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Three years after the events of the original game, the City-States of Jowston have just signed a ceasefire with the Highland Kingdom. The protagonist, an orphan adopted by the late hero Genkaku, has just joined the army alongside his best friend Jowy. However, they fall afoul of one of the most twisted examples of a False Flag Operation ever attempted, courtesy of Luca Blight. Barely escaping this fate, they soon find themselves saddling with the two halves of the Rune of the Beginning, the Black Sword Rune and the Bright Shield Rune. From there, their paths split, as the protagonist takes the traditional hero's route and Jowy sets out to break the system from within, setting the stage for a war where both sides fight for the exact same goal.

Suikoden II takes the themes established in the first game and weaves a far more complex plot around them, with heavy doses of Grey-and-Gray Morality thrown into the mix. Add in plenty of Continuity Nods, the return of several fan favorites and a liberal dose of Player Punches and you've got a game which is still considered the high point of the series by much of the fandom.

To those who want to play the game but cannot afford to shell out anywhere from $100 to over $500 for a copy, PlayStation Network released the game as a PlayStation Classic in December 2014 in North America, and January 2015 in Europe. It would be bundled with the first game as Compilation Rerelease Suikoden I & II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars in 2023.


Suikoden II provides examples of:

  • Ain't Too Proud to Beg: The scared villagers of Ryube literally begs Luca for burning down the village. Luca won’t listen to it.
  • A.I. Roulette: The final boss attack patern.
  • Annoying Arrows:
    • Luca Blight treats them this way. During the ambush, he gets hit repeatedly with them, but seemingly shrugs them off and still manages to put up quite a bit of a fight before you finally get to kill him.
    • Averted later in the game Nanami tries to deflect arrows coming your way, but gets hit by one of them. Though your enemy by this point, even Jowy is pissed off enough to temporarily side with you in order to take down Gorudo, who ordered his men to fire on you and Jowy. Whether she survives or not depends on if you gather the 108 stars together and a few other things.
  • As Long as It Sounds Foreign: L'Renouille means absolutely nothing in French. Even the translator admits that the name is just French-sounding gibberish.
    • The nearest word is "grenouille" — which means "frog", appropriately.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: You can recruit monster characters (including a griffin, an unicorn, and a kraken) into your army with the Listening Runes. Monsters have impressive stats and abilities, but are so large that they take up two character slots. In most cases using two regular characters will be more effective.
  • Ax-Crazy: Luca Blight. His motto could well be "You can't spell slaughter without laughter!"
  • Badass Normal: Luca Blight yet again. He's one of the most terrifying men in the entire series, and he only fights with a sword and heavy armor.
  • Battle Amongst the Flames: Both literally at the Merc's Fort and a verbal one between Shu and Leon.
  • Battle Boomerang: Millie is the only character in the game with a Boomerang as their weapon.
  • The Battle Didn't Count: Absurd amounts of grinding makes it possible to defeat Rowd when you fight him in front of your house, but you're still captured afterward. Very amusingly inverted during a boss fight when you recruit Tir. If you lose the fight, your team simply gets back up again, with Riou and Tir destroying the first turn of a following battle
  • Battle Epic: While not real events, the plot does feature a heavy does of this
  • Beast Man: The kobolds return, more cartoony than ever.
  • Big Book of War: With respect to Silverberg's strategy; lampshaded by Leon and Shu.
    Leon: "Never put your own life in danger, that's the first rule of the book."
    Shu: "I had to throw away the book, you read it too many times."
  • Big Badass Battle Sequence: The major battles might count.
  • Big Damn Heroes: This is one of the default ways that unwinnable situations tend to work themselves out.
    • Riou and Jowy are about to get hanged. Rowd gazes at the sunset for a few seconds and then looks back and Flik and Viktor have killed all the soldiers and cut the ropes around Riou and Jowy's necks.
    • If Riou and Nanami try to escape the war, but come back, Marlowe and Koyu attempt this in an attempt to rescue Lilly and Lo Wen. Riou, Viktor and Kahn succeed in rescuing all four, playing it straight.
  • Big Fancy Castle: Dunan castle becomes this after a couple upgrades.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Any of the non-complete endings. Riou had to kill his best friend, became immortal due to getting the full version of Rune of the Beginning, and decided to lead the country he led to victory, sacrificing most of his youth and with the knowledge that most of the people he cared about are gone. On the other hand, he saved the world from Luca Blight's wrath and the Beast Rune, reformed the City-States of Jowston and ensured peace between it and the Highlands, making they stay united during the eventual Higheast Rebellion.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: Konami has some really great and thorough localizations under its belt. This ain't one of them.
    • Bad word choice is everywhere. The scene you get for completing Clive's quest and its insane criteria is nearly nonsensical.
    • Some characters lapse in and out of Hulk Speak.
    • Most egregiously of all, they forgot to translate certain parts of the text (mostly a few lines of optional villager dialogue and some enemy names in out-of-the-way locations), having it show up as gibberish.
    • It's not just the text — entire pieces of music are missing. The especially dramatic ones, like the battlefield theme and when Annalee sings. What should have been highlights in the game are rendered several minutes of unskippable, awkward silence. This was thanksfully fixed in the PAL version.
