YMMV / Suikoden II

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Is Jowy a Tragic Hero who is forced to fight his best friend or a stubborn, idiotic Karma Houdini who chooses to prolong an unnecessary war instead of signing a peace treaty, suggesting a political union, or any of the other myriad options available to him out of pride and refusal to deviate from his original course?
• Awesome Music: See here.
• Badass Decay: Neclord in the first game was That One Boss, perhaps because of limited Rune usage, and the fact that you are stuck with carrying Viktor, Cleo and Hix with him (bad news if you haven't been training Viktor and Cleo, but especially Hix, who was just a newcomer), and he boasts very powerful attacks and mass healing spells were hard to come by (you basically have to stick one character with the Water Rune). In here, he's subsequently A LOT easier thanks to better Rune options, storywise having Sierra and Kahn gang up with him, you could put at most two out of Nanami, Kahn and/or Sierra into your Convoy, Magic being more powerful (and you can leave healing to Riou mostly) and the fact that he only had a measly 4500 HP (Previously, even if you could sustain your party with Water Rune, Neclord will take many turns to beat, while in here, you can easily deplete his HP in 2 turns on average). The only way you could screw up is if you burnt out all of your magic in the previous fight against the Stone Golem.
• Base-Breaking Character: Oh boy, Nanami. She forces herself a lot to the team which tends to disrupt your party composition, although only at one point that you absolutely can't put her in convoy, so unless you do find her a good party member stat-wise or like her enough, you might not enjoy that. And then, there's her characterization, or rather, her Angst: Either it's understandable considering the situation she's suddenly thrusted into, or it's considered a Wangst, treated like being 'constantly whiny' and not having the courage to face the harsh reality and make tough decisions, it doesn't help that agreeing with her at one point can cause a prominent member of your army to suffer Plotline Death and agreeing further caused a Non-Standard Game Over. It only depends on how much you think her Plucky Girl trait (and some of the hilarious moments she provided) makes up for it or not.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Cutting down Luca Blight in, what can be easily considered, the toughest boss fight so far. It has multiple phases and is epic in scale and ends in a duel between Riou and the Mad Prince himself before he finally dies. And though the war and the game itself is still far from over, it is the ultimate defeat of Luca, who single-handedly committed most of the atrocities, that brings the player some long awaited satisfaction.
  • Likewise, cutting down Neclord. The build up is also incredibly satisfying, this is the time when he actually dies for good and his boss battle is where the awesome Gothic Neclord piece will play. While he might have been hit with Badass Decay, there's also bigger customization for you on how to tackle Neclord this time (Self-Imposed Challenge is available for those who wants to enjoy Gothic Neclord more!). Want to call in Tir to finish the job he didn't quite finish last time? Go on. Want to bring in Hix and/or Tengaar after their last truffle with him and showing how Hix has grown or letting Tengaar get revenge for almost being turned into a bride? Go on.
  • And, finally, cutting down Gorudo, the greedy corrupt Jerkass whose short-sighted selfishness actually made things worst for the City-States, who has just wounded Nanami - potentially lethally, and who unlike Neclord and Luca isn't even cool or badass. You even get to fight him with Riou and Jowy, who decide to briefly cooperate the time to get the world rid of Gorudo's presence.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Crack Pairing: Due to Luca constantly referring anyone as pigs, fanarts usually depicted him being paired with pigs (to be ridden, to joke around with, or to butcher).
• Cult Classic: Suikoden II wasn't a seller when it come out, but gradually earned a big fanbase because of its plot, world-building and characters. Also, rare copies of the game used to be sold for very high prices online, before Konami added it to the PSN store.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Hai Yo, Chef of Iron extraordinary, he's not a mandatory recruit (if you want your castle to be restaurant-less), but he has his own sidequest about cooking contest and his own share of tragedies, all encapsulated in an awesome cooking mini game, and then people found out that he's highly customizable, showing off that he can be a bigger powerhouse than other powerhouses when properly trained. That said, he garners a lot of popularity amongst fandom and it's probably because of him that both Retso (one of his opponents) and Shun Min (his lover) make an appearance in V
• Even Better Sequel: Fans consider Suikoden II to be superior to the first Suikoden in every possible way, as well as the best in the series.
