Suikoden II is one of the most praised flops in RPG history. Despite all the fanfare it gets from journalists and the fanbase these days, Suikoden II actually did poorly when it initially released back in 1999 in North America. It did fairly well in Japan, but was likely overshadowed in PAL regions by Diablo 2. North America got it the worst, because while the original Suikoden was a modest success, it had no real competition at the time. I mean Beyond the Beyond and Revelations: Persona are not exactly games that get name dropped as excellent Pre-FFVII JRPGs for the PlayStation. In NA, Suikoden II released the same month as Final Fantasy VIII, one of the most anticipated games of the year. Regardless of ones feelings about the game, being released a mere 20 days after the follow up to one of the biggest games of the decade was not a good idea, and I don't know what Konami's U.S. division was thinking. Even worse, it wasn't like Square hadn't just released another major hit with Chrono Cross the month before in August and FF Anthology was being released in October as well. 1999 was just a bad year to release a game without being overshadowed by Square.
Adding to all this was just how much FFVII's influence had on the genre in terms of foreign markets. If you weren't 3D, no one took you seriously at the time. Konami releasing a 2D JRPG that was more reminiscent of the 16-bit era than the fancy visual feast that Square had been releasing one after the other wasn’t really going to fly. So it was fairly easy for the foreign market to pass this game by. I had played Suikoden 1 by this time, but I didn't even know Suikoden II had been released until maybe a year later, simply because FFVIII and Square in general dominated the market at that time. So yes, despite all the praise the game gets these days, it wasn't uncommon to see reviews for Suikoden II at the time being a bit more mean spirited because it wasn't following the leader, so to speak. Ironic, in a way, since these days Suikoden II is remembered far more fondly than FFVIII, and has graphically aged far better (Remaster withstanding) than Squall's pixelated face.
Sadly, there isn't much to go on for Suikoden II's development. Konami was pretty bad about promoting the title and even the few Japanese interviews I can find don't share any interesting highlights. I guess Konami was still beside themselves with their smash hits, Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill that they sort of forgot about the games between their releases of new DDR arcade machines. What we do know is that the sprites were a conscious choice by the team. The main feedback the game got from fans about the first entry was that they loved the world and characters the most, so the team placed all their focus on that. Much like the first game, I felt this choice was a good one in the long run, though obviously a bad one from a short term perspective. There is a persistent rumor, one I myself unfortunately helped propagate over the years, that Suikoden II was the original idea that Murayama and Kawano tried to make, but chose to shelve the project until they were more experienced to do it justice. This ended up being cleared up in recent years as just an apocryphal story, and the games were written in order.
The Story
Set a few years after the end of the first game, Suikoden II moves us to the Highland Kingdom, a former territory of Harmonia. It was gifted to the Blight family after their ancestor helped bring the Harmonian Civil War to a close. Shortly after, the Beast Rune of the 27 True Runes, left its place of safe keeping within Harmonia and came to Highland where it chose to stay with the founder of the Blight dynasty. Officially, Bishop Sasarai of Harmonia gifted it to the Blight Family, but this was a cover up so Harmonia wouldn't lose face. Located north of the City States of Jowston, the confederacy that had been born from the collapse of the Dunan Kingdom and the encroachment of Highland into their territories, the two nations have a long history of conflict with each other with the Blight family wanting to expand southward, while the City States, led by Muse and South Window, tried to expand northward. These constant wars were interspersed with small short lived truces which often ended when both groups started doing underhanded tactics to get an upper hand when they started the next inevitable war.
