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[Let's Play] Suikoden: Episode 24 - The End
Schide
Yeoh!Registered User regular
Yeoh!Registered User regular
So once upon a time I had this crazy idea of LPing all of the Suikoden games in order, well, at least the main series. This was more of a joke than anything serious because I said I wanted to do video LPs of them. Since that was a joke and would have been wretched, I didn’t think much about it. Lately however, after reading more screenshot LPs, I have come to believe that I want to do a screenshot of the entire series, seeing as how I was going to play through them this summer anyway. That might be a tad overly ambitious however, so I’ll just start off with the first game and see how it goes. So comments and criticisms, etc, I won’t be doing anything special, just commenting and explaining things about the game and cracking jokes and whatnot. Also I can easily post videos of boss fights or anything else interesting, so there’s that. Description time.
Ew, yeah, I don’t know why they made this the NA cover, it’s pretty damn ugly.
Better
Suikoden was an RPG that was released for the PSX in December of 1996 in North America after being released in Japan a year earlier. I was probably released in PAL format for Europe and such later, but I don’t really care. Hey let’s save some time and get a brief description from Wikipedia:
Sensational. Ok well that talks about the series as a whole, here are some specifics about the first game.
Being an early PSX title, Suikoden thankfully forewent the ugly, blocky polygonal graphics of the time (I’m looking at you, Wild Arms) and went primarily with a simple extension of classic 16 bit era sprites, with of course smoother animation, more frames, and all that nice stuff. As in most RPGs, the combat in mainly laid out in a turn based format, similar to Dragon Quest where you input your party’s moves and they perform them, then the enemy side takes its turn, and so on. We’ll get into the specifics later. Another feature of the entire Suikoden series is that in addition to normal battles which take up the majority of the game, there are also two other types of battles, duels and army battles, which again will be looked at more in depth when the time comes. Ok, good enough.
The first Suikoden’s protagonist is this guy:
He has a bandanna and a bo staff. His name in canon is Tir McDohl, but you can change his first name if you want. I did not because lazy. Also, those transparencies are ugly.
You’ll meet plenty of more characters in the coming whenevers.
One more thing, please tag all storyline spoilers for this game and further games until after I actually get to them. Thanks.
Episode 1 - Support Your Local Emperor
Episode 2 - Astronomy Domine
Episode 3 - The Beltway Bandits
Episode 4 - Run Like Hell
Episode 5 - The Village Green Preservation Society
Episode 6 - Mountain Jam
Episode 7 - Tumbling Dice
Episode 8 - Castles Made of Sand
Episode 9 - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Episode 10 - Dogs
Episode 11 - Stealing Stealing
Episode 12 - Life During Wartime
Episode 13 - Infrared Roses
Episode 14 - Jailhouse Rock
Episode 15 - Deserted Cities of the Heart
Episode 16 - Interlude
Episode 17 - Cavern
Episode 18 - Windy
Episode 19 - Vampire Blues
Episode 20 - Sleepy Time Time
Episode 21 - Is This Cloud Valley
Episode 22 - Rescue Rangers
Episode 23 - Over, Under, Sideways, Down
Episode 24 - The End
Ew, yeah, I don’t know why they made this the NA cover, it’s pretty damn ugly.
Better
Suikoden was an RPG that was released for the PSX in December of 1996 in North America after being released in Japan a year earlier. I was probably released in PAL format for Europe and such later, but I don’t really care. Hey let’s save some time and get a brief description from Wikipedia:
The Suikoden series is loosely based on a classical Chinese novel, Shui Hu Zhuan (Traditional Chinese: 水滸傳; Simplified Chinese: 水浒传; Hanyu Pinyin: Shuǐhǔ Zhuà n, Water Margin), by Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong. Shui Hu Zhuan is rendered as 水滸伝 in Japanese, and read as Suikoden. Each game centers around relative themes of politics, corruption, revolution, mystical orbs known as True Runes, and the "108 Stars of Destiny" — 108 protagonists also very loosely interpreted from the source material. Though the games follow an irregular chronological sequence, the entire series takes place within the same world among overlapping histories. In some cases, several characters appear in multiple installations.
Sensational. Ok well that talks about the series as a whole, here are some specifics about the first game.
Being an early PSX title, Suikoden thankfully forewent the ugly, blocky polygonal graphics of the time (I’m looking at you, Wild Arms) and went primarily with a simple extension of classic 16 bit era sprites, with of course smoother animation, more frames, and all that nice stuff. As in most RPGs, the combat in mainly laid out in a turn based format, similar to Dragon Quest where you input your party’s moves and they perform them, then the enemy side takes its turn, and so on. We’ll get into the specifics later. Another feature of the entire Suikoden series is that in addition to normal battles which take up the majority of the game, there are also two other types of battles, duels and army battles, which again will be looked at more in depth when the time comes. Ok, good enough.
The first Suikoden’s protagonist is this guy:
He has a bandanna and a bo staff. His name in canon is Tir McDohl, but you can change his first name if you want. I did not because lazy. Also, those transparencies are ugly.
You’ll meet plenty of more characters in the coming whenevers.
One more thing, please tag all storyline spoilers for this game and further games until after I actually get to them. Thanks.
