Important Importables: A peek at video game manga, Suikoden III

Have you ever gone through a video game and loved the story so much, that you wish it was also available as a book so you could go back and revisit certain scenes, or reread segments, to get a better understanding and grasp of the plot and events? Well, in some cases you can. Take for example, Konami’s Suikoden III, a tale of the quest to reunite the 108 stars of destiny and fight for peace in the Grasslands.

Suikoden III though, is unique in terms of RPGs, not only because of its huge cast, but also because of the way the game is structured. The whole story and game is presented through six different viewpoints, so you can examine the story and adventure through many different angles.

This would make for a difficult book, but would work in the case of a Japanese manga, a graphic novel where visuals can help fill out some of the story. And that’s what happened here – Aki Shimizu was called upon to create an 11 volume manga called Suikoden III: Successor of Fate, which is available both in Japanese in English.

So let’s take a look at how the paperback compares to the disc when it comes to the story of Suikoden III…