The Quarterly JRPG Club - Q4 2016 - Suikoden!

I started the story last weekend, and it the span of two hours, everything (story-wise) went to sh*t.

I like the game, but that inventory is a pain in the ass. And the inventory management is even more of a pain in the ass.

OK, had my first big plot reveal. Of course there were hints there if you poked around a bit. And a slightly surprising betrayal.

The lack of agency during the bandits mission was pretty frustrating but typical of games of this era of course.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

OK, had my first big plot reveal. Of course there were hints there if you poked around a bit. And a slightly surprising betrayal.

I agree, I did not expect

Spoiler:

Pahn

to betray my character... I also didn't expect

Spoiler:

Odessa to kick the bucket

so quickly.

Oh, the final thing you mentioned just happened. Actually I was inadvertently spoiled (completely my fault, don't worry) but you saved me ~10,000 bits on fruitless upgrades ;). I think I'm not that far off where I got to when I first dabbled in the game several years ago. Certainly the Empire is not a happy place to be! And when do we get to beat the crap out of Commander Kraze? F' that guy.

Fair warning for the dungeon after Kaku:

That boss packs quite a punch, so don't do what I did and make sure you have runes attached to your characters, because things went bad really quickly for me.

I still managed to beat it, and I now have a base of operations (creatively named DaBase)!

After that part, make sure you go back to all the villages you have access, this will allow you to recruit a bunch of people (I think I'm up to 16 now).

Edit: Looking at the walkthrough linked in the OP, I am getting very close to the point where I stopped playing this game four or five years ago.

Hey this game is pretty fun. Who laughed at the games first 'elephant'?

Probably not close to Kaku yet. I'm just a little further past a major story character's death. I could access a new area and found 3 villages by wandering around. Found some much better armour too. Seeing lots of NPCs with character portraits too which, in Suikoden 1-2, is a sign you can likely recruit them later. Spoke to one of them and they said the MC wasn't strong enough. Hey! He's already level 16, cmon.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Spoke to one of them and they said the MC wasn't strong enough. Hey! He's already level 16, cmon.

I think you have to wait until you get to

Spoiler:

25

. Isn't Kaku one of the three villages?

I might have missed the name, whoops! There was one with this forest maze that I decided not to enter yet. Seika is the first one I'm supposed to go to I think.

Finally started this last night. Love the feel of the game so far. Got up to where you have to

Spoiler:

escape Gregminster.

I need to start this soon. I'm glad we picked a relatively short JRPG for this quarter, there are so many other great games to play that I couldn't fit another long one in!

Mr GT Chris wrote:

I might have missed the name, whoops! There was one with this forest maze that I decided not to enter yet. Seika is the first one I'm supposed to go to I think.

You can't really make progress in the forest maze unless a specific character joins your party anyway (I went through it this morning). It's a good place to grind if you need some levels though. I think this one will help you grind all the way up to 21 without much effort.

I made it a bit further, and holy crap those blacksmiths are asking a hefty price for sharpening my weapons! 11000 bits to get from level 8 to level 9! I hope I can fight those regular enemies better though, because they've been taking longer and longer to kill...

Quick note of an ability that might be somewhat OP but super useful:

Spoiler:

If you have Kai (you need to do a little detour to get him right after you get your base), having him in the party with the main character means you have access to a Unite skill called Master and Pupil, which attacks each enemy with more than twice the regular damage (at the moment, that might change late) in each turn. Since it's a Unite, there's no penalty attached to using it over and over, which is pretty great if, like me, you enjoy quick random fights.

I'm at Kaku now, presumably the part where you can unlock your castle. Might go back to the forest maze now you've said I can get some levels there :).

Yup, my ill-gotten gains from gambling at the start of the game are now down to less than 50k, oops!

One thing worth mentioning is the outstanding music in this and the second game. This was very early in the PS1's life cycle and unless you were one of the few owners of a Sega CD or Turbo Duo, you'd probably never experienced CD quality audio in a JRPG.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Yup, my ill-gotten gains from gambling at the start of the game are now down to less than 50k, oops!

Lol, that gambling trick.

Actually, I didn't even save scum it, he just kept picking the same cup, 8x or more in a row (I couldn't keep up). I thought the game was bugged until finally he put it in another cup and I lost 10k. The 1k bet I did quite a bit because I could actually follow the cups.