Episode 1 - Support Your Local Emperor
Episode 2 - Astronomy Domine
Episode 3 - The Beltway Bandits
Episode 4 - Run Like Hell
Episode 5 - The Village Green Preservation Society
Episode 6 - Mountain Jam
Episode 7 - Tumbling Dice
Episode 8 - Castles Made of Sand
Episode 9 - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Episode 10 - Dogs
Episode 11 - Stealing Stealing
Episode 12 - Life During Wartime
Episode 13 - Infrared Roses
Episode 14 - Jailhouse Rock
Episode 15 - Deserted Cities of the Heart
Episode 16 - Interlude
Episode 17 - Cavern
Episode 18 - Windy
Episode 19 - Vampire Blues
Episode 20 - Sleepy Time Time
Episode 21 - Is This Cloud Valley
Episode 22 - Rescue Rangers
Episode 23 - Over, Under, Sideways, Down
Episode 24 - The End
Schide on
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Yeah, we’re naming him Tir. I mean, I could have a vote or something to name him, but he’s the only character you can name and since I’m doing a bit of the game before I make the thread it just doesn’t work out. Sorry!
It may look like Tir’s has green hair with purple highlights, but that’s just his bandanna. His green and purple bandanna. His hair is black as can be sort of seen on his sprite and more clearly seen in his character portrait and in artwork.
We’ll be seeing this loading screen a lot. Well, I mean, I will, but you won’t…and the character who is running changes sometimes, so I won’t keep seeing this exact screen but…well you get the point.
Boom, the game starts you out right smack dab in some kinda room with a rug and like…cabinets or something. And a man! Let us see who he is.
Maid - “Teo McDohl, General of the Imperial Army and his son Tir McDohl, here an audience with the Emperor.”
Of course, he’s Tir’s father. Makes sense.
I won’t be screen capping every single piece of dialogue, because that would be insane. I’ll be transcribing a lot of the more minor dialogue, and then just skipping unimportant dialogue. Also, I’ll be including a bit from the instruction manual about each character as they are introduced.
Hero (Tir): Son of Teo McDohl, one of the five imperial Generals and hero of the game
Teo Mcdohl (42): Father of the hero. The Emperor’s most trustworthy general.
Barbarosa?
Anyway, here’s the Emperor himself, Barbarosa Rugner. I don’t remember if his last name is ever mentioned in the game, but that’s it. Also, note the lack of red hair, or even a beard of any kind. In the instruction manual he is referred to as Barbarossa, so the shortened name in the game is due to the limited number of characters available in names.
Barbarossa (52): Seventeenth emperor of the Scarlet Moon Empire. Hero of the war for succession to the throne, he is called the Golden Emperor.
Windy will play an important role in the game. She has a ponytail.
Windy (?): The Imperial Magician. It is said that in her charming features traces can be seen of the Emperor’s dead wife Claudia.
Minister (Be he Sinister or not) – “Our disputes with the United City-States of Jowstone are complicated, but with General McDohl in charge, we can rest assured.”
So Mr. McDohl is charged with protected the northern border against some opposing force that certainly won’t come into play the rest of this game. Surely there is something that the Emperor can bestow upon Teo to make him that much more formidable!
Barbarosa – “I would like you to have it. Take it with you.”
…Prakk? That’s a…fine name for a sword. It surely is that and not silly in the least.
Barbarosa – “You have my blessings. Good luck, Teo. So you’re Teo’s boy, Tir. Quite an impressive little countenance.”
Hey, it’s not that little! Oh, you said countenance, I thought you said…um, nevermind, go on.
Barbarosa – “Listen, Tir. Would you be willing to give the Empire a helping hand while your father is protecting the northern border?”
Screw you, Slappy McPuplecape!
There are a number of these pseudo choices in the game, but none of them actually affect the story. Except for maybe a couple, I forget.
Ha, got away with it due my awesome countenance once again!
Barbarosa – “Someday, you will follow the path of your own choosing. But for now, you have a great deal to learn from me. Plenty of time for freedom later.”
Foreshadowtastic.
Teo – “Thank you for your kind words, Your Highness.”
Minister –“Commander Kraze of the Imperial Guard will be Master Tir’s superior.”
He sells used cars on the side, you might have seen one of his commercials. That one with the baby seal always brings a tear to my eye, and a laugh to my mouth.
Hey baby, you’re not too bad yourself. Want to come to my place later so I can see what’s under that, uh, shawl? I guess. No? Your loss.
Teo – “We had better be going, Your Highness.”
Barbarosa – “I’m relying on you, Teo. And Tir, I hope your efforts will surpass your father’s.”
And with that we are ushered out from the oppressive stare of his Royal Moustache.
We can walk around the castle a bit now, let’s go talk this oddly out of place Arabic-looking man.
I can’t have children myself, owing to an unfortunate incident in the war involving a very sharp knife and very hungry dog.
Kasim Hazil (43): One of the five Imperial Generals. His skill with a sword is said to exceed that of the Emperor himself. He is called Blue Moon Kasim.
That’s Kraze on the left. He’s Kah-raaaaaa…eh.
Kraze – “What’s your name? Tir? I couldn’t care less if you’re the son of a great general. You’ll get no special treatment from me, you understand?”
Unless you buy one of my super value ’56 models at the low, low price of 100000 bits? What, your allowance is only 5 bits a week? Piss off then, you little mutant.
