Suikoden IV gives you sea legs as you take charge of a young graduate from the naval academy. The large towns, wide open seas, and wide variety of character models makes Suikoden IV very pleasant to look at. Each island-state has a unique enough feel to it that it is easy to figure out exactly where you are just by exploring the layout and scenery. This helps a lot when trying to remember what mission you need to go to if you haven’t picked up the game in a few days.

Since a large portion of the game takes place on the ocean, it’s a good thing the water effect is also a joy to look at. Both the movie and in-game ocean scenes are somewhat mesmerizing. The other water-related effect that I found added a nice touch to the game was the transitions between normal game mode and the battle modes. The entire screen shimmers and shakes as if looking at it through the surface of a lake. This little detail impressed me a lot.

The sound effects, music, and voice acting are also top notch. I found they all do a great job of blending into the overall environment and go a long way to completing the feel of Suikoden IV.

Suikoden IV follows the adventures of a young man who has recently become a Knight of Gaien, but soon after one of his first missions encounters the Rune of Punishment, is exiled from his home and must search for the 108 Stars of Destiny. Along the way your character will battle pirates, sea monsters, dragons, Behemoths, and many other enemies (both beast and man). But it isn’t all battle. You will also add many different types of characters to your party -- everything from elves to mermaids to cat-people.

Battles come in three flavors: Group Battles, Duels, and Naval Battles. A nice and instructive tutorial at the beginning of the game does a great job of showing you how to handle each of these types.

Group Battles (the most abundant) look like the classic turn-based RPG battle. Your party lines up across from your opponent(s). You then select what you want to do. When attacking you can either use standard melee attacks, combo attacks (provided you have two members that share this attack), use Rune Magic, or defend. Most of these are self-explanatory, so the only thing I will go into is the Rune system.

There are five types of Runes (fire, lightning, water, wind, and earth). Each type has its strengths, and as your characters level up, you are able to use more powerful magic from these Runes. The Runes are structured in a Rock-Paper-Scissors manner. Lightning is stronger than water, which is stronger than wind, which is stronger than earth, which has an advantage over fire, which is stronger than lightning. These advantages are good to know when you are going up against the various creatures that inhabit this world.

Duels are just that, a duel between you and an opponent. The goal is to hit the opponent enough times for the health gauge to completely deplete. There are three types of moves you can perform: guard, attack, and special attack. These are arranged similarly to the Runes -- guarding counters special attacks, special attacks beat normal attacks, and normal attacks overcome guards. Thankfully dueling isn’t all guesswork; you can tell what your opponent is about to do based off of his or her comments. For instance -- when the other character says something like “Charge at me and don’t hold anything back,” he is going to guard, so you will want to select a regular attack.

The last battle mode, Naval Battles, is a lot like a turn-based strategy. The ships are out on the open water with a grid pattern laid out. Before the battle you decide who commands the ship, who mans the rune cannons, who the fighters are, and how many underlings to employ.

The commander determines the ship’s mobility -- the higher the mobility, the more spaces you can move. The rune cannons fire Rune Magic at the other ship. The rune cannons work the same way they do in the Group Battles (lightning is stronger than water, etc.). The types of Rune Magic you fire are based on what runes the characters you assign to the cannons have with them. The fighters are for the boarding party. You will need strong swordsmen to overtake a ship once you have taken down its hit points.

The last setup (underlings) is basically the number of hit points you have. This also requires good balance. If you increase your HP (number of underlings), then that is more people on the boat and your mobility goes down, although you (supposedly) last longer in the battle.

Suikoden IV has a nice even difficulty level. I never really found myself getting frustrated at battles and not wanting to play the games because it was too hard, but I never thought things were too easy either. When I went up against a boss of some sort, it was always an effort to beat him -- but if I did fall in battle, I wouldn’t have any problems defeating him/her/it.

As far as Suikoden IV’s difficulty is concerned, it is right on.

Suikoden IV uses a somewhat intuitive control scheme. You move your character/ship around with your left analog stick and activate doors and talk to people with the X button. To manage your party and its equipment you press the Square button. While traveling the high seas, if you press the Triangle button, you will switch to your sea chart. Here you can select a course to change to and view what island you need to go to next.

Suikoden IV is a must have for any RPG fan. It has a rich and deep story, and the battle scenes are more than the typical slow-paved systems found in most RPGs. I recommend this game to anyone who has enough time on their hands to explore the game to its fullest.