Lurker > transience

bro it's august that ain't a christmas present

if Blanka was so unfair, why aren't other people using him? Mena is 1 of 1.

I just fell into a wormhole that dropped me back 10 years

Mario Odyssey 2 is looking amazing

stop training her to dunk

somehow, jaquio returned

I watch and think about this all the time. there's so many layers to it. it's probably the best thing on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcs3OwrkcR4

Pilika just didn't resonate for me. I am similarly sentimental about kids but Pilika just sat there reminding me she couldn't talk for most of the game, and then when she did talk it didn't really hit home at all. It was more like, 'that's it?"

I think it's because she seemed so central to the game's narrative and just didn't impact it (for me). I'll compare her to another similar character that I know you know well, Primera from Xenogears. I thought she worked much better -- but also it was more contained to an arc instead of across the entire game and seemingly a reminder of Jowy's humanity. She felt like plot device-y to me than anything. I think it's more that I had expectations that it would amount to something and it never did.

gamefaqs is at least more in line with what fandom does (for better or worse)

live streaming and goofing around was a bad fit and this is great news. fandom, man

CT has amazing party balance where pretty much everything works and there's no clear best team. some people will advocate for one combo or another, but you can favor healing with Marle/Frog, or go all offense with Ayla/Lucca and all of it works.

okay, I saw the alternate ending, where you battle Jowy. I assume that's what it is anyway. that's... good, but also doesn't feel in line with my image of Riou since Suikoden has always been about forgiving bad guys and getting them to join you. I don't quite know how to feel - the best ending feels too forgiving and the alternate ending feels out of line for my image of a Suikoden main character, to just do battle and basically murder your friend and be totally cool with it. I dunno.

I'm glad I finally was able to see this game through. as a bonus, I think this is the 100th unique JRPG that I've played through. 100 doesn't feel like a lot given how long I've been playing them, but they're all so damn long and I spend a lot of time playing rereleases of games, so I guess it makes sense.

hmmm... I think I might listen to the Retrograde Amnesia S2 podcast now that I'm done with the game to get their hilarious take. well, after the NBA playoffs finish, since that's been sucking up my attention.

still need to see the alternate ending.

those recipes and other key items going into your inventory are so annoying. they take up so much space!

do they just call him McDohl? that's pretty funny

wait, you can?

Pilika is probably there too - I just saw Jillia in the scene but not Pilika. Jillia is a character that didn't really get any development and just felt like a pawn, until the very end.

okay, I watched the best ending and that is a strong ending. I had thought the 108 stars would do a revival a la Gremio and didn't realize she was still gone. I had kinda forgotten about the marks at the start of the game, and seeing it come full circle like that is really neat.

not sure about Jowy getting a happy ending after all that he had done, but I'm happy to see the 3 of them together. Pilika just got ditched, huh?

I think if I was writing this, I would have had Jowy contribute to the death of Luca and make that the conclusion of the game. A final scene with Jowy and Riou working together to end him would have played really well, and not made the last ~1/3 of the game feel so dissonant. Even that final Luca scene, if I remember right, came from Leon telling us what was coming, which again feels counter to his goals to wipe us out.

Leon sure feels weird as a passing Suikoden 1 reference, huh? We never get into his headspace and only really respect him because of his last name.

I guess I need to go watch the good ending to see if it gets to a place I want, but I'm struggling to see how it could get there with just some ending scenes.

wow, interesting. yeah, I got the standard ending. alternate ending sounds better. at least there's closure.

so for best ending, do you need to then win a fight with Nanami too after it happens?

you can be spoilery, I don't mind.

my sense of Leon is that he's very zero-sum and is just trying to limit the damage by wiping out the opposition as efficiently as possible. my issue is, why is he then summoning the beast rune? why does that card need to be played at all? it's pretty clear that Highwind has lost by the end there, so what is the point?

I'm finding 'what is the point' to be a lot of my questions at the end of the game. the whole game for me was wondering what Jowy was doing, and once Luca was out of the picture, I completely lost the thread for what he was doing.

