There appears to be a wanker drifting on my seas

[Citizen Bleys]

You thought it was lost forever.

Well, I say

Not on my watch

http://thehighseas.bastardly.org/

Here it is, reproduced in all its original glory -- minus the "friends view" from the original archive because that really is gone forever. Maybe it's just me, but I tended to go through it in chronological order even with the original archive, so the nav buttons I put at the top are just as good.

For those who don't know what this is: You lucky sods. You're in for a treat. I got a real charge out of this before I ever even played Suikoden IV, and I credit the adventures of Will and the crew of the Home Slice for how much enjoyment I got out of the game when I did play it.

As noted on the intro page, there's a bug in LiveJournal's coding that causes the replies posted on this page to be in duplicate when the page is saved for viewing off of LiveJournal's software, and the workaround I used to avoid that uses a feature of HTML5 that is presently only supported in the Google Chrome and Apple Safari web browsers. So, if you wanted to view this in Firefox...sorry, you're going to have to see all of the comments twice. If you wanted to view it in Internet Explorer...that's reason enough to feel sorry for you right there.

You're welcome.

[Raistlin]

I already told you how awesome this is, but I will say it again: this is awesome. It makes me want to play Suikoden IV again.

Though unlike Bleys, I would recommend playing SIV before reading this.

[Citizen Bleys]

Is it just me, or does Ted occasionally remind anyone else of Unne?

EDIT: Also, one thing I never understood: Who the christ is E.O.B.? Leknaat? And who was it who thought the Fog Ship Captain was Hikusaak? That's ridiculous.

[Jiro]

I'm enjoying what I've read but I feel like a lot of it is lost on me having only played Suikoden V

[Citizen Bleys]

Now you have a reason to play all of the other ones.

The Suikoden universe has a lot of lore.

[Raistlin]

I'm enjoying what I've read but I feel like a lot of it is lost on me having only played Suikoden V

Yeah you can't really enjoy this without having played SIV. If only for the fact that you cannot appreciate the hate for Snowe.

It's a short game though, at least by modern JRPG standards. Even on your first playthrough, it's maybe 25-30 hours, so I highly recommend it, despite the game being by far the worst of the series.

[Citizen Bleys]

spock.jpg

Let's examine this logically, shall we? Sure, you can listen to the guy who played the game first and is, even in this very thread, slamming on it -- a trait he shares with a number of others who played Suikoden IV first, including Doomgaze, Ally, DocFrance, and Eric, or, you can listen to the guy who read the journals first and loves both. Not saying correlation implies causation or anything, because it clearly does not, but why not subject the hypothesis to experimentation? What do you have to lose other than a preconception of a Suikoden game as horrible? Does horrible sound like any fit way to describe a freaking Suikoden game?

[Madonna]

Playing IV is not essential to enjoying the havoc created in the thehighseas journals, but it does help you in understand what is happening. I enjoyed both immensely. Thank you, Citizen Bleys, for bringing something nostalgic back to the world that actually does not suck.

[Madame Adequate]

This is without qualification the best thing to come out of Suikoden IV.

[Raistlin]

Bleysie-poo, I never said SIV was horrible, just that it is the worst in the series. That fact is pretty much beyond debate. Unlike many others, I still think the game is enjoyable, especially considering it's fairly quick and easy.

I do think there's so much more to appreciate in thehighseas journal having played the game first, or at least contemporaneously. The journal kind of cuts out a significant chunk of exposition, and you don't get to appreciate a lot of the characters (and the references to Snowe's pansyiness). Of course it also adds a lot that isn't in the game, such as the crazy party which is a massive part of the end of the journal. xD

[Citizen Bleys]

Bleysie-poo, I never said SIV was horrible, just that it is the worst in the series.

Your exact words were by far the worst in the series. This is not the case. There is no 'by far' in the Suikoden series. They're all good. IV might not be as good as V, or as good as III could have been if the controls had been written for a human, but it's not even the worst game, let alone by far. That honour goes to Tierkreis. Hell, it's not even the worst numbered Suikoden game. It could have been, if Suikoden II had been paced better during the middle 65-70% of the game, but it's not.

[Jowy]

I didn't like Suiko IV as much as the others but if you compare apples to oranges, Suiko IV is better than anything Squeenix has churned out in the past ten years. Suikoden II is just the bar being raised entirely too high.

[Raistlin]

Hell, it's not even the worst numbered Suikoden game. It could have been, if Suikoden II had been paced better during the middle 65-70% of the game, but it's not.

Did you seriously just imply that Suikoden II is the worst numbered Suikoden game? Your opinion is officially invalidated. For everything. Your face is next to the definition of "wrong" in the dictionary.

[Citizen Bleys]

It's also worth noting that the story in the journals doesn't end when the game does, they've done up a bit of an epilogue which continues to be funny

http://thehighseas.bastardly.org/?p=1067 is my favourite

[Jowy]

The only part in Suikoden II that is remotely agonizing is going back to help Miss Wisemail. I haaaaaaate that part.