We're playing Suikoden II? Hooray!

Hiro goes to the docks of Coronet but of course there have to be Highland soldiers making things difficult. Luca has halted all ships from leaving, so we’ve gotta find another way across. Hiro’s played enough JRPGs to know that when you’re stuck you should head to the inn to think things out.


And look at who we find! Our old circus friends seem to be having trouble with the Highland soldiers too.



Really Eilie? That’s all it takes for you to say she’s shameless? I’m honestly surprised she hasn’t adult conversation’d her way out of town by now.


As soon as she sees Hiro Eilie runs over to greet him (and knocks Nanami the hell out of the way). Eilie wants to catch up over drinks.


After we left them in Kyaro the circus people found business slow and decided to go back to Jowston. They were on their way to South Window (what a coincidence!) but they’re being blocked by Highland as well. Since not even Rina is incentive enough for someone to cross Luca Blight it’s up to Hiro to find another way.


Wandering around town we come across another returning, minor character. You might remember Sheena as being Lepant’s worthless son. Well, he’s back and still fairly worthless, but he does mention Tai Ho. An impassable lake, sailors refusing to risk taking their boats out and Tai Ho’s name comes up. Any of this sound familiar?


We go inside and find Tai Ho with his brother. After the end of Suikoden I Tai Ho marries Kimberly, but realizing the error of his ways (probably once the burning started) he and Yam Koo flee to Jowston.


You know the drill, he’ll help us out if we win a game of Chinchirorin.


It’s still as broken easy as it was in the first, so Hiro wins in one toss.



These two only show up in the first two games, and I’ve always thought it’s a shame their characterization dies out so early on in each because I like them. Yam Koo especially, since basically all he can do is follow, exasperatedly, whatever stupid thing Tai Ho decides to do. Oh well, thanks for the boat guys. I’ll probably see you again (when I need to fill out a Luca party with a mediocre M range fighter)!


We run back to the tavern to pick up the carnies and return. On to Kuskus!

017/108 – Eilie

018/108 – Rina

019/108 – Bolgan


We make it across to Kuskus. Tai Ho and Yam Koo will stay here for now, but we’ve gotta meet up with Viktor in South Window. Thanks for the directions, I would’ve wandered for hours without them!


Viktor greets us as soon as we enter South Muse. After Muse collapsed everyone was scattered about. Flik is waiting at the tavern, but before that let’s have a look around.


And look who we find!



Clive refuses to join, instead wanting to continue chasing Elza. If only we had some way to help him get to Lakewest.


Lakewest is to the west, on a lake.

Oh well, step two of the arbitrary, obtuse Clive recruitment process complete!


As soon as we make it to the tavern Viktor greets us in the usual manner.


Thus far Hiro and Fliktor are the only people to have shown up from the fall of Muse. Flik and Viktor were delayed in arriving because Viktor has been visiting old friends, trying to sure up support for the resistance.



…in other words, he’s trying to collect them all sorry. Viktor wants us to go meet with Granmeyer, the mayor of South Window, to convince him to join.


020/108 – Viktor

021/108 – Flik

We find Granmeyer in town hall. It seems most people greet Viktor like this. He must have a reputation of being a very skilled loser.


It doesn’t take much convincing before Granmeyer asks for Viktor’s help.




He also asks for help with a different situation. Young girls have been disappearing from Viktor’s home town of North Window


North Window is north of South Window. Okay, I’ll stop that.

Anyway, there are reports of a monster living there. A monster, who kidnaps young girls. Anyone see where this is going?


Viktor reluctantly agrees to check it out.


Granmeyer sends his assistant Freed Y to help. (In case you’re wondering his name is Freed Yamamoto. I have no idea why they include the Y in his title. Most of the characters just call him Freed, which is what I’ll be doing assuming I don’t feel like making fun of him.)


022/108 – Freed Y


Nanami wonders why going back would be hard for him, but Viktor says we’ll just have to see. Oh well, guess we’ll know soon.




Cue shitty CG sequence! Stained glass window? Giant baroque organ? This better not mean what I think it does.


Viktor catches everyone up at the tavern. He asks Hiro and Nanami to come, and Eilie decides to go too.

He also leaves poor Flik to deal with Rina, who presumably is going to adult conversate the hell out of him.


When we arrive we see why Viktor was so reluctant to return.




We also get a little bit of insight as to why Viktor held such a grudge against Neclord. When Viktor was a young man (20, according do dubiously canonical sources) Neclord came to his village while he was away and slaughtered everyone in town. Once he came back to find all of his family and friends dead Viktor buried them all with his own hands. I mentioned earlier how much I like his relationship with Anabelle, but this coming scenario is truly where he shines. For being so blatantly comic relief Viktor is hardcore.


