Tips and tricks for Suikoden II



I'm probably not going to go into as much in some parts as I did in S1 due to there either being too much information like Runes or in the case of recruitment issues, the game is mostly a bit nicer to the player. Mostly.


The most difficult characters to recruit In Suikoden II.

I know I said this game made them less obtuse, but... I lied. The game introduces multiple ways to recruit characters with some moving around after story events so you can get another shot to recruit them, which is nice, but the game still sometimes fails to explain exactly what you need to do.

Anita - Anita can first be found at Muse City, she will be drinking and asks you to run some errands for her. By some, I mean a lot. The issue is that for story reasons, Muse won’t be accessible for very long. So then you'll have to wait until later to meet her in Banner Village instead. It is possible to recruit her while she's in Muse, but she'll be pretty low level if she does. Ironically, there is a much easier way to recruit her, and that's to recruit her rival Valeria and bring her to talk to her at Banner Village. There are pros and cons to doing either recruitment. If you snag her early, she's a pretty strong fighter with the awesome Falcon Rune. The second method involves recruiting Valeria, which has its own dilemma, but if you're playing the original PS1 version, there is a common glitch that has Anita start at lv. 99 if you recruit her this way.
Gilbert - This dude is technically not difficult to recruit, but potentially you can run into some issues. During the Army Battle he appears in, you simply have to wound his unit by attacking it. The issues stem twofold, 1) this battle is the only attempt you have to run into him, so you'll have to beeline it to him and 2) he can potentially get killed in this very same battle if you're unlucky. Hope you saved beforehand.
Oulan - This amazon of a woman can be tricky to recruit unless you're a type of player like our members Pumpkin and WarZidane and have a tendency to run all female parties. Basically you have to go to Kuskus with a party consisting of only female party members. If you have any male characters that are not the MC, the event won't transpire. Cross a bridge where you'll get attacked by bandits and this kind soul will appear to save you and your party.

Tetsu - This guy is the one I personally hate trying to recruit. In order to recruit him, you'll need to speak with him with one party member that has the Toasty status effect. He's not exactly clear about this and the easiest way to get the status normally would be to take a bath, but since this is the bath guy you'll have to resort to finding a food item and using them until you get the status. The other issue is that the menu won’t tell you if you have the status, but you'll know when you're in battle because your character's skin will be reddish and they'll have a bit of steam coming off their head.
Georg Prime/Pesmerga/Mazus - I'm lumping all three of these characters together because all three of them have the same gimmick, which is simply that they are all late game characters hanging around minor dungeons you'll have to revisit to find them after the team beats Neclord and have a Lv. 4 castle (basically 100+ recruits). Georg Prime is in the mountain pass towards Tinto. Mazus is in the Tinto Mines in a hidden corridor, and Pesmerga is in the mother smurfing Cave of the Winds where you fought the Zodiac/Star Dragon Sword at the beginning for the game.
Genshu - Likely the last recruit you'll get in the game if you acquire everyone the earliest that you can. He really likes swords, and wants to see one that is above Lv. 14. So to begin with, players will need to have found the Silver or Golden Hammer so your blacksmith can upgrade your weapons. The other requirement is you also have to reach him. The issue is he's in a town that spends most of the game under Highland occupation. You'll need to take a boat ride from Kuskus, which will drop you off right by him. If you didn’t find the hammers, you can also just bring Pesmerga as his weapon starts at Lv. 14.

Runes!!!

This game introduces a lot of new runes, so I'm not really going to go over too much here as that would be exhaustive and there are plenty of guides out there that can do a better job than I could.

Weapon Runes –
These are runes for specific weapons like the Viper Rune for 1H swords or the Lion Rune for Fist fighters. These runes give a bit more punch to characters, especially ones that are bad at using magic. A lot of these runes also have some weird drawback though so be careful.

Weapon Enhancing Runes –
The Rune Piece mechanic from the first game that allowed the player to add elemental/stat boosting properties to their weapons through the blacksmith was dropped due to how unfinished and poorly balanced it was in the game. S2 tries to do more, but ultimately manages to break the system even further. You can once again add elemental properties to a weapon that also give certain stat boosts by embedding the weapon with an elemental rune. But in addition to using the day to day elemental runes, the game also added a slew of runes that are only for this process. Most are self-explanatory such as Sleep or Poison Runes that give your weapon the ability to inflict the statuses on enemies. But there are two you should definitely look out for as their properties are actually pretty overpowered if you know what you're doing and there are only two of each in the game and technically the second one are mutually exclusive. These runes are:

Exertion Rune - This Weapon rune makes the users base attack power rise every round of battle for about six rounds until they'll be doing double damage. There are technically three in the game, but one is permanently attached to one characters weapon. One can be found in a vase in the Kobold Village and the last requires the castle statue to have a specific monstrous design.