    • The Old Save Bonus is a tad soured by jumbling the character's name.
    • About halfway through the game they decide to change "Jowy" to "Joei" and then back to "Jowy" again.
    • The Spanish translation is even worse, full of grammar and syntax mistakes and ridiculously bad word choice.
  • Book Ends: The game starts out with Riou and Jowy jumping off a cliff after making a pact that they should return to that cliff when they get separated to escape from the ambush of the Highland Army. Two of the endings let you go back in that same cliff where you duel Jowy. One is where he lives if you get all of the 108 and one is where he dies.
  • Brass Balls: When Jowy tells Luca Blight that he intends to marry Jillia, Luca responds with an Evil Laugh and shouts, "You've got balls, I'll give you that!"
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Fitcher.
  • But Thou Must!: Mostly played to the hilt here; don't talk to Shu before you're sure you're ready to proceed with the plot, or he'll take the decision out of your hands. There are a couple notable exceptions, however...
    • The most significant is when Nanami offers the player the choice of simply running away from the conflict. Accepting triggers an entire optional quest that can lead to a Bad Ending.
  • Call-Back: You could make a page out of it due to being a direct sequel to Suikoden.
  • The Caligula: Luca Blight... seriously exemplified this trope. Simply put, he's such a batshit crazy evil prince-later-king to a very much Godlike levels.
  • Canon Name: Though the protagonist has no official name, the Japanese novelization and drama CD gave him the name of Riou. The name "Tao" has been used as well in a manga adaptation.
  • Chef of Iron: Hai Yo, master of both the Cooking Duel and the fighting arena, wields kitchen implements.
  • Character Development:
    • Among others, Flik continues his evolution into a fan favorite.
    • Also, remember when Apple was a bratty Mathiu fangirl? Three years have made her into a competent vice-strategist, a co-general in war, and a mature young lady to boot.
  • Chick Magnet: Flik is endlessly (and hilariously) plagued by this.
  • Child by Rape: Luca's sister, Jillia. Being forced to watch the act itself served to slowly drive Luca off the deep end.
  • Child Soldier: Riou and Jowy....a theme of this game revolves around the tragedy of children fighting, or are impacted by, adult wars and conflicts.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Certain dialogue options let you portray Riou as one.
  • Climax Boss: In addition to being a massive boss battle that involves fighting him in a strategic military battle, then three times in succession with different parties, then again in a one-on-one dual, the boss fight with Luca Blight serves as the climax to the first part of the plot, since everything you've done up until that point was focused on stopping him specifically.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Nina, toward Flik, especially when she (falsely) suspects that Nanami may be a rival for his love. To a much lesser extent, there's Eilie, who shows signs of steadily becoming one after developing a rather obvious crush on Riou.
  • Cognizant Limbs: The Final Boss has these, with a Rune, two heads and two legs, which all attack the party in different ways. Only the Rune and the heads need to be taken out to win, though.
  • Combat by Champion:
    • Surprisingly subverted, considering the number of one-on-one fights that Riou engages in with important people. Riou's duels only occur either after the "combat by army-scale slaughter" parts, or in places completely unrelated to large-scale conflict.
    • Played straight in a flashback between Genkaku (Jowston) and Han Cunningham (Highland) to decide who gets to control Kyaro. Han won because Genkaku just refuses to raise his sword (because it was covered with poison).
  • Continuity Nod: Tons of them, firmly establishing the world.
  • Cool, but Inefficient: Pesmerga is a wicked cool Black Knight with wicked cool armor and a powerful enigma thanks to his connection with Yuber. His starting stats is tremendous. He also leaves very little to customization with limited equipment slot (has a lot of unremovable items) and rune slots, therefore if you have been training several highly customizable units, you'll find him lacking. Otherwise, he's an 11th-Hour Ranger to help you finish the game quicker; still a nice addition, but won't be way bigger than your other properly trained people.
  • Cooking Duel: Played completely straight, Hai Yo has to cook his way through an entire tournament over the course of the game.
  • Cool Ship: The Pale Palace that is summoned with the Blue Gate rune appears through a wormhole and fires a broadside at the enemies.
  • Crutch Character: A twist on this trope as this example involves two characters. In the early part of the game, Jowy is a member of your party, and he and the player character Riou can perform a Unite attack that strikes all enemies for regular weapon damage. There's no penalty in contrast to a lot of other Unite abilities and it can be used every turn making it much easier to take out large enemy groups. You lose access to this technique when Jowy leaves due to plot events, but by that point in the game you should no longer have to rely on it.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: There are a couple of these which happens during the game, though the tide of the battle can change very quickly, against all odds:
    • When you are fighting Rowd at Kyaro, he will beat Riou and Jowy very quickly (unless you are way overleveled for that part, and even then it won't change the outcome).
    • When defending Viktor's fort, initially, your army has a crushing advantage against the Highland's one, thanks to Tsai's flame spears, and you win the first army battle easily. However, the tables are turned immediately during the second attack: the full forces of Luca's army are here, you are vastly outnumbered, and the flame spears stop working.
    • The war battle in which Ridley's unit gets surrounded. More often than not, Ridley will be crushed, since your army is too far away to help him in time. However, it is possible for his army to actually survive, and even destroy several enemies war units on his own: Ridley may be surrounded, but he is still a badass commander.