Kraze – “Now go on home. Work begins tomorrow. Report here first thing in the morning.
Teo – “Did you introduce yourself? I must admit, I’m quite surprised you’ve been assigned to such a weakling, but… Well, let’s get going. Gremio must be worried sick.”
Ah, Gremio must be Tir’s mother. Or…other father? Hey why not.
And we’re forcibly pulled out of the castle and past the blurred background that the capture device can’t render properly when you’re moving.
Which puts us right in the middle of the bustling capital city of Gregminster, wife of Eastminster, cousin of Westminster. The game pulls us from the entrance of town into the McDohl household, which is actually more of a commune, as you’ll soon see.
Oh I see. Manservant.
Gremio (27): A childhood friend of the hero, whom he is always worried about.
Wait, Tir is supposed to be like 15, so that means…something I don’t want to think about, actually.
Gremio – “Were you nervous in front of the Emperor? I was soooo worried. But I guess everything went fine. “
Teo – “You shouldn’t worry so much Gremio.”
Gremio – “Oh! Master Teo… I didn’t notice you at all.”
Teo – “Didn’t notice me? Good grief. The only one you seem to care about is Tir.”
And thus we begin to see Gremio’s somewhat unhealthy obsession with the ‘Young Master’ (Jackie Chan not included). How unhealthy? We’ll just have to find out.
Ted, of course. Yes, Ted, my…faithful…person whose name is Ted. That I certainly have any recollection of. That Ted.
Hearing that Gremio is making his godawful stew again, Teo hightails it the hell out of there.
Aha, this person (woman apparently) with the forehead armor and ridiculously high collar has a character portrait. They (she?) must be important!
Cleo (28): A servant of Teo McDohl who is like an older sister to the hero.
Vaguerrific. Also her sprite looks almost nothing like her portrait, which I always found disconcerting.
Cleo – “Oh well, you can be forgiven if it’s my room, I suppose. So how was your audience with the Emperor? Were you nervous?”
Not nervous, the Emperor is actually a pretty nice guy. I hope we can be good friends someday.
Aw, he’s sleeping.
Let’s drop a filth encrusted rat on his face.
He asks about our audience with the Emperor.
Pahn (29): A servant and hanger-on of Teo McDohl. Serious by nature. A heavy eater.
Um, all right.
Don’t worry, he likes it.
Eh, let him make his stew. Let’s head upstairs and see what kinds of other crazy persons we can encounter.
Ted – “Let’s go up to your room, ok? Tell me all about the Emperor, right now!”
Who are you and why are you in my house? Ted? Oh yeah, Gremio mentioned you. Let’s go, maybe you can tell me who you are and why I should care.
This is message you get whenever someone joins your party temporarily. We’ll be getting a different message later, for the most part.
Oh yeah, here’s the menu. You have what you see, Item, Strength (status), Rune, Formation, Equipment, Setup. All fairly self-explantory.
Tir’s and Ted’s stats screens.
EXP is experience, basically you gain a level everytime you get 1000 EXP. The enemies are worth different amounts based on their level compared to yours. It’s actually pretty easy to level up someone from a very low level to a high one in a limited number of battles, depending on the enemy level.
ATK is attack power factoring in weapons, while PWR is a characters base attack without including in the weapon stats.
AMR is defense rating based on armor and shields and whatnot. DEF is base defensive power.
SKL is like accuracy and evasion combined.
SPD affects the order of attack.
MGC is for magic attack power and how quickly the spell goes off after you select to use it.
LUK luck and affects criticals and also evasion.
Under those stats is the weapon a character holds and its level. We’ll get into later.
Then under that is HP, rune attacks and current level.
We’ll change the text to fast while we’re here.
Ted – “I owe so much to Master Teo, who adopted me when I was an orphan, and I want to return the favor, OK?(Reply, ‘Gee, I dunno.’) Please, I want to work for the Imperial Guard too. Oh please… (Reply Of course.) Great! I knew you were a good friend!”
You would have thought I’d remember my father adopting an orphan, but you’re just so gosh darned nondescript I probably thought you were a chimney sweep or something. What the hell, you can come. At the very least I can use you as a meat shield.
Ted – “Now for more important matters. What kind of man was the Emperor? And tell me about Windy, the Court Magician. Was she beautiful? Come on, tell me everything.”
Well, the Emperor had a giant moustache and a sword with a stupid name. Windy was pretty hot, and I think she was coming onto me. Next time in the castle I should follow up on that…oh yeah, hot shawl action.
Ted – “I am sure I would like to see Windy in person. Hey Tir… I really don’t know how to tell you this, but…ummm…”
OBVIOUS COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET JOKE
Ted – “Say Tir there’s something I want to tell you. Can you keep a secret?”
…
Ted – “Can you promise not to tell anyone what I’m about to tell you?”
I promise not to tell anyone until dinner.
OK tell me now so I can go tell the rest of the Co-op so we can all laugh at you!
Ted – “Hey, it’s time to eat. Let’s go, Tir. We can talk some other time
Awwwww.
Teo – “Tomorrow morning I must travel north. Tir will be responsible for the household in my absence. I’d like you all to give him full support. Gremio?”
Gremio – “Y-y-yes…sir.”
