We're playing Suikoden II? Hooray!

I would put my vote in, but it seems that White Castle has already been decided upon. That's fine with me though so whatever.

Edit: I totally just noticed that the part of this post after this first sentence was meant for another thread, and I apparently never noticed until now. Oops!

Alright guys, not so much story this time because we’ve got a lot of recruiting to do.


Hiro, having skipped out on breakfast this morning, is having a little trouble focusing on the business at hand. The castle needs a new name. Something strong, something memorable, something…delicious. Suddenly it comes to him: White Castle. Everybody will want to come to White Castle!


Everyone’s appropriately excited to be in White Castle, but before they start to celebrate…


…Leknaat shows up. I told you, people can’t resist White Castle!





The Stars of Destiny are once again gathering, so Leknaat gives Hiro, like his predecessor, the Stone Tablet and Luc.


024/108 - Luc




Leknaat once again reminds Hiro of the difficult future that awaits him, then leaves. Luc meanwhile notices some familiar faces in the crowd. It’s nice to see the alumni noticing that hey, some of this seems familiar!


The next morning Nanami very delicately wakes Hiro up. I’ve gotta say, I’m a little relieved this game doesn’t have voice acting. I don’t know if I could take a fully voiced Nanami yelling at me constantly. Now that we’ve got everything squared away and are an official Rebel Headquarters let’s have a look around.



Here’s the Stone Tablet, looking a little barren. Don’t worry, it’ll get a nice boost soon.

A few of the Muse (and Camp Fliktor before it) survivors seem to have set up shop without notice. Oh well, we don’t have the strictest employment standards here at White Castle so as long as they’re willing to work they’re welcome!


025/108 – Barbara


You may have read in Brick’s LP of the first game, but the inventory system in this is much improved from the original. It’s now possible to give, take, and transfer items from character to character, as well as sell things from this one screen, which makes it much easier to manage the dozens of combat characters.


Leona’s also taken over the tavern, which is good because you can’t run a happy army without booze.


026/108 – Leona




By the entrance we find Fitcher. He came to White Castle not for the food, but to find the hero who stood up to the Highland Army. Because we lack the proper dialogue option to tell him “yo,” he runs to get an audience. Guess we should follow.





We head upstairs and meet up with Fitcher. You may remember him as an aide to mayor Anabelle, but now he’s working for Two River. Officially he’s in the area to check on the situation in South Window, but unofficially he’s there to have Hiro meet with the mayor of Two River to form an alliance. Hiro of course agrees to meet, but there’s a slight problem.


The bridges connecting the regions are out so Fitcher had to come by boat, but his crew abandoned him once the fighting began, leaving him stranded.


Viktor is duly suspicious of his motives.


Regardless of why he’s here, we’d be much stronger with Two River as an ally, so we’ll go along. We have a boat, but no captain. Fortunately for us we’re surrounded by a bounty of portraited characters, so let’s see if we can’t find someone!

You may be wondering, incidentally, where we house a boat in the castle. It’d be here in the basement, where this helpful, not-at-all-suspicious cloaked man tells us we can find the port, dungeon and, uh, graveyard.


Suspiciously, creepily detailed graveyard at that! This presumably is where Viktor had to bury everyone dear to him. Cheery place!


Alright, we get the hell out of that place and stop by Leona’s to gather some protection. Why this group, you may ask? Hiro loves the ladies.


First we stop in Kuskus to find some sailors. This old woman doesn’t have any help on our sailor situation, but does let us know people have been attacking groups of women lately.




And look who we run into just across the bridge! While the gang taunts Hiro and his group, someone sneaks up from behind and knocks him out.



You tell ‘em Nanami!


Er, who are you?


Good, I’m not the only one confused.


Oulan chases away the thieves and helps Hiro up. She’s a bodyguard, but is out of work at the moment. Say, doesn’t she sound like a good addition?


And after she hears our cause she agrees to join. (Gameplay note: If you haven’t guessed now, this scene won’t trigger unless Hiro’s party is comprised entirely of women. The game does hint at what it takes to recruit her, but Oulan is still one of the characters that a lot of people miss out on during their first playthrough)


027/108 – Oulan

A little more searching around Kuskus brings us back to Tai Ho and Yam Koo.


As you’d expect, they’ll join after a game of Chinchirorin. 5000 potch and he’ll agree.


And I get it in one throw! You’d think by now he’d pick a game more in his favor.


Despite Yam Koo’s complaints Tai Ho sticks to his word and joins us.


028/108 – Tai Ho

029/108 – Yam Koo


Despite what you might think these two aren’t man enough to help us across the lake, so the search continues. How ‘bout we head to South Window, now that Highland has retreated?