    • Your ambush of Luca's army seems to be this as first: Luca's unit is cornered by yours and Sasarai's troops are completely destroyed by Luc's True Wind rune. Then Luca gets angry and singlehandedly wounds half of your army.
    • The night ambush on Luca's troops by your army is mostly successful, allowing you to kill most of his men very easily. It should be a Curb-Stomp Battle for your army against his. Well, that would be forgetting that Luca is figuratively a monster, who is perfectly able to mop the floor with your cadavers on his own.
    • For once, played straight against Gorudo: you have only Riou and Jowy, but the two of them are enough to beat him and his troops.
  • Cutscene Incompetence:
    • If you choose to flee Tinto, Riou and the party will have a difficult time of fighting some zombies out of battle, causing Riou to have to use his rune's power and weaken himself.
    • Recruiting Oulan means that your hero had to play weak, gets knocked out and the ladies almost getting kidnapped so Oulan can save the day. But this can be done anytime once you get your HQ, so even an immortal vampiress, martial arts masters, veteran soldiers and ninjas can 'almost' get kidnapped by a group of thugs, and these thugs can knock out and ambush the guy who beat the crap out of Luca Blight (recruiting Oulan also took place in Kuskus where the citizens clearly recognize you as the slayer of Luca Blight when Culgan attempted to invite the hero for peace treaty, so these thugs will know that... and succeed anyway before Oulan comes.)
  • Cute Mute: Pilika, a sweet child who passes through the hands of various guardians and goes through severe trauma in the process.
  • Darkest Hour: The fall of Muse and what happens afterwards. The biggest city of the City-States of Jowston fall, Annabelle is assassinated by none other than Jowy, who is also responsible for allowing the Highland army to invade the city, Riou, Nanami and Pilika are on the run, and there seems to be nothing that can be done to stop Luca Blight. They find respite in South Window, only for Highland to swiftly conqueer the town, killing its mayor in the process. The resistance can only find refuge in a decayed castle. Were it not for Shu's strategy, the war could have very well ended here and there.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • If you level grind and defeat Rowd at Kyaro, in what is normally a Hopeless Boss Fight, he looks flustered and calls for more troops that Zerg Rush you and capture you.
    • If the too-savvy player tries to avoid So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear by removing Nanami's equipment before she gets killed at Rockaxe, they'll find that she won't survive unless her defense is at a certain level. No Golden Ending for you!
    • In the battle where Ridley's unit gets ambushed, it's possible for him to escape if the RNG is in your favor and he gets a bunch of critical attacks. The plot changes slightly to account for this if it happens.
  • Did They or Didn't They?: Never explicitly stated but implied at the beginning of the game with Rina and a random State soldier that blocks the party's path.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Luca Blight. Up until the point where you fight him, he's been set up as the Big Bad, and it takes a battle involving three parties to take him down. However, if you've been diligent in recruiting allies, you may notice you've only filled up two thirds of the names on the tablet... Naturally, you're not done yet.
  • Disc-One Nuke: The Fury Rune is a very powerful rune, as it grants a permanent Berserk effect on whoever you equip it on with no drawbacks, turning them into a physical powerhouse. It can also be obtained early on in the shops at Muse, provided you're lucky enough for it to appear in the Rare Finds.
  • Dracolich: Yuber's Bone Dragon.
  • Duel Boss: The 1v1 rock-paper-scissors narrative duels from Suikoden make a return.
  • Easter Egg: If you refuse to jump off the cliff at the beginning 108 times (and fight 108 fights), the intro will be in color instead of a Monochrome Past.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Hammered home when Riou's decisions during the 108 Stars ending determines just how good the Good ending gets.
  • Empathic Weapon:
    • The Star Dragon Sword once again.
    • As always, the True Runes.
  • Enemy Mine: Some characters on both sides of the Toran Republic and Jowston see an alliance together as this, given their bloody history with one another years before. Lepant, however, recognizes that his country will be the next target of Luca Blight if Riou and his army should fail, so he wastes no time in throwing his support behind them.
    • Leon, Seed, Culgan, and Jowy secretly ally themselves with the rebellion for the purpose of killing Luca, as they all realize how dangerous of a man he is.
    • Though Jowy is your enemy by this point, when taking on Gorudo, he teams up with you after witnessing one of Gorudo's troops hit Nanami with an arrow.
  • Everyone Can See It: Rina wastes no time in teasing Eilie about her crush on Riou. Richmond outright tells him about it, should you have him investigate her. And, although it's never brought up by any of the characters (except Sheena when hanging around the headquarters), Kasumi's crush on Tir is as painfully obvious as it was in the first game.
  • Evil Laugh: Luca Blight's distinctive "HOO HOO HOO HA HA HA HA HA!!!"
  • The Evil Prince: Prince Luca Blight, though Bat Shit Insane Prince is more accurate.
  • Exact Words: Sierra promises not to harm Neclord if he returns the True Moon Rune to her. After he does so, she lets Viktor kill him.
