I am capable of talking about things other than Suikoden in this journal. ...maybe. ...someday.
I finished Suikoden IV last night. And yes, I have thoughts.
In retrospect, I think IV's story has a more solid start than I initially gave it credit for. It's not my favorite beginning in the series, necessarily, but it sets up a lot of things that have good narrative payoff potential and has some moments of delightful dumbness, too. Sure, navigating the world map consistently sucks, but the game itself didn't run off the rails for me until after Elenor's recruitment. And even then, I wasn't actively bugged until after the Fog Ship event. I wasn't connected to the game on the same level that I was with any of the other titles, including III, but I wasn't grinding my teeth, either. I should have known that those fucking elves heralded the beginning of the game going downhill for me.
I complained about Lazlo feeling more like a plot passenger than the protagonist in the last IV post I made, and it only gets worse. He hands the Golden Seal back to Lino, for crying out loud. And it's so bassackwards from the way all the other titles that I've played in the series have operated. In I and II and V and heck, even in III, the protagonists gain more agency over time and grow into strong and powerful leaders in their own right. Sure, they have their generals and strategists, but they've brokered alliances and led their armies to victory and gotten over a hundred people to rally behind their cause; they might've started out as figureheads, but they sure aren't by the time the final battle rolls around. Lazlo never quite steps out of Lino's or Elenor's shadows to claim leadership in the same way, and I suspect it's in part because he never seems to have as much of a stake in the war's outcome as either Lino or Elenor do. Tir's and Riou's and Frey's and Hugo's/Chris's/Geddoe's/Thomas's campaigns are at least as much personal as they are political, as much about how they as people have grown and changed over the course of the game as they are about the fate of the nation. What does the war actually mean to Lazlo? Why does he care about Obel or Middleport or any of the other islands or Kooluk? Heck, why does he care about Razril? After Glen's death and Lazlo's exile, that connection just kind of peters away.
Okay, fine. Maybe the director wanted to tell a story more like I's, where it's less about the war and more about Lazlo's struggles with the Rune of Punishment itself, and where the game ends on a quieter, almost melancholy note. I can see the parallels between Elenor's (presumed) death and Mathiu's, at least, and Troy going down with his Empire his ship ...which might make Cray Windy?, and Lazlo saying hi to/being possibly protected by the spirits of the dead people whose echoes live on in his Rune. (Wow, there are more parallels than I realized.) But I pulls it off, and IV doesn't. You can track Tir's journey over the course of the game, for one; in contrast, Lazlo's head remains frustratingly obtuse for most of the game. This may have something to do with his apparent spaciness, but seriously, I spent around forty hours with this guy and I still can't tell you how he changed over the course of the game. Snowe stopped bossing him around by the end, I guess? That still feels like an outgrowth of Snowe's character arc (which actually does exist) than Lazlo's, though. The point is that for a personal story to work, you have to give a shit about the people. I gave a shit about I's core cast. I find it hard to do the same with IV's.
It's kind of a shame that Konami decided to cram most of the actual character development into the Moonlit Night before the final battle instead of, you know, seeding that over the course of the game. A lot of those scenes were legitimately interesting and informative! Elenor's history with Cray? Cool, and potentially the source of some juicy drama. Lino's loss of his wife? Genuinely touching and yes, game, I noticed the giant blinking LAZLO IS LINO'S LOST SON sign. Sigurd's conversation with Hervey, and Kika remembering Brandeau? Aww though I remain unclear about whether Kika was with Edgar or Brandeau. Enh, maybe it was a threesome. Even Helmut and Dario got interesting scenes, for chrissakes. I guess my frustration's indicative of my main gripe with the game -- there are seeds of a good story in there, but those seeds never quite come to fruition. And I'd have been okay with IV going in the other direction and embracing its silliness, but it never quite commits to that, either.
So it all kind of ends in a big pile of meh, and a showdown with a giant tree that seems to come from literally nowhere. Maybe Windy summoned Exdeath from THE VOID to give Cray a hand, who knows. And then the Rune Cannon explodes for some reason, even though the whole point of the infiltration mission was to shut it down, because -- plot, I guess. :/ (Okay, there's a confrontation with Troy that would have been a lot more meaningful if the events leading up to it weren't so wtf, but the wtfery kind of spoiled the drama.) So Lazlo has to unleash the true power of the Rune of Punishment! And apparently dies! And nobody in the game sees fit to even mention this. Maybe they actually bother to hold a funeral for him in the bad ending, but in the 108-stars ending, it's just like ... welp! Time to break out Lino's ridiculous outfit and create the Island Nations Federation without so much as a word of acknowledgment for the dude who was supposed to have made all of this possible! Thanks, game, I really feel like my contribution as a player to the story was essential. :/ If you want to know why I felt like Lazlo was a plot passenger, look no further than the lack-of-reaction to his assumed demise.