Friendship Rune - This weapon Rune raises your attack power based on how many recruits you have acquired. This even includes non-numbered recruits. This rune was also bugged in the PS1 version and would sometimes raise a characters attack to the maximum level. One is found South Window while the other requires the castle statue you make to have a specific monstrous design.

Magic Runes
Magic runes didn't change much in this version though the Water Rune gains an offensive spell and the Earth rune finally works, but we do get to see three new ones that sort of become mainstays for the rest of the series.

Blinking Rune- This is a joke type rune used exclusively by Viki that lets her insta-kill enemies by teleporting them away or teleporting random objects to hurt the enemies. Course she sometimes does it to your party...

Pale Gate Rune – This rune is a derivative of Windy and Leknaat's Gate Runes from the first game which allows them to summon monsters. This rune largely works like a powerful "summon" rune a la classic FF, but it is quite powerful. Sadly, it's restricted to the head, so only a handful of characters can actually use this rune. Likewise, each spell does different elemental damage, so to get the most use, you need a caster who has high affinity with multiple elements.

Darkness Rune – This rune technically debuted in the Saturn version of Suikoden 1, but most westerners will know this as Sierra's rune. It is a derivative of the Soul Eater Rune and like it uses a few of that runes signature moves Finger of Death and Black Shadow. It also has two original moves with some quirky effects as well. Oddly enough, this is the last time the Rune ever appears again in the series.

Support Runes –

These are the runes that will make or break the game for you. Support runes ended up being a big deal in the first entry due to the lack of strong skill runes and the fact some characters were just not geared for magic. But some of those runes were not as useful as they could be due to the one rune slot per character rule. Now that the game gives your characters multiple slots, the player can mix and match effects to create some truly powerful combinations. The game even adds some new ones that go off to become mainstays within the series. In fact the best melee build in the game requires the first three runes I’m going to list.

Fury Rune – Berserk is one of many new status effects added to Suikoden in this installment. It is similar to the status from FF in that it raises a character’s attack power,, but unlike FF, it does not leave them uncontrollable. In fact some runes get added effects when the character is under the status as well. This rune basically just keeps a character under the status permanently.

Double-Beat Rune – This bad boy returns from the first game for what will end up being its last appearance in the series. This rune lets a character attack twice but doubles damage they take if they are countered. In the first game, only one exists in the game. In this one, you can actually farm it off enemies so it’s possible to outfit most of your army with it. Enemies rarely counter, so the drawback is hardly noticeable.

Double-Strike Rune – Making its debut in this entry. This rune becomes a mainstay for the rest of the series. This rune doubles the damage the user does in exchange for doubling the damage they take from enemies. This sounds very risky, but Suikoden isn’t terribly hard, so outside of bosses and a few enemies, you’ll probably never notice the damage being significant if put on a heavy hitter like Viktor who has defense and HP to spare.

Fire Sealing Rune – This rune is a bit weird in that it’s the only one that protects against a specific element. It reduces fire elemental damage to 0 but doubles damage to water elements, which coincides with the fact the Water Rune gained an offensive spell in this entry. But surprisingly, this rune actually is super useful in the series in general. Characters like Zamza have a rune that does fire damage to himself when used, and this rune protects him from accidentally killing himself. There is a weapon enhancing rune that raises attack power at the cost of taking 25% damage from your attack as fire damage, and again, this rune negates that negative property. But the bigger thing here is that a lot of enemies (including the game’s token “That One Boss”) use fire elemental attacks and rune in this game, and this rune no sells all of them.