Well, Viktor got his revenge when he killed Neclord outside of the Warriors’ Village.


Urk.


Oh goddammit. Did I put in the wrong disc?



Well, he has a point.



Neclord demonstrates at once his sadistic nature and shitty sense of humor.

We get another fight with Neclord that plays out largely like the initial fight in the first game, with the addition of a few awesome zombie underlings.


That is to say, we’re boned.



Fortunately he stops short of killing us, and even spells out what magical macguffin we need to stop him. Thanks Neclord!


In case you’ve forgotten the Blue Moon Rune that Neclord carries makes him immune to normal weapons. The only way to hurt him is with the Star Dragon Sword, an incarnation of the Night Rune, which Viktor discarded for some reason at the end of the first game.



It’s not a meaningful decision but this conversation option always seems funny to me. It’s pretty much the only point in the entire game where Hiro has the option of being kind of a dick, which makes it seem so out of place. (He also has temporarily forgotten the use of articles.)


We take the non-dick option and agree to help. Fortunately for us Viktor abandoned the sword in the Cave of the Wind and not somewhere in Toran. Rather than dwelling on the fact that this scenario is copy-pasted almost directly from Suikoden I, Hiro heads south to the cave.


The Cave of the Wind is a fairly straightforward, linear dungeon, which kinda contributes to the sense that this whole section is half assed. The only things worth noting are these awesome Hadouken enemies.


Ha…


DOUKEN.


Further in we find a creepy mysterious man in the shadows, waiting for Viktor.


Kahn is a member of the Marley family, the Belmonts of the Suiko world. Like his father and grandfather before him, he’s vowed to kill Neclord, and he’s looking for Viktor because he wants to speak with the Star Dragon Sword.


He also explains why Neclord is still alive, though I really wish he hadn’t. Now that a few games have passed without a trace of Neclord the Doppelganger Secret isn’t as funny as it used to be, but I remember having a good time trying to figure out how they would shoehorn him into Suikoden III.


Anyway, Viktor agrees to take Khan along.

He’s a fairly decent M range fighter (and boy do we need some!) but it’s worth noting that he gives you access to a Resurrection rune far sooner than you see one in the first game. It’s extremely helpful coming up, though not so much for resurrection as for the insane damage it does against undead enemies.


We finally make it to the Star Dragon Sword, who is none too pleased to see Viktor, it seems.




Fortunately ol’ Silver Tongued Viktor is here to make the situation completely worse. Way to go buddy!





The boss fights in Suikoden II ramp up much quicker than they did in the first game. The Star Dragon Sword is probably the first considerable challenge in the game, getting two attacks per round and being able to inflict some decent damage. His usual strategy is to charge through one row of characters, then using a magic attack to hit the rest of the party. Fortunately Hiro’s rune is one of the best healing runes in the game, getting a lot of charges, healing a lot of HP and occasionally enraging random party members, boosting their physical attacks.





Pretty quickly the sword pauses long enough for Viktor to calm it. He tells the sword that Neclord is back (thanks to his Doppelganger Secret!) and the sword agrees to come along. Alright, pointless dungeon complete, let’s head back to North Window!



We’ve gotta track Neclord down in the ruins of North Window, which is conspicuously free of enemy encounters.

Wow, this place is really spacious. Get a fire going in that fire place and I bet it’d feel like home.


Is it me or is this a perfect place to make a speech? I bet you could gather a whole army there to listen!



We pass through some super difficult puzzle rooms on our way. Here’s a hint: Push the one statue that’s misplaced onto the button, then light the one candle that’s unlit. Phew!


We make it to Neclord’s oddly-out-of-place organ room that mysteriously disappears when we take the castle .




Before Viktor can attack Neclord stops him, to try to make a deal. He summons a body up from the ground.

In a game with so many memorable scenes this one still stands out as one of the best. Daisy was a young war orphan that Viktor fell in love with, but like the rest of the town she was killed when Neclord attacked. Viktor, unlike so many other JRPG protagonists, isn’t stupid enough to fall for Neclord’s trap. He decapitates the image of Daisy and the corpse falls into a heap on the ground.


His plan failed Neclord makes his escape…


…but not before he leaves…something behind.





This fight is a big step in difficulty above the Star Dragon Sword. He also gets two attacks per round, but his attacks are much more devastating than the sword’s. He can attack one character with a physical attack for about 130 damage, or use a few different attacks that hit everyone for around 70. Healing and quick damage are extremely important in this fight, but I didn’t think to stop back into town after the cave so I’m stuck with bottom level runic magic. After many long turns pecking away he finally goes down.