My second go with the Beast Rune was absolutely hilarious. I lose one of my healers on like turn 3 as I'm trying to take down the Rune, and just decide to see what else I can learn about the fight. Kill the rune, go after the legs until it no longer revives parts, and then go after the head.

Unfortunately, my back row guys start falling and I'm quickly running out of healing. I manage to get it down to the two heads but these AOE attacks are kinda brutal and I'm totally out of healing. Viktor, Flik and Riou slowly fall and I'm down to Humphrey vs. one head, and no healing.

Except... this head is doing some fire move that can't even scratch Humphrey. It's hitting for like 15. I pull out a single use healing item from my inventory that heals me to full (and had been sitting in my inventory since the start of the game) and put it on auto battle for about 10 rounds. I turn it off, pull out another 300 HP healing item and use it, put auto battle back on and boom, got him. Humphrey is now 10 levels above everyone else in the game. He is undoubtedly my MVP for Suikoden 2.

The game asks me if I want to escape and I go for Jowy.. but get pulled out of there anyway. Suddenly we're back in my castle and everyone is congratulating me for a job well done. They ask me if I want to lead the country and I'm left with a choice, to either agree or say that I can't. I don't want to get some kind of bad ending.. so I say that I do.

And... that's kind of it! There's no Jowy here. There's no resolution at all! Just the character roll and credits! I'm absolutely blown away by this. What the heck were we even doing here? This can't just be due to not getting all 108 stars. You can't just end the game with zero closure! What the?!

I'm either gonna need someone to set me straight here, or I'm gonna need to do a whole lot of reading on the internet tomorrow.

I'm going crazy here. Why is Leon Silverberg against me this whole game? I hope there's a post credits scene or something because if there's not, oh my god.

I am so confused

okay, I gave this Beast Rune a look and I definitely need to know what it does before I can fight it. I got pretty far, killed the rune like 3-4 times, but eventually a head got revived and yuuuuck. time to go for the legs I guess.

I'm pausing to write before what I assume is the final confrontation, which is a hugely momentous thing for me to say as someone who has been trying to get there for 25 years. My hands kind of shake typing such a thing.

I left off trying to figure out why we are even fighting Highland, and apparently Riou felt the same as he agrees to fight and just collapses. We prepare to invade Highland and I run off to upgrade my party. I'm going with Humphrey, Flik, Viktor, Chaco, Stallion and Riou. I imagine you can get higher than level 13 weapons but I never found a blacksmith so it is what it is. I also grab some new equipment.

We get a weird Jowy scene where he does some blood sacrifice that looked pretty hardcore until we learn that it is all a ruse. Like Riou, Jowy feels pretty overwhelmed by whatever is happening around him. This game does sort of a good job of portraying the horrors of war, but also a bad job because sometimes I have no idea why anyone is doing anything. Suikoden 1 was certainly a lot more clear and this game is muddy.

We get a strategist-off with Shu and Leon, and I'm not really sure what happens here! Shu is still undefeated on the battlefield as everything goes his way yet again and I rout Leon. They have a conversation, a tree falls, maybe Shu is about to die?, and then Viktor saves the day or something. I dunno, this was weird.

This final area is a smattering of all the different kinds of combat that you've encountered in the game. First we have a battle against our typical rivals, Seed and Culgan. This isn't much of a fight and it turns out that all I have to do is step onto the castle and it's over. The enemy never moves and I kind of pummel everyone in my path. That seems to be a theme.

Once I get inside, I battle Lucia for reasons unknown. She has beef with Teresa so eventually there's a bit of an anime moment where she allows herself to get attacked in order to disarm Lucia. This was a weird plot arc - it feels like a region of the world that I should have visited and just never did, and instead got this NPC who wants to kill me for funsies.

