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Suikoden II
Nov. 30th, 2020 12:49 amThis weekend was kind of a waste when it comes to catching up on all the random shit that I needed to get done in life, but it was extremely productive when it comes to doing dumb childish shit that I probably should not have done. Namely, I sat down and finished Suikoden II for the first time, which meant I spent a little over 20 hours with the game over 3 days, and finished up at 5AM on Saturday, giving me Sunday to desperately get my sleep schedule back on track (this after a bout of serious insomnia had already fucked it up).
Suikoden 3 was one of my favorites back when the PS2 was a current system, but I had never played the first games, so with the PS store I could finally get back to them. I finished 1 a while back, and it was a lot of fun, but II is definitely a big step up for me, and when I was done I hit that feeling of deep frustration because I wanted more but it was over, and I knew I was never going to get to play for the first time ever again. I had so much fun with it. The difficulty is pretty low, which for JRPGs like this only means that there's a minimal grind, which as an adult with a job I appreciate, and the writing is so good, and there's so much of it. Every npc has something to say that's relevant to the state of the game at that moment. And the world is sprawling. The thing that gets me is that while the entire game focuses on a single nation within a greater world (the game of Suikoden I is played in a neighboring country that you can only visit a minor segment of it). And even within that limited are that you get to play in, there's dozens of locations, and all of the towns are distinct and interesting in their own way. There's apparently a game bible that was created by the producer, but I don't know if it was ever made public. It would be fascinating to see.
Of course there's the 108 characters that you recruit too. All of which have their own backgrounds. Not all of them are particularly fleshed out but enough are that the world feels remarkably full. And a lot of them return from the previous game. Since I imported a complete save from one, I got to run into the hero from the first game and play a short optional quest with them. And because I got the good end in one I got to see Gremio again. Since I shipped Gremio and McDohl in the first game seeing them traveling the world together after all that work I did to keep them together felt SO GOOD you don't even know. And since I had a character from the first game in the party they had something to say about it all. It's the crazy number of small details like that that made the game so satisfying to play. I could go on and on about all the small moments that kept me invested in everything that was going on.
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I took way too long to realize that this random dude was that Gremio and that the red patch on the top left was obviously the hero of game 1.
I think the castle is probably my favorite part of the game. Exploring it as it slowly builds up the more people you get, running into the mini games, watching people move in and set up lives and so on and so forth, really gives you a satisfying sense of progression. It's kind of insane how much was jammed into this thing. There's literally a guy you can recruit to change the system sounds?? And the dialog window designs?? Crazy! You recruit a grandma midway through the game who's only job is to give you polite advice about what you should be doing next, which helps a ton if you put the game down for a while and don't remember where you are in the plot, cause it's easy to forget and just get completely lost in such a big world. And there's a private eye who will go on fact finding missions for you, which help you know how to recruit people, or will just give you secrets about people you've recruited. There's a wolfdog you recruit called Shio, and the investigations of him are like, "he's a dog, dude" and ""I saw him running around the other day with Gengen on his back."
Ok really if I quoted everything I liked about the game it would be 10,000 lines so I'll stop.
The overarching plot is nothing too amazing but it's executed pretty perfectly. The story is one of war and the personal costs of war, and really makes it clear that it sucks ass. The ultimate conflict between Jowy and Riou felt slightly contrived, where Jowy's insistence that there was no peaceful solution made me a little frustrated, but at least in my run it all turned out alright in the end. In order to get that good end you need all 108 stars of destiny recruited, which I can't imagine doing as a kid in the PS1 days. I played with a walkthrough and have no shame about it. Even then I missed a lot of optional stuff, some of which was actually time gated. The ending is also apparently a little controversial. In order for the three childhood friends from the beginning to have any happily ever after, they have to essentially abandon their respective causes. You leave the army you've been leading by literally sneaking out of your castle to meet with Jowy, and then have to refuse to fight him when he demands you end him, basically. If you choose to stay and lead your people into peacetime, you basically have to give up both Jowy and Nanami, who may be alive but seems to never come back. I wanted my cake and to eat it too, to have reconciliation with Jowy and to continue to do my duty as the leader of the army, but it's just not possible, and in the end I appreciate a game where the choice is not easy, plus, in game these characters are barely adults. They deserve freedom from war.
IDK. I'm overflowing with feeling for this stupid ancient game and now I'm chasing down all the fan art and stuff I can find for it. There's a nice retrospective for it on youtube that I watched. I knew it was generally popular but I had no idea that so many other people seemed to think so highly of it, which is both great and sad, because the original English language CDs go for 400 entire bucks on ebay. I don't have a physical game collection but boy am I going to watch out for those discs now. There's also a Japanese Drama CD that came out that I'm going to have to listen to now. I just want more more more and I don't know where I'm going to get it.... aside from jumping right into Suikoden 3, which is probably going to happen.
