What a sissy

[Psi Yamaneko]

I, for one, really liked the Prince's design. I mean, yes, on the box I DID think he was a girl but seeing him ingame or any art that shows him from the front I know he's male.

He's "pretty", sure, but he's also royalty, were you expecting someone rugged looking? And his face, is by a WIDE margin, the most expressive face in Suikoden history (Did Lazlo's expression ever change?. . .Ever? I'm asking. . .). I thought it was amazing how much personality they got to come across in just his eyes and body language. He's actually my favorite protagonist so far. By the end of the game I felt compelled to sympathize with him. Impressive for a "blank avatar".

As for his clothes. . .The ornate armor regalia was a bit unusual but it was fun to look at IMHO. Lots of colors.

[Chev]

Tee-hee... the first time I saw the prince's leader outfit, the first thing I thought of was, "Gee, can that even protect you??" But I never disliked his outfit, nor thought he was feminine-looking. Maybe because I'm from Asia. Asian people tend to be on the thin and small side even at the ages of 20 and above.

[Dura Sinai]

What bothers me more than the prince's decidedly fruity appearance is his lack of poise and poor posture. I would expect a royal to have a distinguished bearing, yet the prince hunches over like a servant in many of the game's cutscenes. Evidently the motion actor who supplied the prince's movements graduated from the Gollum school of acting.

Well, I think there is a difference between the males and females in this respect. Ferid also seems more casual than would be expected from the queen's husband. Compare Lymsleia versus the prince.... It might just be the presentation.

Considering that male royalty in Falena is by and large not heald in high regard. It is mentioned through the game that most are not particularly skilled and even suggests their worth is mostly to put into politically beneficial marriages.

But I agree with Psi on the work in facial and body expressions for not just the prince by the cast as a whole. 4 was so disappointing as that was one of the major steps backward with 3 introducing this even if the proportions were superdeformed. Characters faces should change based on mood and reaction. 5 was nice in that it could be more subtle than in 3 and added depth along witht he dialogue.

[Chev]

Well, um, the motion actor of both the prince and Roy are the same... and it's a girl! ^__^;;;

[Magnumkiller]

One thing that didn't make me think he was a girl. He is flat. As thin as you may find them, most women are not flat. Taking in mind the drawings of females in Suikoden, any female on the 'correct' age is usually either horribly exagerated, or atleast noticeable.

[Dinn]

I thought the Prince looked better than 4's Hero. I think it was because of the hair.

[Leyviur]

I liked the Prince's design. It's quite well done, and I often lambaste games for having crappy leads, so that's saying something. Besides, he looks like a guy in game, anyway, which is a bizarre contrast to the other characters, who all look exactly like their profile pictures. The prince looks a lot different for some reason.

And, I'm sorry, but you really can't judge him base don his clothes. So he has the shoulder thing going on... so? That means huge muscle guys like Zegai or guys who go out jogging topless are 'feminine' because they have NO SHIRTS AT ALL! And the tights and his body structure? Please, Riou was even skinnier and had tights on that didn't even reach his ankles, and he's lauded as one of the most badass characters in all of Suikoden.

Hero V happens to be my favorite Suikoden hero design, so... yeah, I've had to argue against this a lot, mainly because of all the faulty logic involved.

[DeathChaser]

Hes a prince ..they can wear anything they want because they are rich .And you dont have to be big guy to kick ass ..Luca in Suikoden 2 is not really a big guy he just wears whole lot of armor but he was one of the strongest mortals .And the hero in Suiko 5 kicks ass ..he kicked that giant looking guys ass whats his name ..??i forgot his name its that crazy looking guy in the Borows mansion who protects the intrance to the basement where they found the Dawn Rune.

[Occam Arkitect]

I have a question. [spoilers, maybe]




During the best ending in S5, did Hero5 had a haircut or was it just a braid or whatever?

[Sagiri]

I don't know I didn't get the good ending.

lazlo, in suiko 4, he's ok, he wear black outfit that looks masculin, except that short pants. that's just wrong for m

Well think about this. He's an islander. It's hot in the islands, isn't it? If he wore long pants, he would be collapsing from dehydration and wouldn't be able to lead the damn army.