Teo – “You’ve taken care of Tir since he was a baby. Thanks to your efforts. He’s grown into a fine youth. I’m grateful to you. “
Gremio – “But sir, I, this is my job, an-and besides, serving Young Master is a pleasure for me, too…”
Teo – “I’m glad to hear it. I hope you continue to watch over him. Cleo, Pahn, I’m counting on you two as well to help and protect.”
Cleo – “Yes, Master Teo.”
Pahn – “Of course, eir. Leave it to us.”
Teo – “And Ted, I hope you’ll always be a good friend to Tir.”
Ted – “I’d do so even if you said otherwise, Sir. Right, Tir?”
Teo – “Enough talk. Let’s eat before the food gets cold. Let’s raise out glasses. To my son. To the Empire.”
Joking aside, this is a nice little scene that sets up a lot of character interaction later in the story, especially two certain emotional events.
Later that night…
Gremio – “Shall I wake him up?”
Teo – “Let him sleep. It’s not as if we’ll never meet again. Gremio, take good care of him, won’t you?”
Gremio – “I will, Master Teo.”
After that dialogue which does not foreshadow anything, Gremio wakes up Tir in the morning, reminding him of his appointment with Kraze. Gremio, Pahn and Cleo prceed to join your entourage. As does Ted again. Let’s see some more stats.
So, now we can finally wander around town a little bit before we meet up with Kraze. Let’s walk uninvited into some peoples’ houses.
Man, all the ladies are hitting on Tir. Sonya is another of the five Imperial Generals. Who doesn’t have a manual entry.
Here we find the rune shop, and to the left is the armor shop. Nothing in the rune shop yet, so let’s go and buy some armor.
When you select an piece of armor, a character’s name will change color depending on if the armor is of a high or lower value than what they have equipped. Right now I can’t afford that much, so I just go with a headband and leather coat, both to equip on Tir. I sell the stuff he had on before.
Medicine and Antidotes and the like come in packs, each character can only hold a few items at a time, so that’s a nice thing to have.
This is an Appraiser. We don’t have anything to appraise yet so it’s useless at the moment.
This house has a fuckton of wardobes. Let’s ransack it!
…so I’m guessing a woman at least lives here.
Gotta be a woman.
Please dear god let it be a woman.
Wstfgl
Well hey let’s go meet him why not.
Oh dear.
By the way, meet another one of the five generals, Milich Oppenheimer.
All right, that’s it. Time to end this and go save. You can save any inns and at save points.
Huh, this innkeeper has a name and a portrait. I wonder if she will be important later!
Ok, that’s episode one. Holy shit that was long. Next one won’t be so heavy on plot, I think. Certainly not on introduction of stuff. We might even fight a battle or two!
Tell me how you think I could do this better. There’s a chance I might listen to you. Also, let me know if there’s anything you specifically want to do in the game. The next few bits are already done, so suggest things for a bit later. I’ll probably make videos of boss battles, but let me know if you don’t want for some reason.
Next update: Knights and Dragons and Seers
be funny or I'll slit your throat
They probably changed the cover because they thought westerners would be frightened by the large eyes. How times have changed.
Give me some LP!
Dan Akroyd is a magical elf!
proceed with caution
Ah, thanks.
First portion is up. I don't know if my funny will be up to Javen's standards, but it's about the best I can do.
Oh hell, I forgot to put no spoilers stuff in the OP.
Use the advanced edit and change the title from there.
Good stuff, although I think it'd be better with more humorous summation of dialogue and less direct transcribing of it.
Got it, thanks.
Yeah, I realized after I finished the first update that this way too much too long and probably wasn't necessary. I will definitely be condensing more in future updates. Which won't exactly be every day because these things still take hours to do.
Get em, kitty!
Oh right, game. Nothing to do now except go talk to Kraze.
Now for your first assignment. Listen carefully, because I’ll only tell you once. Northeast of Gregminster lies the Magician’s Island. Leknaat the Seer lives there. She has been commissioned to look into the stars. Go there and bring me her results. Are you listening? Tell me where the Magician’s Island is.
Huh, whazzat? Were you talking? I couldn’t stop thinking about how you managed to shape a bucket of oil and wear it on your head.
Kraze – “Don’t think you can treat me like a fool just because you’re the son of a great general. Keep acting up and you’ll be sorry.Heh. Here are the rest of your instructions. There is no boat to Magician’s Island, but I’ve arranged for a Dragon Knight from the Knights of the Dragon’s Den to take you there. You’ll find him in front of the barn.â€
Huh? Knight? Dragon? Dragon Knight? DEN? Woo hoo. Wait, barn? Where are we, Kansas?
Kraze –“The dragon will transport you to the island. By the way, Leknaat the Seer is the younger sister of Court Magician Windy, so you’d better behave yourself.â€
Younger sister, eh? Methinks this might bode well for a certain guy with a great countenance, if you know what I mean.
So we head outside and the crew talks a bit about the mission, Pahn is disappointed at the apparent lack of excitement, but Cleo assures him that the astrological results are important. Gremio is glad at the lack of danger, and Ted is excited to meet a Dragon Knight. So we head directly east from here to meet…
…this punk. Everyone is disappointed at the punkishness of the Dragon Knight
See? Let’s talk to the punk.
