Let's Blog Suikoden - Part 20

Into the castle! Shortly after entering we meet a friendly zombie. So that's a good start. He offers us information for some bits, with four price boundaries selectable. I offer him the highest amount of 25k just to see what's going on (I've got hundreds of thousands of bits at this stage, and with the Gaspar mini-game back home there's virtually an endless source of money) and he tells me "Master Neclord... googly goo". Yes, well worth the price of entry. He sees we're a little ticked off with that and returns the money; a chuckle was had by all.

No creepy castle is complete with a coffin room

After that, I'm reluctant to offer him more money but give it a go. For the low prices of 100 and 300 bits he tells us pretty much nothing but 10,000 is apparently the sweet spot as he mentions paintings on the third floor; he tells us we should look at them in a certain order, and I make a little note of it. Onwards and upwards!

We're fighting some very hellish enemies in this area; flaming "hell unicorns", creepy larvae and floating skeletons comprise the bulk of our opponents, and they hit to hurt. I make huge use of Akami's Soul Eater here since it has a few new spells now which can wipe out an entire group of enemies in an instant.

"Hell Unicorn" wouldn't be a bad name for a death metal band, same goes for "Larvae" to be honest

Eventually, we reach the aforementioned gallery and investigate the paintings in the prescribed order, unlocking a secret door to progress. I would've figured out the order eventually but I'd still say it was 10,000 bits well-spent. By the way, I do have to mention there's an incredibly cool Dracula-esque theme tune playing as I make my way around this place. The Suikoden soundtrack has continued to impress as I plough on.

We reach the top of the castle in good time; Tengaar awaits in a wedding dress while Neclord plays a beautifully macabre rendition of "Here Comes the Bride". Hix calls out to his crush that he's arrived to save her whilst Viktor tells Neclord that today he dies. Our vengeance-seeking friend unveils his new sword, and Hix reinforces him, revealing the christened moniker of his blade: Tengaar. Into battle we go!

Yeah!

It's a tough fight, make no mistake. At least this time we're doing damage to the evil vampire but he's certainly dealing out his own share. I end up using every single one of my healing items (and I had a lot!) and finally going on a little 'last stand' where we just had to take his hits and deal as much damage as possible and I suppose I was very lucky to have played the battle just right because we finished him with most of our party only a round or two away from death.

Neclord's 500 years of evil are over as Viktor brings his sword crashing down upon the vamp; our friend delivering the final blow with all the strength he can muster. Afterwards, Tengaar and Hix enjoy an emotional reunion and Zorak pledges the allegiance of the warriors to our cause. Now it's time to go back to the castle, but Viktor won't be joining us; he wishes to go and deliver news of Neclord's defeat to what remains of his village, and we grant him a leave of absence.

A well-deserved bath after eliminating a vampiric menace

Back home, we take a little wander around. We hand over some fresh painter to our artist Ivanov and deliver some old books we've been collecting throughout the game to our new librarian. We can then read these books and they reveal some cool little secrets like possible recruits and where to find them! Very nice indeed.

The meeting room is filled with faces, Sanchez, Humphrey, Flik, Mathiu, and Lepant all await us, a real meeting of minds. Sanchez congratulates on liberating the Lorimar region without even the need for a battle. Kasumi has reported that the fifth general, Kasim Hazil, has been placed in charge of northern defences and is in the process of building up his forces. He's got a nice little personal army of 8,000 men, with 6,000 others stationed at the floating fortress of Shazarazade and a whopping 10,000 more back at the Imperial headquarters. 

Check out my library! 

Our forces aren't quite a match for all that yet, we need more rebels! Humphrey mentions his friendship with Joshua, commander of the Dragon Knights. They're a neutral force who never particularly fancied the empire, and old Hump says he'll come along with us to forge an alliance. Can't say I wouldn't mind having some dragons on our side, so I'm game.

Flik annoyingly forces his way into the party in that typical Flik way of his, so I make up the numbers with new recruits Eikei and Tengaar, along with Kage, who I think is undeniably badass. The party is sorted out with armour and goodies, and off we go to the Dragon's Den where Humphrey presents himself to the guard on duty, expecting to be granted passage but no, Joshua has apparently given the order not to allow a single soul through the gates.

