Fynn
is an EoFF Hero and/or Heroine
Radical Dreamer

Pretty much, I've been re-listening to it recently and I'm like half an hour into it and we still haven't reached the main point. So yeah, typical podcast.

That particular episode is two hours long... Actually most of them are super long because we're both pretty long winded about stuff. We never did it long enough to really get a style going though so it can be pretty dry in places so I apologize in advance.

I think I reached Episode 7 or 8 before getting distracted.

Also, I found one of the old podcasts I use to do with a friend.

Eh, with the exceptions I mentioned, it's not so bad. It's honestly one of the more fun aspects of the series.

Collecting the 108 Stars without a guide is about the only real challenge the games tend to offer. The first game has a handful that are quite difficult to get without a guide since they often have poorly defined tells on how to be recruited. The sequels are better or worse about this depending on the game. As it stands, S3 is probably the easiest to recruit everyone, S1 might be the hardest, especially if you're going for the best ending since that also requires keeping the Stars you collected alive and a few of them can die from either a certain scenario or accidentally through a war battle.

In truth, the four hardest characters to recruit in S1 are Clive, Pesmerga, Crowley, and Leon Silverburg. Pesmerga and Crowley are difficult because they appear in dungeons but only after certain events/you've recruited so many people will they join. Clive randomly appears in an Inn inside a particular boring town, and if he doesn't spawn, you have to exit the whole town and come back to reset the timer and even then you need to have a certain number of recruits for him to even join you. Leon is easily the most difficult to get cause the window to get him is short and involves doing something pretty counter-intuitive.

Normally, when you want to advance the plot, you speak to your tactician in the castle to do so, or try to leave through the front door. There is maybe three or four times in the game where this doesn't happen. You'll meet Leon about 3/4 of the way into the game but he won't join you when you talk to him, instead you have to wait until near the end of the game after talking to him for one of these rare moments where the tactician doesn't advance the plot (you'll know cause he'll be absent from the war room if you glance in) and instead go talk to him in his study. This will activate a scene where you can chat with him about Leon. After that, you need to use Viki to teleport to the town Leon is in and talk to him again to finish the recruitment scenario.

Suikoden II is a bit more gracious about recruitment, but you can accidentally screw yourself over as well cause there are a few characters you can recruit who don't count towards your Star list and one set of them (pretty much the animal characters who need a special item to talk to) need to be recruited in a particular way in order to not accidentally lock you out. Basically, recruit the girl with the Gryphon as they both count as Stars and then either recruit the Unicorn or trhe Octopus depending on taste, there is a second octopus you can recruit but it doesn't count towards your Stars, and if you use the crystals to get the unicorn and the Octopus, then you can't recruit the girl with the Gryphon cause they're a package deal. There is also a few more characters with small windows to recruit them but thankfully the game is much better about not making the process of getting them as obtuse as Leon in S1.

I feel I sometimes lose my characters goals while writing.

Woot, super cool. I have a real soft spot for the first game, but the second entry is significantly better, so if you end up getting bored with the first one, don't let that deter you from playing the sequel.

I'm usually pretty good about coming up with a clear ending idea for most of my stories, of anything, titles with no clear ending tend to be the ones I stall on the fastest.

Very true.

Yeah, the setting and atmosphere of the games are fantastic. I often feel it's one of the strengths of the Devil Summoner entries cause even Soul Hackers is pretty groovy with it's cyberpunk themes.