Um, not really. And he sounds exactly like an elephant. You sure you checked out his genealogy before you bought him?
Ted is not impressed.
Wait, what were going to say, Ted? That sounded potentially plot related if you ask me.
Everyone gets on the basket on Black’s back and they fly away.
And land on Magician’s Island. I detect a notable lack of magicians. After the landing, Futch lets you know to talk to him if you want to go back to Gregminster. While we’re walking, the screen opens up to the game’s first battle.
If I wanted to bother I could make an animated gif using this that would be more than a little unsettling.
So here’s the main battle screen. You can see that battles are fought in a ¾ isometric view. In the upper left corner we’ve got our battle choices, upper right are enemy names, and on the bottom is our party and their stats.
Fight is what you do to get to the attack/defend and whatnot selections. Run is running from battle with only a chance to succeed. With Bribe you can pay enemies bits to let you escape, it’s not very useful. Free Will is auto attack, everyone just attacks. Quickly.
So we select the Attack option and now we cycle through out characters and select what each will do this round. Both enemies and your party attack at the same time, with the order of attack based on each entity’s speed. The options are Attack, Defend, Rune which is basically magic, Item, and Unite. Unite is a great option, as it allows 2 or more party members to combine their attacks into a devastating blow, resulting in varying amounts of damage and effects to the enemies and party. We’ll be using this a lot. At the moment we have one character, Pahn, who has a rune we can use, the Boar Rune. We also have a unite attack with Gremio and Pahn.
So this round we’ll attack with most of the party and show off the Boar Rune. You can see attack animations and the battle flow in the upcoming boss battle.
The Boar rune lets Pahn attack an enemy with a series of devastating punches and kicks and finishes with an uppercut, this deals about twice the normal damage, but afterward Pahn is Unbalanced and can’t act next round.
Fortunately the battle is over and there isn’t a next round. After battles you get exp and bits, the currency of Suikoden before it was changed to potch.
Nothing important happens for awhile, we find a pair of chests with medicine and a leather coat which we give to Pahn. One annoying thing about this game is item management. Each character has a set number of item slots that are mostly taken up with equipped items. There is no party inventory. Each new item you acquire goes to the first free slot in your party, so when we got the leather coat it went to Tir’s inventory, so we had to go into his inventory and give it to Pahn before he could equip it.
We meet one new enemy, the Furfur, and kill some of them. We also gain a couple of levels to go to level 3. We then meet this fellow.
Boss battle time! Vimeo (Sorry about the hisses and clicks in this and other videos. It's coming in like that with the Gamebridge and I can't seem to be able to fix it.
Well that was easy. Afterward we go north a bit and find Leknaat’s humble abode. And by humble abode I mean giant ass tower.
Well, let’s go in and climb the damn thing
Finally
*wheeze* Ok, you must must be Leknaat. *hack* You really need to get an elevator installed here, lady. *spasm* I mean, come on. Oh, elevators haven’t been invented yet. *cough* Hopefully someone will invent the damn things soon. *vomit lungs*
Tir has been hit on by nearly every female in the game so far. What is it about him that attracts to women so. Is it his incredible countenance? His rockin' green and purple bandanna? Or maybe his long, hard wooden staff? The one he hits monsters with, silly. The world may never know.
Leknaat beckons out intrepid adventurer to follow her up into her private enclave, where she’ll “give†him the “astrological†“projections†if you know what I mean.
Hey, watch those hands, Tir.
She asks for Tir’s name, and then gives him some prophetic words.
Well shit.
She then gives Tir the Astral Conclusions and bids him adieu, hoping that they’ll meet again.
Oh Ted, so naïve.
The crew decides to head back now that their mission is finished in the hope that Futch will not capriciously abandon them on the island. Leknaat steps in and summons Luc.
So I guess this is payback for trying to kill us I guess.
Leknaat gives Cleo a Fire crystal (rune), which is put in Tir’s inventory for whatever reason.
Luc teleports everybody back to the shore with his Wind rune. Except Ted, where is…
Oh, there you are. Hurry up and get on the dragon or we’re leaving you.
The party flies back to Gregminster and says goodbye to Futch. Futch decides to stay for a bit and sightsee.
This will not end well.
The party goes back to Kraze to update him.
Jeez, we were only gone for like 15 minutes, don’t be an ass, ass. Also, a member of a marching band is now standing behind Kraze. Kraze says we’re not useless and prepares to give us our next assignment. Which leads into this sequence.
Like a modern day Abbott & Costello. Or something.
He makes Kanaan go with us. Whoopee.
You get that message when a character joins you who is a noncombatant.
One more thing before the end of the update. Now that we have a Fire crystal we can give it to someone and they can do fire magic. So we’ll go to the Rune shop.
And attach the crystal to Cleo, which lets her perform fire magic, which hurts enemies in ways that fire hurts things, i.e. burning. Now we can leave Gregminster and head on over to Rockland.
Here is our first glimpse of the world map and mini Tir.
Next update: gambling and bandits. Gamblits.
Of course once again, comments and suggestions are welcome.
This saves me a lot of effort because I was thinking about replaying this recently.
Rockland has, like its name suggests, houses built entirely from rocks. I fairly effective building material although I’m willing to bet those roofs are mighty leaky. Well, you use what you got.