WK's Character Recommendations

With over 80 playable characters, it can be tough figuring out who to put in your party. But I'm here to offer some of my own recommendations once again. Like before, I'm not going to count certain characters, namely Nanami and Jowy. Like Gremio, Nanami is in your party for the majority of the game, unlike Gremio, she's actually a fairly solid fighter for all of it. Jowy is essentially a more magic orientated version of Riou and a temporary character as well, so he doesn't really count despite being in your party for like a fifth of the game.
Zamza - This smug pain in the ass is a bit deceptive at first use, but he's not all talk. He comes equipped with a unique rune called the Fire Dragon Rune, which is sort of a shout out to Capcom's Fire Shoryuken move by its animation. It does 2x Fire damage to the enemy but does half of that damage to Zamza as well, which sounds like a deal breaker if the Fire Sealing Rune wasn't a thing. This rune allows the user to take no damage to fire elements in exchange for receiving double damage from water element instead. Thankfully, water is much rarer to see than fire damage so this rune makes Zamza even better. Throw in the fact there is a Fire Lizard Weapon rune that works the same as his signature rune that you can attach to his fist weapons to further boost his damage, he's honestly not a bad character for someone recruited so early in the game. He's a decent mage as well for the early game as well and as one might guess, his best elemental affinity is fire.
Anita - If you get her early enough, Anita can be a very powerful ally. She is essentially Valeria from the first game, equipped with the same Falcon Rune. Sadly, the rune got nerfed a bit in this entry as it now only does 2x damage instead of 3x and it lowers her accuracy after use, but the rune now has a special “critical” that activates in the lower accuracy phase that allows her to do 5x more damage. Regardless, she's a pretty strong front line fighter with good armor options, a killer rune and secondary slot for customization options later down the road. I'd say the biggest drawback for her is recruiting can be a pain and her rune isn't as abusive as it was in the first entry, but she's still very solid, especially for someone you can be using for 80% of the game.
Rina - Of the Circus Trio, Rina is easily the one with the most longevity. She's a bit like Cleo in the first game in that she's a strong L range fighter with good magic. She doesn't have Cleo's good equipment options but she makes up for it with high M.def and being the first character you'll recruit with three open rune slots, this leads her to having lots of options, but unlike some other 3-rune characters I can think of, she's more of a magic based one. She is one of only twenty characters that can use the powerful Pale Gate Runes. Her good synergy with her sister Ellie and Bolgan is also great for the early game when you have limited options. If I have one gripe, it's that she's mainly average as a spell caster.
Flik - I didn't really get a chance to chat about Flik in the last one of these due to the fact the game just always forces him o9nto your party, so of course he was above average. S2 doesn't change this much, but it's not quite as extreme as the first game. Flik is basically a Red Mage being both a strong frontline fighter with good survivability with his equipment options as well as being a pretty strong mage for a melee focused build with a high affinity with Lightning Runes which are great for dealing with bosses and powerful enemies. You can also scrap his magic and double up his melee options once he gains his second rune slot or you can keep him focused with a good support rune for offense like a Double Beat Rune and upgrade his Lightning rune to a Thunder Rune for his magic. Flik remains a powerful ally for most of the game and the game just hands him to you as part of the plot.
Viktor - Again, I didn't really say anything about him because he was required for half of the Suikoden 1 and not much has changed in S2, though not to the same extreme. Viktor is a beast of a man with high melee focused stats. Unlike Flik, you shouldn’t bother giving him a magic rune; instead use his two rune slots to plays with some of the game's powerful melee support runes like a Double Beat and Double Strike Rune. This plays into the fact Viktor's Star Dragon Sword is the strongest weapon in the game in terms of pure stats and combined with Viktor's high strength, allows him to play in the big leagues of Suikoden Heavy hitters like Pesmerga. Flik might have versatility, but Viktor is really good at hitting things really hard.
Luc - The pain in the ass Wind Mage is back, except even better. He still has that permanent Speed Ring attached, but now he can equip real armor to augment his magic stats. He also has three rune slots, and unlike Rina, he's built to be a top tier mage and is debatably the best mage in the game. He has either an A or B affinity with every magic type, and in addition to being able to use the Pale Gate Rune, he can use Unite Magic by himself if you equip the right runes on him. The Wind/Cyclone rune is still overpowered in this game as well. If you want a magic focused team, then Luc should be there.
Oulan - This guardian of women everywhere is a powerhouse with another unique rune in the form of the powerful Angry Dragon Rune which does 2x damage once per round to one enemy... that is unless you berserk her by giving her a Fury Rune that boosts her attack by a noticeable percentage. While she is restricted to light armor and is a short range fighter, she makes up for it by having strong stats to compensate, sporting the highest natural defense of all female characters. She’s pretty powerful in the early game, and if taken care of, she can last you the whole game if you want.
