Suikoden

[Rahdulan]

I'm not saying having "let go" is a bad decision, I'm saying the fact that 90% of regular combat ends up in "let go" is a bad result.

I don't know. I wish more JRPGs did it. But then again, I guess that says more about me and my frustration with random encounters in general.

Don't skip 1. It is a very charming game, maybe my favorite in the series, and establishes the tone, concepts and setting for the rest of the games. It's very short and has great music, so check it out.

Damn straight. S1 isn't bad or anything, it's just that S2 is a phenomenal sequel that improved on the original in every way. I would argue that S2 has a better soundtrack, even more so because it was essentially composed by a single person, although it makes good use of familiar songs for great effect when you visit the old locations once again.

 

[eric__s]

I'm not a huge fan of 2. I think it's a good game, better than 1, but I still like 1 more. I didn't like Luca Blight at all. I understand he was supposed to serve as a foil to later enemies and as a symbol of Highland's decadence, but he was a very heavy-handed, caricatured villain. He was completely unrelatable and had no motivation; he was just a crazy, awful guy who liked killing people, which I think is lazy. I know he was given backstory in some art book or a gaiden game, but it was given to him retroactively; they never made an attempt to give him motivation or even make him appear human in the actual game. He was just a dumb cartoon villain.

I'm going to do some spoiler stuff here so don't read this if you haven't played the first game.

Spoiler

I also don't really like what they did with Viktor and Flik. Flik was this brooding, maybe a little narcissistic warrior with control issues in the first game. He resented Tir and accepted him as leader only because Odessa passed the torch to him. Viktor was a violent sociopath, but he was still likable. They turned Viktor and Flik into these kind of Robin Hood happy-go-lucky merry men in the second and I don't feel like that's how they were in the original. But more than that, I think it takes away from the meaning of the first game that they're still alive. The implication at the end of the first game is that they sacrificed themselves so Tir could escape. The theme of Suikoden 1 is sacrifice in war. The rune Tir has draws power from the suffering and death of the people around him: Ted, Odessa, your father, Gremio, Pahn, Mathiu, Barbarosa, generals you choose to kill, characters who die during battles and finally Flik and Viktor at the end. All of these people sacrifice themselves, either literally or metaphorically, for something they felt was more important than themselves. It detracts from that message by making their sacrifice meaningless.

But I still think it was a good game and everything, I just thought they kind of threw away the meaning of the first game.

I was a big Suikoden fan back in the day and I probably still would be if they still made them. Who is Zerase?? Who is Yuber? Did Windy actually die?? I remember getting bad vibes from Leknaat in Suikoden 5 but I can't actually remember what they were. All these questions and none of them will ever be answered!!!

 

[Eyeball]

Play Exit Fate already. Not only is it devoid of any involvement from Japanese storywriters and is therefore refreshingly nonemofaggotry, it is an excellent non-J JRPG in itself.

Download here: http://site.scfworks.com/?page_id=10

 

[Gozma]

I'm not a huge fan of 2. I think it's a good game, better than 1, but I still like 1 more. I didn't like Luca Blight at all. I understand he was supposed to serve as a foil to later enemies and as a symbol of Highland's decadence, but he was a very heavy-handed, caricatured villain. He was completely unrelatable and had no motivation; he was just a crazy, awful guy who liked killing people, which I think is lazy. I know he was given backstory in some art book or a gaiden game, but it was given to him retroactively; they never made an attempt to give him motivation or even make him appear human in the actual game. He was just a dumb cartoon villain.

I liked that guy because he seemed of out-of-place as a '90s JRPG villain. He was just a domination-obsessed masculine apeman - a pretty familiar kind of asshole in the real world compared to vaguely homosexual weirdos and guys with women's faces that want to destroy all life on Earth.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Inspired by this thread I've started playing the first Suikoden. It has a lot of charm, for sure.