In the inn we find Zamza, who Nanami seems to take an instant, er, liking? to.




Fortunately in her ranting she sets him off. Like the good narcissist he is he’s not hearing us say he’s not useful, so he forces his way into the party. You can recruit Zamza way back in Toto before it’s destroyed, but I overlooked him. Fortunately the game is generous if you miss a few of the early characters so he’s moved here.


030/108 – Zamza

And upstairs we find more Muse refugees, Alex and Hilda.



Alex and Hilda seem to have a bet amongst themselves. Hilda is convinced Hiro is the leader of the Kittens army, but Alex is skeptical. Of course, Alex is surprised to find out he’s wrong.





Hilda wants to help out but Alex wants to continue thieving treasure hunting. She won the bet, though, so what Hilda says goes.


031/108 – Alex

032/108 – Hilda



We find this pleasant gentleman inside a shop in South West. Hiro asks him to join (because hey, portrait), but instead he tells us to bring him a Sacrificial Jizo. I’m not sure why he thinks Hiro is his servant but hey, portrait.


Hiro risks his life to get his Jizo, but Adlai is either senile or a douchebag (guess which!) and says he asks for a wooden shield. Alright, let’s go back.


Having chopped down the most majestic tree in the land and crafted a shield of unrivaled strength, Hiro returns to hand it over to the douchebag man. As ungrateful as ever, he tells us to bring him a wind crystal. Oh, we’ll get you a fucking wind crystal alright.


Hiro returns, wind crystal in hand, and does the only reasonable thing: throw it at him.

Surprisingly, he seems pleased at Hiro’s violent display! He agrees to join, then drags us back to the castle to show us his grand invention…


…the elevator! ‘Cause every Suikoden needs the elevator guy.


033/108 - Adlai


Since we’re in White Castle anyway we grab a bite to eat then pick up Freed. Don’t worry about his health, he’s much tougher than he looks he totally isn’t.


Alright, neither Kuskus nor South Window have been fruitful by way of sailors, so let’s check Radat. Say, anyone else wonder why that wall doesn’t extend all the way down? It’s been bugging me.


Bastardry!




Just past the devil wall we find Yoshino, Freed’s wife. Freed never sent word after the attack on South Window, so she had no idea if he were still alive.




Freed apologizes and tells her to wait a bit longer for him, but she refuses. She’s skilled with laundry, a naginata and the ability to annoyingly refer to herself in the third person, so she asks Hiro to join.



Freed won’t oppose Hiro, and instead promises to protect her.


034/108 – Yoshino Y

Hiro’s happy to get another recruit, but as good as she may be with the laundry Yoshino is no sailor, so the search continues. Maybe a PI would be helpful, so let’s check Richmond.


Richmond is hesitant to join the group, but will decide it with a coin toss. That seems fair!


Hiro knows in his heart it’s gonna be heads!


His heart is a jerk.


Hiro pays no heed to the laws of probability. If it was tails the first time, it’s gotta be tails the second!


Or not. Random guessing doesn’t seem to be getting him anywhere, so Hiro stops for now to rethink his approach.


What helps Hiro think? Alcohol.




Inside the bar we find this helpful drunk. Thank you, random lush!




New coin in hand we head back to Richmond and ask him to use it. That apparently is enough for him to be convinced, so, uh, mission accomplished?


035/108 – Richmond


A little more searching in Radat brings us to Amada, still nursing the wounds Hiro gave him not too long ago. Luckily for us Amada is a full-fledged sea-man, so he can help us out! What do we have to do to convince him to join us, you ask?

Why, another duel, of course!


He manages to survive three whole attacks this time, but his strategy of nothing but “Wild Attack!” could use some help.


After the fight Amada is thoroughly convinced. Bruised and convinced, and joins up.


036/108 – Amada


Alright, we’ve got our sailor so we head back to White Castle. Before we head out, though, maybe we should check in on Richmond?


This is one of the new features introduced in Suiko II that carries through the series: the detective. For a fee Richmond will either give hints on characters available to be recruited, or give some private information on our recruits. After you give him a job he disappears from the castle for a while, then comes back usually after you visit a few locations with the results. Hiro pays no mind to your modest notion of “privacy,” so let’s dig up some dirt!


I’m gonna leave future investigations up to you guys, but I’m gonna go ahead and guess who you’d pick first. Am I right or am I right?


Now that we’ve got a man covering Gengen’s private life, let’s head back upstairs and start towards Two River.


Fitcher’s almost as much of a natural navigator as Yam Koo. We have to make it to Two River by foot, from the town of Lakewest. To get to Lakewest, we head west on the lake. Thanks!


Here’s our boat, in all its pixilated glory.