  • Failed a Spot Check: When Riou and Jowy are about to be executed, Rowd rambles and taunts them, saying they should enjoy the sunset since this will be their last one. He himself gazes upon it, mulling over having to babysit kids and that now his bad luck has finally run out, dreaming aloud about his future job. While he is doing so, we can hear that the whipping has stopped and noticably loud slashing sounds, that Rowd completely fail to notice. When he finally notices, Viktor and Flik have completely routed his troops and saved Riou and Jowy. Rowd promptly flees.
  • False Flag Operation: The game opens with Riou and Jowy almost falling victim to one of these. Your army sort of pulls off one of their own later on, by getting several forcibly conscripted units to switch sides.
  • Fake Defector: Jowy, though ultimately his goals end up different than yours.
  • Faking the Dead: If you recruit all the characters, Nanami's death turns out to be this.
  • Feeling Their Age: Viktor fails to catch Rowd as the latter is fleeing, commenting that he could have caught him a few years ago, and that his body has been feeling like lead lately. Considering that Viktor is only 32 years old and an incredibly muscular beast of a man, in better shape than most, this comes off as rather comical.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: The boss of the Two River sewers is a grotesque, three-eyed rodent the size of a truck, capable of collapsing part of the ceiling just by jumping up and down. It’s called “Pest rat”, complete with inexplicably-lowercase "r".
  • Flunky Boss: Luca Blight and his White Wolves, Lucia and her Karayans and Gorudo and his Matilda Knights.
  • Fog of Doom: The first boss, Mist Shade, is a creature made of living fog.
  • Foregone Victory: Somewhat subverted. There is a boss fight during the quest in which you recruit Tir, the main character from the first game. The battle itself is mildly difficult, and it is possible to lose. However, you almost immediately enter another battle against the same boss...in which Tir and Riou will nuke it with their most powerful rune spells (despite Riou not even knowing his), instantly killing it. So even if you lose the battle, you still beat it, and your team even gets EXP for it.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • If you have Richmond investigate Georg, you will learn about an incident that occurred in the Queendom of Falena, something that players would not witness until Suikoden V, a game that came about 7 years later. Unless your memory is really good (or you played Suikoden V not long after playing Suikoden II), you likely won't appreciate that bit of information. Gotta hand it to Konami for planning that far ahead with the timeline.
    • If you decide to run away from Tinto with Nanami, Riou will overuse his rune's power to repel Neclord's zombies, leaving him at death's door during the entirety of his escape, and ultimately making him faint. Jowy, likewise, has been overusing his rune's power to keep the Beast True Rune in check. At the end of the story, this overuse will kill him, unless you meet Golden Ending conditions.
  • Freudian Excuse: Some of the supplemental material gives Luca Blight one of these. As a child he witnessed the rape of his mother and his father proved to be completely spineless in stopping it. He was never the same after that day. This is vaguely alluded to in the scene where Luca has his father poisoned.
  • Game-Breaking Bug:
    • Thanks some really bad programming, certain items will glitch and become unavailable if you trigger certain conditions (the notorious Recipe 12 and 34 glitch being the worst).
    • In PAL version, the game may froze right after both Riou and Jowy obtained their (both halves of the) Rune of Beginning. Forcing the player to reload save data right before the war at Mercenary Fort, which will take up to half an hour to reach that point again.
  • Genki Girl: Nanami, Nina (to the annoyance of Flik), Wakaba, Meg and Millie all qualify.
  • Golden Ending: If you get all 108 stars, and make the right choices in game, Jowy and Nanami will both live and go on adventuring with the hero after the game is finished.
  • Gray-and-Grey Morality:
    • The game starts out with Black-and-Grey Morality, with Highland being unarguably evil under the leadership of Luca Blight, while the leaders of the Jowston City-States range from well-meaning but inept at best, to downright corrupt at worst. The grayness kicks in once Luca is killed. From that point on, Highland is run by more sympathetic and well-intentioned people, most notably the protagonist's friend Jowy, who see no reason to make peace with the still weakened and divided City-States, and have to quell the now awakened Beast Rune.
    • The backstory, at least before Luca came into the scene, was also Grey-and-Gray Morality. While Agares might be a coward that caused Luca's downward spiral into evil, he is by no means an avaricious ruler (especially when Kiba would defend his honor after Luca taunted him about it). And on his side is a honorable general like Han Cunningham. On the other hand, the City-States instead had several inept and corrupt people moreso than the current generation. Gorudo started from that generation while Teresa's father Alec Wisemail is a shrewd and ruthless manipulator that poisoned the previous chieftain of Karaya tribe to lower their influence. But amongst the City-States stands a standout hero: Genkaku, who ended up befriending Han and paved way for peace between City-States and Highland... which is single-handedly ruined by the inept Mayor of Muse before Annabelle, her father Darrel, because of his insistence of not losing Kyaro Village. This led to the Combat by Champion where he secretly coated Genkaku's blade with poison in order to make sure City-States won and Han died as a result. Genkaku detected this and didn't raise his sword, causing his fall from grace. Not to mention the City-States, not Highlands, already did some scuffles with both the Scarlet Moon Empire and later Toran Republic for territorial disputes. So yes, it's a pretty gray conflict overall.
  • Guide Dang It!: Damn you, Event Flags!