Hmm, this old person looks slightly non-NPCish, let’s talk to them.
Holy crap why the hell does your face look like it belongs on a 2 year old? Went a little heavy on the botox maybe?
Anyway, she offers us a chance at the cups. Let’s see if we can win some cash.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Let’s try again.
Woooooooooooooooooo. Ok, enough of that, let’s leave.
…actually, let’s try that again.
Noticing a pattern? Yeah, the first two games you play the coin is always under the middle cup, then the left cup. Leave the game, then leave the town and come back in and the pattern repeats. Easy way to make large amounts of money early in the game. So I do that.
10 minutes later…
We’re over 100,000 bits richer. Saves grinding because you will need a lot of money in this game.
Save, just in case. I have no idea why there are two identical guys behind the counter.
I go the the armor store and buy some shit. Then to the item shop and stock up on some medicine and antidote. Antidote isn’t terribly important, but hey why not.
These gravestones are kind of depressing.
Except this one. This one is…interesting.
Anyway, let’s go see Grady.
That’s an awful big house that has much better roofing quality than the other houses.
This guy rebuffs us initially, but Kanaan gives him what for and he let’s us in to see Grady.
Indeed. A little too well, if you ask me.
Grady gives an excuse about bandits on Mt. Seifu to the east pillaging local villages so that they can’t collect taxes, so the party is charged with going there are capturing or killing them.
Exactly what I was thinking. Although my thoughts were more along the line of “Oh golly gosh goodikins, more fighting!â€.
Inside a random house, this line made me laugh for no good reason.
Just about a screen’s throw east of Rockland is Mt. Seifu. Let us climb up and deal with those dangerous bandits!
We start up the mountain and Kanaan demands Pahn take the lead, because he’s all buff and stuff.
Up the path a little ways lies the entrance to a cave. Inside, we take a right at the fork and get some medicine and a pair of boots.
Now Tir is wearing two pairs of boots. No, I don’t know how that is supposed to work.
Further on in the save we fight some bandits. They’re easily dispatched with the free will command.
Soldier Ants now.
Here is the level 1 Fire rune spell, Fire Arrows, which shoots a jet of flame into one enemy, dealing a pretty great amount of damage at this point in the game, 232.
Spell casting runes work in a sort of DnD-esque system, where there are 4 levels of spells per rune, and the number of times you can cast each level depends on the character. Right now Cleo can only cast 2 level one spells before she needs to stay at an inn and sleep before they are recharged. The amount of castings depends upon the character and their level. Different character’s casting numbers grow at different rates, making certain characters more useful as magic users and other characters more useful as fighters, you know, the way that sort of thing generally works.
Black wild boars which aren’t black at all.
One thing I forgot to mention is weapon range. There are short, medium and long range weapons. Short range weapons are only usable if the character is in the front row. Medium range weapons can be used in either row, but can only hit the enemies’ front row. Long range weapons can be used in either row and can hit any enemy row. The weapons are designated with an S, M, or L to indicate what type they are.
Further on in the save we get a defense rune piece, 1000 bits, Leggings, some Medicine and an escape talisman, which lets us return to the entrance of a dungeon. The defense rune piece can be used to give one character a +1 to their defense stat. There are also power and magic rune pieces, plus others for different stats.
Hey that looks like something we can fight. Let’s go kill it.
Queen Ant boss battle Vimeo
That didn’t quite go as planned but I guess Ted’s mysterious power of doom is pretty useful.
We exit the cave after getting one last treasure, a thunder rune piece. I’ll explain what the rune pieces are later. After saving…
Bam, a Bandit Boss Battle Vimeo
Now that that’s settled, let’s head back to Rockland and get our reward. Although is a bit odd that those bandits have character portraits…ah well.
Yes, that dungeon…right there…if by dungeon you mean living room.
Yay!
Awwwwww.
That’s enough for this update.
Next Episode: Ted’s past, revealed!
Gamerstube is being a bitch about converting, so just use the Vimeo links for now.
Since I'm playing ahead, I'd like to ask right now if anyone has suggestions for a name of a certain something that we'll be naming in a bit.
Any suggestions?
First if any gets it.
It's a pity you couldn't rename the main character as Zoot, too.
I didn't want to start the thread without having some content so I couldn't let anybody name Tir. Ah well.
Does Suikoden IV have a similar slap in the face? And how is Suikoden IV? I know it's one of the least favorites in the series, but is it still worth playing?
But I don't remember Suikoden V recruiting to be any more difficult than the other games. Of course at this point I've forgotten a lot about the specifics of it since I haven't played it since it came out.
IV is...IV is ok, but definitely the worst of the series. For one it did away with the six person party and anything that worked with that and made it 4 person parties, which severely screwed with some of the basic stuff, mainly the fact that you had two less spots in your party with about the same number of recruitable characters. I also found the main character to be very dull, and the graphics fairly bland overall. Also, you have to sail between islands for a fair amount of the game, and it takes frigging forever and has random encounters along the way. But it probably has one of the coolest "castles" in the series.
If you can get it cheap and like all the other games and recurring characters and the references it has, there's no reason not to get it, but don't go out of your way to get it.