So anyway Suikoden 2 was great and I didn't go shopping for food this weekend. Whoops.
Suikoden 3 was one of my favorites back when the PS2 was a current system, but I had never played the first games, so with the PS store I could finally get back to them. I finished 1 a while back, and it was a lot of fun, but II is definitely a big step up for me, and when I was done I hit that feeling of deep frustration because I wanted more but it was over, and I knew I was never going to get to play for the first time ever again. I had so much fun with it. The difficulty is pretty low, which for JRPGs like this only means that there's a minimal grind, which as an adult with a job I appreciate, and the writing is so good, and there's so much of it. Every npc has something to say that's relevant to the state of the game at that moment. And the world is sprawling. The thing that gets me is that while the entire game focuses on a single nation within a greater world (the game of Suikoden I is played in a neighboring country that you can only visit a minor segment of it). And even within that limited are that you get to play in, there's dozens of locations, and all of the towns are distinct and interesting in their own way. There's apparently a game bible that was created by the producer, but I don't know if it was ever made public. It would be fascinating to see.
Of course there's the 108 characters that you recruit too. All of which have their own backgrounds. Not all of them are particularly fleshed out but enough are that the world feels remarkably full. And a lot of them return from the previous game. Since I imported a complete save from one, I got to run into the hero from the first game and play a short optional quest with them. And because I got the good end in one I got to see Gremio again. Since I shipped Gremio and McDohl in the first game seeing them traveling the world together after all that work I did to keep them together felt SO GOOD you don't even know. And since I had a character from the first game in the party they had something to say about it all. It's the crazy number of small details like that that made the game so satisfying to play. I could go on and on about all the small moments that kept me invested in everything that was going on.
I took way too long to realize that this random dude was that Gremio and that the red patch on the top left was obviously the hero of game 1.
I think the castle is probably my favorite part of the game. Exploring it as it slowly builds up the more people you get, running into the mini games, watching people move in and set up lives and so on and so forth, really gives you a satisfying sense of progression. It's kind of insane how much was jammed into this thing. There's literally a guy you can recruit to change the system sounds?? And the dialog window designs?? Crazy! You recruit a grandma midway through the game who's only job is to give you polite advice about what you should be doing next, which helps a ton if you put the game down for a while and don't remember where you are in the plot, cause it's easy to forget and just get completely lost in such a big world. And there's a private eye who will go on fact finding missions for you, which help you know how to recruit people, or will just give you secrets about people you've recruited. There's a wolfdog you recruit called Shio, and the investigations of him are like, "he's a dog, dude" and ""I saw him running around the other day with Gengen on his back."
Ok really if I quoted everything I liked about the game it would be 10,000 lines so I'll stop.
The overarching plot is nothing too amazing but it's executed pretty perfectly. The story is one of war and the personal costs of war, and really makes it clear that it sucks ass. The ultimate conflict between Jowy and Riou felt slightly contrived, where Jowy's insistence that there was no peaceful solution made me a little frustrated, but at least in my run it all turned out alright in the end. In order to get that good end you need all 108 stars of destiny recruited, which I can't imagine doing as a kid in the PS1 days. I played with a walkthrough and have no shame about it. Even then I missed a lot of optional stuff, some of which was actually time gated. The ending is also apparently a little controversial. In order for the three childhood friends from the beginning to have any happily ever after, they have to essentially abandon their respective causes. You leave the army you've been leading by literally sneaking out of your castle to meet with Jowy, and then have to refuse to fight him when he demands you end him, basically. If you choose to stay and lead your people into peacetime, you basically have to give up both Jowy and Nanami, who may be alive but seems to never come back. I wanted my cake and to eat it too, to have reconciliation with Jowy and to continue to do my duty as the leader of the army, but it's just not possible, and in the end I appreciate a game where the choice is not easy, plus, in game these characters are barely adults. They deserve freedom from war.
IDK. I'm overflowing with feeling for this stupid ancient game and now I'm chasing down all the fan art and stuff I can find for it. There's a nice retrospective for it on youtube that I watched. I knew it was generally popular but I had no idea that so many other people seemed to think so highly of it, which is both great and sad, because the original English language CDs go for 400 entire bucks on ebay. I don't have a physical game collection but boy am I going to watch out for those discs now. There's also a Japanese Drama CD that came out that I'm going to have to listen to now. I just want more more more and I don't know where I'm going to get it.... aside from jumping right into Suikoden 3, which is probably going to happen.
So anyway Suikoden 2 was great and I didn't go shopping for food this weekend. Whoops.