    • The Clive and Elza subplot requires you to reach many different points in the game by a certain amount of time played. These time limits are not nice, and anyone not rushing through the game (Unlikely, given the games 'recruit em all' nature) is unlikely to go beyond just recruiting Clive, and MAYBE getting the first letter.
    • Speaking of time limits... Preventing Nanami's death requires (among quite a few other things) extremely quick selection on a particular dialogue choice. Even if you get it right, the game won't tell you if you got it right until the scene where doctor Huan declares her dead. If you get it right, there is a short additional dialogue in which Huan asks Shu to follow him inside the infirmary. The nature of why Huan asked Shu inside is only revealed in the Golden Ending.
  • The Gunslinger: Clive, Elza and pretty much anyone else from the Howling Voice Guild.
  • Hate Sink: Luca Blight is an obvious one, along with Gorudo. However, there's also one character whose actions weren't at all endearing and not portrayed positively at all: Mayor Darrel of Muse, father of Annabelle. He's basically a General Failure with an extraordinary side serving of Unwitting Instigator of Doom. He got too over his head in gaining more grounds for his own territory that he invaded Highland, but lacked the good military experience that he lost a lot of resources for his grandeurs, only being saved by the rise of Genkaku who instead brokered for peace and it seemed to work... until Darrel, for abritary reasons, kept insisting to keep the town Kyaro for himself, triggering failure for the peace treaty leading to the Combat by Champion between City-State's Genkaku and his best bud, Highland's Han Cunningham, which Darrel secretly coated his blade by poison to ensure victory for him; and when Genkaku detected it and lost, he retaliated by exiling him from service forever. And then for spite's sake, he sent a bunch of ruffians to ambush King Agares' entourage, causing his wife to be raped and his son, Luca, becoming the monster he's known of when he grew up. In other words, you can say the war in Dunan started because Darrel is an unrepentant, incompetent asshole. And he's on the City-States side, leaving a lot for Annabelle to clean up with. Sheesh.
  • Heroic Mime: Played with. Riou is silent unless about trying to pick some choices. If you load the previous game data, Tir also doesn't even speak. But, if you take Tir to the Rockaxe mission or the final battle, he can talk.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: The first "Major Battle" War has Luca springing a surprise attack after the Justified Tutorial. It is impossible to get the third "sword" symbol onto his personal unit indicating a successful attack which will defeat said unit. (Little surprise, given what happens when you do much later.)
  • 100% Completion: Unachievable if you consider "recruit every available character" as a requirement. You have to choose between two characters at one point (see Schrödinger's Gun), and you don't have enough Listening Crystals to recruit every available monster.
  • Insignia Rip-Off Ritual: Miklotov to Gorudo. "I am a human first and a Knight second!"
    • And then Camus does it when Gorudo orders him to arrest Miklotov.
      • And then BOTH of their units all do it when he tries to get anyone to arrest them.
  • Jerkass:
    • Luc yet again.
    • Chaco is one little troublesome guy at first, but in the end came around.
    • Rowd, your superior, who didn't bat an eye when he had to execute the youths under his command, and who would have killed you personaly several times if destiny didn't say otherwise.
    • And even Luca Blight.
  • I've Come Too Far: Pretty much the reason why Jowy and the protagonist can't just end the war after Luca is killed. The hostilities between the City States and Highland won't just end even after a treaty is met, and both characters are too enmeshed with their respective sides to even be able to walk away.
  • Karma Houdini:
    • Rowd. In the supplemental material, it's revealed that he takes his blind little sister from Kyaro and flees after the war. He was trying to gain enough money to have "a doctor in Toran" (most likely Liukan) cure her illness, hence why he went along with Luca's schemes in order to get promoted. Yet, the same supplemental material tore his warranty to pieces, where his sister died anyway, either with or without the doctor's help, making everything Rowd did All for Nothing by eliminating the reason he fought for after it was far too late.
    • Jowy in the best ending. No matter what his excuses or his reasons he is a murderer, conspirator, accessory to genocide and directly responsible for perpetuating a costly and brutal war Interestingly enough, even he thinks he is one and that he must pay for those sins. This may be subverted, since by Leknaat's words, it is by living that he has a shot to atone for his sins, predicted dying would be the easy way out.
  • Kick the Dog: Luca Blight recklessly does this for kicks. Shu also engages in a fair amount of puppy-punting, especially when he uses Pilika as a human shield and abandons her to the enemy so that the hero may escape from an otherwise hopeless trap. Granted, he did this knowing Jowy would never let any harm come to her and it was by that action that Pilika regained her voice (and she's happier with Jowy anyway), but it still came off as rather asshole-ish, though Shu admitted that it's what's necessary and the hero is free to hate him if he wanted.
  • Kill It with Fire: One of Luca's favorite policies.
  • Knife-Throwing Act: Which, depending on the choices you make, can go horribly wrong. Not that it has an effect on the story though.
  • Large Ham: Luca Blight. It would be easier to count the times he's not hamming it up. Opening the amulet with fireflies just before he dies, and possibly talking to Jillia after Agares's death.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Hai Yo the chef comes with three rune slots, giving him insane tweaking potential despite having poor stats.
  • Lethal Joke Item: The Fire Sealing Rune you get while Riou and Jowy spy at the Highland camp. Useless if you're fighting against enemies who use Water type attacks seeing as you get double the pain. Use it against Luca Blight and laugh at the damage he'll inflict on you.
