I intended to finish the game before leaving the country again but I got to what I think was the final boss, got my ass whooped and then ran out of time. It's kind of a shame but I also recognised this game isn't meant to be rushed and I did exactly that. I guess the point was to enjoy wandering around the world talking to people and recruiting and stuff. Then again the battle system feels slow and old and sometimes the encounters with people are just vague. Like that priest in South Window, he just goes: "I am Gotetsu, I am a priest!", so how does that help the player to guess to recruit him? That's just not very helpful I find.
Flawed, but pretty cool game. Will finish it when I get back to the Netherlands.
When you ask Gantetsu to join, doesn't he mention something about strength?
Also, as in all Suikoden games, your investigator (Richmond for S2) is a great resource for learning how to recruit new people. I think S2 is a pretty good balance in difficulty for you to try to figure things out for recruitment (too easy except for 1 or 2 characters is S3, too hard is S5).
I do agree with you that S2 is certainly not meant to be rushed (unless you're trying the stupid Clive quest).
This is an insanely long thread to bump, but I'm on another replay via emulation and a weird ass glitch hit me. Screenshot inserted. Admittedly, I did the gate glitch after I snagged my runes since the RNG gave me a troutty party BUT this is playthrough 10+ and has never occurred. And I'm allowed to bump it because my account name has a Black Sword Rune. Heehee.
Oops! Can't upload my file via phone since it is too large. Tl;dr after the Luca fight someone joined me at level 99 and wtf did that happen to anyone else?!
My guess is you may have triggered an overflow glitch. Is Riou a higher level than he should be? Then perhaps when the game was trying to factor the recruit's level it went too high and jumped their level to max by accident. Suikoden II has a very broken leveling mechanic and it's fairly easy to max out a character's level in this game compared to other entries.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe. Maybe this year will be better than the last. I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself. To hold on to these moments as they pass...