Let's Blog Suikoden - Part 23

This is it, people, we're closing in on the end. I have to say, for as much as I love the JRPG genre, it's rare that I really end up finishing them all that often. I tend to adore the openings of these games, and when I get attached to the world and characters, I'll go on to spend so much time wandering around, finding ultimate weapons and visiting every last location, that I'm usually a little burnt out by the finish and move on to other things. 

I don't like saying goodbye to these stories; I must have at least half a dozen separate saves of Final Fantasy X wherein I've restarted the game, gone around nabbing every last secret, and left the thing unfinished just before the finale. The endings of these sort of games are also often immensely emotional; not only are you massively attached to these characters and having to finish their tales, but often some of those you love best end up dying. And in Suikoden, with nigh on 108 individuals that could potentially kick the bucket, I'm not holding out much hope for dry eyes when the credits roll.

Let's rock

Here we go, walking the green mile towards the meeting room. Ah, a sweet moment of relief, there's nobody in the meeting room! I guess they must be outside. I can at least spend a few more minutes walking slowly down the stairs. Unfortunately, I have to go out eventually, and there awaits a group. Along with boats. Well, boats that seem to be made of ice. Tons of them. Apparently Mathiu had yet another stroke of genius, deciding to use Thrash's breath to freeze parts of the water around our castle to create a small fleet of ships with which we can commence our attack on Shasarazade. He said he'd get us boats, he got us boats. 

We give the order to move out, and the battle at Shasarazade begins! Things kick off with our first viewing of Sonya Shulen, a young, blonde Valkyrie-type. She yells out some valiant battle cry that Tai Ho instantly belittles by saying she's cute. However, Sonya didn't come here looking for compliments and instantly retorts that she'll take Tai Ho's head. Damn. Not to be trifled with, this general.

Marvel at our icy fleet

The battle begins, as is often the case, with one of my cheeky ninja scouts. Kage reports that the enemy is plotting a magical blast so we counter with our elven archers. Sonya loses 3,000 of her 17,000 strong force. Meanwhile, our 15k remains untouched. In goes Kasumi who reveals she's preparing a charge so Crowley, Luc, and Lotte smash her with some magic for a big hit. The pattern repeats with the final ninja and then I send in the thieves to continuously counter everything she prepares. Her forces are wiped out and we don't lost a single man. Fantastic.

Now it's time to explore Shasarazade itself. Mathiu plans to burn the place down with oil, but we need to head inside first and close their floodgates in order for our act of arson to succeed. Viktor joins the squad by force, but I would have chosen him anyway. I decide to go a bit mad with the party selection here; Krin, Hellion, Fukien, and Kage make up the rest of our team. Kage is a given recently, he's got that lovely double exp rune and I'd like to see how high I can level him. Fukien has resurrection abilities which have got to to be useful. Hellion has something called a Mother Earth Rune which at least sounds impressive, and then Krin... well, I just sort of wanted to use Krin.

Lovely numbers

We battle our way through a few rooms and eventually come across a giant clam blocking our path. Guess we'd better fight that thing. Oh my days, Hellion, where have you been all my life? It turns out her rune is unbelievably good! She's got a fantastic spell called Earthquake that smashes this clam for nearly 2,000 damage! (that's a lot, by the way) She's also got some nice spells that give our men some kind of armour/bonus defence which is greatly appreciated as this clam hits to kill.

Fukien has to use his resurrection a couple of times, it's nice to finally have such an ability since I'm yet to find an item in the whole game that can bring anyone back to life. However, he's not too great at looking after himself, the monk, and eventually falls to one of the clam's big attacks. As usual, we tear through our medicine supply and use nearly all of our spells but finally the thing falls. Our reward is 100,000 bits. Not bad at all.

This is Akami's uber spell "Judgement", first the enemy is surrounded by blinding white light, then these evil angels appear and summon a rain of blue lasers on the unfortunate victim. I like it.