• Evil Is Cool: Luca Blight pretty well cemented himself in this position given his Dying Moment of Awesome when finally killing him takes three different parties fighting him in quick succession, along with being a reasonably challenging fight while he's at it. While the Suikoden franchise is often dwarfed by other mainstream JRPGs, if it gets mentioned, the first thing that usually comes to the mind of the mentioner is usually Luca Blight himself. It also says something that despite the likes of Neclord, Yuber, and Childerich technically being more evil than him as they commit similar crimes while lacking his Freudian Excuse, none of them are as popular and it’s Luca who is considered the most evil character in the series. He's that iconic and cool as a villain.
• Fan Nickname: Some fans call Freed Yamamoto Freedy because in the game his name is shortened to "Freed Y."
• Game-Breaker: Has its own page.
• Goddamned Bats: Sirens and DoReMi elves. They sure can be taken down very easily but they can inflict a wide array of nasty Status Effects if not taken out right away. For a video game series that usually averts this trope, these sure annoy some players.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • You could just trivialize the fight against Luca Blight with a glitch where he doesn't even attack you and only counterattacks if your character misses.
  • The infamous "Kindness Rune" bug which allows characters equipped with it to have a strength stat of 999^note Have the character die till their kindness factor is in the negatives, then embed the Kindness Rune at a blacksmith.
  • There's also the money bug once players recruit Hans the armorer that allows players to have max amounts of money just by doing a few certain steps in the menu choice.
  • Due to a glitch, certain characters (like Georg Prime, Hoi and Long Chan-Chan) may be at level 99 when recruited.
  • The Matilda Checkpoint glitch, where you can simply push a door out of the way to gain access to an area with much tougher monsters that level you up to the 30's really quickly.
• Love to Hate: Ask any of Luca Blight's fans why they like him, aside from the Evil Is Cool above, it will be due to how appallingly and unapologetically evil he is.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Freed Yamamoto is a dutiful, eager-to-please man. But his stats are atrocious. Now, he isn't the worst character in the game, but he is required to be in your party on two separate lengthy occasions, replacing Flik, a much more powerful character (with an Unique attack with Viktor), which is why there is so much player hostility towards him. Freed also suffers from having a Thunder rune permanently attached to his weapon. Due to a bug, sometimes the elemental damage would trigger first, completely negating the much more damaging normal attack. Because of that, Freed actually becomes a liability compared to other characters who don't have the same unintentional handicap.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Jowy Atreides is hero Riou's best friend who defects to Highland to defeat them from within, assassinating Lady Annabelle of Muse and causing the downfall of Greenhill. Jowy proceeds to trick and poison King Agares Blight to place the psychopathic Luca Blight on the throne, before betraying and luring Luca to his death as well, ascending the throne by marrying Princess Jilia Blight. Realizing both sides hate each other two much to stop fighting, Jowy keeps the war going, even betraying his beloved former best friend and Riou's adoptive sister Nanami. Jowy keeps going to bring the war to a conclusion, planning on letting Highland and the Jowston states be absorbed into a new nation and create a new world, no matter what price he has to pay to get there.
  • Strategist Shu was once a student of the Silverberg family. After being banished, Shu becomes a cold, greedy man uninterested in the Jowston-Highland war, even forcing the heroes to beg him to join before forcing them into a challenge impossible to win. After they manage to still complete it, Shu takes charge with a series of ruthless, brilliant strategies that turn the tide against Highland, even coming up with a way of bringing down the monstrous Luca Blight. Anticipating Jowy's continuance of the war, Shu uses the little girl Pilika as a shield to force Jowy to back down from taking Riou and Nanami hostage. Despite his ruthless nature, Shu is devoted to the cause of Jowston and repeatedly demonstrates why he is one of the finest strategists to ever command in the Suikoden series.
• Memetic Badass: Georg Prime, but Luca Blight contests his title.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Luca Blight crosses it by instigating the massacre of the Unicorn Youth Brigade and putting the blame on Jowston soldiers, in order to restart the war between Highland and Jowston.