 

[yes plz]

It's explained in some other source (I think Suikogaiden II) that when he was younger, Luca Blight's family was attacked by bandits and his mother raped by them, with him later finding out that the bandits were hired by some city he wars against in Suikoden II. I was always liked his character, his one-dimensional personality of being a living embodiment of hate and anger was somewhat refreshing when so many other JRPGs were trying to make their antagonists 'deep' (e.g. Sephirtoh and even S1's antagonists) and it contrasted well against Jowy's character.

And if anyone plans on playing Suikoden II on an emulator and is using an ISO (.IMG and .BIN formats are also supported by it) of the North American version, there's a fan patch that fixes a lot of the game's bugs and even some translation issues.
http://suikodenbugfixes.wikispaces.com/

 

[Brayko]

I'm not a huge fan of 2. I think it's a good game, better than 1, but I still like 1 more. I didn't like Luca Blight at all. I understand he was supposed to serve as a foil to later enemies and as a symbol of Highland's decadence, but he was a very heavy-handed, caricatured villain. He was completely unrelatable and had no motivation; he was just a crazy, awful guy who liked killing people, which I think is lazy. I know he was given backstory in some art book or a gaiden game, but it was given to him retroactively; they never made an attempt to give him motivation or even make him appear human in the actual game. He was just a dumb cartoon villain.

Luca Blight's psychology was erased from the English version. At the moment in the game when Joey and the protagonist (you) are having tea with Luca Blight's sister in the Highland camp, she explains a story. When the King (Luca Blights father), Queen (mother), and Luca were traveling along the Muse border when Luca was a child, the royal envoy was attacked by Muse brigands. The father managed to flee whilst Luca and his mother were captured. The brigands from Muse raped Luca's mother right in front of him and that's how his sister came to be, hence his psychotic hatred towards anything Muse. This is really an important piece of the story and it's shitty western censorship at the time decided to cut it. It also explains Joey's morbid sympathy and admiration towards Luca and puts together the Shield vs. Sword (rune) puzzle very well.

Edit: Fuck, didn't even realize yes plz posted this first. :/

 

[Whisky]

It's only briefly alluded to in the English version when

Spoiler

Luca and Jowy poison Luca's father. Luca says something about him dishonoring his mother by failing to act against Muse.

 

[Rahdulan]

I'm not a huge fan of 2. I think it's a good game, better than 1, but I still like 1 more. I didn't like Luca Blight at all. I understand he was supposed to serve as a foil to later enemies and as a symbol of Highland's decadence, but he was a very heavy-handed, caricatured villain. He was completely unrelatable and had no motivation; he was just a crazy, awful guy who liked killing people, which I think is lazy. I know he was given backstory in some art book or a gaiden game, but it was given to him retroactively; they never made an attempt to give him motivation or even make him appear human in the actual game. He was just a dumb cartoon villain.

I get what you're trying to say, but it doesn't matter in my opinion. Memorable and good villain doesn't have to be a specific type of villain to be well, good, he just needs to be well executed in his original intention. Luca Blight is a mad dog kind of villain and brilliant one at that. His backstory doesn't really matter because it's not like he's going to do a face-heel turn or have an emotional breakdown because of it. His backstory remains in the background as something that shaped him as a character, but it has no immediate relevance to us because events are already in motion.

Spoiler

You could make an argument that Jowy was somewhat grimly awed by Luca, but I think the reason why he actually stayed with Highland was because he essentially became their MC. I think he even speaks about this to you when you meet, how people of Highland have placed their hopes and trust in him the same way people of Dunan have placed theirs in you. He couldn't just put his hands up and say "we surrender" considering how Highland was shamed by Muse in the previous war. I imagine there was some WW1 and WW2 Germany angle going on there.

Then again, it's been years since last time I played Suikoden 2 and I could be misremembering everything.

