Suikoden II. 3 hours in. Been betrayed twice and seen three destroyed villages/forts. This is about par for the course for a Suikoden game, I guess. I’m trying hard not to get attached to my MC’s childhood friend Jowy or his sister Nanami because either one or both of them will be killed/will switch sides and force me to kill them. I’m not even spoiling here, this is just basic Suikoden logic.
Obviously I can’t get into a game when I approach it with such a pessimistic mindset. Every step I take on the map just depresses me even further. Every village I enter just has me counting the seconds until something unpleasant happens. Every NPC with a portrait just has me groaning when I imagine what ridiculous, unnecessary hoop I’m going to have to jump through to recruit them. I’d forgotten how much I dislike (apparently I’m alone on this) the recruiting aspect of the Suikoden games.
I should really just give up and use a FAQ to make things easier on myself. For one thing it would have saved me a lot of time wandering around trying to progress the story when what I was supposed to do was remove 2 members from my party and then visit Toto Village. How the ****ing **** was I supposed to know that? *sigh*
Still, it’s only been 3 hours. I normally don’t even write impressions this early. It’s just that it’s taken me three days to get this far because I play a few minutes, then I do something else. Then I play another couple of minutes, then I do something else again. In fact Suikoden II has helped me rediscover my love for Freecell and Solitaire (G.O.A.T.) and the game itself isn’t a lost cause. I haven’t even gotten a proper castle, and no True Runes have shown up yet, so there’s still a long way to go. I’ll write more at the 10 hour mark, if I ever make it that far.
Keep going! Hopefully you’ll get more invested in the characters and less in the obvious gameplay mechanics around recruiting and being betrayed.
Thanks, I’m soldiering on. The game is really pushing this whole friendship thing between the MC and Jowy, and I just KNOW that can’t end well. So I’m actually trying to get less invested in the characters and more involved in the overall story development either. It seems to be working so far.
Is using a “recruitment guide” that bad, in the end?
Not really. I used a spoiler-free one when I played Suikoden 1, which allowed me to save Gremio. So I’m not opposed to using a guide — in theory. In practice, I hate running back and forth to a guide even more than I hate missing recruits, which is why I avoided using one for S3 and Tierkreis and am avoiding one this time as well.