When Agares Blight became King of Highland, the City States and Highland had been engaged in a six year conflict that saw Highland conquer Muse, Greenhill, and even the Matilda Kingdom. The rest of the City-States managed to muster their forces and push Highland back, but the town of Kyaro became a major stumbling block in peace negotiations between the two countries. Muse claimed the territory, but Highland still had control over it. The conflict was decided by a duel between the two nation’s greatest generals, Genkaku of Muse and Han Cunningham of Highland. Genkaku forfeited the duel, giving Kyaro to Highland and leaving Genkaku hated by the City-States, who chose to exile him to Highland. The peace lasted for nine years until Muse, led by Mayor Darel, hired bandits to try and assassinate the Blight family while they were traveling the countryside. Agares managed to escape, but his wife Sara and son Luca were captured. Sara was raped while Luca watched, and it was several days before Agares came back with his soldiers to save them. Queen Sara was then later found to be with child from the incident, and Jilla Blight was born, though Sara died from complications. This fueled Luca Blight's hatred for both his father and the City-States of Jowston. Conflicts continued between the two for several more decades with both sides posturing and trying to get a reaction from the other. Highland created the Unicorn Youth Brigade for propaganda purposes. A unit made up almost entirely of Highland teens that were deeply passionate about Highland. They mainly stayed behind safely in Highland during the small war. A peace treaty was to be signed between the two and the Unicorn Youth Brigade was to be disbanded shortly after.
It is here that out story finally begins. Jowy Atreides and his friend Riou are childhood friends who joined the Unicorn Youth Brigade to show their love for their country. Jowy was from a middle class family that married into the Highland aristocracy. Due to his commoner's blood, he is ostracized by his new family, and took refuge at the local dojo where Genkaku had set up as his home. Genkaku had adopted and raised two war orphans named Riou and Nanami as his own, though Genkaku himself would eventually pass before he saw either reach adulthood. With the peace treaty signed, the two boys are ready to return home to Kyaro, but their plans are ruined when the City-States break the treaty and sneak attack their unit. Riou and Jowy are told to flee down the mountain path by their commanding officer Rowd. The two do so, but Jowy realizes that the mountain path is the only road off the mountain and would likely be the best place for the City-States to ambush them. They return to camp to warn their commander, only to find Prince Luca Blight and Rowd discussing the success of their false flag operation. Luca has his own men dress as City-State soldiers, to murder the Unicorn Youth Brigade, so he can blame the City-States and get overwhelming support for a major war to break into their territory. The boys are discovered and flee to the cliffs of the mountains where they are forced to jump into the river below. Before they do, Jowy realizes they'll likely get separated and marks a stone so they'll known to meet back there. Riou marks it as well and the two make the jump.
They become separated, and our main hero Riou finds himself found, and made captive, by a mercenary unit working for Muse that is being run by none other than Viktor and Flik from Suikoden 1. Jowy eventually finds Riou and tries to rescue him, but gets caught in the process as well. The two eventually manage to escape and make their way back to their hometown of Kyaro, where they reunite with Riou's adopted sister Nanami. Unfortunately, their reunion is cut short when the boys are arrested by their former commander Rowd, who tells the general public that the two of them had secretly been spies for Muse and had helped coordinate the massacre. The two are captured, beaten, and nearly executed until they are rescued by Viktor and Flik. Along with Nanami, the five of them flee Highland and return to the mercenary fortress where they help Viktor recruit more mercenaries for the war. Riou meets Pilkia, the young girl who saved Jowy after the cliff dive and the two spend time in the Muse countryside helping the war effort. That is until Luca Blight makes a serious push into the region, and the boys see first-hand the madness that has taken the Highland Prince. Luca doesn't wish to conquer the City-States like his father and grandfather, his goal is revenge against them, and he plans on committing genocide on the entire populous, especially Muse. Seeing his atrocities firsthand, losing the mercenary fortress, and barely saving Pilkia, the three childhood friends make their way to Muse. Along the way, they uncover a hidden temple in Pilkia's hometown that houses the Rune of Beginnings. Jowy and Riou are chosen by the True Rune which splits its power into Riou's Bright Shield Rune and Jowy's Black Sword Rune.