[FliktorForce5]

Well I'd like to put in my two cents worth on the whole "looking gay" thing, but first I'd like to preface my comments a bit; first there is such a thing as "looking gay" now, I'm not saying that every gay man can be found walking his toy chihuahua down the street in his hotpants and skin-tight mesh shirt, but many men find that dressing in such a flamboyant manner is more comfortable for them and the life that they choose to lead, secondly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with looking gay. It's simply an outward statement of who you are as a person, and as I've said some, but certainly not all, gay men prefer to dress and act very flamboyantly, but that does not imply that they are any less valid in any capacity than anyone else. I just wanted to say that so no one thinks I'm using "gay" in a negative or derogatory connotation. Simply a statement of fact.

That being said, yeah, the prince looks totally gay. At first I was opposed to it, because I'd seen it a million times before in a million different games and I'm really craving something new by now. However as the game progressed and I learned more about Falena and how matriarchal the whole society is with women in traditional roles typically reserved for men and men seen doing things that would typically be seen as emasculating, like Queen's Knights wearing make-up, (still waiting for that piece of fan art of Zahak and Galleon sharing eyeshadow in the bathroom btw) the more I came to really enjoy the fact that the prince was effeminate. But I always liked the thought of him getting with Luserina. She was just so sweet.

[Captain Tenneal]

There's such a thing as looking gay? So gay is a fashion style now? If that's a statement of fact, the Captain deems it false.

Question! How is a fashion style for a certain sex "gay" if only some gay people follow it? It doesn't make sense, and I think it is a slight against LGBT people (calling something gay is, in my experience, always associated with the negative. Trying to rationalize it to make it ok for you to personally use it doesn't really help this). Why call it gay? There's other things you could call it, like flamboyant. Or you could say he's feminine (not effeminate, that's generally considered a slight. Kinda complicated, I think it has to do with the word's history and how it was used to note deficiencies in a man.)

I actually laughed though when you mentioned the mesh shirt. It was so 80's, and Arnold Schwarzenegger's main villain in the movie Commando wears one.

Don't take that too personally, I'm just serious about such matters. I do acknowledge that you were motivated by kindness and I thank you for that, FliktorForce5. If you want a change of characters though, I would recommend trying Western RPGs such as Fallout 3, there are many others that don't follow that Japan anime style. Now .... on to the topic at hand:

I don't mind feminine lead roles for male characters. I think all sorts are fine, so the main character for V doesn't bug me. Is he a sissy? (I don't care for that one either, btw) If he's in a Suikoden game, the obvious answer should be no.
Forgot to add: I do grow tired of the macho man hero. I don't know if anyone has played Resident Evil 5 yet, but I was disappointed to see how they chose to bulk up Chris Redfield. In fact, in earlier shots of the game he actually looked like Sylvester Stallone after his experience with growth hormone.

[Blutiger Engel]

I actually prefer feminine looking men- maybe that has a lot to do with Snowe being my favorite character... but in all seriousness, huge muscles aren't sexy to me. The macho man, "I'm so badass, I can kill anyone" attitude is a total turnoff, as well. Most men I know aren't huge muscular guys that speak with grunts and witty, intimidating one-liners; they're regular dudes with average bodies that don't mind drinking a long island here and there. Any man who is comfortable doing so is more attractive and realistic than what I just described, and thus I would prefer my video game heroes to be somewhat similar.

[Captain Tenneal]

Your description actually reminded me of how Silent Hill started off. In the first game, you play a writer who actually misses when he shoots even when you're aiming right at the enemy, and he gets winded after running for a short time. Sometimes I just want the hero to be average yet able to survive. Suikoden's world of mostly "unlikely" heroes might be what makes it interesting.

[FliktorForce5]

I totally agree with you captain, it's not really that I want the "macho-man" hero but he's kind of nice to see in games once in a while. That's a big part of why I love these games so much. The sheer variety you can get with playable characters is fun to no end, you can have those super-buff manly men, to the truly girly girls (Josephine, anyone?). The main hero of the games, however always seemed like the ultimate middle ground character to me. They were never the biggest, or the toughest, or the fastest, but they had enough of each of those traits that any other character could find something to respect about them. A reason to follow them. In fact the only thing that I've really missed from the games and would very much like to see is some sort of "relationship-builder" aspect. I would have loved to see different endings or events if you should choose to "fall in love" with different characters. I especially wanted to see such an aspect in 5 where it seemed like there were a lot of girls who had a romantic interest in the main character but there was simply not much to be done for it. And yeah, I know, the games are about geo-political power struggles at break-neck speed. In fact most of the conflicts in-game don't ever seem to last an entire year (anyone else notice how we've never seen it snow in any of these games before) But still, it would definitely add to the re-play value of an already huge game, and in my mind give a player a very good reason to go through the entire affair again.
Plus, let's face it, there's always room for love.