecting all the characters. That's the fun in suikoden, to create your army and see your castle grow.
Play suikoden 1 first, because you get extra stuff in suikoden 2.

>>3408796
Clive's sidequest in II is more infuriating, honestly. You have to rush along to get all of that done within 12 hours. The game may not be long (it's been years for me), but I feel like you're going to miss something somewhere if you're imposing a 12 hour time limit on things.

>>3408793
Doing the final dungeon with him as your only other party member was pretty awesome. That and the octopi. Those wonderful, heroic octopi.

Also, is it fun? I'm really just looking for a JRPG to play while I smoke. Either this or Wild Arms.

>>3408831
suikoden is superior in every way.
I finished wild arms 1 just ok, I don't remember a thing about the story. I just remember that I liked the western theme.
Wild arms 2 I stopped playing about 3/4 of the game. In a stupid part where you have to go find a lot of towers and it's just legwork.

every suikoden has a memorable story, the worst one is IV by far, but it's short.

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>>3408789

Eilie a cute

CUTE!

Wild Arms is good too. Especially if you like the characters and setting.

>>3408831
The first 2 Suikodens are really basic, easy JRPGs, that you can play one-handed. Should be perfect.

>>3408758
>are they all just generic?
Yes>>3408758
>Are the main characters fleshed out at least?
No. The writing is terrible and the music is possibly even worse.

>>3408879
I liked how her older sister whored herself out in front of her sister and retarded baby brother.

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>>3411860

Rina's a nice girl but sometimes the world isn't so nice back and she's forced to do things for the sake of her family.

>>3408758
If the objective of the game is to build an army I'm not sure how this matters.

The characters are actually pretty fleshed out all things considered. Unlike another game where you can recruit a shit ton of people and then they are no longer relevant, Suikoden does a good job of making sure most people matter. I want to say about 40% are actual combat characters, and the rest are just about castle upgrades. The mini-tactical battles make sure that you at least see a purpose behind why you recruited all these people, and at one point you mob a boss with like 18 people in 3 parties of 6.

The only negative thing I will say about it is that it is a relatively buggy mess for a console RPG. Not making the game unplayable, but causing you to miss a few totally missable but a largely irrelevant extras.

>>3408796
I can't imagine replaying after I finished.

>>3412178
And said boss still keeps fighting you.
Bad fuckin' dude, that guy.

One thing of note is that the characters that you recruited, but are out of your party at the moment, go to your castle. There's a lot of content in castle-building, and there characters are more fleshed out in there. Like the cook that starts a cooking competition, and your recruited characters act as judges, or the detective that can discover stuff about your friends. Or just stuff like a girl hanging clothes out to dry.

Some of the stories are definitely more fleshed out than others (Miklotov, Clive), but most of the characters join you because:
1 - are on the run from authorities
2 - are looking for someone
3 - had nothing better to do
4 - money