Suikoden IV: The true spiritual sequel to Uncharted Waters.

I remember when I first played Suikoden I. I bought it used and at the time, was so enthralled with it that I couldn't wait for a sequel. But I had to. When Suikoden II came out, I wasn't nearly as impressed with it.

Suikoden III was arguably the most dull experience of the time. The mental image of the girl shuffling slowly around maps in full armor haunts me to this day. SO I had skipped Suikodens IV and V thinking the series was basically DOA, just like Breath of Fire.

I want to stress: It's not a "bad" game. But a lot of decisions were not good.

What I Liked

I kid about the Uncharted Waters reference, but it really is. You're sailing across vast stretches of ocean VERY slowly and you can trade goods. I actually enjoyed setting my ship on autopilot and doing other things, coming back only briefly to auto battle.

It seemed - could be my imagination - that it was faster and easier to find most of the best people.

I quite enjoyed the ship battles. Not too much strategy needed and a good change of pace from the war scenes of others in the series.

What I Didn't Like

Most of the game felt like you were just going through the motions. Nothing felt "important". Even now,, a few hours removed from final play, I'm struggling to remember parts of the game, which means it didn't leave a lasting impression.

I didn't mind that your castle is a ship. But the layout of the ship is illogical. This matters why? Because...

Parts of the game don't trigger without you speaking to specific people at specific points. Finding them on the ship is a nightmare; there's no guide or map to speak of, so you're just running around looking at doors to find out who's where. Even then there's no indication that you need to talk to person X.

This is especially problematic when it's a trigger based on entering or leaving a port. Countless times, advancing the story is a matter of one of these actions, right when you get access to warp capabilities and feeling glad you no longer have to slowly sail. This matters why? Because...

While I liked the ship parts, they were poorly done compared to what they could have been. The ship turns SLOWWWWW and will fight you if you're near another ship or a few meters radius around islands. Problem is, if you just left port and there's a trigger event to landing again, you have to turn your tugboat ship around; when you later have multiple ships, they're in the way, which just wastes more time.

Also, there's no real "ship building" like I would have liked. But that's a nitpick.

If it feels like I didn't talk about battle much it's because it's unremarkable. In fact, the game as a whole is unremarkable. It started out with a fairly good story, but then seems to go off the rails and treads water about halfway through.