What is "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 installations.

is a role-playing game published by Konami as the first installment of the Suikoden series. Developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, it was released initially in 1995 for the PlayStation in Japan. North American and British releases followed one year later, and a mainland European release came the following March. The game was also released for the Sega Saturn in 1998 only in Japan, and for Microsoft Windows in 1998 in Japan. On December 22, 2008, Suikoden was made available on the PlayStation Store for use on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable consoles.

The game centers on the political struggles of the Scarlet Moon Empire. The player controls the son of a Scarlet Moon Empire general who is destined to seek out 108 warriors (referred to as the 108 Stars of Destiny) in order to revolt against the corrupt sovereign state and bring peace to a war-torn land. The game is loosely based on the Chinese novel Shui Hu Zhuan, and features a vast array of characters both controllable and not, with over ninety characters usable in combat and many more able to help or hinder the hero in a variety of ways.