The castle of Highland really feels like a siege, with nobody around and me just wiping soldiers as I go through level after level of this bare castle. At a certain point, I get an "are we the baddies?" kind of feeling as I'm just razing this place. Eventually, I run into Han, a character that had a backstory way earlier in the game before Jowy left me but didn't really show up until now. I take this guy down pretty easily, which reminds me of how I totally bombed the Luca solo fight out of fear. Han isn't exactly the same.

As we keep wandering, I run into Seed and Culgan for the final showdown with them. This reminds me -- what the heck happened to Rowd? He retreated at some point and I never saw him again. I've been wondering when he'd show back up ever since. This game kind of feels scattered with so many midboss villain characters that aren't really developed.

I'm all over the place in this writeup and that's because the game is equally all over the place. It feels like it's tying up loose ends. I get a nice scene with Jowy and Pilika as Jowy prepares to face me down. Realizing the gravity of this moment, I run back to a save point and prepare for the worst.

I should clarify - I don't think Gremio sucks as a character. the writing in Suikoden 1 is always awkward but he's good as a caretaker of the main character. I just mean that he's a wasted slot in battle and you can feel that.

I was happy to take Nanami into my party, because she has that cool unite attack with Riou. you also aren't forced to take like 4 dudes into every party in Suikoden 2 whereas you are in 1.

Gremio, on the other hand, kind of sucks and doesn't unite with Tir.

is it bugged? I just thought he sucked.

the Gremio scene honestly just makes me laugh. man eating spores! the dialogue afterwards does its best to make me feel bad but I'm still just giggling about it.

I have freed Rockaxe, and in the process lost two of my most loyal guys.

I've heard something over the years about saving Kiba and I have no idea if it's a thing, or if it's like a save Aerith kind of thing that just persists in internet rumor. Unless it's a 108 stars kind of thing, it seems completely out of your hands. I can't say I ever used Kiba so I didn't have a strong feeling here.

I had always heard that Nanami met a tragic end in this game though I had no idea how. I figured it would be at the hands of Jowy -- and I guess that is sort of true, but the way she went out is a real bummer. Some random arrow from a faction that always seemed pretty soft? Yuck.

But then you get to fight alongside Jowy to take this dude down and, oh man, my unite attack is back! Hell yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed this fight given the stakes and the significance. It's a shame that it was just one fight.

We get back to the castle and I am guessing this is where the 108 thing comes in -- maybe a miracle happens and Nanami wakes up. But alas, I am going down the bad end, and I kinda think it's the best thing to see, not having seen the alternative. The game makes a point of having Nanami wake you up every time which always seemed very silly and Japanese, but when Riou wakes up and no one is there to greet him, it hits home. I'm glad I saw that.

Shu asks me to jump into an all out assault against Highwind and I stop here. Am I even supposed to be fighting Highwind? What are we even fighting over?

that hallway is a great grind spot

yeah, and those goofy flips in the hall just made me kind of cringe laugh. just a weird way to finish off a movie with really good heart.

I'm also trying to square Bob's powers with the MCU and what that might mean. though I'm not even sure what he can do at the end of it? I'm not really a comic book guy but it felt like they imported a DC character into the MCU and that seemed game-breaking.

I'm imagining that the new big bad in Avengers somehow absorbs his power or something because otherwise he seems way too strong to just exist in a world with Captain America or Shuri or Ant Man or whoever.

it's more the tonal shift than the content - like suddenly the end feels like we entered an anime, is my best way to put it? it's not that I wanted a superhero movie or anything, it's more that this poignant message is happening in a place where the Red Guardian exists. I still think the movie was pretty good.

and to be clear, I thought they did that stuff really well. but it's also an MCU movie? I dunno. just feels a little dissonant.

I liked this one. not sure about the third act though... it felt like it went from being about one thing to being an allegory for something totally different. I didn't know I was looking for a serious statement from a movie with a bunch of dick jokes.

ctesjbuvf posted...

