Suikoden | |
---|---|
Genres | Role-playing video game |
Developers | Konami |
Publishers | Konami |
Creators | Yoshitaka Murayama |
Platform of origin | PlayStation |
Year of inception | 1995 |
First release | Suikoden |
Latest release | Genso Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki |
Suikoden (Japanese: 幻想水滸伝 Hepburn: Gensō Suikoden?) is a role-playing video game series originally created by Yoshitaka Murayama. The game series is loosely based on the classical Chinese novel Shui Hu Zhuan by Shi Naian.Shui Hu Zhuan is rendered as 水滸伝 in Japanese, and read phonetically as Suikoden. Each individual game in the series centers on relative themes of politics, corruption, revolution, mystical crystals known as True Runes and the "108 Stars of Destiny"—the 108 protagonists who are loosely interpreted from the source material.
Though the Suikoden games follow an irregular chronological sequence of events, the entire series (except for Tierkreis and Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki) takes place within the same world among continuing and overlapping histories. In some cases, several characters appear in multiple installments.
The Suikoden franchise has been developing games since 1995 and has developed various video game titles bearing the same name. The development team of the Suikoden series started developing games using 2D or two-dimensional graphics primarily used in the first and second games, while they only incorporated 3D graphics on environments and visual effects. Suikoden III however, marked the series' complete shift from 2D to 3D as the game jumps platforms; from PlayStation to PlayStation 2.
The series has the following titles including prequels, sequels and spin-offs from the main series (the main series are in bold). They are arranged chronologically with their release dates: