http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/suikodenheroes.jpg
[[caption-width:403:The main heroes from the first three games of the franchise, the hands actually belong to a recurring character.]]

Suikoden is a series of games (released on various consoles, starting with the original Playstation) that are loosely based on a classical Chinese novel, ''[[WaterMargin The Water Margin]]'' (aka ''Outlaws of the Marsh'' and ''All Men are Brothers''). These games are notable in that they all take place in the same world, although at different periods and locations throughout its history. Some games are chronologically close enough to each other that they feature many of the same characters --although the main hero -- or heroes -- of the game are always new characters. They tend, as a rule, to be {{Kid Hero}}es, but not always...

Certain major themes which run throughout the series are:

* A hero who finds himself running afoul of an evil force, be it a [[TheEmpire foreign empire]], a dark conspiracy, or his own government turning against him. Said hero is usually then forced to go into exile.
* The main hero having to set up an army by locating and collecting [[OneHundredAndEight 108 special people]] (known as "the Stars of Destiny") who are scattered throughout the world. Some of the "Stars of Destiny" are fighters who accompany the hero into random and plot-based war battles, while others are support characters, who can aid with healing, navigation, etc.
* Sometime during the course of the hero's adventures, he acquires a Home Base in which his highly specialized army lives and works. This Home Base starts out small but grows and develops throughout the course of the game.
* The game has a plot which centers heavily on politics, overcoming corruption through strategy and/or revolution, and dealing with the betrayal of a close friend or ally.
* The plot of the game is heavily influenced by one or more of the ''True Runes'', 27 at least semi-sentient elemental symbols which contain the power of the universe and which grant their owners special abilities (immortality being chief among them). The ending battle of the game is usually fought against a villain carrying a True Rune themselves, their goals often intertwined with said True Rune's nature in some way.

Combat occurs in the game via RandomEncounters, strategic war campaigns against enemy armies and one-on-one duels, each with its own graphics and battle system.

''Suikoden III'' is a notable deviation from the other games, in that it is about a ''trio'' of heroes, each of whom has an equal chance of possessing the game's main {{MacGuffin}}, the True Fire Rune. At one point in the game, the player gets to choose who acquires the Rune, a choice which will affect the plot for the rest of the game.

The Suikoden universe is encompassed by 6 console games, SuikodenI, SuikodenII, SuikodenIII, SuikodenIV, SuikodenV and a spinoff called either [[SuikodenTacticsRhapsodia Suikoden Tactics or Suikoden Rhapsodia]] depending on which country you hail from. There are also two canon spin off text games called Genso Suikogaiden 1 and 2, featuring the adventures of Nash Latkje which provide background to Suikoden 2 and foreshadowing for 3, a GBA adaptation of the card game shoehorned into a retelling of Suikoden II's plot, and a Nintendo DS spin-off called SuikodenTierkreis, which is set in an alternate universe unconnected to the main Suikoden world, none of which save Tierkreis have seen an English language release.

''Suikoden 2'' is generally considered to be the strongest of the series, while ''4'' is widely considered to be the weakest, but YourMileageMayVary. While not as graphically flashy as other video game series like ''{{Final Fantasy}}'', this series has a lot to offer for gamers who like long and involved plots filled with intrigue and interesting characters.