  • Neclord is revealed to have crossed it even before his appearance in the first game, by stealing the Moon Rune for himself, forcing his normally peaceful fellow vampires to kill other people to be able to sustain themselves.
  • If Mayor Darrel hasn't crossed this with coating Genkaku's sword with poison in hopes to win Kyaro for himself, then he definitely crossed it when it turns out that after not being satisfied that Kyaro was taken away from him 'fair and square' from the suggested Combat by Champion, he sent ruffians to the Highland entourage out of spite, which ended up mentally scarring Luca Blight into the horrifically evil mad prince we know of today.
• Narm Charm: Luca's massacre in Ryube is supposed to be REALLY scary and horrible. But, this particular moment was done in an extreme over the top way, including telling a woman to act like a pig and then with all the exclamation marks that the game like to abuse, "DIE, PIG!!!!!"... It is terrifying and showcases just how horrendous Luca is, but in the same time, it was done in such an extremely cheesy manner that sometimes you couldn't help to laugh at how many hams of pigs Luca could chew in this scene.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Despite his redemption and Big Damn Hero moments, Chaco will always be remembered for being an obnoxious brat who stole your wallet and taunted you all over the place during the Two River arc.
  • Jess has it even worse than Chaco. While he does mellows down, fans don't forget his jerkass attitude and ungratefulness toward the hero during most of the game.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page.
• Player Punch:
  • Pilika's life from meeting the hero to losing her voice is just the writers repeatedly socking the player in the gut.
  • The main trio is saved by Anabelle, mayor of Muse, who take them under her wing after they are exiled for a crime they didn't commit. In order to get closer to Lucca and put himself in a position of power within the Highland army, Jowy ends up betraying her by assassinating her in the middle of the night and by opening the gates of Muse, allowing the Highland army to launch a surprise attack. The main protagonist and his sister, Nanami, are left dumbfounded by this turn of events, and to top it all the crime is pinned on them.
  • Nanami's sudden death.
• Retroactive Recognition: The Drama CD featured the then-newbie Yuki Kaji as Jowy. This is waaay before he did something like Eren Yaeger. There's also Tomoaki Maeno as Miklotov, before he rose in prominence in the 2010's.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The Army Battle in this game is considered one of the worst in the franchise. Everyone has only 2 health bar (except for Heavy Armor unit, which has 3), and successfully inflicting damage depends on each group's stats. However the RNG isn't very kind to the players and there's a slight chance for enemy to inflict one damage no matter how weak they were, resulting in potentially lose one of the Stars of Destiny if you're really unlucky. It's pretty much encouraged to basically minmax all available units just to be somewhat consistent.
  • The fact that unlike every other character in the game in order to have the main character of the previous game in your party requires heading to Gregminster and talking to him every single time to do it. This wouldn't be a problem if the game didn't automatically remove all your party members during just about every story event sometimes within minutes of each other leading to situations where the player can trek all the way to Gregminster and get that character only for him to be ejected from the party a minute later, that actually going and getting him is sometimes not available, and that Gregminster is the only location in the game that the player can never just teleport straight to and back. This all adds up to a VERY tedious slog to get a character in your party over and over from the moment you recruit him that could have been easily avoided.
  • The times you need to choose between various recruits. First, you have Kasumi vs. Valeria, both returning characters from the first game that also assist in later recruitments, and the one not chosen is replaced in your Stars with Tomo, the only instance in the franchise of a single character having multiple Star assignments within a single game when it could have easily been avoided. Secondly, you're only given two Listening Crystals, but you have four possible monsters to use them on. If you want to fill your Star list, you need to recruit Feather^note since Ayda comes with him and avoid Rulodia^note who isn't a Star of Destiny, which also locks you out of recruiting Chuchura.
• Tear Jerker: There are a lot of these. Some moments are also mentioned above, in Player Punch.
• That One Boss:
  • The Double Head, a large two-headed snake in the Sindar ruins early in the game can be one if you are unlucky with the random party that accompanies you after the fort burns down. Especially Mokumoku needs ALOT of leveling up to be useful. Can be avoided with the Matilda glitch though.