The group eventually makes it to Muse, where the two boys witness firsthand the total dysfunction of the City-State Alliance. Many of them feel the war is simply another squabble between Highland and Muse, so none of the other members of the Jowston Alliance wish to get involved. Muse's current leader, Annabelle, asks the two boys to do some reconnaissance for Muse. Here they meet Jillia Blight and encounter both Rowd and Luca Blight once again. The boys are found out by their former commander, forcing them to flee. Jowy stays behind to be a distraction, but eventually reunites with his friends in Muse after giving Riou, Pilkia, and Nanami a scare. That night, Jowy meets with Annabelle and assassinates her, he proclaims he is now working for Highland and wishes to change them from within. Riou and Nanami are devastated and forced to flee to the former region of North Window. Viktor learns of the rune Riou has, and tells him how his adopted grandfather Genkaku, once had the same rune. Riou is then prompted by the Muse survivors as the second coming of Genkaku, and he is made leader of the new Dunan Army, after Riou and Apple manage to convince Shu, a former student and strategist prodigy of Mathiu Silverburg, to join their cause and help them fight back against the Highland Kingdom.. From here the plot expands as Luca Blight and Highland at large make short work of the bickering City-States and the two childhood friends find themselves on opposing sides of the great conflict, with Riou trying desperately to pick up the pieces of the fallen City-States, while Jowy deals with the maniacal Luca Blight and the nervous aristocracy that serves him. Both boys trying to find peace between two groups that have decades of bad blood be5tween them.
As can be gathered by this very abridged, yet incredibly dense discussion of the game's opening, Suikoden II has a lot going on for it. As Murayama said, the focus for the sequel was the world and characters and already in the opening hours we find the City-State/Highland conflict to be quite a doozy of a political quagmire while also making the relationship of Riou and Jowy fleshed out and central part of the story's conflict. It's a bit interesting how Suikoden II seems to take some inspiration from FFTactics with similar themes of two warring and dysfunctional factions whose ambitions causes the most pain for the common people caught in the middle of their schemes, as well as a friendship being tested by said conflict. I will say that Suikoden II manages to strike a more hopeful presentation of the concepts. The game has a very rich setting and cast with almost thirty returning characters from the first entry. Suikoden II does a better job of fleshing out most of the cast, whether it's making more of them prominent in the plot, as well as the introduction of a detective character that can investigate said characters and expand on the backstory of them. Many of the returning characters have their own returning subplots. like Flik still trying to mourn Odessa, Futch's journey to find a dragon so he can rejoin the Dragon Knights, Apple growing into her own as a strategist, Sheena is still womanizing, and Tengaar is still trying to make a true warrior out of Hix. While Suikoden II is mostly its own plot, there are enough returning elements and plot threads from the first game to make it sometimes feel like a continuation of the first game as they they were written to be one large epic novel. I know some Suikoden II fans get defensive when I talk about this because they feel SII stands on its own, and I agree, but I feel what elevates it to something greater is the fact it feels like a continuation from the first entry. It's a shame the series never manages to repeat this, though it comes closest with Suikoden IV/Tactics, but that's a whole different mess we'll eventually get to.
Still I appreciate the fact Suikoden II is also its own thing. The new characters are a real treat, and I'm glad they get more screen time to really be fleshed out, like the traveling Grasslanders trio and their gypsy performances. The detective Richmond is not only super fun, but a great asset to the castle and lore of the series since he can fill you in on all of the background info about the characters. While I wasn't a huge fan of the Kobold characters from S1, S2's Gengen is adorable, and Ridley Wizen showed the race is way more versatile as characters. Nina is a fun, if creepy, foil for Flik, and Camus and Miklotov are basically what I was wishing Alen and Grenseal were. Course one of the best and divisive characters from Suikoden II is easily Shu, the game’s token strategist. Mathiu Silverburg from the first entry was largely a paragon of virtue, who could still throw a curve ball or two when he had to, such as sacrificing territory to the City-States to defeat Kasim Hazel of the Six Great Generals, but overall, Mathiu was sort of the moral conscious of McDohl’s forces. Shu is not that.
Shu is a lot of things: a prodigy, a businessman, an exiled pupil, and self-serving. But if I had to summarize his character into one word, it would be a pragmatist. Mathiu was all about building alliances with honesty and integrity, but Shu doesn’t care if he’s liked and is willing to play the bad guy from time to time if means he can step one closer to winning. This trait is largely why Mathiu banished him as his student. Shu keeps his own allies guessing and he is not above using children as hostages to get results. But even Shu will be the first to admit he’s a bit of a bastard, but considering what the Dunan Army is facing, they need someone just as intellectually ruthless as Luca Blight and his strategist Leon Silverburg (yes, the same one from the first game) if they want to stand a chance of winning.