Operearion Mi'ihen is where I'd say it picks up and doesn't look back.

even just Besaid and meeting your proper crew/orienting yourself to the world of Spira is good. the beginning where you fight some meaningless battles in Zanarkand, wander underwater with some random dudes, baaj temple, all that scene stuff feels a little forced and doesn't give you much agency. you're just following along the story that isn't that good. it does get good once you hit Besaid though.

the first hour is a bit of a slog. but yeah, I doubt they've added cutscene skip.

oh that is ominous

and a good idea

I ran through the tablet and I'm missing something like 28 guys. I think I'll just go forward as is and look it up later if it's really notable. getting a normal amount of guys in a first playthrough feels right, and 108 if I ever want to do it again.

still not convinced that I'm gonna make it to the end of this thing!

am I near the end? I didn't realize that

Okay, took me a couple of days but I did the liberation of Greenhill.

There really isn't much to say here. I fought a battle, Viktor went down, I took our Jowy and the fight was over. We then snuck through a hidden path, fought Lucia, fought Yuber's bone dragon thingy (this thing hit pretty hard with a big AOE attack over and over), and liberated the area. Really straightforward stuff.

Afterwards, we get a scene where we chase Lucia and meet Jowy, who again asks us to quit the army game. We ask him the same, no one does anything and we walk away. I'll be honest... I used to enjoy Jowy's more cryptic qualities but it's teasing me a little too much here. We don't know his aims and I'm not even really sure why we're fighting. Luca's out of the way, so why am I in a full conflict with Jowy? I take Greenhill, he takes Matilda. We race to Muse because why not? I just need a bit of motivation here.

My battle with Muse lasted literally one move, as I move Maximilian forward, use a lightning move on Lucia, kill her in one hit and the battle is over. Ha! We walk into Muse only to find some wolf miniboss that goes down really easily... except they are everywhere in town, so we escape, try to out-tactics the Highland Army and get back to our base without any real conflict. At this point I'm not totally sure what's going on but I'm looking forward to some kind of resolution to all of this.

CT didn't sell a ton but the game had an entire life as an emulated game when that scene was rising up. I'm sure there are polls here that show that more people played it through emulation than on the cartridge. the game sold for like $80 30 years ago and came at the end of the SNES life. it's far outgrown its cult classic rep.

I'm less sure of that. Chrono Trigger with voice acting would need to be rewritten to work. you're not gonna make Ayla talk caveman and Frog speak in broken olde english.

don't get me wrong, I'd play it day 1. I just don't know that you're improving the original which is still best in class.

unlike FF7, Chrono Trigger is pretty much perfect as it is. I wonder what could be done to actually improve the game.

at this rate I won't reach 10,000 karma

yeah, we've definitely seen our last gamefaqs contest

gamefaqs is about to pivot to video

Very minor update: I came back after not playing for a week, and my next task is to go to bed. Unfortunately, because I've recruited a bunch of dudes and my castle has expanded, it takes me a good 30 minutes to figure out where exactly that is! I wasn't sure if there was another trigger point I was missing or what so I just wandered like crazy, ending up in the same spots over and over. Eventually I find it on the 5th floor or something.

After some minor character moments, I get attacked by a woman named Lucia who I auto-battle to death. I let her go, which seems like the kind of choice you would make in a Suikoden?, but I don't know.

I finally get to the liberation of Greenhill, and I'm asked if I want to go with Kiba, Viktor or stay with Apple. I realize this is probably a bigger event so I pause here. If I want to see the most interesting stuff, what do I pick? I'm sure 90% of people pick Viktor, but yeah, let me know.

I've been busy the last few days so haven't had a chance to get back to Shu yet. he's been on my mind though!

it's funny -- my perception of Luca is partially informed by our gamefaqs contests so I naturally assumed that Luca was the major figure of the game. I don't want any hints otherwise, but if he doesn't come back in some form, that's super shocking to me. it'd be like if Gestahl made a villain contest and we never heard about Kefka. (even though Kefka is more like Luca than Gestahl, but you know what I mean.)

I would have expected Jowy to make a contest before Luca but I've never even heard someone mention his name.