Part 43: Endgame
Last time, Lazlo blew up El-Eal with the Rune of Punishment. (This goes to the unedited version of the scene.)
This time he's sent directly to Runespace without passing Go.
Something about this looks very different, though...
Lazlo is all
but then again he always looks like that.
Also fuck El-Eal. It got exactly what it deserved.
While Lazlo is comatose, Flare digs out Lino's fancy outfit for the victory celebration. (Watch this.)
The people of Obel welcome them with open arms, having found out about the fall of El-Eal by following the royal twitter account.
Lino, that is a silly hat. Why are you wearing such a silly hat.
Apparently, it's because the masses (uh, I mean, people) just love silly hats!
This conflict, though tragic, has presented us an opportunity to think about the islands and their citizens.
Flare has a new outfit, too. Sadly, the royal family can't be dressed up in their silly cutscene clothes at our whim; these are for special occasions only.
"Did you guys hear that?"
"What do you think he'll do if we say no?"
"I don't know, but I don't want to find out! I heard he upgraded his weapon to level 16! 16, man!"
"Well, we better do as he says, then!"
I hereby declare the founding of the Island Nations Federation!
The masses (yes) are like FUCK YEAH and Reinbach is like FUCK NO but no one cares about him because he sucks.
And then the credits roll.
Elenor's fate is ultimately not shown, and Cray disappears along with her. There's no word of either of them after Lazlo blew up El-Eal, so hopefully they both died horribly.
I actually think Elenor is one of the most potentially interesting characters in the game, and even one of the best strategists in the series. She would be great in a game that isn't Suikoden IV - one where she would actually get to do something beyond some shit mentioned off hand in the final dungeon.
But sadly, she was a character in Suikoden IV.
This update is heavy on the images because I'm going to be posting all of these since it's part of the Suikoden Experience. It's also low on commentary because I have very little to say about most of these people.
"Mysterious accident"
no paula what are you doing
stop it
Kika also deserved to be in a better game, and a story that actually makes use of her instead of one where she just kind of shows up and fades away.
As for Ramada... I'm not even sure he's human any more. How many times did you get shot and poisoned, again?
Snowe... had his ups and downs, but at least he was never as big a douche as Travis.
Hey, remember this? That was a long-ass fucking time ago.
Uh. Gau. Good riddance. Don't come back.
Damn it, all our knights are knuckleheads. Don't go back there! It's a terrible place!
...I'm just going to pretend she went to rescue Paula from her own stupidity.
aaarggg
stop moving to na-nal, people
just fucking stop it
Too much information, Brec.
Far, far too much information.
Apparently Jeane was trying to disappear already, but she wasn't quite fast enough.
Best pirate. Right there.
But I guess these two are... okay, too.
Micky!
I blame you for everything. Except for the things I blame Travis for. But everything else.
Unlike Jeane, I think this actually is the last we'll ever see of Helmut.
What's that about rune cannons? No one knows! The game never tells us!
Wow, Yu finally got a grip. I'm going to assume it was all Carrie's doing, but hey, it's still an improvement. I'll take it.
Dario.
So apparently those cannons were terrible enough that Warlock got lynched for creating them. If only this game had a sequel that expanded on the whole cannon business and why they're so bad, but I don't suppose that will ever happen.
Damn it Ornan, you've been useless since the day you joined the group and you're still useless.
Wendel, please stop. You are much better than Nico. He is not even a playable character. Why do you do these things to yourself.
Even in Tactics, we never find out what's up with the boat Mk. 2 Tov is building.
Mitsuba will be Mitsuba, I guess. I'm fine with that!
And Viki will be Viki, and no one will ever find out what that's about either.
All right, I admit it.
I've run out of things to say.
Nalkul
You guys are the best furries.
This doesn't keep Maxine from popping up again in Tactics.
I... can kind of see Gunter running a restaurant. I don't know why. It just seems right.
What's wrong with your current one?
And that was that.
Now for the other credits, but I won't be showing pictures of all that because they are long. Instead, I'll direct you to the video.
There are some very nice pictures of boats! Also some sweet music.
And finally, at long last, there is a The End picture.
Wait, that doesn't look very "end" at all! In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the front part of the boat!
Uh... yeah, I don't know why the emulator thinks every boat is a gaping black void of despair, but apparently it does. That's Lazlo's... parts... you're looking at.
Now, normally this is where I'd be showing off the bad ending, but it quite literally is the good ending up until this point, and then it just cuts out.
But since this is not the bad ending and the Rune has entered its "forgiveness" phase, Lazlo is actually not dead!
Wait, is that the boat in the distance?
And... Lino on deck? Maybe?
"HEY GUYS"
"I'M NOT DEAD"
"SO COULD YOU PICK ME UP MAYBE"
"I STILL HAVE A PLOT LASER, YOU BUNCH OF FUCKS"
Fuck yeah.
Holy shit is that a long playtime. Though, I haven't actually been playing it for that long - much of it is just the game sitting around in the background auto-levelling or fishing and me not paying attention to it, and also that time when I left it on over night. A normal playthrough would usually take somewhere in the range of 20-25 hours.
And that... was Suikoden IV.
...but don't go anywhere just yet, because
it's voting time For the final round of bonus materials, because it had more NPC dialogue than I remembered (which is to say it had NPC dialogue) and I'm a bit curious to see if there's any greater variety to it, I will go through Elenor's part of the final dungeon one more time. (But not more than that because it's located behind a whole mess of cutscenes and a naval battle which honestly weren't that much fun to look at the first time I went through them.)
You may vote for another four characters. I won't be showing off any more of the gameplay - this will be for dialogue only, so vote accordingly.