I already own it, I've just never played it. I had V, which I traded in for some reason. I regret that, but I just really didn't like what would happen if you didn't get all 108. I don't necessarily want to spend all my time looking at a guide so I don't miss any, because that's what you had to do. If you don't do certain things at certain times along the story, you'll miss a lot of characters. Being forced to do that just isn't fun, primarily if you want the good ending, and I just want to sit down and play my JRPG without breaking the pace.
A GRIFFIN CALLED FUBAR.
Of course, that's only if you import your save... they'll be called Tora and McDohl if you don't. :P
Also I realized I forgot to get one of the two special runes at the beginning of the game. Although it's still early...maybe I'll go and show that and then play up to where I am. Maybe.
It has the same thing in principle (just about), but it's much less pressing in execution. Really no big loss.
Barely worth playing. There's so much wrong with the game, from both a general perspective as well as a Suikoden angle.
I did like some of the character designs, though. I really liked Wendel (the 5% of the game I could actually use her was great!). Despite her not doing anything of any amount of importance, she's still one of my favorite characters in the series. And there were some more, like Flare and Olan and a few others. Of course, this is balanced out by characters that made me long for the days of Gengen...
---
I'm too lazy to actually go back and quote, but...
They could have just had him be a generic dual-wielding protagonist (which would actually put him pretty near the top of that particular category), but it was simply not to be.
And this manages to not be the biggest problem with the game...
---
2 was prettier (1 was, and is, ugly), and it would be overall about as polished as 3 if it weren't for some of its gaffes in the war battles and a few other things. It's still pretty solid overall, though.
But I will concede that Fubar is not on my long list of complaints about 3.
Of course Kanaan is taking the money back to Kraze and I bet they’re going to spread it all on a bed and then roll around in it. That’s it, nothing sexual, I’m just sure they really like money.
Everyone else in the party plans to head back home where Gremio will make a delicious meal of boiled pig intestines, but then Kanaan demands Ted come with him to the castle for undisclosed and vaguely ominous reasons.
Ted goes off willingly, but not before alluding to the thing that needs telling by him to you. You know, the subject of an earlier gay joke? So the rest of the group heads back home.
See?
Just try to emulate that laughter in real life and see if you don’t get dragged off the the funny farm. I dare ya! Either that or have someone perform the heimlich on you because they think you’re choking.
Gremio brings tea, and I totally forget that you now regain control of Tir so I sit there for half a minute, waiting for something happen. But I get up and go downstairs and find…
Tim! I mean, Ted!
Gremio comes down the stairs and yells for Cleo and Pahn to help out.
I don’t even know how a wound is supposed to look unnatrual or magical. Maybe like a neat cube sized chunk of flesh has been removed? Or maybe it’s glowing with magical energies? I dunno.
The gang helps Ted into Cleo’s bedroom. Why they didn’t take him to the closer bedroom is anyone’s guess.
Maybe they were magical thugs?
Ted regains consciousness and asks if the Imperial Guard is here yet and asks for Tir’s help. Gremio tells him everything is fine and asks him what happened. The game then goes into flashback mode to show you what happened.
Ted is kind of whiny.
So they dragged Ted all the way into the castle because Windy wants to talk to him. What in the world could the Court Magician want with a common roustabout like Ted? I mean except for the fact that Ted blew away that ant thing with super darkness power and the hint that Ted’s been alive for 300 years… But that couldn’t be it.
Oh wait of course it is.
Windy demands Ted’s rune, but Ted isn’t about to give it up without a fight.
Soul Eater rune? That doesn’t sound too pleasant. Ted uses the Soul Eater’s apparent power of lens flare to make good his escape. And give him a mgical wound or something.
Back in the present, Ted pleads with Tir again before passing out. Pahn thinks that because the Imperial Guard is after Ted, they should turn him in so they don’t cause any trouble with the man.
Gremio forgets that Ted isn’t a dog, and argues with Pahn because he doesn’t think Ted did anything wrong. After a bit you get control and can talk to each person. Cleo thinks she might have heard of the Soul Eater rune before, and Pahn says he’s going to wake up the shopkeeper to buy some medicine.
Ted wakes up again and the group tries to ask him about the Soul Eater rune, but Ted insists on asking Tir if he’ll do him a favor. There’s a dialogue choice but it’s useless because it doesn’t affect anything. So ask what he wants you to do.
Ah yes, the focal point of the Suikoden series, the 27 True Runes, 18 of which have been officially recognized as of the 5th game, I believe.
“In the beginning, there was "darkness."
Then, the "darkness" shed a "tear."
From that "tear," the brothers Sword and Shield were born.
Shield claimed it could defend against any attack.
Sword claimed it could slice through anything.
The brothers began a legendary battle.
At the end, both Sword and Shield shattered.
Sword became the sky, Shield became the earth, and the sparks from the battle became the stars.
As for the jewels, they fell to the ground and became the True Runes--The runes that all other runes were born from.â€
You don’t normally get this story until later, but what the hell. I think the wording is different though.
Ted goes on to explain that Windy has been chasing him for 300 years, attempting to get the Soul Eater from him. His mistake was using the rune at Mt. Seifu. Of course if he hadn’t used it he and everyone else would have been dead anyway, but who knows where the Soul Eater would have ended up then. Assumedly he didn’t know her name before as that would most likely have tipped him off to get the fuck out of Gregminster. With his magical wound, Ted does not believe that he can evade capture any longer.
