Suikoden V: A good intro to the series? Also, what about those load times?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve finished the latest Shadow Hearts and the massive Dragon Quest VIII, so I’m looking for a new PS2 RPG. I’ve heard great things about the Suikoden series, but I know that certain installments of the series are considered far inferior to others.

Suikoden V looks pretty great - I love a great epic RPG, and I hear this one’s a monster. The three different battle systems (small party, one-on-one, and full war) sound like they give the game some interesting variety of play as it goes along.

But here’s the thing - I’ve heard the load times are terrible, that doing things as simple as entering or exiting a random battle take up to 10-15 seconds of loading time. This sounds like it could become a major irritation in a game that’s already going to take you 50 hours to get through, and one with a high random encounter rate at that.

So, is the load time that bad, and that much of a problem? Does it really put a cramp in the game’s fun? Do you think that V would be a good introduction to the series?

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Well, one of the most common comments I see is that V really encapsulates what made I and II good (except for the whole “port over saves from the previous to unlock extra stuff” thing), so I think it would be.

I did find the load times annoying, but frankly, after a while, I stopped being irritated by it enough to really notice it. I was that into the game. YMMV, but I really liked it, even with what I said in this thread.