We're playing Suikoden II? Hooray!

I was just disappointed at how hard it is to find fan art of Flik and Viktor hugging each other. DeviantArt, you have failed me again.

/Fixed

Okay, it took me like half an hour to get a single double-beat rune, and that sucks. But you know, I'm going to have to go with Shiro for that one...I know Nanami is a prime candidate, but I'd rather have two dead enemies that one severely weakened one. Maybe that's just me.

Didn't you guys hear? There's no point in doing this LP, because Suikoden sucks.
Sorry you wasted your time Brickroad, Nobuyuki.

Everything I do is a waste of time, so I'm not really bothered by it much.

It's sad but true, I really do value my existance by how many obscure games I can bring up Earthbound.

That's weird. I recently started a replay, and I got two of them in five minutes. The third took me another ten. I guess if I hadn't run from every fight that didn't have those bunnies, it would have taken a lot longer.

Free to start bolstering our numbers Hiro decides to check Ryube first. Luckily, as soon as he steps into town he finds this starving homeless man!


Hiro takes him inside and after he’s well fed he introduces himself as Rikimaru, a traveler who lost his money. This, of course, means we have to foot the bill (I wonder how many stars in the series are recruited with the protagonist buying them dinner).


Having given him a meal and enticed with the promise of more Rikimaru is happy to join up. Alright, we’re now up one smelly, filthy vagrant!


004/108 - Rikimaru


Continuing his recruitment drive Hiro comes across this young girl again. She’s looking for her pet Bonaparte (and not apparently the French emperor). He’s ran into the mountains and we’ve gotta go find him. Should be no problem!

Along the way Hiro finds a baby bird that’s fallen out of its nest. Hiro, being the Protagonist that his is, helps him back up. I’m sure this won’t be relevant later.


Hiro reaches a dead end along one path, coming to this empty cabin. (Sorry, I just really like this picture)


Going down the other way Millie spots Bonaparte, who proceeds to run off again.


Backed into a corner and with no place left to run, Bonaparte becomes aggressive.


Aaw, he’s kinda cute. This shouldn’t be so

JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE HELL IS THAT.


Bonaparte’s attack is to inhale, chew, and spit out what remains of my party, undoubtedly soaking in saliva. I’m sure all throughout his life Hiro will never forget the wet, violated moment he has right now.


A few rounds later and Bonaparte calms down. Millie is, obliviously, happy to have him back. Hiro wants her and her demonic pig-rat to get the hell away, but she has a portrait so she decides to come along anyway.


005/108 – Millie. I’ve never used Millie much, but she’s apparently a fan favorite thanks to an insane magic stat and affinity with the Blue Gate Rune.


Hiro, happy with such fine (?) new recruits, decides to keep strolling through the mountain. Hey, I wonder how that baby bird is doing. You know, the one that is of absolutely no further consequence.

Much to his surprise Hiro finds a young hunter and his wolf companion. They introduce themselves as Kinnison and Shiro. They live in the forest, but the recent activity of Highland has been scaring off their game. Hiro asks them to join and they decide to tag along to prevent Highland from ruining their forest.


006/108 – Shiro

007/108 – Kinnison


Ryube’s tapped of potential recruits, so Hiro searches elsewhere. Northwest of Camp Fliktor he finds the small village of Toto, where Jowy washed up at the beginning of the game.


As soon as they step in this young girl recognizes Jowy.

Pilika was the one who found Jowy in the river, and her family brought him back to health. They just returned from Muse, the capital of the Jowston City-States to the west.


Jowy goes to Pilika’s home and explains that he no longer has a place to return to. They tell him that he’s always welcome to stay with them. Pilika wants to discuss something with Jowy in private.


While in Muse Pilika saw a wooden amulet she’d like to get for her father’s birthday. She asks Jowy to go pick it up for her. She gives him 70 potch she’d saved up from chores and Hirowy leave for Muse.


A short walk to the west and Hirowy arrive at Muse. It feels appropriately grand for a capital city, easily dwarfing any of the places in the first game (and making me wish any modern RPG would put some time into their cities). Don’t worry, you’ll be seeing a lot more of it soon.


Hiro finds the item shop. The amulet was left by a customer who couldn’t pay his bill. Since it’s been there for so long the shop keeper agrees to sell it. For 500 potch. Hiro, being the nice guy he is, agrees to front Jowy the money.

With the amulet in hand the group heads back. When they return, though, they find the village in rubble.


