First two games: Neclord, once a power-hungry man who journeyed to the Blue Moon Village of peaceful vampires, willingly had himself made into a vampire. Stealing their Moon Rune, which had kept the thirst for blood of the villagers at bay, the vampires were forced to choose between killing to eat or starving. Joining with Windy, Neclord decimated villages to obtain more True Runes in the name of his avarice. Attacking the village of North Window, Neclord wiped out the population to revive them as an undead army for himself, doing the same to the soldiers of a fortress he was made governor of. Demanding a young girl be sacrificed once per year to be his bride, the screams from Neclord's castle could be heard throughout the village. Returning to North Window, Neclord abducts and murders women who stray too close. Trying to turn the population of Tinto City into yet another undead army, Neclord abducts more women to be his "brides".
First three games: Yuber is an ancient being who lives for chaos, war, and death. An associate of the sorceress Windy and the vampire Neclord, Yuber participated in the massacre of the Village of the Hidden Rune centuries ago and spends his time making wars and conflicts worse ever since. With immense blood on his hands, Yuber joins the conspiracy of the Masked Bishop Luc and assassinates the lizard chief Zepon to start a brutal and devastating war, with his final goal being to see the total annihilation of the entire continent.
Suikoden V: Childerich is a sadistic psychopath who lives to fight and kill. Centering in on the Prince of Falena, Childerich occupies a town and executes people at random as "sympathizers", solely because the town itself was occupied by the rebels. In battle, Childerich happily uses his own men as human shields before escaping and later taking the city of Doraat. During the Second Battle of Doraat, he would have chosen to burn the whole city rather than letting it fall into the hands of the Prince's army. In his final battle with the Prince, Childerich attempts to murder the Prince and his comrades, showing he has nothing but contempt for all that lives and his only enjoyment in life is murder and death.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Pesmerga. This guy is always a late-joiner, doesn't contribute to the plot, and can be accused of Cool, but Inefficient (lack of rune slot and options for customization). And he's only in for 2 games. His fanbase is huge, thanks to his connection with Yuber as well as his badass Black Knight attire, and his default powerful stats for those who just doesn't want to bother with customization.
Memetic Badass: Georg Prime, the Chuck Norris of Suikoden universe.
Memetic Mutation: "Wow, Konami's releasing over $2,000 worth of games in one package!" Explanation Because the games are very very difficult to get ahold of, especially the first two games, they go for almost a thousand dollars each online. In 2022 Konami announced that the first two games would receive a rerelease in 2023
Only the Creator Does It Right: Yoshitaka Murayama planned out the whole world of 27 True Runes and was involved heavily in the first 2 games, thus making those games the most beloved, the 3rd, 4th, and 5th mainline games had a lot of difficulties to live up with that after the amicable departure of Murayama, but are still generally more accepted since they're from the same verse. The same can't be said for Suikoden Tierkreis and Suikoden: Woven Web of the Centuries (made completely free from Murayama's elements), so people occasionally throw those into Fanon Discontinuity. Generally, Murayama is considered the undisputed 'daddy' of Suikoden in the same vein of Hideo Kojima to Metal Gear or Koji Igarashi to Castlevania.
Player Punch: Nearly every game in the series contains at at least one star's death in the storyline and one important character's betrayal; generally, the main death is reversible or avertable if you collect all 108 stars of destiny, while the betrayal is not.
Sequel Difficulty Spike: In regards to Star recruitment, anyway. The first game's Stars were manageable (though there were some obscure examples), but from the second game onwards, pretty much every non-plot essential Stars ranged from extremely obscure to literally impossible to know without a guide.
That One Sidequest: Assembling all of the Stars of Destiny. How difficult it is varies from game to game, but each one has at least a few Stars that are very difficult to figure out on your own, if not nearly impossible without a guide.