You can refuse to accept the rune, but then Ted just whines again and you really have no choice but to accept, because otherwise there would be no game.
Praying by the side of his bed, God shines his light down upon…I mean Ted transfers over the Soul Eater to Tir.
But wait, what was that noise out front?
Oh shit.
Pahn was a dick and told the Imperial Guard where Ted was because Pahn is loyal to Teo to the point of dickishness. Cleo and Gremio want to fuck shit up with Kraze and the Guard, but Ted comes in and surrenders, sacrificing himself so that Tir can get away with the Soul Eater.
Tir, Cleo, and Gremio proceed to hightail it out the back door. It’s raining now, the cold wind blowing so hard we feel the wetness in our pores. Where can we run? Where can we hide? Not to Sonya or Milich, they’d turn yus over to the Guard in a heartbeat. There’s only one place to go…the only other character in town that has a name and a character portrait…to the inn!
She let’s us stay in the attic for now. Talking to Gremio and Cleo, they tell us that we need to get out of the city, but the gates are guarded so we’ll have to find another way out of the city. Let’s go downstairs and see if there’s anyone that can help us.
Fuck yeah, it’s Viktor. I mean…this random person does not seem to be helpful in the least.
Oh well, maybe someone outside can help.
Wuh-oh, guards. But this guy’s being an ass, so we tell him off.
That kind of pisses off the one guard, but then Cleo and Gremio arrive on the scene and the other guard gets suspicious when Gremio calls Tir “Young Masterâ€. The helmeted guard demands Tir show his face, and Gremio and Cleo prepare to fight while Tir makes a run for it. However…
That’s…that’s not very good logic there, I mean the gates are guarded and there’s no way out so they cold easily still be in the city, plus all the “Young Master†talk and the fact that Tir looks like, well, Tir says that there’s a good chance…
Oh, right, I forgot random guards are complete fucking morons everywhere.
And everybody just walks right out the door. Outside everybody thanks Viktor for helping them, but it turns out Viktor just wanted a way to get out of paying his bill. Oh Viktor, you magnificent bastard! He wanders off.
But we still can’t get out. Hmm…
Viktor , not a moron since 439. Viktor comes up with a plan to flee the city, and offers to take the party with him. His only condition is that we agree to meet someone after we escape.
Viktor talks to the guard and…
There’s...no shade where you are standing?
It turns out Viktor bribed the guard with money he stole from Gremio’s wallet. Gremio is pretty pissed, but at least it wasn’t our money. Viktor instructs us to go south to Lenankamp.
Viktor is an offensive powerhouse. Not too godd with magic but one of the best physical damage dealers in the game. He’s a bit slow though.
Just a bit south of Gregminster is Lenankamp. Lenankamp has a rune shop, item shop, armor shop, blacksmith and bamboo. Viktor mentions
The armor shop has some nice new Brass armor and Pointed Hats to buy.
The blacksmith is basically the weapon upgrade place. Each character has one weapon that never changes. What you do to upgrade them is go to a blacksmith and sharpen each weapon a level at a time until you get to the max at level 16. Each blacksmith can only sharpen weapons to a certain level. This blacksmith can go as high as level 5. This is the main reason you need a ton of money in Suikoden games, at least near the end. Weapons got a ton to upgrade to the fullest, and If you want to upgrade every character’s weapons…let’s just say it gets pricey. So we level up Tir’s, Gremio’s and Dleo’s weapons to level 5.
You can see how the weapons’ names change and their attack power raise. Except Gremio’s Axe’s name doesn’t change for whatever reason. You can also place Rune fragments on weapons to increase their damage a bit.
Here’s the inn, the game doesn’t exactly tell you to go there, but it’s the only place left to go.
We’ll stop here for now, this update has been an appropriate length and this is a good breaking point anyway.
Next episode: Rebels and fire
I tried the text one size step up so that it isn't engulfed in the pictures and maybe easier to read. Let me know if that makes it suck or not.
Also, now is the time that you can maybe choose party members. I've gotten to the point where you get party options, so suggest away. Now, what I could do is stop playing ahead and let you guys choose my party (as much as the game permits) for every update. But then I wouldn't have any updates buffers. Let me know what you think.
Possible party members for update...I guess it will be 9 (2 open slots)
Camille
Yam Koo
Luc
Sergei
I've always done that just out of habit because I am unoriginal and was ripping off monty python.
Is there some sort of secret in the game i was finding without realizing it?
Also 2 and 3 were both amazing. nothing has really gotten back to that level for me in the RPG world since.
I suspect people naming their castle ANTHRAX is just do the Monty Python connection. I'm pretty sure there's nothing secret about it.
Has anyone discovered a way to make Gremio not suck ass? Story wise,
And I demand that you utilize Fu Su Lu immediately when he becomes available and never stop.
Keep it coming.
edit: Tai Ho and Luc. We all know Luc is a fucking demon, but he's damn good. I'm pretty sure he's the best mage in the game until Crowley.
I -do- remember that there were so many trash characters (poor Gremio), and some that were so insanely good you were retarded not to use them (Hi Luc! Hi Flik! Hi Victor!)
Oh oh oh! Are you getting the squirrels? Or is it dogs in 1, I forget.