Wanted to respond to your main blog but gravatar has been a pain about asking me to sign in everytine while conveniently forgetting my password. Ugh,makes me so mad!
Anyway,my first Suikoden game was Suikoden 2 and at the time it blew me away. It wasn't a graphically impressive game but the characters,story,and mature themes gave it an immediate edge over its' rivals.
I remember one of the most popular gaming magazines gave it an unjustifyably low score (People were becoming more enamored with 3D polygonal graphics and what they termed "the cutting edge" in technology) and that was the last time I picked up anymore issues. lol.