Elf & Jo'ou: I now have an image of Bayonetta double jumping her way into a wall full of spikes and exploding. Thanks.
Suikoden
Finished! Yes, I never actually played Suikoden I (as could be seen from the old RPG Ratings thread). And yes I sometimes voted it anyway, mea culpa, etc. (I did watch my college roommate play through parts and was generally familiar with the game from osmosis.) Hurray for the PS Vita making playing through old PSX games via PSN easy, alas for this twisted and fallen generation that has seen fit to forsake the Vita and leave it no direct successor.
Anyway, it was pretty good, if weird and dated at parts. Which makes sense for a 22-year old game, it can legally drink. A few thoughts:
* The main character is pretty cool, as far as silent mains go. Notably, unlike the Suiko II hero, there aren't repeated parts of the game where I'm pounding my fist at not having an option to explain the plot to people or say sensible things. I think he also fits at about the perfect intersection of Speshulness for a silent main player stand-in: if he's too much of a flat nobody, you wonder why people are following him at all (aka Suikoden II, or various bland Japanese high schoolers). If they are TOO sparkly special prince/princess with secret powers and a magic heirloom and a giant robot etc. etc. then, aside from being too blatant on the wish-fulfillment for my tastes, you probably really need the protagonist to speak. (Suiko V prince suffered from this occasionally, and as a side note, it can also dig into your feeling of agency - if everyone loves you because you're royalty, how much of this is sincere & earned? Chrono Cross is a good example of the "too much plot on Serge = we need to see Serge reacting & commenting on it" side.) Anyway, "son of a famous general" is perfect for having an excuse to be close to power and meet important people and learn leadership, but not have it handed to you completely for free. And "has a super rune"... but... "oh by the way it's cursed to devour and kill everyone close to you" is a good way of giving Our Hero superpowers while adding to the tension and not being a free lunch.
** Okay, the one scene where I thought the hero needed some more dialogue options was the DRAMATIC DUEL WITH TEO. I'm fine with chalking it up to a destiny curse that he has to die somehow, but it'd be nice to try a little harder to avoid it. Notably, there isn't any option to explain why you defected... "hey Dad, I would be loyal to the Empire, except for the part where Windy killed Ted and is trying to kill me."
* I knew that this is the quickest & most moving Suikoden out there, barring maybe Suikoden IV (aka the one we don't talk about), and it… mostly is? The plot points definitely fly by, and to the game's credit, it doesn't feel like it stretches the war out super-long by taking the longest and most torturous path possible to end it that involves visiting every single village to make friends. Really only the Neclord arc feels tacked on, and one sidequest is fine.
* Additionally, and this may be minor praise, but the game "owns" the fact that you're winning by the end, what with random people declaring the empire finished, it clearly being a last stand at Gregminster, the great faint rendition of Gregminster's music after it's obviously been turned into a giant war camp, and Barbarossa being sad about there being nothing left of his Empire rather than cackling and threatening to summon a new superweapon that will allow him to win anyway. (I MIGHT be salty about a certain other game here.)
* I like that Mathiu feels like a dirtier fighter than the later Suikoden strategists - certainly more so than Apple, Caesar, or Lucretia. (Maybe Shu compares.) It's interesting that, say, Mathiu is totally willing to sell out part of the country to foreign occupation just to smash up some Imperial troops, indirectly working with Jowston which is what Teo was sent to keep in line at the start of the game. (Even if this occupation blatantly isn't implemented in-game.) Compare this to Suiko V, which makes a big deal of Nobly Refusing aid from outsiders to taint your cause, attacking the Barows foreign allies to make new enemies and show your True Falenanness, and it's the Godwins that invite in outside armies & foreign assassins.
* This game doesn't feel the need to squeeze the last ounce of DRAMA out of every plot point, which is a refreshing change, but also maybe taken a little TOO far? It's a random evil ant that forces Ted to unleash his dark powerz. Odessa dies to nameless soldiers saving a nameless kid you've never met before. Millich goes down without a fight, with nary a miniboss either at Scarletica Castle or in Soniere Prison, and no dramatic duel. Both the death of the elves & Gremio go basically unavenged, which is authentically frustrating in-setting (other characters complain and want to kill somebody just to do something!). The traitor doesn't cackle and fight you, nor even get executed on-screen. Yuber just peaces out. It's interesting, since a more shonen-y type approach would definitely have been throwing in constant extra boss battles that end with a dramatic redemption or dramatic escape or the like. Helps makes the fights that do happen a little more real, I think. That said, I think a few more plotless minibosses would have been nice from a gameplay perspective if we're not going to get the fight the villain(?)s - throw in a giant evil plant at Scarletica or something, a warden with some cronies guarding the prison at Kasim's base, etc.
