Last week, I discussed Suikoden II's gameplay, which was positive pretty much across the board. This week it's on to the story which...is also pretty awesome. Don't get me wrong, there are quite a few aspects of the plot I think could have been better. In a lot of ways, I feel like they missed a lot of opportunities to really drive home their point about the ravages of war and how it causes otherwise good people to do bad things. But Suikoden II still told an epic story that's among the best I've experienced in an RPG.
I gave a bit of background on the plot last week, which sees our unnamed hero and his best friend Jowy on the run from their former colleagues in the Highland Army. The duo have just witnessed the death of their entire unit, killed as part of a false flag operation to prolong the kingdom's war with the neighboring City-State of Jowston. After fleeing their pursuers, the duo is separated, with the hero washing up alongside a rushing river. There, he is taken prisoner by a group of mercenaries currently working for the city-state. Led by two men, Viktor and Flik, the mercenaries are a ragtag bunch. The hero is sure he'll be executed, but the mercs take a liking to him, even allowing him to visit the nearby villages of Ryube and Toto to gather supplies. Despite his newfound rapport with his captors, the hero jumps at the chance to escape when Jowy, thought to be dead, helps him break free in the middle of the night. Reunited, they head home for Highland, where they plan to expose the dirty deeds of Prince Luca Blight, the man responsible for the death of their comrades. But the duo finds things have gone from bad to worse. It turns out they have been labeled City-State spies and blamed for the massacre of the youth brigade soldiers. The hero's sister Nanami tries to keep them hidden as long as she can, but it's not long before they are captured and sentenced to hang. A timely rescue by Viktor and Flik, followed by a daring escape, leaves the hero and his compatriot alive, but now as men without countries. Lacking loyalty to the City-State but dismayed at being labeled traitors in their native land, they are unsure what their next step will be. However, there is one thing they are sure of: the maniacal, power crazed Luca Blight must be stopped.
So as you see, the story presents our characters with a conundrum, as war often does. The hero and Jowy both clearly love their home nation but find themselves at odds with its leaders. It's clear to the two of them don't want to fight against their fellow Highland soldiers, but they know Blight needs to be defeated. Even then, it quickly becomes obvious that the hero and Jowy have different ways of they believe that should be accomplished. And that's the beauty of Suikoden's story. Everything seems so clean cut and set in stone, two friends who have been wronged by their country, fighting against an evil prince hell bent on world domination. But it's deeper than that. Sure, Blight is very clearly evil, but most of his soldiers are just conscripted men following orders. You find yourself on the side of the City-State, but its leaders aren't exactly a likeable or well-meaning group. Your hero is a silent protagonist, which normally isn't great, but it works well here because it forces you to put yourself in the shoes of a leader of men and make choices based on the information you have. All these people will tell you you're doing the right thing, that it's for the greater good, but are you? Is it worth the lives you are risking? You have to make those decisions yourself and while most of these decisions don't actually impact the story, they still force you to think about the moral dilemmas and consequences of the ongoing conflict. Things are thrown even further into chaos when, following an attack on Toto village, both the hero and Jowy are visited by a supernatural being. The spirit babbles to both men about destiny before giving them special runes (which as we establish last week provide users with magical power) and departing.
Honestly, I almost feel like it didn't need all the business about the runes of destiny. It almost felt like a forced attempt to keep this game within Suikoden's cannon. I actually think it's cool that all the Suikoden games are actually directly related, but I don't think this was needed as a major part of the story. There were plenty of references to the first game, including various locations and even identical characters (Viktor and Flik are both in the original Suikoden, as are many of the other characters you meet) that drive home the point that it's the same universe. The runes almost seem like an unnecessary plot device to justify some of the events of the late game, which we will discuss later, and kind of detract from the whole "commentary on war" thing the game is trying to get across. You can always justify it (at least in a video game) by saying "oh well, it's destiny because runes and stuff" rather than have your hero's actions be less black and white. Fortunately, the game doesn't really overdo this, but it's still there and I still think it brings down the story a little bit. It's especially unnecessary because even that small amount of time could have been dedicated to a little bit more character development.