Hiro’s well on his way to Lakewest before it dawns on him: wasn’t there someone who mentioned that before?


Now that we’ve got both a boat and a captain maybe we can help Clive out. Let’s head back to South Window.



Clive says the same thing, but becomes interested once we mention our shiny new boat.


He agrees to joins us, but needs to get to Lakewest immediately. Well, what are we waiting for?

037/108 – Clive


Once we get to Lakewest Fitcher gives us some directions to find Two River (it’s on the river. Seriously) then gives us a letter of introduction to see the mayor. Before we do that, though, we need to help Clive out.







As soon as we step into the inn Clive confronts the innkeeper. Elza has long since left, but left a letter for Clive, telling him to meet her at the Forest Village in Greenhill. Well, nothing we can do about it now, so let’s keep going.


Inside a house we come across Tetsu, an unemployed bath maker. Despite him making fun of Hiro’s non-bath-loving nature, for some reason Hiro seems drawn to him. He’s so calm, he’s so relaxed, he’s so…toasty. Oh well, Hiro knows he’s not nearly toasty enough to talk to that guy, so let’s move on.







Hiro also finds this adorable old woman, happily gossiping to anyone who will listen. So happy, in fact, that she decides to head back to the castle to do it. And that’s the day the castle gained that old person smell.

038/108 – Taki


We go back to White Castle, thinking sufficient time has passed for Richmond to have invaded poor Gengen’s privacy. While we’re here we come across this random kobold with a FANTASTIC idea. I’m telling you, one day when people think of food they’ll think of White Castle!


Alright, here’s the results of the preliminary investigation into Gengen’s personal life. There are multiple levels to investigate for each character, and I assure you it gets much more interesting.


Alright guys, I know it’s been a long prologue and I thank you for sticking with me. This is the point, a scant 8 hours in or so, where I think the game really starts to open up: we’ve got our castle, we’ve got a few dozen or so recruits with many more to come, and pretty soon we’ll have access to lots of goofy mini-games. Right now we’ve got 5 full slots to fill up, as well as picking a new target for Richmond’s investigations. This is also the point where all those ill-gotten levels start to wear off, so Tuta and Mukumuku will soon have the ability to actually weigh me down. Don’t let me down!

dude, oulan. she's hot AND awesome.

(and i'm working under the assumption that shiro is a permanent member of any party you make. because this is an obvious truth, and the only way to play)

Nanami, Oulan, Luc, Shiro and Clive, if you'd please.

Also: Investigate Rina, so we can learn more about her... "adult conversations".

I know a good idea when I hear one!
This is one.

The giant lesbian and the housewife!
Also Clive, Mukumuku, and Millie.

Research all squirrels!
Also: Can you recruit any new squirrels now? You must do so.
Recruitment image updated.

Millie, Yoshino, Oulan, Luc, Shiro

Rikimaru and Amada for their Manly Attack!

Lookit Lord Hiro's Junk! Or is it Tai Ho's Junk? It's someone's Junk, that's for sure!

Yes. Your party must be a bastion of manliness at all times.

<3 <3 Yoshino.

Investigating Richmond is fun, so you should do that maybe! Until you get Viki anyway, then you need to investigate the hell out of her.

Once when playing, I obsessively investigated everyone and everything to the max. The only bits I haven't seen are all the recruitment tips, but I doubt we need those. ^_^

Also, once you have her, it's usually amusing to *attempt* to investigate Jeane.

(Spoilered only for anyone not familiar with the rules of the Suikoverse.)

Yoshino looks like she could be Freed's sister. I think we need to do a little detective work into this potential crime.

Yeah, Freed has always confused me. He's called, as I've pointed out, Freed Y in the game because his full name is Freed Yamamoto. His wife is Yoshino Yamamoto, and very clearly supposed to be Japanese, but Freed doesn't strike me as a very Japanese name, nor does he dress like Yoshino. It's weird.

freed is obviously a convert to christianity and was given a portuguese name during his baptism.

Weather I pipe in or not, whenever there's a vote for party lineup, assume a vote for Shiro.

Because I will vote for Shiro each and every time.

Clive is the one person that I will always, always, ALWAYS vote for. And Humphrey. And Futch. So put them in there since they're wincredible.

But beyond that Anita and Oulan in the front with Hiro in the rear.

Also, where's the Anita love? Enough of this Shiro crap, bring on the drunken sword mistresses and lesbians!

Anita can wait till we have Valeria. We're getting Valeria, right? Of course we are. Oulan and Hanna will do for now.

Better than that boy with the bad perm...

So's this LP officially on hiatus now?

Yes, I'm sorry but I can't really contribute right now. I have the material for an update ready but I haven't been able to work on it for a while, so consider this a temporary hiatus.