* On that note, let's talk gameplay difficulty. Well, the Suikoden series isn't really about randoms, and while it's definitely flavorful to have the Soul Eater murder everything, it means that random balance is completely and utterly shot. That said, the bosses are surprisingly legit? The Zombie Dragon at the Toran Lake Castle is maybe TOO legit, you don't have a whole lot of tools at that stage of the game, so it's basically just "hope he doesn't use his big MT damage attack too often". Neclord can wear you down. And finally, Sonya is one of the most legit lategame bosses in a Suikoden, albeit part of this being that she doesn't warn you to heal up before she attacks. But fast + extremely dangerous magic + she totally spammed that magic at me = pretty terrifying. Sacrificial Buddhas apparently break the game, but whatever, I didn't use 'em. Considering that Suiko 2/5/Tierkreis are usually curbstomps, and 3's required battles weren't usually THAT bad, this was a pleasant surprise. I also kinda like that you only get 1 rune in this game. Other Suikodens make it so you can build multi-talented monster PCs pretty easily; in this Suikoden, if you want a Water/Flowing Rune, either it's on a fighter who will usually have a terrible number of charges and loses a Killer Rune or the like, or you're giving up a lot of offense by having a mage with only healing magic. It's an authentic trade-off.
* Going back to the "speed" / "datedness" issue, sheesh are these some tiny towns with tiny castles allegedly holding all these soldiers. Very little dialog updates as the game continues for the like 2-4 people strolling around in most towns. For the most part this is fine for indirectly suggesting to the player to move on, dang it, but there are a few weird parts that reward you with characters for backtracking through the mostly same-dialog older towns. Would have been nice for a few more PC dialogue in castle updates… Pahn's reaction to nearly dying is to still be hungry. Could have used a few more calibrations.
* In general, I'm a fan of lots of required characters in games like this, both to force you to mix up your team and to get better dialogue / more character-centric narrative. However, if there's one exception, it should be the final dungeon, where you should be able to pick who you want to use, damn it. Viktor & Flik REALLY should not have been required for Gregminster. It's even worse that they're both short-range. With 3/6 required PCs, that means you have a pick of THREE out of 73 units for your remaining team. And at most one of them can be short-range. Come on, game. You could have had Viktor & Flik teleport in for the final confrontation just like the Great Imperial Generals do if you need them for some dialogue.
* On that note. I'm not sure they needed the scary shaking Metroid escape sequence at the very end, especially since the castle blatantly doesn't explode or anything. You can have Viktor & Flik disappear while fighting die-hards without that just fine.
* My final team, if you're curious, was Sonya / Tengaar / Kasumi. Alas that fitting in both Sonya & Gremio of the late-breaking recruits is so hard. I'd have liked to have used Valeria & Hix in the front row for Viktor & Flik, but so it goes. Seems pretty optimal-ish.. Sonya w/ a Flowing Rune basically guarantees you won't run out of healing resources since she's a rare fighter with a good Magic score and lots of charges, and you don't really need Cleo's overkill speed post-boss Sonya, so using Tengaar / Crowley / Luc / etc. for the purer mages with a zillion Rage Rune charges to incinerate randos seems better.
* The strategic battles might be utterly broken (rock paper scissors... where you get to read your opponent's move… sounds fair), but at least you have agency in them! Suikoden II insisted on micromanaging the war battles itself and giving you no options. I'll take my own easy but earned victory over somebody else's complicated win.
* For the most part, I liked that recruitment is mostly closer to Suiko3, where you can lose characters from unwise decisions, but not from arbitrary surprise time-outs where you didn't backtrack fast enough to location XYZ. And if anything, too many of the early / mid-game recruits are totally free… just "oh you know Mathiu I guess I'll join" types. OTOH, some of the later recruits were way too obscure, even with the Old Books to provide hints. Crowley (Find a secret passage in a dungeon with no clues whatsoever he's hanging out there!), Mace (not SO bad, he isn't hidden, but you don't have 4 open party slots very often and there's a strict time limit), Maximilian & Sancho (assumes you don't use the Blinking Mirror constantly, which is unlikely… same with the level 4 castle thing apparently requiring you to enter by boat), Lester (he isn't anywhere near Moravia Castle! There's no indication those stews are tasteable!), and Pesmerga (clue: he's hunting Yuber. Where is he? At the end of a dungeon where you fought Neclord. Not real smart, this guy… if anything he'd make more sense for the Qlon Temple / Cave of the Past, which is closer to where you encounter Yuber, sort of!).
* Lastly. Whatever happened to Miki Higashino after Suikoden II? While she does have a few misses in the soundtrack (neither S1 nor S2's battle theme is anything special), she does do some dang fine town & event music in a distinctive style. Memorable & unique stuff, I could totally hum along to both the original versions and all the cool remixes that have been made over the years.
Anyway, pretty fun, although definitely better with a FAQ.