Ah yes, the characters. As I mentioned last week, there are 108 recruitable characters in this game and you couldn't possibly expect them to provide development for all of them. There were definitely some characters in the party that get their own brief section of game and are just never heard from again, which kind of sucks. Characters like Clive, Miklotov, Camus, Oulan and Anita are all incredibly designed and fun to use in battle, it's a shame that none of them really see any development beyond "I'm in your party and I'm cool." I will say though that I don't think Suikoden II could have handled its development any better, it very clearly picks a handful of plot important characters early on and really makes it clear who they are. Flik, Viktor and Nanami are easily the most important playable characters to the story and all of them are compelling. Nanami is great as the caring but wild sister, while the two mercs kind of take on a mentorship role. Many of the non-playable characters that you recruit are well developed as well, like military strategist Shu and his cohort Apple. Perhaps the most interesting character, though, is Pilika, little girl who is the sole survivor of an attack on Toto village. Pilika, who takes an immediate shine to Jowy, the hero and Nanami, essentially represents the shattered innocence of everyone that war touches. She loses her home and her parents, ends up caught between the two sides of the conflict and simply become numb to life after watching her protectors murdered in front of her by the main villain, Luca Blight.
And what a villain he is. This guy is an absolute cold-blooded monster, raiding and razing villages in the name of power and slaying innocent civilians left and right. Why does he do this? Eh, no reason really. That's what makes him so despicable and, in my opinion, one of the greatest gaming villains of all time. There is just straight up no justification for his actions, he kills because he thinks it's fun. He murders his own father to remove any obstacle he may have to continuing the war. Even if his primary goal were expanding his empire, you could kind of see where he was coming from. But Blight doesn't even care about that, more territory is nice but the ongoing war with the City-State is more an excuse to allow him to keep killing than it is a way to grow Highland's power. Pick a videogame antagonist in history and you could probably make at least some excuse for them. Sephiroth was driven mad after he realized he was grown in a lab. Kefka went insane due to the Magitek experiments performed on him. You get the idea. But Luca Blight is just a sadistic monster. After burning the Ryube, the first town you visit, to the ground, he lines up its citizens and makes them act like pigs before slaughtering them one by one. He might, and I say might, have been the single greatest video game villain of all time, if it weren't for what I consider one major issue.
SPOILERS
(I normally don't do this, because I think I've made it clear there will always be spoilers in my reviews, but I can't really adequately discuss Suikoden II without completely blowing up the plot, so I am going to do a spoiler section. I know it's a 20-year-old game, but I think Suikoden II was an awesome experience and I don't want to ruin it for someone playing it blind, so, skip a bit further if you wish to avoid spoilers)
SPOILERS
And that issue, and this is your last chance to look away, is that Luca Blight is defeated by your party about halfway through the game. Don't get me wrong, it's one of the single greatest boss battles in RPG history, he has an insane amount of HP and nasty attacks, and you must fight him with three separate 6 person parties. But it doesn't change the fact that the primary antagonist is just gone 20 hours in to a 40-hour game. In his place, rises a new king of Highland...Jowy, who has ascended the throne after marrying Luca's sister Jillia. In case it wasn't immediately apparent from the whole "two runes" thing earlier, Jowy and the hero quickly find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict despite their similar goals and values. Again, that's war, right? While the hero uses his newfound influence in the City-State to attempt to fight Blight head on, Jowy decides to ingratiate himself with the tyrant in an effort to bring him down from the inside. Neither of them are above getting their hands dirty, but both are clearly more fit to lead than Luca. But that's the problem. Once the main villain is gone, you kind of lose your desire to fight. In a way, I kind of get why they did this. Obviously, Luca Blight needed to go, he's about as pure evil as you could get. Having Jowy as an enemy makes it even harder to justify continuing the war. But the issue here isn't so much who you are fighting as much as why.
