Suikoden Part #15 - The Return of Angsty McBitchfit

Part 15: The Return of Angsty McBitchfit

First good thing to find here is the Old Book. There are several volumes of this old book and they help detail some background history for the game as well as information about the True Runes. We'll be getting all of them.

There's veteran soldiers down here of all varieties – swordsmen, bowmen, spearmen, and lady warriors too.

There's a couple issues we have with our party, though. First is Kuromimi. He is incredibly average, and this would be okay, but he comes with a less-than-great weapon level and average defensive equips. Viktor, as well, since we haven't been using him, is in our party without any of the good armor we've bought so far. Thankfully, his beastly strength makes up for his low weapon level, putting him on par with Valeria, even though the Falcon Rune does way more damage than the Clone Rune.

Devil Armors occasionally drop the Mangosh shield, which is a pretty good shield.

sup random portrait?

These devil shields drop Chaos shields, which are really good shields with +34 defense, on occasion. These enemies also can nullify a character's attack entirely at times, but can't do this with Rune-based attacks.

We also pick up the Gale Rune here, which does exactly as it says. It's not as useful as another Rune we'll pick up later, though.

At the top of Pannu Yakuta is the aptly-named “Dragon” who is not particularly special despite being Thunder element.

His all-party move is a fire breath, but it's really weak. Kind of pathetic, actually.

Might as well show off Waters of Kindness, which heals the whole party for a lot. We don't even really need to use it, I just felt like it.

You do want to watch out for his lightning move, because it does 110+ damage to a character and can wreck someone like Viktor.

One of the easiest fights in the game. Our reward is a Half armor.

Kwanda: Teo's boy a rebel leader, eh? Don't expect me to pull any punches. They once called Kwanda the Insurmountable, and I shall again become that wall that protects Emperor Barbarossa. So come, liberators. See my strength. See the power of the Black Rune that Lady Windy gave me!

Suikoden Tunes – Tense Crisis

Welcome to the last mechanic in Suikoden, dueling. This is present throughout the series, much like the war battles. Your HP is actually affected by how much you come into the battle with, so as you can see I am not at full health after the Dragon fight. The way dueling works is that you have to guess what attack your foe is using based off of their taunts. Kwanda gives this one away that he is Defending. Again, Dueling works on an RPS system, but with an added factor. Defend evades Desperate Attacks and provides a counter, Desperate Attack trumps Attack (but you still take damage from the initial attack), and Attack only “works” against Defend, but has no special bonus, it's only available so you can keep stacking up damage.

It's pretty hard to lose this one.

This is an attack taunt. So let's desperate attack him.

Or, oops, I guess it was not! It was a defensive manuever!

That's for catching me off guard, asshole!

Kuromimi: You mess everyone up. You fix them.

Kwanda: Kobold? Why are you still sane? The Black Rune... ahhh! My arm! Ahhhh!

It's all that acid he's been taking, guys.

Kuromimi: Prepare to die!

Kirkis: Time for revenge!

Kwanda: Elf... kobold... I see, do what you must. You have the right, I believe.

Gremio: Wait a minute, something's wrong.

Kwanda: Please go ahead and take my head, I'll die like a soldier.

This is the first time our decision actually matters. If we call for vengeance here, we lop off Kwanda's head and lose out on the true ending. Suikoden's tricky in this respect because it builds up these decisions to be weighted more on how much you hate what he's done to the elves/kobolds vs. what's actually been happening to him. Players involved in the plot will kill him off, while anyone who wants the true ending, and perhaps can see that he's been duped the whole time, will let him live.

Kwanda: It's this, the burnt rune. The Black Rune, given to me by Lady Windy, gave me power over monsters. But it also began to affect my willpower. Windy cannot be trusted, does the Emperor know? But whatever I say now is irrelevant. After what I have done, my only remaining fate is to die like a soldier.

If you answer the first option here, you'll still kill him.

Viktor: That's right. The Emperor is a different man from the one you knew seven years ago.

Kwanda: … Perhaps the Emperor I knew and trusted disappeared years ago. Commander Miles, let me join your army. My loyalty for Emperor Barbarossa remains firm, but I cannot serve the present Emperor, whoever he may be.

Gremio: It looks like their spell is broken.

Kirkis: At least not until your war is over. Let me join the Liberation Army, Miles.

Sylvina: Me too!