I do like how a lot of the delegates from the other islands are like "..." at Lino's proposal to create the Island Nations Federation, and he completely steamrolls over them and is all "I DECLARE THE ISLAND NATIONS FEDERATION OFFICIALLY A THING! :D" Fff, Lino. Also, was that thing with Middleport's dealings with Cray Trading Company ever actually dealt with? I don't think it was. Or, like, the numerous times Ramada apparently died and then didn't and how the hell he got into the Rune Control Room in the first place, and did we ever even find out what that damn Rune Cannon was and what the hell Cray's connection to it was and how the heck he planned to use it to find the Rune of Punishment --
Honestly, I feel like the developers threw up their hands at some point while making this game and went "fuck it, we'll explain this shit in Rhapsodia." And apparently a lot of it is explained in Rhapsodia, even if said explanations involve Rune Cannons turning people into fish and psychopomp goats and make no goddamn sense in the context of the larger Suikoden world. It's lazy as crap not to make the game hang together coherently as a self-contained thing, though, and length is no excuse, because I and II managed to do that just fine.
Snowe is probably still the best-developed character in the game, and gets kind of adorable in a not-entirely-ffffff way once he finally grows up. (The fact that True Friends was doing about 1200 damage a round by the end of the game didn't hurt my growing appreciation of him, either. And the end-of-battle animation with him and Lazlo is also endearing, although I can't help but picture him accidentally stabbing himself in the hip after he jams his sword back in its sheath like that. Because he's Snowe.) I want to transport Troy and Colton about 153 years into the future and stick them in Highland, because they would fit in well with II's cast of cool, well-rounded antagonists with sympathetic motivations. And, er, Luca Blight, but I will argue until I am blue in the face that Luca Blight is pretty damn interesting even if he's completely horrible.
The final scene did have me wondering when the fuck Lazlo was going to wake up. Long slow pan over the badly-tiled ocean! Long slow pan over the boat! Lazlo's eyes are closed! Long slow pan over his motionless body! Long slow pan -- away from the boat? What the fuck? I know I got 108 Stars of freaking Destiny. Wait, sparkles are slowly descending! Fade to black! Long slow pan up to the boat again! OH LOOK, HE'S AWAKE. And standing up in a rowboat to wave at a passing ship, which seems a little precarious. I think the monologue I made up while I watched Lazlo waving to his possible rescuers reflects my ultimate impressions of him and of the game pretty well:
LAZLO: Hey guys
LAZLO: Hey guys I'm not dead
LAZLO: Yeah, it's pretty cool
LAZLO: Hey guys do you have any manjuu? I haven't eaten in like three days
LAZLO: Wow, my lips are so crazy chapped right now
LAZLO: Does Snowe still have any of that lip balm?
LAZLO: I don't know if he kept it, because it was cherry and he said he didn't like cherries so I got him raspberry instead and he might have used it up already because I bet his lips were really gross after he got shipwrecked and stuff
LAZLO: But I like cherries so if he kept the cherry around I'll totally use that
LAZLO: If he just has raspberry that's okay too
LAZLO: Hey guys I still have my Rage Rune equipped so should I send up a flare or something?
LAZLO: I think I've gotten all my spells back
LAZLO: I was asleep for a while
LAZLO: Hey guys waving my arm like this is making my shoulder cramp up
LAZLO: ...so should I try to find that island again?
LAZLO: I could build the beach house near the coconut grove...
LAZLO: And those giant crabs looked pretty delish
LAZLO: They'd be really good dinner
LAZLO: Plus I think the Rune of Punishment is feeding off my waistline instead of my life force now
LAZLO: Snowe's gonna be mad that my waist is cuter than his, isn't he
This all probably comes across as "...", granted.
As much of a letdown as the ending was, I'm still glad I played the game, and it did usually keep me entertained if not engaged. Playing it after I played all the other main titles probably put me in a more critical mode even though I went into the game with low expectations, simply because low expectations or no, I couldn't help comparing it to other titles in the series that did what it was trying to do a lot better. (And playing II right beforehand really didn't help, because II set my standards damn high.) But it's a piece of the Suikoden universe that I have now, even if it doesn't exactly link up with the rest of the series, and it was a way to fill the Suikovoid in my life a little.
Man, now I'm done with all the main titles. ._. I still have to finish the rest of Gaiden (though I'm having the damndest time finding a translation for Gaiden II), and I might want to pick up Tactics just to get more context for IV (and because
surskitty's reports are leaving me morbidly curious about what the fuck's going on with that game). I don't know if it's worth picking up a PSP just to play Tierkreis -- probably not -- but hey, it's not like the games have an expiration date, and I've been meaning to name Riou BunBun on my next go-round...