Suikoden II helped move the series into a bit more mature territory with its story. Not that the first game was lacking in mature themes, but the first game could sometimes be a bit goofy. The first game has a faux gay Frenchman caricature who uses poisonous plants to protect his castle and is mostly hated by the locals because he changed all the town names into French sounding ones. SII in contrast has a South Window try to negotiate peace with Highland, and they summarily execute their leader and take over the whole territory. Both games tackle themes of racism, genocide, and political corruption, but Suikoden II always manages to do it with a better sense of realism and grittiness that S1 was just not willing to go to. I mean General Kwanda Rosman wipes out the entire elven village in the first game using a giant magical magnifying glass, meanwhile, Suikoden II, we watch Luca Blight raze and murder an entire village, including a famous scene where he forces a female villager to dehumanize herself in front of him and his soldiers by pretending to be a pig in the pretense of saving her life, only for Luca Blight to murder her anyway after he gets his laugh in. Suikoden II doesn’t hide its darker themes behind more cartoonish fantasy tropes and instead prevents a grittier narrative that was good enough to sit next to other big name Konami projects like Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill. This isn’t to say Suikoden II is all grim dark real politick. The game can still be goofy and throw the characters into wacky anime shenanigans like Greenhill, where the party has to go undercover as students and we get a short lived slice of life mystery going on, including a schoolgirl stalker character. The Unicorn quest used in the Hix and Tengaar recruitment questline is also just pure wacky comedy gold. Likewise, not all mature themes hit right either with Two Rivers racial tensions feeling a bit like it was resolved a bit too easily considering the initial animosity. Suikoden is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Even the conflict between Jowy and Riou can feel a bit contrived at times and needs some of the supplemental materials from the Suikodgaiden titles to help it land on its feet better. But the game is a narrative leap compared to what came before it, but it also did so by building off of what really worked well in the first game as well, which is what a sequel should do.
Probably the biggest thing Suikoden II does is really expand the world building for the series. The Holy Kingdom of Harmonia is just a name given in the manual; here we get to see what the big deal they really are. The Grasslands are introduced, the Island Nations and the Queendom of Falena are both named drop. We get our first taste of the Sindar civilization and suddenly the world feels so much larger than it was before. Hell, we even get to take a very brief trip back to the Toran Republic. The scale of the setting feels so much bigger than it did in the first game and the fact the setting is the same area that was always named dropped in the first game as this outside invader is also intriguing, because S1 does not paint a pretty picture of the Jowstown Alliance, and while Suikoden II doesn’t really either, it at least gives us an idea of who they are and gives a face to them that comes with a more humanization of their group. We get a similar treat in the next game when we go to the Grasslands and meet the Karayan Tribe proper. If you do the Clive quest, we’re also introduced to the Howling Voice Guild from Harmonia. Suikoden II broadens are understanding of the setting far more properly than the first game was capable of doing.
The gameplay has also seen lots of improvements, but ones that come with their own issues as well. The battle system gains some small, but incredibly powerful improvements that add a lot of depth to its mechanics. The most obvious change is the introduction of characters now being able to equip multiple runes at once (One in the forehead, one in the right hand, and one in the left hand) instead of being relegated to just one. If you read my previous S1 Tips post, then you’ll notice I lambast a few runes due to their effectiveness not being as good as I would like because of the one rune limit. A Hazy rune that lets a character dodge more incoming attacks would be great for a mage character, but is utterly useless if it also means they can’t use magic either. Now that mages can equip multiple runes at once, they can have the benefits of both and several “useless” runes from the first game now have more leg room to be effective tools. Though this all comes with a catch. Not every character can get three rune slots. Not only are rune slots acquired by leveling up, but only a handful of the 108 Stars can actually get the full three slots. Likewise, a new addition with this new mechanic is that some runes can only be equipped in certain rune slots. The new Pale Gate Rune for instance, which deals with summoning magic can only be used by people with a forehead rune slot available. The new class of weapon runes must also be used on one of the hand slots, and so on. This has an interesting effect of adding a bit nuance to the characters you can play as that was lacking in the first game. Some characters whom at first seem lackluster can combine support runes to make them widely more effective while characters with unique runes can now be more versatile beyond their one gimmick rune. This adds more depth to the cast as a whole and helps to make them feel more memorable mechanically, especially since this game is filled with more unique skill runes than the first. The first game had 33 equippable runes including the Soul Eater. Suikoden II expands this to 87 runes, of which 21 are unique to different characters. There are now weapon runes that can only be used by characters using specific weapons like the Viper Rune that does damage and may inflict poison on enemies or the Unicorn Rune for spear users that let them strike a row of opponents instead of a single one. The massive expansion of runes and rune slots make way for a healthy amount of customization that felt pretty limited in the first game.