They really, really didn't do a good job in having Jowy explain himself and why he continues to fight the hero after Luca Blight's defeat. He talks about how he didn't understand how complicated the world is, or reference the destiny of the runes, or say that he doesn't think their will ever be peace without one strong nation on the continent, but they always feel like excuses. He begins working with a strategist named Leon Silverburg, who it seems is egging him on, but he sees very little development and his reasoning for doing so isn't all that strong either. Basically, it feels like the events of the last half off the game could have been prevented with a simple conversation. Maybe that was the point, right? I mean, how many wars in our history could have been prevented with even a hint of an attempt at diplomacy? Even so, it makes you kind of feel like you are a bit aimless in the back half of the game, like there's no urgency. Even if you are continuing the fight against your friend, there's not as immediate a need to stop him as you know he isn't about to go torch a village just because he was bored that day.
END SPOILERS
Part of what makes the actions of the villains feel so heinous is how lived in all of the towns feel. NPCs are talkative and interesting and the locales all feel unique and refreshing. The City-State capital Muse really feels like a huge, bustling metropolis that's the most important city on the continent. The city of Two River, segregated by species, depicts the all too real divide we often see in our own cities, with humans, wingers and kobolds each divided into their own separate neighborhoods. You also have frontier towns like Tinto, a mining village, that are normally insulated from conflict and shocked when it reaches their borders. Side note, is Tinto supposed to be a reference to mining conglomerate Rio Tinto? Did I just find the most obscure reference in a video game ever? Weird. Anyway, these towns exude personality, and it really makes you feel for their residents during the whole conflict. That extends to your castle, which you get to name once its constructed, as it houses a huge variety of NPCs and recruitable characters. It really gets to feel like home and it feels like the only place in the world that's safe. It's safety even plays into the story, it sits atop a high cliff surrounded by water and is only assailable from the front, a fact used to explain why the Highland army doesn't just simply invade with ease.
I'm going long, so I guess my last point will be how Suikoden II handles RPG tropes of its day. I already talked a bit about the whole "destiny" thing, so that's of course one. But there is a character death here, which by this point was certainly a died in the wool RPG trope. I will say it was definitely emotional and I was absolutely shocked by which character kicked the bucket, but it still kind of felt unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. It's so unnecessary that its actually completely invalidated by one of the endings. Speaking of the endings, there are three here (plus one bad one that can occur early in the game), all determined by which actions you take after defeating the final boss. For a game with such an oppressive story and atmosphere, two of the endings could be considered "happy" or at least positive. I kind of like that, too many of these games try to get too edgy with all their doom and gloom and hey, the war is over, all is well, right?
What it all boils down to is Suikoden II is just phenomenal, despite its flaws. It may sound like I'm nitpicking, but that's just what you have to do with games of this quality. It isn't perfect, the mid-late game drags and there are some really bad translation and localization issues. It doesn't really result in missing any plot points, but it does break the immersion a little bit, especially when you have things like Jowy's name being spelled three different ways. But those are such minor details that I can't ding Suikoden II too hard for them. I know I compare the golden age RPGs when I review them, but this game is so excellent I might have to open it up to comparison all time. I would probably put Final Fantasy 6,7 and 8 ahead of Suikoden II, as well as Lunar II: Eternal Blue, Breath of Fire II and Star Ocean: The Second Story. I would maybe put Super Mario RPG, Valkyria Chronicles and Earthbound ahead of it. After that...I don't know. Even then, I believe I could make an honest argument why Suikoden II (or any of the other games I'm about to mention) is better than those games or why I might even personally like it better. It's definitely up there with my next tier of Final Fantasy 4, X and Tactics, Chrono Trigger, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Azure Dreams and Shadow Hearts Covenant, and it's probably in close competition with SMT and CT for the top of that tier. I almost, almost gave it the full Monty, but it really was the late game drag and sense of aimlessness that brings it down just a bit. Still, Suikoden II is phenomenal and its available on the PS3's PlayStation store for $10 (or you could find it at a used game store for $300 if you're rich). If you like JRPGs, even a little bit, give this one a shot.
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