The Best and Worst Story arcs in Suikoden

[Night Shadow]

wow, thats a lot. thanks for the effort! i've looked at all the scans, and im trying to decipher that little box where they put the picutre of hugo and s1 futch together. the last scan shows everyone's favorite bromance. =)

i cant seem to remember what episode 11 is about (third from last scan).

[gilgamesh31]

It took a lot longer then i imagined it would but i'm glad you appreciate it. About Episode 11, I have no recollection of that scene at all, shows you how significant it was. The book has a lot of strange charts that i'm unable to understand. People are divided into age groups such as Boys (ages ranging from Tuta to Jowy), Youths (Snowe to Luca), Middle Aged Men (Tai ho to Maxamillion). But then all females only have one chart called Women (Lym to Lucretia to Jeane). I will scan the pages when i get a chance. There is also a Ranking section which seems to depict the top 20 most popular females and men. I have a lot of time to kill this evening so i have copied it here. I know its off topic but i don't think it warrants a topic of its own, besides it would be a list topic so anyway it goes like this:

Females
20. Lucretia
19. Arshtat
18. Cecile
17. Luserina
16. Tengaar
15. Valeria
14. Sialeeds
13. Cleo
12. Kasumi
11. Lyon
10. Lymsleia
09. Odessa
08. Sarah (III)
07. Kika
06. Chris
05. Miakis
04. Jeane
03. Viki
02. Seirra
01. Nanami

Males
20. Shu
19. Yuber
18. Seed
17. Geddoe
16. Thomas
15. Snowe
14. Futch
13. Lazlo
12. Kyle
11. Gremio
10. Luca
09. Clive
08. Nash
07. Jowy
06. Ted
05. Georg Prime
04. Viktor
03. Flik
02. Tir
01. Luc

No Miklotov then? But seriously where is Riou, Hugo, Freyjadour and Sasarai etc?

[Hirathien]

Who in their right mind would put Nanami on top of any list?

[gilgamesh31]

She would probably top the list of most annoying tomboy in the Suikoverse. I hate the way she always guilt trips you into running away throughout the game. I'm not sure how her pretending to be dead would allow Riou to concentrate on the war either?

Here are the scans that i mentioned before:

http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m50 ... mage41.jpg
http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m50 ... mage42.jpg
http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m50 ... mage43.jpg
http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m50 ... mage44.jpg
http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m50 ... mage46.jpg
http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m50 ... ge47-1.jpg
http://i1129.photobucket.com/albums/m50 ... mage48.jpg

What does it all mean?

[Nikisaur]

Flik should be at the top of the list. I don't know what the list is, but he should be at the top

Also that grid is clearly... the further you are from the centre, the more bad ass you are.

[gilgamesh31]

Well he does top the list in the third scan, which I'm going to make an uneducated guess that it is a list of the top ten most handsome guys and prettiest girls (I know that a lot of people fancy Miakis/Flik so thats what i'm basing my guess on). While the previous two list are the top 20 most popular men/women. I say this also because the third scan doesn't feature any minors where as the other 'most popular' list has characters as young as Lymsleia, Thomas and Cecile.

While it does work for most of the charts i just cant consider Rakgi, Rody or Julie Latkje as badass's no matter how hard i try. And what the hell is 'Character Maniacs' suppose to mean anyway?

[Nikisaur]

I was just referring to the male grid. But I didn't say that. I just thought it

[gilgamesh31]

Your like our Suikosource equivalent of Nina!... except for the fact that your not blond. I find 'The Blue Lightning' to be one of those overrated characters (much like Miklotov) that i don't understand the hype around him. He is like a weaker, less interesting version of Geddoe. Even out of the duo that is Viktor and Flik, Bear has double the amount of depth then Blue does.

I get that Flik has the lost love backstory but Viktor has the lost love story twice fold with Diasy and Annabelle and he had his entire village transformed into zombies! Oh yeah and he has a talking sword on top of that and don't forget about his understated ability to handcraft flags of Lions that look like bears. And how close actually were Odessa and Flik? I mean she seemed pretty interested in Tir that night in Sarady to me.

Theres no comparison personality wise either, Flik doesn't even have a sense of humour, even before Odessa's death and he was a bit of a jackass when he refuses to join forces with Tir that time. So what is it with Flik, do you just like your boys in matching blue bandana and cape combinations or something?

[eldrasidar]

I think Flik's a pretty cool guy. Obviously, it's easy to love Viktor, but Flik's got a lot going for him too, he's just a lot more subtle than Viktor is. The only thing that Viktor really struggles with is a vampire, which he handles with a magic sword, which is badass, but hard to really relate too. Flik's problems are a lot more down to earth and relatable, so it's easier to sympathize with him. Plus I think a lot of people thought the whole Greenhill arc was hilarious and adorable.

Not sure how nanami and lyon made that list, guess they are more popular/less whiny in Japan. Also kinda confused by Seed, if only because I don't think of him as being apart from Culgan, who's missing.

I also think it's interesting that the only villains to make the list are from suikoden 2(Luc and Yuber also being in 1 and 3), which I think shows how poorly developed more recent villains have been, although I think Brandeau was pretty cool once you got some backstory for him in tactics.