For magic users, they also get an interesting new mechanic. The game adds an elemental affinity system to the game that every character is beholden to. The affinity system basically dictates which elemental runes a character can use and how effective they are with said rune. In the first game, a character’s effectiveness with a magical rune really just came down to their magic stat. Flik started with a Lightning Rune, but you could switch him with an Fire or Wind Rune and he would be just as proficient. In Suikoden II on the other hand, Flik has a B rating with Lightning Rune, allowing him to do 20% more damage when using the rune, whereas he has a C rating with a Fire rune, meaning he doesn’t do any more damage with its spells than most characters and he has a D rating in Wind, meaning he does lower damage with the rune. Funny enough, the E rating does allow a character to do 20% more effectiveness with a rune as well, but comes with the caveat that they may cast the spell incorrectly and either heal the enemy if using a healing rune or attack the party if they’re using an offensive rune. This again adds more lairs to customization, though sadly, this mechanic is not telegraphed to the player as effectively as the other mechanics. For those worried about the E rating though, it’s very uncommon and usually more prone towards more comic relief characters like the flying squirrels or the most obvious one being Viki, who has an E rating in every element.
There are other tweaks like special runes you can equip on weapons that replace the system from the first game which was poorly thought out and of course the Unite attacks are back and there are far more in this entry than the first. Duels are also still here and there are a few more than the first game thankfully, but they are still uncommon occurrences and largely work the same as they did in the first game. The castle mechanic returns as well with more minigames and events with the highlight being the Iron Chef style cooking battles held by the Chef Tai Ho.
The real big change is how Army battles play out. In the first game it was a menu based rock/paper/scissors type ordeal where you can use extra recruit to do special things between the big army choices. In Suikoden II, the Army battles are now a turn based system played over a grid map with party members divided into units which dictate what kind of unit they are along with the unit’s stats and skills. This gives more weight to collecting heroes and really playing around with party combinations. It is also nice to have the system present itself in a more strategic way than the simpler Suikoden I.
Finally the game has a second challenge quest for players who want a bit more challenge. Returning marksman Clive returns and this time we have a questline that is unique to him. But the quest is timed and requires the player to rush their way through the game and beat it under twenty hours, similar to FFIX’s Excalibur 2 quest, except instead of a shiny new item, you’re rewarded with a unique story that finally sheds some light on the mysterious figure and the organization he works for.
Musically, Miki Higashino returns from the first game to spearhead the music along with a few collaborations from other Konami sound designers, but it seems that Higashino is the one who largely scored the entire soundtrack this time, and she frankly goes all out. While the game still is mostly using MIDI like everyone else, she manages top sneak in some impressive orchestral pieces with great choral pieces, most notably the game’s opening theme and the Reminiscence theme played towards the game’s beginning. Like the first game, Higashino and her team focus on giving the game a feeling of traveling the world, but unlike the first game, I do feel this one has a bit more noticeable Asian motif to go along with the game’s more Asian style setting. There are some unique instrumentation used that is noticeable despite the MIDI quality kind of muffling it up sometimes.