.
In retrospect, I think IV's story has a more solid start than I initially gave it credit for. It's not my favorite beginning in the series, necessarily, but it sets up a lot of things that have good narrative payoff potential and has some moments of delightful dumbness, too. Sure, navigating the world map consistently sucks, but the game itself didn't run off the rails for me until after Elenor's recruitment. And even then, I wasn't actively bugged until after the Fog Ship event. I wasn't connected to the game on the same level that I was with any of the other titles, including III, but I wasn't grinding my teeth, either. I should have known that those fucking elves heralded the beginning of the game going downhill for me.
I complained about Lazlo feeling more like a plot passenger than the protagonist in the last IV post I made, and it only gets worse. He hands the Golden Seal back to Lino, for crying out loud. And it's so bassackwards from the way all the other titles that I've played in the series have operated. In I and II and V and heck, even in III, the protagonists gain more agency over time and grow into strong and powerful leaders in their own right. Sure, they have their generals and strategists, but they've brokered alliances and led their armies to victory and gotten over a hundred people to rally behind their cause; they might've started out as figureheads, but they sure aren't by the time the final battle rolls around. Lazlo never quite steps out of Lino's or Elenor's shadows to claim leadership in the same way, and I suspect it's in part because he never seems to have as much of a stake in the war's outcome as either Lino or Elenor do. Tir's and Riou's and Frey's and Hugo's/Chris's/Geddoe's/Thomas's campaigns are at least as much personal as they are political, as much about how they as people have grown and changed over the course of the game as they are about the fate of the nation. What does the war actually mean to Lazlo? Why does he care about Obel or Middleport or any of the other islands or Kooluk? Heck, why does he care about Razril? After Glen's death and Lazlo's exile, that connection just kind of peters away.
Okay, fine. Maybe the director wanted to tell a story more like I's, where it's less about the war and more about Lazlo's struggles with the Rune of Punishment itself, and where the game ends on a quieter, almost melancholy note. I can see the parallels between Elenor's (presumed) death and Mathiu's, at least, and Troy going down with his Empire his ship ...which might make Cray Windy?, and Lazlo saying hi to/being possibly protected by the spirits of the dead people whose echoes live on in his Rune. (Wow, there are more parallels than I realized.) But I pulls it off, and IV doesn't. You can track Tir's journey over the course of the game, for one; in contrast, Lazlo's head remains frustratingly obtuse for most of the game. This may have something to do with his apparent spaciness, but seriously, I spent around forty hours with this guy and I still can't tell you how he changed over the course of the game. Snowe stopped bossing him around by the end, I guess? That still feels like an outgrowth of Snowe's character arc (which actually does exist) than Lazlo's, though. The point is that for a personal story to work, you have to give a shit about the people. I gave a shit about I's core cast. I find it hard to do the same with IV's.
It's kind of a shame that Konami decided to cram most of the actual character development into the Moonlit Night before the final battle instead of, you know, seeding that over the course of the game. A lot of those scenes were legitimately interesting and informative! Elenor's history with Cray? Cool, and potentially the source of some juicy drama. Lino's loss of his wife? Genuinely touching and yes, game, I noticed the giant blinking LAZLO IS LINO'S LOST SON sign. Sigurd's conversation with Hervey, and Kika remembering Brandeau? Aww though I remain unclear about whether Kika was with Edgar or Brandeau. Enh, maybe it was a threesome. Even Helmut and Dario got interesting scenes, for chrissakes. I guess my frustration's indicative of my main gripe with the game -- there are seeds of a good story in there, but those seeds never quite come to fruition. And I'd have been okay with IV going in the other direction and embracing its silliness, but it never quite commits to that, either.
So it all kind of ends in a big pile of meh, and a showdown with a giant tree that seems to come from literally nowhere. Maybe Windy summoned Exdeath from THE VOID to give Cray a hand, who knows. And then the Rune Cannon explodes for some reason, even though the whole point of the infiltration mission was to shut it down, because -- plot, I guess. :/ (Okay, there's a confrontation with Troy that would have been a lot more meaningful if the events leading up to it weren't so wtf, but the wtfery kind of spoiled the drama.) So Lazlo has to unleash the true power of the Rune of Punishment! And apparently dies! And nobody in the game sees fit to even mention this. Maybe they actually bother to hold a funeral for him in the bad ending, but in the 108-stars ending, it's just like ... welp! Time to break out Lino's ridiculous outfit and create the Island Nations Federation without so much as a word of acknowledgment for the dude who was supposed to have made all of this possible! Thanks, game, I really feel like my contribution as a player to the story was essential. :/ If you want to know why I felt like Lazlo was a plot passenger, look no further than the lack-of-reaction to his assumed demise.
