Suikoden plays like a traditional
role-playing video game, with the player moving characters across a landscape, advancing the plot by completing tasks and talking with other characters. It has been compared to
Beyond the Beyond The Hero may recruit up to 107 new characters to his cause, although not all recruited characters are playable characters, and the battle system in
Suikoden features six person parties in combat, with each character being individually controllable, with an option to allow the characters to fight automatically. Some characters can only be recruited if the party has reached a certain experience level or found a special item. Combat triggers through
random encounters and is
turn-based. Both the player-controlled party members and the computer-controlled enemy combatants select their actions before the turn commences. Characters carry out their actions in the order of their speed. A variety of statistics determine in-game combat ability, including optimum weapon range. Weapon range requires the player to think about character placement in the standard battle formation. There are three ranges from which a character can have the ability to attack: Short, Medium and Long. Short range characters are typically swordsmen who have to be placed at the front row of the six party formation, while Medium range attacks can fight from either the front or the back row, meanwhile Long range attackers can attack from both ranges but benefit more so from fighting in the back row, usually due to either their low hit point total, their low physical defence, or both. They also benefit from being able to attack either the enemy's front row or back row in combat. Information gathering and character recruiting is also a commonplace occurrence within towns. Wilderness areas such as the world map or dungeons generally feature random encounters with monsters that do not increase in difficulty as the player's party advances in level, and the amount of experience characters gain is based on their level (a low-level character will receive more experience than a high level character, even in the same battle). Runes are the source of all
magic in the world of
Suikoden. Characters have a certain number of spell usages per "spell level;" governed generally by their magic statistic. For instance, a character with four level 1 spell slots and a Water Rune could cast "Kindness Drops" (the level 1 Water Rune spell) four times. Other runes offer different benefits such as allowing a character to deal double damage at the cost of a 50% reduction in defence. Most runes can only be used in a limited capacity. == Plot ==