    • A way around the aforementioned double-damage from Water attacks is to wear equipment that reduces water damage, so it's fine.
  • Load-Bearing Boss: Sees a rare subversion in L'Renouille.
  • Long Song, Short Scene: The general-purpose Duel theme, "The Time for Confrontation," features an intro roughly a minute long and takes about another minute and a half to complete a whole play cycle. The theme is used exclusively for duels; as in, one-on-one narrative battles that, unless you truly relish taking your time, are over very quickly. The song wouldn't be quite as wasted as it is if the duel with Luca Blight, which is the one duel you might spend the requisite amount of time upon, didn't have its own theme, "Mad Luca."
  • Magikarp Power: Some characters might look like non-consequential or not at all powerful, but if they happen to have three rune slots when leveled up sufficiently, they can surpass even the most obviously powerful-from-get-go characters (such as Georg Prime or Pesmerga) damage-wise as long as you give them the right Rune set up. Chief amongst them are Sheena, Hai Yo and Killey. The catch? The Runes required are rare, at most you can just get ONE (The Double-Strike Rune, and the Double-Beat Rune is basically only if you're lucky at the beginning), and they only shine the greatest when their levels are maxed, and usually you beat the game at around Level 60 maximum, any further levels and stats are only gained if you grind so much, so their potential really shines when you just happen to have a LOT of time to spare (Additionally, the presence of Clive's time-based subquest will hamper this). Therefore, the metagaming is either between whether you want these potentials to blossom (very late-game and needed extra time and efforts), against those who are ready from get-go to help you finish the game quicker.
  • Mass "Oh, Crap!": Everyone in the waiting room outside of Huan's office gets one when the doctor announces that he wasn't able to save Nanami.
  • Mayfly–December Romance: Nash Latkje a seemingly ordinary man from a not so ordinary family and Sierra Mikain the oldest vampire in the world. They traveled together to hunt for Rean Penenberg a man that turned into a vampire because Sierra drank his blood.
  • Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Kasumi and Valeria. Also the Listening Crystal monsters.
  • Naginatas Are Feminine: Yoshino Yamamoto's weapon of choice. She and Freed are a model Japanese soldier and wife team in the series.
  • Narcissist: Zamza. He keeps stating in the suggestion box that as long as he's in the party with Riou, they'll keep standing out on top. And he doesn't like it when you take him out of your party. He even tells that he's an important member of Riou's army and complains that he doesn't get his own room. Ironically, the 'Narcissist' theme doesn't play out for him unlike Simone and Vincent (who are considered as such in-game).
  • Noblewoman's Laugh: When trying to get into Muse, Nanami starts doing this when she's pretending to be Hilda. It's complete with the hand over the mouth.
  • Non-Action Guy: Hix returns, along with Tsundere girlfriend Tengaar.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: At one point, Nanami can convince Riou to desert the army and run for it. This triggers Shu giving Riou a What the Hell, Hero? speech, after which you can return and face the consequences... or run away again and end the game.
  • Nostalgia Level: The plot eventually brings you back to Gregminster and the Toran Republic to seek their help. The battle music even changes to a remix of the first game's battle theme while you're there.
  • Old Save Bonus: Uploading old data from the first game gives you several personal Continuity Nods, and the chance to recruit a old friend...
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Clive gets to find Elza after all.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: Bob is a man-wolf whose rune keeps him into a human form.
  • Painting the Medium: Shin and Genshu's United Attack, which cuts the screen in half.
  • Peninsula of Power Leveling: A Good Bad Bug at the border of Muse and Matilda turns Matilda into this early in the game.
  • Pitiful Worms: Luca, when he's not comparing everyone else to pigs. Alternatively, 'maggots' are used too.
  • Poison Mushroom: The consumable item Spinach Juice that can be gotten from killing a low level Mook. It heals 300 HP but it poisons you. Its inventory description says it causes "???". It actually poisons everyone who uses it. And you'd be constantly using healing items if you're in a place where you have to battle enemies that can dish out large damage to your characters. Given how poison damages your character even outside battles, this item would make things worse or better when given the right scenario.
  • Post-Victory Collapse: After finally defeating Luca Blight in a long and harrowing battle, Riou faints from exhaustion as soon as he returns to his headquarters.
  • Pretext for War: The point of the early-game False Flag Operation.
  • Previous Player-Character Cameo: As an Old Save Bonus you can meet and recruit the protagonist from the first game.
  • Production Foreshadowing: Quite possibly the most in the series, since there are references in the game that the rest of the series takes a note from. For example:
    • Both the Grasslands and the Holy Kingdom of Harmonia serve as major factions in Suikoden III.
    • Shu makes the protagonists find a coin he used to trade with the Island Nations, the setting for Suikoden IV.
    • Georg Prime, a seemingly random character with an interesting history revealed by Richmond was used as the plot for Suikoden V.
  • Psycho for Hire: Yuber once again signs on with the antagonistic faction (i.e. Highland) for no other reason than to just cause more carnage and chaos.
  • Quickly-Demoted Woman: A self-demoting example in Apple. Somewhat justified by her severe lack of self-confidence, shaken up worse by a jarring setback that prompts her to seek out a 'better replacement' for the rebellion's own good.