The soundtrack is massive as well, having twice as many tracks as the first game ultimately ranging up to a hundred and five tracks in total. The larger score allows Higashino and her team to express a larger range of emotions and sample even more styles of world music to give the game a very unique score from its contemporaries. We also see a few themes from the first game return with standard classics like the series main theme mixed into the game’s stellar opening track, the ever amusing Theme of a Narcissist, and the ever lovely Theme of a Moonlight Night. Hell, even Neclord’s theme Passacaglia returns now sporting an awesome backup choir to make it feel even more Castlevania-esque. You can tell Higashino really had fun composing this soundtrack.
So now we’re at my not-so-controversial moment where I give you five reasons not play Suikoden II followed by five reasons why you should, starting with…
5. The game is too easy. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s the easiest installment in the series, the expanded customization system and wealth of new runes does leave it rife with balancing issues. Don’t get me wrong, I mentioned the first entry was also pretty easy, but it’s a bit more ridiculous in this installment. You can setup characters to solo the game, that’s how ridiculous the game is. I’ve beaten the final boss with a party of two characters before. Even the token “final boss” Luca Blight can be trivialized with the right set-up. In fact, you may never see a game over if it wasn’t for…
4. The War Battles are awful. For tactical RPG fans, this might seem like a dream come true, and lord knows I’ve met some deniers online who love this system, but Army battles are kind of the least fun part of the game if you ask me. The tactical RPG mechanics make them slow as hell and frankly, this segment of the game tends to get the most questionable RNG moments where you can watch a low ranking unit score a critical against your better units and watch as they are completely decimated; likewise, some of your more powerful units can sometime struggle to take out weaker units due to the RNG just not being in your favor. Not helping any of this is that the game still makes use of these war battles as story-telling moments, sometimes to a detrimental amount as it often feels like most army battles are just scripted events. The most obnoxious being the battle where the Matilda Knights let the Highland Army wipe out refugees trying to reach their border. It is supposed to be a dramatic moment, but it’s really just five minutes of you watching this low level unit slowly move up the map while being hounded by the Highland units. You have to watch every unit move individually at a slow pace, and you will pray the first Highland unit manages to wipe them all out so you can get on with the game. As you can tell, I am not a fan of this system.
3. You can easily soft lock yourself out of the Golden Ending. This is less of an issue if you’re using a guide, but it’s kind of surprising how easy it is to screw yourself out of the true ending. Part of the issue is that it’s possible to recruit characters who are not part of the 108 Stars of Destiny but require a key item that is limited. Veterans will know I’m talking about the Hearing Crystals, and I’ll mention that in the next post when I talk about difficult recruits, but the even easier way to screw yourself is not knowing you should leave the castle without checking in with Shu during the game’s ending. If you meet up with Shu as you normally would if since it goes with the game flow, then you’ll get the boring Good Ending, but to reach the game’s final “boss” you actually have to leave the castle and return to the start of the game, and there is no real hint on doing this. Sort of reminds me of the trick at the end of Lunar SSS.
2. The Bugs. Suikoden II, especially the NA version, is a buggy game and if you’re a completionist like me, this game is a nightmare for it. Music won’t play in certain spots, certain runes do crazy things like maxing out stats, and the drop system is a nightmare due to an oversight that makes several items take up the same slot, meaning you may never see certain items drop because they’ve already been “obtained”. Hell, I think the bugs are a lot of the reason the RNG in army battles fluctuate so much.
1. The game is overrated. Yes, I am going there, but let’s be honest here, cult classics that get praise to high heaven for decades will often find themselves feeling underwhelming to newer audiences. Let’s be clear, Suikoden II was pretty snazzy for its time and huge improvement over the original in a lot of ways, but it can also be just as goofy, unintuitive, and basic as the first game. I’ve seen people compare Jowy and Riou’s relationship to Ramza and Delita in FFTactics, but the quality is not the same. FFTactics story is a Shakesperean Tragedy in the truest sense, while Riou and Jowy’s conflict is very much contrived. Part of this is due to Jowy’s choices within the second act not really getting the development needed to work. The logic makes sense, but his choices don’t in light of everything we’ve seen. Likewise, even Riou’s role as leader of the New Dunan Army also reeks a bit too much of “because Destiny says so” so it’s not like the game doesn’t have its narrative faults. Hell, half of the game’s bosses have no narrative importance whatsoever and even the final boss feels less like a proper buildup compared to the first game, and more like tying up loose ends. It’s not the worst offender in this regard, but it’s kind of annoying how often the fans look past some of these blatant narrative issues. The game is solid, but far from perfect.