Valeria, also, officially joins us. That's a lot of recruits at once.

With a level 2 castle comes a much, much larger room on the 4th floor.

Mr. Hothead has come to see us.

Flik:After our hideout was attacked, I managed to round up the scattered remnants of the army, and we finally found our way here, to this mystery! What the hell's going on?! Hey you... you're Miles. Where's Odessa? Why doesn't she greet us?

Flik: So where is she? She's here, right?

Mathiu: She's dead.

Mathiu: Commander Miles, may I tell him?

We cannot hide in her shadow anymore, let's just spill the beans.

Flik: What?! Viktor, what happened?! You were protecting her!

Viktor: Forgive me, Flik.

Mathiu: Odessa was thinking of the future of the Liberation Army right up until her last breath.

Flik: I see, and I suppose Miles took over the leadership.

Flik: How can this kid follow after Odessa?!

well for starters I just won against Kwanda Rosman, and she did jack diddly squat

Sanchez: Yes, calm down Flik. Didn't you come here for a reason?

Flik: Yeah, to be shared with Odessa, not you, Miles! Humphrey, Sanchez, I'll be staying at the inn in Kaku. If you change your minds, come and join me. You guys don't want to be with these scum, do you?!

Viktor: I'll go have a long talk with Flik. After all, he was Vice Commander of the Liberation Army.

Before we deal with that, there's a few recruits to get. Let's first go over who we have. Stallion has the infamous mistranslation “True Holy Rune”. This is not a True Rune. It does, however, give you the ability to dash on both the field map and the world map, making Stallion quite usable when you want to get to places quickly. He is, however, pretty terrible all around. So we'll be using him. Him and Kirkis and Sylvina have a Unite, that pairs one of them up with Kirkis, and they unleash arrows on all enemies. It's pretty weak. The real translation of his Rune, by the way, is the Godspeed Rune.

He also comes with the game's other infinite-use Escape talisman, like Krin's, and he has a permanent set of Wing boots on.

Sylvina is a pretty good long-range magician. She, like Eileen, suffers from low HP. She's pretty useful, though.

Kwanda is a walking tank. He can equip the heaviest armors, has a decently sharp weapon and strong power stat, and tons of HP. He'll sit on the sidelines.

For recruiting purposes, I have both Lepant and Kuromimi in the party for now.

In Seika's bar, we run into another androgynous yes-that's-a-dude-not-a-chick that is super common in this game.

Sheena: Uh oh, Dad!

Lepant: I believe you told me you were on a journey to learn more about the world.

Sheena: I, uh... like I said.

Sheena only joins with his dad as a recruit when we have a level 2 castle, and then Lepant leaves with him.

Lorelai joins only if our main character is level 25 or higher, and we're sitting at 29.

The Kobold village is also repopulated, and there are three recruits to find here. We can at the moment only acquire two.

Fu Su Lu: When I swing my axe, the very earth shivers, and when I shout, Lake Toran turns upside down.

Basically, make sure you have at least 10,000 bits before you come get this guy.

Fu Su Lu is not actually a cat-man, he's just a dude who wears a tiger pelt, like that one fighter in the Tekken series. He wields dual axes and is one of the strongest characters in the game, if not the strongest. He is stupendously slow and suffers from low Skill, but you can slap a Rune on him to cover that. He is one of the few characters who can beat the HP cap of 999 (Pahn is another one), and likely the only one thanks to the randomness of stat gains.

Rubi scoffs at Kirkis' idea to help the elves and stay with the Liberation Army. He only joins if Kirkis is with you and is at level 35, and we have no way of getting him there right now aside from mindless grinding.

Gon's here, though. Kuromimi is his “Big Brother”.

Kuromimi: Well, if it isn't Gon! Kuromimi is fine, working hard for the Liberation Army.

Gon: You're looking great, Big Brother! I want to be like you.

Gon will only join if you have Kuromimi in the party, that's it. Let's make one last trip back to Seika, I forgot someone.

The worst part about this Unite is not that it hits all enemies, but that it's weak and leaves Stallion and Kirkis unbalanced.

Apple: He was saying, “I've had it with wars!” and yet you forced him to come with you!

Apple: A war's a war. Just forget it. All right, I'll ask him myself. Where's Master Mathiu? Odessa... ? You mean the castle on Lake Toran? You better not be lying.

while it seems like she doesn't want to be around us, she joins anyway.