Viktor’s upset that Neclord escaped, but Freed wants us to head back to South Window.

It’s such a shame that this place is abandoned! Oh well, let’s go.


Before we can leave Flik meets us at the gate. South Window has fallen.




While we were gone Solon Jhee attacked. Granmeyer surrendered unconditionally and was killed for his effort. Flik managed to escape, along with the rest of the Muse survivors who managed to catch up.


Once again we’re the only significant threat in the region for Highland, which means they’ll be targeting us soon. The only things we have to repel them is a small force and the town of North Window.


Apple has an idea!




Well, her idea is to find someone who can come up with an idea.



She wants to go to Radat to recruit Shu, a former student of Mathieu.


Coming up next: Finding Shu

Fairly decent? Fit him with the right runes and Kahn is one of the strongest characters by the end of the game. Having three rune slots is a huge advantage in this game.


Sure, just passing through is easy, but then you don't get the secret treasure. To do that, you have to solve some actual puzzles.


No argument there. But it's not the best one. That is yet to come.

That Viktor is stone cold.

Oh man! It's like I'm reading the Lufia II thread!

"Bite my shiny metal ass!"

What, no Star Trek 2 reference when you introduced Kahn? I'm mildly disappointed. But only mildly, as Suikoden 2 is far too awesome for worse than that.

The first HQ theme is probably my favorite piece of music in the entire series. Well, after Enduring Love, anyways.

Hm, I need to remember to update the character sheet. Of course recruitin' time is just around the corner...

It doesn't really need to be updated until the recruiting is done. Next update is naming the castle (start picking names now if you'd like) and after that is massive recruitment drive.

Okay, it's been so, so many years since I lost this game and even then I was something of an RPG virgin, so I played it un-properly (that is to say, I treated it like a standard FIGHT, MAGIC, ITEM, RUN jrpg and it's so, so much more than that).

What the hell is an M-level fighter?

Also, I've had to spend some time getting caught up, so now's the only time I can ask what the hell is up with that Muse gate trick. Are you supposed to be able to push it, or is it just a terribly funny oversight on the part of the programmers?

Furthermore, would you believe that I never recruited Humfrey and Futch? D:

Further furthermore, despite the many years that have gone by since I played Suikoden II, I recall the most dramatic scenes in vivid detail, like Hiro and Nanami waiting for Jowy and the assassination of Annabelle. It's such a shame this game was overshadowed drastically by the release of Final Fantasy VIII.

I never knew that tidbit about the translation, but it explains a lot. He could've saved himself some time by limiting the number of exclaimation marks to five per sentence, though. Too bad, the story deserved a lot better than a rush job.

As far as I can tell it's unintentional, whoever was designing that screen just forgot that big heavy gates shouldn't be pushable. Everything I did in Matilda you're able to do when you visit the area properly in about 10 hours. Suikoden II has a fair number of bugs actually, but most are minor, like music issues. There's a good one coming up when I recruit a certain character I'll point out, but the Matilda Gate trick is the most well known so it had to go in.

Also, I've never played any other regional versions of the game, so I'm not sure if they're any more stable than the US version. I think I read once that the PAL version was cleaned up, but I'm not sure if that's true or not. Has anyone out there played a different version of the game and can comment?

But....there's no difference at all between M and L range fighters according to that explanation. Why differentiate?

Supposedly, the PAL version doesn't bug out on the war battle music or Annalee's songs.

L range fighters can hit the enemy's back row, M range fighters can only attack the enemy's front row.

Had some time and an inclination to play with Photoshop so I updated the cast pic. Almost forgot a certain deletion.

m range fighters can attack front row characters from either the front or the back row, and back row characters when they are in the front row. L range characters can attack anyone from the back row. S range characters can only attack front row characters from the front row.

Makes sense! I think I remember now. Oh how I wish I could play this game again.

It always bothered me when I'd get to a war battle and then there would be EMPTY SILENCE. Seriously, what the hell? I want to go play a version with actual music now.

Is there a version where Annalee isn't mute? Watching her move her lips in silence for a few minutes always drives me nuts.

Hey, could you do me a favor and take a snapshot of the giant wolf-like creature that the Suiko gang fights near the end of the game? I need it for my web site. Thanks!

I had a save at the end, so here you go. Please note that this is a spoiler for what amounts to the final boss.

Awesome! That's much better than I was able to find online. Funny how I remember the Luca Blight battle so clearly, but not this one. I mean, it's a good boss in its own right, but man, Luca Blight!

Annnyway, thanks for the help. Now I just need to find a way to get good snaps from the modern game systems... my DVR's not getting the job done.