 

[Gozma]

I liked it better for the rape thing to be a hidden idea only hinted about obliquely than a, "OH THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING COMPLETELY." I was satisfied that he was like history's most effective sadistic high school bully and THEN you get hints about it being about a deeper nihilism/anti-morality after you hear his death speech. I don't remember having any sense that Jowy thought Luca was anything but a force of nature.

 

[Brayko]

Fuck off.

 

[Gozma]

I didn't know it meant so much to you bro... those damn censors, man... they gutted everything

 

[yes plz]

Looking into it, I can't really seem to find out where the exact details of Luca's past is laid out in. As far as I've read, the Japanese version doesn't really offer any extra details about it compared to the English one and Suikogaiden only references the events as vaguely as Suikoden II itself does. Apparently the details of his past are in a Japanese 'source book'.

 

[deuxhero]

So this visual novel spinoff just got translated

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1810/

 

[Rahdulan]

So this visual novel spinoff just got translated

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1810/

Well, time to put the good old emulator to use.

 

[Rahdulan]

That went well, although it barely clocked in under 4 hours and ended with an abrupt cliffhanger to be continued in Volume 2 - to be translated never. Game basically builds up Nash as the Batman of Suikoden and, ironically enough, his part of the story is quite boring while events that happen in the background of Suikoden 2 are a nostalgia-driven ride and it's interesting to see them from a different angle, even though they do somewhat conveniently overlap at one point and change the Greenhill part. Probably the greatest appeal is finally discovering what's the big deal with Elza and Clive along with some insight into the Howling Voice Guild, though.

It's also worth noting that I had an unavoidable crash issue with ePSXe in Act 3 and I had to circumvent it by switching over to pSX for the duration. Just a heads up if you intend to play it through emulators.

 

[Jasede]

Luca is the goddamn man, best villain NA, would bang.
That man is armed with nothing but a sword and takes down armies by himself. He even gives a speech after being filled with 10000 arrows.

That man, gentlemen, is a badass.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I thought he sucked. All the hype and then when you finally get to fight against him he's a piece of shit to be slapped around like a wet noodle. A tuff guy should've had a tuff fight. But then that's my biggest issue with Suikoden anyway. It's too god damn easy.

 

[Necroscope]

/

Imagine the fem-nazi butthurt if something like that happened in a modern game.

 

[Hobo Elf]

The butthurt would be legendary.

 

[Rahdulan]

I thought he sucked. All the hype and then when you finally get to fight against him he's a piece of shit to be slapped around like a wet noodle. A tuff guy should've had a tuff fight. But then that's my biggest issue with Suikoden anyway. It's too god damn easy.

I'm not sure if I'd say that, but the main allure of his fight is that you're probably not ready when you first play through the game. It's much easier when you have enough people leveled and geared to actually form three competent groups. Not to mention you don't really NEED to win all three and that makes it easier in the first place. Emblems also help for fire resistance. Fire Emblems.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I just kept my main troops up to date with runes and items so it was pretty piss easy, pretty much like all the other boss encounters. The two other teams were rather unnecessary, although it would've been a total rape fest for Luca had I had them geared up as well. That said it's all because of the Bright Shield Rune that the game is on permanent easy mode. It's an incredibly powerful rune. Things would be very different if you'd have to rely more on other runes and items for healing instead.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

You guys forget that Luca was also the product of patriarch oppression and the rape culture enablers of the city state.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

I just kept my main troops up to date with runes and items so it was pretty piss easy, pretty much like all the other boss encounters. The two other teams were rather unnecessary, although it would've been a total rape fest for Luca had I had them geared up as well. That said it's all because of the Bright Shield Rune that the game is on permanent easy mode. It's an incredibly powerful rune. Things would be very different if you'd have to rely more on other runes and items for healing instead.

I played it a long long time ago and i barley got through that by the skin of my teeth. I had not geared up, trained or any thing enough so there was a lot of death on my side.

 

[Rahdulan]

So yeah, Suikogaiden Vol. 2 apparently got translated as well like a month ago. Gotta get on that one day.
http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2033/