Part 22: Warriors & Vampires

Lepant: Milich Oppenheimer in the west. The Liberation Army continues to increase in force daily. Meanwhile, insurgencies are breaking out all over the land, and the Imperial Army has its hands full.

Mathiu: This is probably because news of the defeat of Teo McDohl's army is spreading.

Lepant: To quell the rebellion, the Empire is gathering all of its rural forces. As a result, several regions are poorly protected. Our best plan would be to catch the Empire off-guard and unite the various rebel factions throughout the country.





I mean, if it's poorly protected, why not?

Flik: Lorimar, eh? Been a while...



What, did you expect another big battle? Naaaaaaaah. We won't see one of those for some time. Cleo wonders if it's a trap.







I want to be able to do that, it's so cool. Kasumi reports that there's absolutely no one in the place. Huh.





All we can find are a pile of graves.



Cleo forces herself on us, because she wants to be in battle to forget the death of Gremio and Teo for the time being. And because she can't let Pahn upstage her after his recent duel.



For now, we're going to have a rather unorthodox party. A future recruit requires Maas, Meese, and Mose to be in our party, but since we have reached an area where we can train Kirkis to level 35, I'm putting him in our party for now as well, but I'll switch him out before we go any further in the plot.



If you leave Lorimar and come back, Kirke will show up. He's a bit of an odd fellow... all he really cares about is being an executioner of criminals.

Kirke: All I can do is cut off heads. That's all I know. Are you sure?



I mean, we could always use a beheader.





The enemies past Lorimar are a bit tough, but we have a new spell, Hell. Hell does what it did to the Queen Ant, it instant-kills an entire enemy party. Bosses are immune, but random encounters are not.



Within one battle, I can kick Kirkis out, but only after going somewhere else first.





Rubi: And now you're greater than I am. I'll give you a hand. For the Liberation Army!



Now we have our team. The difference between the blacksmith bros is pretty small. They're all incredibly average, come onto the team at different starting levels, and some of them have better stats in certain areas than others. However, they are unique in that if you have all five of them in a party, they have a really, really good Unite. But you'll rarely get any chance to use all five in any significant part of the story, due to forced party members.



One kind of cool thing about the blacksmith bros is that their hammers are all different types of metals/materials. Maas, the weakest blacksmith, has a Stone Hammer as his final upgrade; Meese, the next up, has the Tin Hammer, and Mose, the next one up, has an Iron Hammer. Some of these names carry over for the rest of the series, but we'll get into why that is in the next game.



You can even see the minute differences in their hammers in battle, too.



So let's head to Warrior's Village, which is near Lorimar. Flik is also from this village, by the way.



Suikoden Tunes – Gathering of Warriors ~ Warrior's Village Theme

Hix: No, you'll get eaten. That's what everybody says.

Tengaar: Can you protect me, then? Can you? Why, your sword isn't even named yet.

Hix: I... I... b-but the others can, I'm sure.



Tengaar: I might even be comfortable at the castle. Better than staying in this backwater village.



Viktor: What?! Did you say Neclord?!



Viktor: I'm asking the questions around here! Answer me!

Cleo: What's the matter with you, Viktor? Calm down.

Hix: Are you... the Liberation Army? That's right, I've seen you attack Milich's castle. I've seen this bear-like man, too.

Viktor: Bear?



if you haven't picked it up yet, Hix is the “weak-willed warrior” stereotype the Suikoden series is fond of. Despite not being too bad of a fighter, he is constantly bossed around by everyone around him. This is his fault, of course.

Zorak: I see, then you must be Commander Miles. Will you come to my house? I'll tell you about Neclord. Please come this way.





We'll go there later. First off, the item shop has a lightning crystal, completing our elemental set of runes in the item shop. There's also this baby, which will prevent all random encounters with enemies of a lower level than you. Handy if you're backtracking.



The armor shop has full armor and full helmets, but few of our characters at the moment can use either of them. In fact, the only thing we can buy here is Full helmets for just... Mose and Cleo.



In Warrior's Village is Moose, the fourth blacksmith bro. He can sharpen our weapons to level 15, so it's worth it to bring the other three here.



Marco also found his way here, and if we beat him for 5,000 bits we can get him to join. Then never play his game again.



So I go for the 10,000 bits game and randomly guess, getting him to join.



Afterward, I go back and switch up our party a bit. I sub in Blackman, a medium-range hoe-user, Kirke, a short-range glaive user, and Sarah, another knife thrower, to make an odd team. Blackman is an incredibly fucking strong physical fighter, and Kirke's glaive is named Death (which then becomes Judgment), and that's awesome. His initial weapon is the Tower, which definitely shows that his weapons have a Tarot card naming scheme.



Sharpening weapons takes a lot of bits. This holds true for the entire series, and the only reason you'd ever farm for money.



And now that we have over eighty recruits, Quincy the hunter joins us as well. Let's go back to the plot.



This team just looks so odd. But Kirke's weapon is fucking awesome.



And the biggest weakness we have is that Kirke, Blackman, and Sarah are among the slowest characters in the game. Kinda sucks.



Zorak: With frightening magical powers, he turned his men into zombies and skeletons.

Cleo: So that's why there were so many graves at the Fortress of Lorimar.

Zorak: He then began threatening the local villages with zombies. His demand was...

Hix: Send Tengaar to the castle? No way.



Zorak: This is the Warriors' Village. Once we were...

Hix: Oh my god! Oh my god!

Tengaar: Here it begins...



Zorak: This village has been traditionally defended by Village Chiefs. But peace was not always guaranteed. There were a number of times when the village was endangered, and several Chiefs went to war with their clans. Five chiefs in particular were renowed, they were...



the game mocked Zorak by cutting to a black screen because nobody gives a fucking shit





no that's really okay thanks



Tengaar is also the typical viciously jealous girlfriend.



Hix: I'm sorry, but... Cleo?

Cleo: Yes?

Hix: Why do you fight when you're a woman? Women don't fight in the Warriors' Village.

Cleo: Why do I... fight? There's no reason why women shouldn't. Just like men, women have things to protect. Don't you have something you want to protect?



Again, Cleo is the feminist of Suikoden. There's always one of 'em. Not that I disagree with her or anything.

Cleo: You're right. If you're weak, there's no sense in fighting. No point in getting killed. Hix... you'll never be strong as long as you consider yourself weak.





Viktor: Neclord isn't human. He misused a Rune and became a vampire. He destroyed the village where I was born. When I returned to my village, I saw members of my own family, who were turned into zombies by him, eating each other. That's where my journey began, and perhaps it will end here. I will destroy him with my own hands.

The next morning...



At least he's polite about it.

Artwork:



Kirke – Chihei Star



Marco – Chitai Star



Moose – Chikyou Star



Quincy – Chiyu Star