They hear crying and find Pilika in the rubble of her house.


She heard some noises but before she could see what was happening her father told her to hide. She waited until the noise stopped and checked outside where she found her parents, covered in blood.



While Pilika is crying, Apple comes from off screen. While we were in muse Luca came and destroyed the village, just to keep his troops entertained. She has an idea of where he’ll attack next, and asks us to take her to Viktor.

Hiro makes his way back to Camp Fliktor and Apple wastes no time to start the meeting.


Apple informs them of Luca’s actions in Toto.


He’s aiming at destroying the City-States, and Camp Fliktor is in his way. Fliktor need to discuss strategy with Apple (remember, Mathieu’s student), so Hiro takes a rest.


Jowy gets Pilika to go to sleep, then he tells Hiro how conflicted he’s become. He thought he could always return to Highland, but now he’s not sure where he belongs. While they’re talking Viktor sends a message for them to come to the strategy room.

Viktor has a favor to ask. They’ve decided to try to stand against Luca, but they need much more firepower.




He apparently smuggled out some of ○✗∆□☆’s Fire Spears as he left the Toran area. He didn’t bother taking care of them, though, and now we need to find the one man who can repair them, Tsai of the Devine Spear. Fortunately he lives in Ryube, so back we go!


We make it back up the mountain, to the hut we’d found empty earlier. It’s still empty though.

Jowy waits for about 15 seconds before saying we should return, but fortunately just as he reaches his patience’s end Tsai shows up.



Lucky for us he’d received word of the attack in Toto and doesn’t require any convincing. Why he didn’t just go to the mercenaries and save us this little side quest is another question.


Another great addition to Suikoden II, when you need to drag along a combat character but you don’t want to break up the band, you can just stick them in the convoy slot (I miss entourage). Doing this can also give you extra effects depending on the character, as we’ll see eventually.

On the way back down, on a random fight I found out that Gengen and Shiro have a unite attack. Gengen gets on Shiro’s back, with a bone tied to a fishing pole, and gets him to charge an enemy. This is far too awesome not to share.


Back at the base of the mountain we segue to a crappy CG cutscene!



Highland soldiers chase and kill the remaining villagers as Ryube burns.

Luca, of course, is having a blast.

This young woman tries to beg for her life.

Kiba, one of Highland’s generals, tries to get Luca to end his massacre. He’s not having that, of course, and orders the rest of the village to be burned to the ground.

After the flames are out and the soldiers leave Hiro and Tsai rush back to the fortress.


Pilika greets us at the door and tells us that a man-bearpig was worried about us.


We bring Tsai to Viktor and he immediately goes to work on the Fire Spears.



Viktor tells us to leave, but Hiro and Jowy are determined to stay and fight.

Viktor is hesitant, but Flik decides to test us. If we can even wound Flik he’ll accept us.


So we begin the first duel! It’s fairly easy, assuming you get the reads right. Flik defends for the first two turns allowing a few free hits…


then does an attack of his own.



As you can see in one regular attack he does more damage than Hiro manages in two free hits AND a desperate attack, but Flik is pleased with Hiro’s ability and vouches for him.

Viktor will give Hiro and Jowy a company to lead into the next battle, but we’ve gotta come up with a name.


Jowy rattles off some ideas, but I know none of them are as good as what you guys can come up with.


Alright, we’re ready for our first major battle, and all that remains is to name Hiro’s company!

How about Three's Company? :3

So far as goofy RPG names go, I am tapped out.

I don't know whether or not to be thankful the reign of PANTS has come to an end.

"Dai Gurren" is too long isn't it?

Afraid so. We've got 8 characters for the name.

This leads me to my one complaint about Suikoden II. Since the text is written out in the text boxes, I usually press X to complete it. But if you get a choice, like here, the box pops up and I select the upper option automatically.

So at this point I actually said "I understand." and wasn't able to participate in the coming battle. Gah. So I loaded a save.

Tapped of further awesome ideas, I named mine Bad.

Also, Shiro + Gengen FTW

Once again, I suggest the name of Fungasm.

For the same reason as I did before (re: that's the end result of playing Suikoden).

Before suggesting puns on _____ Company, you should know that it will be _____ Army before long. For this reason, I suggest Red.

God yes! That has happened to me so many times. Usually, the upper choice is the correct one, but I hate missing out on the gag choices. In this particular case, though, I'm pretty sure you can get the question again by talking to Flik.