Postby BrucePrintscreen » Sat Jan 04, 2014 2:27 pm
...and this is so funny I will share it.
Backstory: my wife is in her early thirties like I am, but even if I am a poor gamer (I stopped paying interest in videogames in the early 2000s so Suikoden 2 is practically the most modern game I played so far), she is even worse (she didn't grew up with videogames at all, except the original Mario Kart - damn she kick asses at Mario Kart).
So I come home that other day with consoles and S1, 2, and 4 (which I never played before, whereas I played the two others when I was a teenager) and tell her these are the best games ever and we should play them with our kid.
And guys, if you doubted the power of seduction of suikoden, this is the final argument in favour of it: she never played a damn RPG before, and barely any videogame ever, and she got hooked completely on Suikoden 1.
Halfway through the game as I'm typing this, her reactions are so interesting that I decided to report them. This is quite an experience: almost twenty years after the game was out, a complete rookie is discovering the game and enjoys it tremendously. Here are a few things I noticed:
...keep in mind: this is the Suikoden experience of someone with close to zero experiences of videogames...
-She really got into the storyline from the moment Odessa died. She found it surprising how she got attached to poor Odessa, and from the moment she died, my wife definitely showed more implication into the story. Before she would play a bit and stop at the first occasion to save, now she plays until she really has to stop.
-She has a fondness for Valeria. She said such things as "cool", "strong", "awesome" about her. My wife is a very peaceful, gentle person, but she shivers when Valeria uses her Falcon Rune.
-Interestingly, she dropped Valeria in favour of Kasumi recently: she said she got frustrated with Valeria always attacking last and she enjoys Kasumi always attacking first.
-She saw the death of Gremio coming. She found the last words of the guy (when he talks about the spores eating him) heartbraking, but she got the idea pretty early on that Gremio wouldn't make it to the end of the story.
-She had to try four times before she could beat Teo McDohl with Pahn. She disliked Pahn as a character and as a playable character, so she found it frustrating to have to devote so much efforts and credits into building him up for this single fight. The difficulty of the Pahn/Teo duel is the only think she criticized vocally about the game so far. (nb: I usually sit with her as she plays as I always enjoy re-experiencing this game and it's nice to do it together, so I give her a few clues as how to finish a game with 108 stars, so I insited she tried everything to save Pahn's ass).
-She shares my fondness for Lotte. I don't know why this very obscure and underdevelopped character is striking our imagination so much. Probably because of the cat obsession.
-She loves Viktor and Flik as characters (especially Viktor), and I secretly can't wait to see her face when she'll play S2 and will see them reappear.
-She says Qlon is the most ridiculous character ever. I won't blame her for that.
-She views Kirkis as "the suikoden equivalent of Michael Jackson". That's also because all his talk of peaceful relationship between Elves and Humans, which says could have been into a late Jackson song about peace between people. Since then, we joked about Kirkis doing moonwalk at Pannu Yakuta and such things.
-She was very frustrated when naming the castle because she wanted to call it "Castle Gormenghast" but there were not enough characters allowed. She's a big fan of the Gormenghast novels and made several comparisons between Suikoden and Gormenghast in a positive way. In spite of being allowed to name it Gormenghast, she named her castle after our daughter.
-She calls Sanchez "the drunkard" because he "offers me wine all the time". If she only knew...
-She was amazed to discover when "that song you always sing in your shower" was actually the Kirov song. I forgot about it myself.
-My very polite and civilized wife can become very rude when it comes to Hawkmen, Mad Ivys, beating Teo Mc Dohl with Pahn, and "that a-hole Eikei who thinks I'm not strong enough yet"...
-On a smiliar vein, she calls Creepers "the ballsacks"...
-She calls big war battles "the Lemmings" because of the way the little soldiers look like.
-Krin reminds her of Lieutnenant Columbo. The fact that I'm a big Columbo fan may help.
-She used Eileen a lot and replaced her by Sarah. She plays a lot with Kai too, and Cleo. She is actually not very original with her choice of playable characters but it's interesting to observe how a complete beginner (including about RPGs in general) naturally goes towards the same characters.
-She had a dream about someone called Varkas but it was not actually Varkas...
-She took a pattern of asking me to "equip" our daughter rather than dressing her up. Then she giggles and disappear to "equip her boots". I love my wife very much.
If more funny things happen, I'll keep you updated. Anyway, I think buying these old games out of sheer nostalgia was a great idea and it brings a lot of fun in my little family, which is what a game should be about, right?