[Night Shadow]

^ i can imagine nikisaur preparing lunch boxes for flik and washing his bandana. ^_^ i sort of liked flik, especially during the greenhills mission. people easily fall in love with viktor since he's that easy going friendly type of guy everyone loves to be friends with. that old bear is awesome. he has a bad ass back story (zombies, man! zombies.), and when done right, he can be a killer party member.

i looked at the scans, and each grid separates them into an archetype. my kanji skills are really bad, so i can only translate the easy hiragana texts. apparently, in the 4th link, the boys on top are considered "kawaii" (cute), while the guys below are "kakoii" (cool). i think hugo would have deserved to be under the "cool" part.

the fifth image places all of the "maniac youths" on the upper and lower left part of the grid as "cool". guess konami really likes flik. jaques is someone who i totally agree on.

the 6th image has all the older gentlemen on the left grid as "frank".

i tried downloading a program that would enable me to write in japanese characters, but it didnt work. when i have the time, ill try again, so i can try and translate all the awesome things gilgamesh has scanned. =)

[gilgamesh31]

^Cheers bro that would be awesome, cool and cute eh? I never would have guessed that they meant that. And 'Frank' wtf? That is so random. I don't enjoy the Greenhill school arc like a lot of people on here seem to, for me it's the dullest part of the game with the dullest dungeon in the game: The forest path. Jowy's tactic with the muse refugees was brilliant however i hate when RPG's make you run around towns over and over again looking for people, I did like when you return there and fight Yuber's Dragon boss though.

I also think it's interesting that the only villains to make the list are from suikoden 2(Luc and Yuber also being in 1 and 3), which I think shows how poorly developed more recent villains have been, although I think Brandeau was pretty cool once you got some backstory for him in tactics.

I agree, Euram was a cheap imitation of Snowe with added 'comic relief'. The Godwin's copied the racial purge of Falena idea off of Windy and her attempt to clear out the Elves etc in the Scarlet Moon Empire. And Childerich= A poor mans Luca Blight as Dilber is to Ain Gide. While Dolph personality (or lack of it) hasn't been done before in the Suikoden series (that i can recall, correct me if i'm wrong) he is just like any other mysterious and over powered hence man we would find in a lot of other RPG's. I would say that Lord Barrows was the most interesting villain in Suikoden V for me, I like his evil manipulations even though it was obvious from the moment you see him that you cant trust him.

[Belle]

I also think it's interesting that the only villains to make the list are from suikoden 2(Luc and Yuber also being in 1 and 3), which I think shows how poorly developed more recent villains have been, although I think Brandeau was pretty cool once you got some backstory for him in tactics.

I agree, Euram was a cheap imitation of Snowe with added 'comic relief'. The Godwin's copied the racial purge of Falena idea off of Windy and her attempt to clear out the Elves etc in the Scarlet Moon Empire. And Childerich= A poor mans Luca Blight as Dilber is to Ain Gide. While Dolph personality (or lack of it) hasn't been done before in the Suikoden series (that i can recall, correct me if i'm wrong) he is just like any other mysterious and over powered hence man we would find in a lot of other RPG's. I would say that Lord Barrows was the most interesting villain in Suikoden V for me, I like his evil manipulations even though it was obvious from the moment you see him that you cant trust him.

Haha, I kind of think the opposite way. Snowe, to me, seems like a Euram prototype. Though I can see how Euram seems like a Snowe clone, Euram has a lot more layers to him if you recruit him and find out his backstory through investigations and comment box letters.

I never thought of Childerich as a poor man's Luca, but then, there were enough moments where someone went nuts that it didn't even occur to me that the "die pig" line was a nod to Luca.

Dilber Novum though... definitely a poor man's Ain Gide. Although I didn't laugh half as much at Ain Gide's death as I did Dilber's. Oh, it had nothing to do with the death itself. I just found the portrait they used for Dilber at the moment of death to be... a little too much of a carbon copy of the moment. And distracting.

Salum Barows was a sneaky fat bastard, wasn't he? He definitely was more interesting than the cold, racist Marscal Godwin and his retarded son.

[gilgamesh31]

Dilber Novum, lol.

I prefer Euram to Snowe but i said that he was a cheap imitation because he came after Snowe. At the end of the game i still hated Snowe I don't really see how he has this great 'character development', he goes from being cockily annoying to being pitifuly annoying, which ever way you look at it he is still annoying. I felt like Euram had done a U-turn at the end of V, Snowe however still seems envious of Lazlo, he has just learned to bite his tongue.

The Godwins where boring elitists and rubbish enemies along with that. Their attempted genocide of the Beavers reminded me a little too much of when the Elf village gets burned down in Suikoden I.

[Night Shadow]

^ true, that!

with snowe, i was always just genuinely annoyed. lazlo took him in out of pity, and i think if snowe had a little fight left in him, he would still be all egotistical and order lazlo around.

euram, to me, was always more comical than annoying. and if you do recruit him, theres that sense of "redemption" thats there....like, he wants to actually BE redeemed. in the end, i liked him as a character.

hahaha. i never thought of it like that. poor, little beavers. =P

[eldrasidar]

yeah, euram is definitely more comic relief than real villain. He was simply far to inept at trying to be evil. The dialogue that generally ensued around him made me laugh, more than it annoyed me.

don't forget the godwins also wanted to wipe out the dwarfs, and the elves as well, and maintain gladiatorial slaves. you know, they were really just nazis plus the worst aspects of the romans.