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General
- In most of the games, the only way to get the best ending is to collect all members of the hero's army (108 fighters and support characters.) Some characters are only recruitable during or after certain plot events, and others can only be recruited when the hero performs certain tasks in a certain order. Some characters will outright reject the hero if you happen to say the wrong thing to them, (or, in at least one case, if you press the "advance text" button while they're talking to you.) If that wasn't bad enough, some characters can be killed during major battles, if you're not careful with them. You can't revive any characters who have fallen in major battles, so once they're gone, they're gone forever. As such, getting the best ending the first time out is all but impossible with these games unless you have a walkthrough handy.
Suikoden
- There is an infamous case when General Teo's army attacks. One character, Pahn, stays behind to stall him in a duel. One could easily assume this is meant to be a Heroic Sacrifice for Pahn's earlier betrayal, because should he lose, General Teo will send him off to be executed and that's the last we ever see of him. In actuality, if he's been leveled and geared well enough, Pahn can easily win the duel and return to the hero's side. But you would have to actually be using him up until then and given he's a generic and not particularly useful character and there are literally dozens of better characters to make up your party of 6, he most likely will have sat on the sidelines up to this point. Oh, and he's one of the 108 stars and absolutely needed alive to get the best ending.
- As noted below, Clive seems to have a knack for causing confusion and anger among players, due to how difficult it is to recruit him and/or finish his quest. Getting him in the first game required you to be completely lucky enough to see him in a town's inn. If he is not in the inn, recruiting him requires the player to exit the town, re-enter, and try the inn again. Several times. The odds of seeing him are very low. There was no detective-like character in this game to give you any hints on where to recruit him, so without a guide, there's a very good chance you can search the entire game screen-by-screen and never see him once.
- Recruiting Leon Silverburg is an exercise in annoyance. He's holed up in Kalekka and doesn't really have anything useful to say, not giving any obvious hints about how you're supposed to recruit him. What you're supposed to do is keep progressing through the game until you have enough recruits that Toran Castle has leveled up into its final appearance (which is depicted as a banner being hung in front), and then go back to Kalekka to talk to him; he'll remark on how impressive the Liberation Army has grown. Then you need to talk to Mathiu, who will draft a letter formally requesting Leon's services... at least, so long as he's not performing his function as strategist by offering to advance the plot, which always overrides the letter. If you haven't gotten that letter by the time you complete the fortress of Shasarazade, kiss your Golden Ending goodbye!
Suikoden II
- Recruiting the "Flying Squirrels". The "easiest" to get is Mukumuku, who can either be found by examining the tree (three times, no less) behind the Genkakku home near the beginning of the game, or by taking part in random battles on the path from Greenhill to the Muse border. The rest have to be recruited by taking part in random battles on the paths throughout the Greenhill region, although the mechanics behind this set of recruits still aren't fully known to players (and their locations aren't apparent without a guide). You have to have a free space in your party, all of the recruits have to be obtained in a chain (Mukumuku must be in the party to obtain Makumaku and so on) and there is still no foolproof method to recruit them beyond extreme trial-and-error. The only solution people have come up with in recent years is to have Stallion in your party, run in and out of towns repeatedly to "reset" the squirrels' locations and pray that you find them. Thankfully, they're not required for the 108 Stars.
- Clive's subquest is timed from the start of the game and runs on a very fast timer. The player is forced to go through a series of events within 21 hours to complete Clive's story - otherwise, it is impossible to finish the sidequest (barring the use of a Gameshark). If you want to see every part of his storyline, you will have to inevitably play the game as quickly as possible, because the time limit doesn't leave much room for error and there are several points when Elsa (the woman Clive is chasing) goes to places the player can't reach (or isn't told about) until later in the game.
- Nanami's survival relies on several variables, none of which are hinted at in the game. First, you must have recruited all 108 Stars of Destiny before invading Rockaxe Castle (confirmed by receiving the final Bright Shield Rune spell from Leknaat). Second, during the invasion itself when confronting Jowy, Gorudo and his troops will try to shoot you and Jowy down, at which point a dialogue prompt will appear for a split moment requiring you to pick one of the two options - which you must (confirmed by the protagonist assuming a fighting stance). Third, Nanami must have at least one piece of armor equipped and a DEF stat sum of at least 121. If these conditions are met, Dr. Huan will request to speak to Shu in private in the next scene.
- Reaching the Golden Ending. Following the final battle, you are offered to lead the Dunan Republic. Accepting gives you a good ending, but not the best. Refusing has you continue playing. If you want the best ending, you are assumed to remember the promise you made with Jowy at the very beginning of the game and return to Tenzen Pass, at the spot the two promised to reunite if they get separated after escaping the coup against the Youth Brigade. Doing so leads to one final confrontation between the two former friends, and assuming you've met the conditions to the previous point, you can resolve the fight peacefully by refusing to attack him.
- To be fair, the game does foreshadow that you're not supposed to attack Jowy just like Genkaku never attacked Han in their duel and seal the Rune of Beginning together. Then again, it happens for so long that players may have forgotten about that part.
- Another hint: should you accept the offer and end the game, a picture of Jowy waiting at Tenzen Pass is shown after the credits.