With that out of the way (quite literally), the path is clear and Viktor takes it upon himself to run along and use his phenomenal strength to shut the enormous floodgates. Back we head towards the entrance, ready to set this place alight. But oh dear, we forgot about someone. Sonya Shulen awaits us at the exit. She asks why we betrayed the empire and our own father, she's mentioned Teo a lot actually, perhaps they were close.

Suddenly, fire! Flames rapidly surround us, lighting up the inside of the castle like a Christmas tree. You know, a Christmas tree on fire. Sonya looks around and asks if this is what we want, to kill everyone and burn the world down. She won't let us escape without a fight, and into another boss battle we go.

Oh alright, Sonya, since it's you

That's a bit of problem for me since, as previously mentioned, I used quite a lot of medicine and spells in that last boss battle, and was wholly unprepared for this one. Almost every turn Sonya smashes us with a devastating attack that reduces our entire party's HP by about half. We're in a real pickle, but a combination of luck, smart use of our remaining health items, and wise old Hellion with her armour spells, I eventually make it through alive. Only Kage and Akami survive the fight, and I don't think they would've managed if both hadn't landed some incredibly lucky critical hits in the last couple of turns.

Sonya isn't surprised she can't defeat us after we were strong enough to stop Teo, but says she won't let us defile her. She says "I'm Teo's..." before trailing off and walking towards the fire, presumably preparing to jump in. It seems like perhaps her and Teo were together. Anyway, Viktor can't let a pretty lady die, in his words, and snatches her away from the flames.

Sonya and Teo were indeed sitting in a tree, it seems

We get outside and - brace yourselves for a shock - Mathiu is down! Liukan is attempting to wake him up but he's not responding. Then we find out - brace yourselves for shock number two - Sanchez was the one who lit the oil ahead of time. Sanchez was the spy! He says he has always been loyal to the Emperor and can't stop now. I find that a bit ridiculous frankly, when even the most stalwart of the Emperor's generals has seen sense and joined our merry band, why is this idiot still serving him, especially after everything he's seen? Besides, we're not even after the Emperor really. Windy is the villain of the piece and she's controlling Barbarosa, we just want to restore a bit of order!

Flik asks if Sanchez was the reason the old liberation army base was attacked and Odessa killed. The old man confirms it. Apparently, after spending this time with us, he began to question what was right and wrong, and even swayed towards switching allegiances to our cause for good, but he's "too old" to change sides. Jerk.

Flik means business

He says he's genuinely sorry for Odessa, and that he does like us all. Then why did you just try and kill us? Oh well, Flik's getting ready to take care of business anyway. Our young hothead draws his sword and prepares to cleave Sanchez's head from his shoulders, when suddenly our strategist awakes. Mathiu climbs to his feet and asks Flik to stand down, saying that the execution of Sanchez and his unveiling as a spy would be a hammer-blow to the troops' morale. For now, we act like nothing happened. Victory is too close now, it can't be put into jeopardy.

It's time to attack Gregminster. This may very well be the end. We head back to the castle and I take the time to roam the place a little, deciding what to do next before chatting to Mathiu and presumably commencing the finale. Down in the basement, our prison finally has a prisoner. Sonya is being held there, and we eavesdrop as she talks to Cleo, asking how someone so loyal to Teo could betray him. Cleo says she knows about Sonya and Teo's relationship, but that she, personally, never betrayed Teo and always remained by his side. She asks Sonya if she believes Teo really hated Akami, before telling her that when the general died, he spoke only of his pride and happiness with the way his son turned out.

Sonya doesn't appear to believe much, but goes silent at the end. Cleo then leaves and I head in to chat to Sonya, which in fact gives me the option to recruit her. She, once again, professes her hatred towards me but I say that I don't mind, I want her fighting by my side. She remains combative, speaking aloud her desire to watch me die. What a lovely lass. Regardless, she's in. Guess it's time to march on Gregminster, huh?

Ivanov finished his painting, gotta say I think it's a masterpiece