I do like how a lot of the delegates from the other islands are like "..." at Lino's proposal to create the Island Nations Federation, and he completely steamrolls over them and is all "I DECLARE THE ISLAND NATIONS FEDERATION OFFICIALLY A THING! :D" Fff, Lino. Also, was that thing with Middleport's dealings with Cray Trading Company ever actually dealt with? I don't think it was. Or, like, the numerous times Ramada apparently died and then didn't and how the hell he got into the Rune Control Room in the first place, and did we ever even find out what that damn Rune Cannon was and what the hell Cray's connection to it was and how the heck he planned to use it to find the Rune of Punishment --
Honestly, I feel like the developers threw up their hands at some point while making this game and went "fuck it, we'll explain this shit in Rhapsodia." And apparently a lot of it is explained in Rhapsodia, even if said explanations involve Rune Cannons turning people into fish and psychopomp goats and make no goddamn sense in the context of the larger Suikoden world. It's lazy as crap not to make the game hang together coherently as a self-contained thing, though, and length is no excuse, because I and II managed to do that just fine.
Snowe is probably still the best-developed character in the game, and gets kind of adorable in a not-entirely-ffffff way once he finally grows up. (The fact that True Friends was doing about 1200 damage a round by the end of the game didn't hurt my growing appreciation of him, either. And the end-of-battle animation with him and Lazlo is also endearing, although I can't help but picture him accidentally stabbing himself in the hip after he jams his sword back in its sheath like that. Because he's Snowe.) I want to transport Troy and Colton about 153 years into the future and stick them in Highland, because they would fit in well with II's cast of cool, well-rounded antagonists with sympathetic motivations. And, er, Luca Blight, but I will argue until I am blue in the face that Luca Blight is pretty damn interesting even if he's completely horrible.
The final scene did have me wondering when the fuck Lazlo was going to wake up. Long slow pan over the badly-tiled ocean! Long slow pan over the boat! Lazlo's eyes are closed! Long slow pan over his motionless body! Long slow pan -- away from the boat? What the fuck? I know I got 108 Stars of freaking Destiny. Wait, sparkles are slowly descending! Fade to black! Long slow pan up to the boat again! OH LOOK, HE'S AWAKE. And standing up in a rowboat to wave at a passing ship, which seems a little precarious. I think the monologue I made up while I watched Lazlo waving to his possible rescuers reflects my ultimate impressions of him and of the game pretty well:
LAZLO: Hey guys
LAZLO: Hey guys I'm not dead
LAZLO: Yeah, it's pretty cool
LAZLO: Hey guys do you have any manjuu? I haven't eaten in like three days
LAZLO: Wow, my lips are so crazy chapped right now
LAZLO: Does Snowe still have any of that lip balm?
LAZLO: I don't know if he kept it, because it was cherry and he said he didn't like cherries so I got him raspberry instead and he might have used it up already because I bet his lips were really gross after he got shipwrecked and stuff
LAZLO: But I like cherries so if he kept the cherry around I'll totally use that
LAZLO: If he just has raspberry that's okay too
LAZLO: Hey guys I still have my Rage Rune equipped so should I send up a flare or something?
LAZLO: I think I've gotten all my spells back
LAZLO: I was asleep for a while
LAZLO: Hey guys waving my arm like this is making my shoulder cramp up
LAZLO: ...so should I try to find that island again?
LAZLO: I could build the beach house near the coconut grove...
LAZLO: And those giant crabs looked pretty delish
LAZLO: They'd be really good dinner
LAZLO: Plus I think the Rune of Punishment is feeding off my waistline instead of my life force now
LAZLO: Snowe's gonna be mad that my waist is cuter than his, isn't he
This all probably comes across as "...", granted.
As much of a letdown as the ending was, I'm still glad I played the game, and it did usually keep me entertained if not engaged. Playing it after I played all the other main titles probably put me in a more critical mode even though I went into the game with low expectations, simply because low expectations or no, I couldn't help comparing it to other titles in the series that did what it was trying to do a lot better. (And playing II right beforehand really didn't help, because II set my standards damn high.) But it's a piece of the Suikoden universe that I have now, even if it doesn't exactly link up with the rest of the series, and it was a way to fill the Suikovoid in my life a little.
Man, now I'm done with all the main titles. ._. I still have to finish the rest of Gaiden (though I'm having the damndest time finding a translation for Gaiden II), and I might want to pick up Tactics just to get more context for IV (and because
surskitty's reports are leaving me morbidly curious about what the fuck's going on with that game). I don't know if it's worth picking up a PSP just to play Tierkreis -- probably not -- but hey, it's not like the games have an expiration date, and I've been meaning to name Riou BunBun on my next go-round...
.