I used it to gain about 100k, and then I just had my funds accumulate. And now I actually had to go out and grind for money for about 20 minutes to make sure everyone was fitted with the best equipment before going to the next story point (Dwarf village). (Not sure if I should spoiler that or not, but figured not since it doesn't really reveal any plot point.)

The good news is that with all weapons sharpened to the max and with the ability I listed above, I can kill everything on the map on the first turn without taking a hit. (Most of my characters are in the level 22-25 range).

What system is everyone playing this on? I downloaded it for the Vita and fired it up last night for a few minutes before bed. Maybe my Vita is dying or I spilled something on it but the controls for this game are really touchy. I'm still in the first area but the text goes so fast that I cannot read it and sometimes when I walk up to a person, they will talk to me and other times they won't. Is that just part of this game or is something wrong with my Vita or install?

Playing on PS3. The controls don't seem super responsive, but I don't see any of the issues you are reporting. I played it a bit on my PSP Go and it was fine there as well. Haven't tried with my Vita though.

I'm playing on my Vita. Something definitely sounds wonky with your system. How are your controls on other games? Could it be a problem just with your d-pad?

I am playing on ps3. You all mentioned a castle so I played last night until I got mine. Spooky.

RoughneckGeek wrote:
walterqchocobo wrote:

What system is everyone playing this on? I downloaded it for the Vita and fired it up last night for a few minutes before bed. Maybe my Vita is dying or I spilled something on it but the controls for this game are really touchy. I'm still in the first area but the text goes so fast that I cannot read it and sometimes when I walk up to a person, they will talk to me and other times they won't. Is that just part of this game or is something wrong with my Vita or install?

Turn off the rear touch.

Thanks, I'll give this a shot tonight.

Where do you find the settings for this? I think I used to know how to do it but I seem to have forgotten.

I'm in the recruit phase now plus I got some revenge on my nemesis from the beginning of the game:

Spoiler:

Commander Kraze

F' that guy.

Thanks for the tip, RoughneckGeek! I didn't know that I could do that.

GT Chris--you have to hold down the PS button when in the game and a settings screen will pop up. From there, you can tell the Vita which button (if any) the four quadrants on the backtouch are mapped to.

Oh cool, thanks.

I've just made it to where you enter the Elf Forest. Recruited a fair number of folks but there's one I'm not sure about:

Spoiler:

The guy in an inn who appears to be hitting on a lady there. He tells you he is too busy when you approach him.

Mr GT Chris wrote:
Spoiler:

The guy in an inn who appears to be hitting on a lady there. He tells you he is too busy when you approach him.

If you are referring to Sheena,

Spoiler:

you need to talk to him with Lepant (his father) in your party.

Yup. Oh damn, that should have been obvious. I tried:

Spoiler:

Adding 3 females to my party. I swear I've played other JRPGs where that has worked!

Got to the Dwarf Village. Sharpening weapons sure gets expensive. I think you can do it up to 8 here.

I have dived way too hard into this game, already about 26 hours in. Seeing as how there's not a real solid breakdown on where we are supposed to be by month, I'll keep my comments to things before the Dwarf Village other than to echo Mr GT Chris about weapon sharpening. I thought 999999 was a lot of money, then I sharpened 1 person's weapon to 15. Armor also gets very expensive if you don't just move gear between characters.

The first 15 minutes:

Spoiler:

I was actually very surprised that they give you the complete freedom to roam outside the first town and completely ignore the story basically right from the get-go. Probably took me over 30 minutes to finally get a combat I could survive though. It feels like that if you did not know that there was a secret you could get for doing this, that the game was just telling you that you really should not be out by yourself.

After your time in the mountains of a rocky land:

Spoiler:

As soon as Pahn left to "go get medicine" I was instantly thinking he was going to betray me, and he did! Once I was declared a rebel my first thought was, well it's their loss, time to go join the Liberation Army. And then they dangle it in front of you for so long and don't let you join until a later event. I just wanted to kill all those corrupt imperials!

Loving the game so far, and the major battle are interesting enough, although at this point I am completely overpowered for them.

Glad you're liking it! I just finished the Dwarf Vault so I'm presumably well behind where you are. I am a bit pissed about all those magazine reviews I read back in the day that criticised the game for being too short. Thus resulting in me not purchasing the game until it finally became available on PSN. Seems like a crock of sh*t.

Obviously the second game is always going to be best but it seems like a more than worthy first outing so far.