Richmond – Okay, Richmond is a bit unique here for my recommendations as he’s not a fighter or playable character. Instead he’s a support character that works a sa detective. His whole function is to not only identify and give clues on where to find the 108 Stars you can recruit, but you can also pay him to find information about your party and help give more details about the whole cast. He also gets his own snazzy theme song.
Wakaba and L.C.Chan - A Master- Student pair that both use the powerful White Tiger Runes. These two are good frontline fighters with great speed, attack power, and high HP to offset their poor defense and equipment options. Seeing how their speed will help you murder everything quickly, you don't have to worry about these weaknesses very much. Wakaba can be recruited early in the game, and in the PS1 versions of the game, so can her master if you use the Matilda Glitch to reach him in Rockaxe early. They both also get an extra rune slot for some additional support rune action.
Valeria - She back from the first game and still sporting the powerful Falcon Rune. What makes her interesting is that she's one of the few characters that can break the damage limit as her Falcon Rune has the potential to do 5x damage while afflicted with the -10% hit status after using it once already. This is of course if you have her properly equipped as well. She's otherwise the same as Anita, the only issue is that she shares her Star with Kasumi in this game, so depending on which you choose you might miss out on some content or easy recruitments.
Sheena and Killey - These two are part of a short list of characters in the game with three open rune slots and a melee focus which makes them perfect candidates for the Fury/Double-Beat/Double-Strike combo that essentially allows these characters to solo everything. The devs must have known this because neither is available for one of the game's actually challenging boss battles. Now there are at least four other characters that fall into this category, and all four are available before either of these two are recruited, but these two often get special mention due to having no glaring weaknesses. Both characters have good stats, good equipment options, and strong weapons. Unlike the other four who often have subpar stats or equipment options that make them a bit more fickle to use.
Kahn Marley - You meet this Belmont inspired hero early in the plot, but he won't join until much later, but Kahn is another good mage that can actually fight in melee if needed be and even has a unique critical hit animation where he changes his sword for a spear. While he's average with most magic, he does get an A with Resurrection Runes which he starts with and again, he also has all three rune slots available to him, which means he can use the Pale Gate Rune and some magic focused support runes to help him with his average affinity.
Bob - Bob is a bit of an hidden gem if you ask me. He's an average fighter associated with a strange village and he has one of the coolest unique runes in the game. His Rabid Fang Rune lets him transform into a werewolf who double his stats and he can tear apart the battle field afterwards. Despite having to wait one round for awesomeness, he's a fun fighter to bring to the battle.
Georg Prime - The legend himself in his series debut. Georg is a bit of an oddity on this list due to his lack of rune options. He only has one rune slot and it’s already filled with a Killer Rune. But Deathblow George is on this list due to his high melee stats and great stat growth. Even without the better customization options of say Killey or a cool unique rune like Valeria, George Prime will still be one of your top damage dealers and he’s also one of the faster characters with great survivability in the frontline due to his good HP and defense gear options. While he isn't quite to his meme status from a later game, Georg Prime is another hidden gem among the roster and personally I feel he fills the role left open by Pesmerga in the first game.
Pesmerga - Like Georg Prime, Pesmerga makes up for his lack of options with the highest physical stats in the game. With that said, I feel Pesmerga is a bit less awesome in this entry due to the fact all of his equipment being permanently equipped makes it harder to customize him since he only gets one equipment slot and one rune slot to work with. On the bright side, he starts with a Rage Rune already equipped to his sword, so that's a bonus. I prefer Georg, but I still like we get more of the Pesmerga/Yuber conflict in this game.
Mazus - The "ultimate mage" in this game. He also has high magic stats and not only starts with three rune slots; he already comes with a Pale Gate rune. Interesting note, his affinity is the inverse of Luc's with his B rank affinity magic being Luc's As and vice versa, meaning he specializes in Fire, Earth, and Resurrection magic. He does have a Robe of Mist permanently attached which limits some of his equipment options, but this is not a big deal as much as his late arrival is probably the bigger issue with him.
McDohl - Yes, he can be recruited if you have a save file from the first game. He's not a traditional character though as he's not a Star of Destiny and he won’t stay in your castle, so you have to wander all the way back to the Toran Republic to recruit him after every story event. He still has the Soul Eater, it is still overpowered as hell and its final spell is still the strongest spell in the game. He also gets his broken Master/Pupil Unite Attack except this time he does it with the MC Riou, and seeing him do it with someone with better stats shows how powerful this Unite can really be. He also gets two open slots in addition to his true rune so he has a lot of customization options and he can even carry over his endgame gear from the first game if you spent the time to outfit him with all of it. The quest you do to make him available for recruiting is also really fun. I actually beat the final boss with a party consisting only of McDohl and Riou before, that's how overpowered these two are together.