5. The gameplay is just more fun. I know I just complained that it was too easy, but no one would know half of that if the gameplay didn’t have enough room to experiment have fun. The expansions to rune slots and rune options make it really fun to experiment and actually try out new characters and party configurations. I wouldn’t realistically use half of Suikoden 1’s cast, but I’ve definitely played around with most of Suikoden IIs. And playing around with more characters means it’s easier for them to endear themselves to the player. Adding to that, the game has a far better selection of minigames to play compared to the first with a rebalanced Chinchiroronin, fishing, rope climbing and most famous of all, the cooking mini-game.
4. Continuing Narratives. Being a direct sequel to the first game with over twenty returning characters, it’s nice to see more progress has happened for a lot of these characters with Flik overcoming his grief for Odessa, Viktor getting his revenge, Hix and Tengaar on their journey to make Hix a real warrior, Humphrey and Futch trying to find a dragon, and we even get to jump back into the Toran Republic and say hi to a few familiar faces. Suikoden in general is at its best when we get to see these small story threads stretch across several games. Which leads me to…
3. The Best Old Save File Bonuses. Konami really loved to throw in bonuses for players who played a lot of their games with the most famous being Psycho Mantis naming off Konami games off your memory card, including Suikoden 1. But Suikoden II introduced us to a neat mechanic in which your old save file from the previous game would give you some worthwhile bonuses including returning characters starting with more levels and better equipment, but the best was getting a chance to recruit the main hero from Suikoden 1, McDohl, as a temporary character which even comes with an optional quest. It’s a shame Konami never did more with this mechanic in future installments.
2. The darker narrative. The first Suikoden had glimpses of this here and there in the plot and saved a lot of it for supplement materials, but SII is a bit more forthcoming on this story being about the ugly side of war. Dehumanization, apathy, self-interest, betrayal, genocide, dysfunctional politics, and generational trauma; Suikoden II is not afraid to wade a bit more into the wider suffering that war causes. I also appreciate that Suikoden II does a better job than most in these type of stories as to not white wash events no5r completely devolve the conflict into a simple good vs. evil type of ordeal. The Highland Kingdom is monstrous in its actions against the City-States, but it’s not like the City-States weren’t asking for it and don’t have equally terrible deeds and innocent blood on their hands. Likewise, Highland has enough good souls working for it that you can’t completely hate them, just as the City-States have some awful people who make up their alliance as well that you have to work with. I’m calling you out Tinto. A large part of Suikoden II’s narrative is uncovering and working past all these darker elements and I am here for it.
1. The Characters. I feel I’ve been building up to this for a bit with these, but Suikoden II really has a pretty well defined cast of characters, from Nanami being the heart of the trio, Jowy being the wayward friend, the hamtastically evil Luca Blight, the deliciously arrogant Shu, the colorful circus trio, Pohl, and so many more. The game does a great job of giving the characters more time to breathe and express themselves, which in turn makes it easier to get invested in the story and really feel those emotional highs and lows with them. The game even started to take more liberties with some of the more one-off characters with Tai Ho having a fun story with his cooking mini-game or Clive finally getting some development, or creating a hard boiled American gumshoe in the form of Richmond, or even collecting a family of Flying Squirrels. Suikoden II does a lot more to really make everyone stand out a bit more from its predecessor and I appreciate the game giving us more side adventures and Richmond’s detective skills, to help develop the characters more for us the player.
In conclusion, Suikoden II was a huge leap for the series that instantly became a cult classic due to poor marketing on Konami’s side, and an industry that was too focused on the new hot thing to appreciate the classic style gems still being made around them. I am very happy Konami is finally getting a second chance to wow a whole new generation of players. Now is a great time to be a Suikoden fan once again.
This post is dedicated to the memory of the forum member Jowy. I am sorry I didn’t get this entry finished in time for you to enjoy it. May you rest in peace.
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