  • Rape as Backstory: The Blight family. The queen Sara Blight was raped by Jowston's thugs, Jillia was born out of this, and Luca uses this as a motive for revenge.
  • Rasputinian Death: Luca Blight. It takes tons of effort to finally do him in. First, there's an army battle where your entire army attempts to crush his unit and fails. Then, thanks to his lieutenants betraying him, Luca's small raiding party is surrounded and attacked by the entire Jowston army. Then the hero, Flik, and Victor each lead a full-sized party of what could be considered elite soldiers into a three-stage boss fight where (unless the player's done some level grinding) Luca still nearly stomps everyone flat. Luca then escapes, and is shot by an entire unit of archers. When Riou finally finds Luca, he charges Riou and forces a duel, in which the usual dialogue tells are a bit unreliable compared to before, leading the player to make guesses. While Luca is a death's door and one or two Wild attacks are way enough to beat him, there is still the very real possibility that, should you pick too many times wrong options and didn't heal Riou before starting the duel, Luca actually kills you. It is only after Luca gets some solid tonfa hits that, finally, his body gives in.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Quite a few:
    • Seed and Culgan. The former is young and brash, while the former is older and more methodical.
    • Viktor and Flik are their similarly colour-coded Alliance counterparts, with the former being the Boisterous Bruiser, while the latter is the more levelheaded and melancholy Magic Knight.
    • Miklotov and Camus as well. Interestingly, they lead the Blue and Red Knights, respectively, opposite of what their personalities dictate, with Miklotov being Hot-Blooded while Camus is calm.
    • Tengaar and Hix. She's a temperamental Tsundere who's always aggressively trying to get Hix to man up, and he's a gloomy young warrior still struggling with insecurity.
  • Schrödinger's Gun: Interestingly, one character is a Schrodinger's Star: Tomo. The player has to choose between recruiting just one of two returning characters; Tomo automatically receives the other's Star of Destiny. This is the only case of this happening in the series, and is simply a way of getting around a gameplay mechanic.
  • Serious Business: Hai Yo's cooking sidequest treats secret recipes with the seriousness usually reserved for forbidden spells and lost ninja arts.
  • Sequence Breaking: By pushing the gate of the Matilda Border, the player can access the region far, FAR earlier than it is intended. By using a simple strategy the player can survive a wild encounter and level up to three characters about 20 times in one single fight, with an Inn nearby. In about 15 minutes you can have the party to be strong enough to take about half of the game with ease, with the bonus of being able to use one of Jowy's ludicrously overpowered spells that you aren't even supposed to see until near the end of the game.
    • By going a little farther you can recruit two characters that wouldn't join until WAY later. And it's funny to see they refer to the hero with a title he isn't even near to acquire; it's also nice to have an earlier user of the Heavy Armor trait in major battles.
    • Not to mention that he uses a rune he's yet to obtain, depending on how early you do this.
  • Sequential Boss: Luca Blight is fought in an extreme version of this, including a strategic battle, three regular battles with different parties, then a on-on-one dual with the hero.
  • Sheathe Your Sword: The only way to get the best ending is to do this in the final duel, assuming you also got the 108 stars and saved one specific character.
  • Shock and Awe:
    • Flik, the 'Blue Lightning', returns. He has the above-average affinity with the Thunder rune, making him deal 20% more damages with it than most characters.
    • Mazus, Killey, Meg, Millie and Sierra all have top affinity with the Lightning/Thunder rune and deal 40% more damage with it.
    • Jeane, despite being non-playable in this game, can use her Thunder rune during war battles to attack with lighting from afar.
    • Anyone who uses a Lightning/Thunder Rune.
  • Shout-Out: There's a row of five flowerpots near the entrance of Greenhill. Examining four of them will give the description 'Dahlias'. The second one from the right, on the other hand, says 'Dahlia Gillespie', a reference to another Konami game.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: The origins of the war in this game can be traced to the previous generation of Jowston leaders.
    • Darell, Annabelle's father and predecessor as the mayor of Muse, declared war on the Highland Kingdom decades ago and gradually lost ground until Genkaku became the leader of the Jowston army. After the war's end, Darell hired bandits to attack the Highland royal family's carriage as one last gesture of spite. Because of this traumatic incident, the young prince Luca Blight eventually became the murderous, rage-filled monster he is now.
    • Alec Wisemail, Teresa's father and predecessor, saw the Karaya as an unwanted nuisance. Along with Gorudo, he murdered Kianu, Lucia's father, after luring him to an alleged peace conference and seized some of the Karaya's lands. Because of this, Lucia and the Karaya would later ally with the Highland Kingdom to regain their former lands and attain vengeance.
    • In this game's story, Gorudo's unwillingness to help defend Muse left the other city-states similarly reluctant to help. Gorudo's selfish decision gradually led to more deaths in Jowston as the battles with the Highland army became even fiercer, leaving Riou and his friends to eventually rally the city-states by themselves.
  • Spell My Name With An S: Happens in game with Jowy/'Joei'.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Jowy's Black Sword Rune's Level 4 Spell, Hungry Friend, which summons the Gate Of Babylon upon all enemies on the screen, and then pushes them so hard into the Void that it would make Exdeath jealous.