Misc.

The Matilda Glitch – If you’re playing the original PS1 version and not the PSP or Remaster, you’ll have access to this glitch. For some reason, the gate at the Matilda-Muse border is not fixed in its spot and thus it’s possible to push it away with your character and gain access to an area much later in the game. You’ll have to run to the nearest town and hope you don’t get ambushed though. Once there, you can recruit L.C.Chan if you bring Wakaba, but more importantly, you can recruit Humphrey and Futch from Suikoden 1 who will both be scaled for the area. Now you can power level your whole army and make the early game even more of a breeze.

Suikoden 1 Save Data – The game gives you a lot of bonuses if you have save data from the first game on the same memory card. The base line thing that unlocks is McDohl. As long as you have an S1 save, you can unlock the quest to recruit him. If the S1 save file has all 108 stars recruited and the Golden Ending unlocked, Gremio will also be present in the McDohl quest and you can later obtain Gremio’s Famous Stew recipe to use in the cooking mini-game.

The other bonuses allows all returning characters from the first game to start with higher levels and weapon upgrades than they normally would which is based on how high they were in the S1 file. The best bonuses involve the characters having Lv. 16 weapons and being Lv. 99, but you’ll get a level bonus as long as the character was above level 60 in the base game.

McDohl and Humphrey also have some equipment carried over. In Humphrey’s case, his armor is locked and he normally starts with Knight Armor that has pretty high defense. But if you equip him with the Windspun Armor (highest defense in both games +15 speed and Wind resistance) he will actually come equipped with that instead. McDohl’s is a bit more complicated and he will start with an equivalent piece of armor depending on what his final armor is. For best results, make sure McDohl ends the first game with a Silver Hat and Master’s Garb equipped as he will start with both. Interesting side note, Pesmerga can also transfer the Windspun Armor, but this is not possible without hacking the game as he has Dragon Armor permanently equipped to him in Suikoden 1. Save data also suggests runes were supposed to be transferrable as well but this was removed. Though this has not stopped fans spreading rumors that the Clone Rune can be transferred, despite the fact it was one of the many runes that can’t be transferred according to the formula.

The Flying Squirrels – While Mukumku is a required recruit as one of the 108, the critter has four other siblings you can recruit with different color capes. This starts a trend in the series where every game afterwards has a weird animal group you may recruit that don’t count towards your Stars but often affect abilities that are based on how many people you have recruited. You basically recruit these characters by getting into random encounters in certain places while having a party slot open. They still require you to be at certain points in the game though.

Makumaku – Lv. 4 Castle, path between Two-River and Greenhill
Mikumiku – Lv. 2 Castle, path between Greenhill and Forest Village
Mekumeku – Lv. 2 Castle, Greenhill and forest path to Matilda
Mokumoku – Lv. 2 Castle, clearing south of Forest Village

Rulodia and Chuchara – One of the monsters you can recruit with the Listening Crystal is a giant octopus named Abizboah. If you recruit him with one of the Listening crystals and return to the spot you found him, you may recruit his wife Rulodia. Afterwards, you will eventually see their kids Chuchara, which is a neat little element the game added. It is also a trap. Rulodia is not one of the 108 stars, so using the second listening crystal to recruit her will lock you out of the Golden ending.

Kasumi and Valeria – One of the biggest choices in Suikoden II happens when you reach the Toran Republic. President Lepant gives your party a choice between Valeria and Kasumi as serving as representatives of the Republics alliance with the New Dunan Army. There are pros and cons to either choice.

Kasumi is a strong but fragile short range fighter and is still using her cool suplex rune. Recruiting her allows you early access to the hidden Ninja Village and access to a few recruits you normally won’t acquire until later. She also has a cool scene with McDohl if you bring both of them back to the Republic.

Valeria is a stronger short range fighter with her powerful Falcon Rune. She can give you easy access to Anita if you waited to recruit her, but Anita can be recruited much earlier. Valeria’s main advantage is that she’s a much stronger fighter than Kasumi and is more useful for endgame party builds.