Here's the image our painter is currently beautifully bringing to life by the way, I've been meaning to show you for a while now; it's clearly going to be a delight when complete

Something's up, and we decide to head to Antei to catch the gossip. At the entrance of the town we spot the local innkeeper embroiled in a dispute with a young fellow who seems to have attempted a little "dine and run" at the former's establishment. The suspect is, by appearance and dialogue, a rather posh fellow by the name of Vincent de Boule. He tries smooth-talking his way out of his predicament, claiming to have given his money away to starving children. I like him already.

He then comes over and introduces himself to us, asking to lend a few coins before taking off as he's in a hurry to meet Joshua. Hmm, interesting. We're left to sort out his bill, but it's a small price to pay for the lead we've found! We head back to the Dragon's Den, catching Vincent attempting to persuade the guard to allow his passage.

 "You must be knew here if you don't know me, I'm a friend of Joshua's!" claims Vincent. 

The gatekeeper comes back, "I've worked her for five years." 

Vincent pauses a moment before unleashing his humorously improvised retort, "Ah.. well, yes, it was just over five years ago that I last visited!" 

I'd love to Vincent

I really do like this fellow. And I like him even more when he promptly shows us a secret entrance to the den that he used to use as a child. That brings me onto a little side point though that I wouldn't mind mentioning; I really like an awful lot of the characters in this game. Firstly, that's fantastic because it shows how well these people are written, despite having very little relative screen-time compared to the cast of a majority of JRPGs. Secondly, it's super tough because, as you'll have noticed, I only ever get to choose five companions for each journey, and even then I usually have a couple of 'forced' choices. 

There's such a lot of guys I like and many I haven't even seen in my party for ages! Lepant was a character I really appreciated but I haven't been able to find space for him in my team, Pahn never even got a look-in when he was recruited. Luc, Camille, Kuromimi (!), Valeria, Kirkis, Gen, Varkas and Sydonia! There's even tons I've not used a single time and wouldn't mind checking out like Mose, Fukien, Kai, Hellion, or Lotte. Even very recent acquisitions like Hix, I really enjoyed his story and like him, yet he's already out of my party! I love the game and I love this system of having such a wide variety of characters to choose from but it can be tough sometimes.

And still so many characters to find!

Anyway, back to business. We make our way through a cave system, fighting a few enemies along the way. Eikei has a lovely 'Double-Beat Rune' that means he attacks twice, and I gave Tengaar an Earth rune with a whole bundle of spells to choose from. Suddenly, we start hearing dinosaur-esque sounds (after vampires and everything else, I wouldn't be all that surprised if the game decided to delve into some Jurassic Park nonsense), but as you might imagine, it turns out to be the dragons.

We fall down a slope and find ourselves surrounded by the beasts, luckily for us though they're all asleep. They're being guarded by a woman named Milia and a fellow named Futch who we in fact met right back at the beginning of the game! He flew us to Leknaat's place on his dragon Black. After a little chat, we realise these sleeping dragons might have some problems. A short trip to the Dragon Knight's Fortress and a chat with Joshua confirms our suspicions; the dragons will not wake up. Joshua says he'd love to help us but without the dragons, the knights aren't all that useful. 

Falling deeper in love with this game with every dialogue choice it offers me

He asks us if we could bring Liukan to help, as he has heard word that our alchemist might be their only hope. I agree to his demand, taking a moment to search the fortress first where I learn that Joshua possesses one of the True Runes, the Dragon Rune (fitting, huh?) which prevents him from ageing, as the True Runes do. Humphrey persuades an old friend named Kreutz to join our forces, and we spot a guy named Fuma hiding at the side of the fortress. He's a ninja and appears astonished at our "visual powers" to have found him. I feel like saying "You weren't hidden that well, chum." but the prompt doesn't appear. Anyway he joins up.

We then 'port back to the castle and stick him into our party for Tengaar, along with Liukan for Eikei. Back to Joshua we go where Liukan has a look at the sleeping dragons, quickly diagnosing their state as the result of poisoning. He needs three ingredients for an antidote, some moonlight weed, a certain type of orchid, and something secret that he won't reveal just yet. I wonder what that might be. Milia joins up with the party and offers to fly us to Seek Valley on her dragon Thrash (one of only two dragons still awake) to find the first of the ingredients: moonlight weed. Let's do this!

Well if "obliterating your very presence and becoming a shadow" means "standing slightly sneakily behind a wall with your head poking out" then sure, I've got the eyes of a hawk