    • Of course, unless you grind like crazy, you'll only get to use it in one battle.
  • The Starscream: Jowy ends up becoming this later on.
  • Stargazing Scene: Flik has a scene with Nina staring up at the stars before a large battle. During which he talks about Odessa his first love.
  • The Strategist: There is Apple and Shu for your army, and Leon Silverberg for the Highland Kingdom. Mathiu from the first game is also mentioned.
  • Suplex Finisher: Like the first game, Kasumi can do this to anyone (Except the Stone Golem boss, which is anchored to the ground).
  • Sympathetic Villain, Despicable Villain: You have Luca Blight, prince and later king of Highland, who quickly cements himself as a monster in all senses of the word and who would gladly see the world burn, and you have Jowy, Riou's childhood friend who betrays him and Nanami but ultimately wants to make the world a better place, even if he has to sully his hands to do so. Jowy realizes that no side in the conflict can claim the high ground, and plans to change things from within Highland. Both Luca and Jowy work against the rebel army, until Jowy and Riou dispose of Luca, leading Riou to have to continue the war because Jowy is now the king of Highland, and the latter considers he is in too deep to stop.
  • To Win Without Fighting: Jowy's Batman Gambit to capture Greenhill. He released some prisoners of war from Muse into Greenhill, so Greenhill thought Highland just wanted to fight fair and square. However, the Highland Army laid siege to the city but did not attack at all for several days. This resulted in a food shortage so bad that a civil war erupted between the citizens of Greenhill and the Muse Soldiers within the city's walls.. Sounds bad? Jowy freed the Muse soldiers and returned their weapons specifically for that purpose. As Teresa says, Greenhill lost to an handful (roughly 5,000 men) of Highland soldiers without even having fought.
  • Tranquil Fury: When Gorudo shot Nanami, Riou is shocked. Jowy? He is visibly shaking with burning anger, and you can now unleash his most powerful and deadly spell, Hungry Friend, on her murderer.
  • Trauma Conga Line: A few. Notably, the main character goes through one that arcs across the entire game, especially if you don't get the Good Ending. He's betrayed by his captain, betrayed by his friend, and loses his sister in the ensuing war. Pilika is also a fair contender for this.
  • Triumphant Reprise: "We Will Always Be" consists of an awesome version of the cooking minigame theme (yes, really!) and a positive reprise to "Heart-Softening BGM 3".
  • Tsundere: Tengaar returns, three years older and just as tsun-tsun and dere-dere as ever.
  • Two Guys and a Girl: The three main characters: Riou, Jowy and Nanami.
  • Unexplained Recovery: If a character dies during one of the wars in the first game, and you import that file when you start a new game, that character (assuming they appear in II) will be alive and well, with no explanation. It is lampshaded, but that's it. Gremio is an exception.
  • Unicorns Prefer Virgins: A Star of Destiny, a unicorn, can only be hired if you have a female virgin in the party when he's encountered. The Stalker with a Crush schoolgirl Nina usually qualifies for this; the list of characters that make the cut is oddly telling. Bring Sierra to him and he briefly approaches her... before freaking out a little and quickly making his apologies. She's vaguely insulted.
  • Unstoppable Rage: When Nanami is shot by Gorudo's men, Riou and Jowy immediately forget that they were ready to fight each other to death seconds prior, and team up against him. The music playing during this battle perfectly conveys their rightous fury (the track is not called Iron Fist of Anger for nothing), and on top of that Jowy has now unlocked his Black Sword's final spell, which you will be very happy to unleash against the bastard.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Luca when the locket he picks up turns out to be filled with fireflies that alert the heroes to his position. Neclord when Sierra shows up and seals his True Moon Rune preventing him from escaping from Kahn's trap.
  • Voluntary Shape Shifter: Bob's Rabid Fang Rune allows him to turn into a werewolf once per battle.
  • Warrior Prince: Prince Luca Blight glorifies war and fight in the frontlines.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: Even in the face of outright invasion from Highland, the city states of Jowston just can't form a united coalition against them. Too many members outright refuse to fight and instead isolate themselves in their own territories. It's precisely this lack of cooperation between them that spurs Jowy to fight on the side of Highland, as he comes to realize the best course of action will be to end the war as quickly as possible, and the Highlanders' more united front makes them the clear victors from the onset.
  • William Telling: The hero participates in a traveling circus's show by having various pieces of fruit placed on his head while knife thrower Eilie impales them with expert precision. You can throw off her aim and get hit with a knife yourself, by choosing to wimp out and move to either side before she throws.
  • Winged Humanoid: The Wingers, humanoid being with bat-like wings that live in Two River City.
  • The Worf Effect: The Fire Spears back then was the one thing that saved the Toran Liberation Army against the invincible Armored Cavalry of Teo McDohl. It's back for II and after an initial success against Solon Jhee... proceeds to do jack shit against Kiba's reinforcements and especially Luca Blight's White Wolf Army, just as a show of how screwed Viktor's mercenaries are.
  • You Said You Would Let Them Go: Luca Blight DOES NOT SPARE SWINE!!
  • Zero-Approval Gambit: What ultimately happened to Genkaku, before he adopted Riou and Nanami.

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