so the visually analogous duo here that's seemingly engineered to call back to memories of that dynamic is not something I'm very interested in superficially as at this point surface is all there is.
The vibes I was getting the most from the way the game sells itself, is Suikoden Tactics, strangely enough. Mostly from a superficial level. If I had to guess, this brand new venture is being more conservative than not in making a bankable first outting for a fledgling staff. Which is a bummer, but I get it. I'm hoping that's just surface level, and that the game will have more nuance. Only time will tell I suppose. Not counting on it though, probably will have to wait until the next game if this one can find success. There's still more than enough time for them to do a gender select for the player-character though. But I don't particularly think the JP devs care too much.
Re: women in the franchise. I wouldn't put the Suikoden franchise as a whole as dire, and imo it's a franchise that got better about things as it went along. But yea it wasn't remotely close to great. There was a lot of interesting diversity and frequency in the female characters who make up the supporting cast, even as back as the original game. But yeah, women are locked out of the most interesting main roles in the first game and arguably the second.
For 2: I adore Nanami, but she isn't great. She's the stereotypical nagging anime-sister whose love and support for the MC is foundational and unconditional, but eventually becomes a burden that must be outgrown. It's great drama, but kinda sucky that's the most visible woman in the story. But there is, interestingly enough, a pretty concerted effort to put women in roles of leadership in Suiko2 that I don't think gets enough discussion. Sierra, Teresa, Valeria, Ellie & Rina, Tengaar, Apple, Jillia, Anabelle, Lucia, and Leknaat come to mind and being pretty important to the geopolitics and to the plot. (And even the smaller vignettes like is the case for Ellie & Rina and their circus troope, or Tengaar leading Hix around.)
Suiko3 I think draws a pretty good balance to things. I don't need to go over how fantastic Chris is. But characters like Lucia, the Alma Kinan Village, Alia, Cecile, Queen, Lilly, Apple, all endure in the memory more vibrantly than a lot of the male cast, while also being important leaders for their communities as well as getting to do important plot stuff. I also enjoyed that a lot of the generational characters who descend from Suiko1&2 characters ended up being mostly women. Sanae Y, Emily, Belle, Sharon, Mamie, and Riko come to mind.
4 and 5 are both non-canonical spin-offs as far as I'm concerned, and 4 is basically a wash. But I thought 5 did a better job than 1&2 all things considered. The female characters had a lot more Anime:tm: designs than on average, but the setting being a matriarchal society, and the prince's entourage and supporting advisors being a majority of women was I thought pretty great.