  • The Abomination, who attacks you in lieu of Neclord in North Window. He's able to move twice per round and crushes your party for absolutely huge damage for this point. This is made worse by the fact that the only thing able to heal this off completely is Riou's Battle Oath, which you'll only have one cast of by this point in the game without excessive grinding. Fortunately, Fire Runes and Kahn's Resurrection Rune do massive damage to him! Also, the game averts Suspicious Video-Game Generosity by having no save point before you fight it.
  • Luca Blight. The fight requires you to use three groups of six party members. Without preparation, several of them will likely be underequipped and underleveled. Luca is easily the toughest boss in the game, with incredible physical and magical resistance, and high HP for when you fight him. If either of the first two groups are defeated too quickly, the third one will have a very long battle on their hands. To make matters worse, he attacks three times per round, and all of his attacks are very damaging, with two of his possible attacks being able to hit multiple party members at once.
  • Only a few encounters after the above fight, there's a duel with Luca using the hero. You don't get the opportunity to save in between the two fights, so if you lose the duel, you have to start from the beginning. Even though his health bar is 25% full, he's still capable of taking several hits and dealing a lot of damage, and because of his personality in general, his quotes make it difficult to tell what his next action will be.
  • The final boss, the Beast Rune Incarnation, is a complex, and severely luck-based, fight. It has five different targets, which behave independently and attack in random patterns; most of those attacks hit all party members, and one attack in particular inflicts random status ailments on the entire party, and ailments are both rare and hard to deal with in this game. If the AI is feeling particularly nasty, it can kill off one or more characters from full HP, or render the entire team useless by drowning them in ailments. If your main healers are confused, silenced or unbalanced at the same time, that's a wrap. Oh, and it also has very high HP and defenses, and can randomly revive dead body parts if you take too long.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Recruiting the Squirrel Squad is still an enormous pain in the ass, even after fans have had a decade and a half to decode the most efficient possible methods of doing so. In 1998? Good luck!
  • Clive's sidequest, a Timed Mission where you have to track down Elza. To complete it, you have to reach a small village west of the final dungeon under 20 hours. For speed-runners? Not quite a problem. For people who wanted to enjoy other things in this game? (Mini-games, item hunting, etc) It can be a hassle, if not utright impossible to complete both.
  • The Futch and Humphrey recruitment quest. Arguably the longest side-quest in the game for recruitment and a very small window to do so if you want the best ending. When you travel to Highway Village mid-game you need to follow up on a storyline that can easily derail you for 1-2 hours as you need to go through a difficult dungeon and high-level boss. Can be done easier with the Matilda Glitch. The dungeon also cannot be revisited once it's finished and it contains several unique treasures and random drops, so you better loot everything in one go and hope the RNG is merciful at you if you want a 100% Completion.
  • Some of the recruitable stars, such as Jude, Tetsu, and Mukumuku, have obtuse requirements that only the extremely attentive - or extremely lucky - will fulfill without a guide.
• Too Cool to Live: Genkaku, Anabelle and Elza.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While it isn’t shown in the original game, the manga and Suikogaiden VN bring up Luca Blight’s Freudian Excuse of being Forced to Watch his mother Sarah be raped, and the hate he has for his father abandoning her, in a clear moment of pathos. The problem is that Luca has committed so many atrocities and is so sadistic outside of this scene that his excuse completely fails to net him any sympathy whatsoever.
• Vindicated by History: Initially it suffered from poor sales and reception due to using 16-bit sprite visuals when 3D graphics its in the rage and the poor localization. It was then hailed for being one of the best Playstation titles for its plot that shows consequences when the player chooses otherwise, the art and the much improved character design compared to the first installment and the gameplay that encourages player to play again and again.
• The Woobie: Pilika. She is a Cheerful Child who befriends Jowy and Riou, but her world is shattered when the Highland Royal Army destroys her village. Her father tells her to hide, and she survives the attack but has to endure discovering her parents' dead bodies. As if this wasn't enough, what truly traumatizes her is witnessing Prince Luca Blight kill an unarmed and helpless soldier (Pohl, the Nice Guy tasked by Viktor to watch over Riou & Jowy when they are taken in by the State mercenary force) right in front of her, and he was seconds away from killing her if Jowy and Riou hadn't intervened. After this, she's so broken she can't even speak for most of the rest of the game.

---