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This game provides examples of:
* ActionGirl (Too many to list)
* AllThereInTheManual (Some of the games' plot points -- like certain characters' true relationships to each other -- are contained only in supplemental media, like text games or manga.)
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking (Viktor's last taunt to Neclord in II...)
-->''"Heh, I'll make sure you never make that stupid grin again! [[OverlyLongGag I'll chop you up! Grind you up! Cut you into pieces! Dry you on the sun! Bury you to the ground! Piss on you! Then I'll dig you up! Pull you! Stretch you! Drag you around!]] And then... and then... in any case, I'll never forgive you!!"''
* AxCrazy / BadAss (Luca Blight from ''Suikoden II'' loves to slaughter and destroy - soldiers, villages, small children - and he does it with a [[SlasherSmile smile]]. As well as his {{Expy}} in ''Suikoden V'', Childerich.)
* BigScrewedUpFamily (Possibly the Silverburgs)
* BlackKnight (Pesmerga and Yuber)
* BlessedWithSuck (If anyone offers you a True Rune, run far, far away.)
* BlindSeer (Leknaat)
* BodyguardCrush (Lyon with the hero in V; also, Lelei and Lucretia for the LesYay version. There's also a possible HoYay version in the first game between the hero and Gremio.)
* BoisterousBruiser (Viktor, Ace, Lino En Kuldes, Boz Wilde)
* ButThouMust (Only rarely do any of the speech choices a player is given have any effect the flow of the plot. ''Suikoden V'' has a few notable exceptions, as does one or two parts of II.)
* TheCaligula (Luca Blight, period)
** Ironically however, [[spoiler:he never got around to the murdering his father and taking the throne part of this trope before the heroes did away with him. Then ''Jowy'' fills in that blank by marrying the princess, killing the king, and taking over the country himself in a misguided attempt to stop the war.]]
**[[spoiler:But he does manage to get around to murdering his father. As part of an elaborate plot, during Jowy and Jillia's wedding ceremony, Luca's father the king and Jowy drink from a ceremonial wine goblet. Knowing this, Luca has Jowy build up an immunity to a poison he places in the wine; the king isn't similarly immune, and ends up dying. Luca then becoms King, if only for a brief period.]]
**[[spoiler:Actually Jowy's blood, not the wine, was poisoned. Luca had to taste the wine before his father would touch it, so the only way to poison the king is to poison Jowy's blood, which is put fresh into the cup just before the king drinks it.]]
* CaptainErsatz (Lucretia Merces may be just about a female [[RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms Zhuge Liang]], Shu from II is a more straight example however. Additionally, throughout the series, many characters are expies of characters from earlier games; this is possibly justified by the fact that your characters are represented by named 'stars', and frequently characters who join under the name of a particular star in different games share several characteristics -- when it isn't the exact same character, of course. Richmond from II is also an obvious ersatz of {{Columbo}} and Stallion just might be a subtle one to SonicTheHedgehog, since he has spiky blue hair and is considered the fastest creature on land. Maximilian & Sancho from Suikoden I are pretty much Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.)
* CelibateHero (Flik, after the death of his lover Odessa Silverberg)
* ChainOfDeals
* CharacterDevelopment (Notably Flik, who starts out as a [[ClingyJealousGirl Clingy Jealous Boyfriend]] of Odessa, and got struck HARD with her death, but eventually matures up, accomplishes much more things and eventually becomes [[EnsembleDarkhorse a fan favorite]])
* ChefOfIron: Many throughout the series, Hai Yo of ''SuikodenII'' being a more notable example.
* ChekhovsGun (The Fire Spears in I)
* ChickMagnet (Flik)
* ColdSniper (Clive in 1 and 2, subverted with Cathari in 5)
* CombinationAttack (Certain characters can be paired with others to use special attacks against the enemy.)
* CompleteMonster (Luca Blight is probably more monstrous than any beast you could encounter in the games)
* ContemptibleCover (Suikoden 1's box art looks like the cover of a bad fantasy novel.)
** Actually only the American cover suffers from this. The European release of the game uses the same cover that the original Japanese version had.
* ContinuityNod (Lots and lots)
* CrowningMusicofAwesome Every game has at least one track which is just plain awesome either due to the music itself or the scene in which it's played.
** II gets several, particularly the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f4eGQ9MIWM opening sequence]] before the title screen, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXuJ2cHx7Aw Gothic Neclord]], and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX8fKtjpr_E The Chase ~ Battle Against Luca]].
** Though it has several of its own as well, V's is arguably [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUklWjawYno Determination ~ Tragic Battle]] which you hear bits and pieces of in several spots in the later half of the game, but it isn't played in full and you don't get its full impact until [[spoiler:the battle versus Sialeeds]].
* CuteMute - Pilika, a little girl in Suikoden II whose guardianship jumps from Joey, to Nanami and the Hero, to Joey again. She didn't start out mute, though, and there was nothing cute about how she became so.
* DefeatMeansFriendship (Especially in the first game, though it crops up in some of the others, too. Almost every game has one or two enemy generals who join you after you beat them militarily, and several other characters who will only join after a one-on-one duel.)
* DirtyCoward (Snowe from ''Suikoden 4'' who among other things, abandons his subordinates in a battle that ''he'' instigated because he ''slightly injured his arm''! Euram Barows in V, though he does get better.)
* {{Dojikko}} (Viki is so clumsy, she sneezes herself through time and space. It's a running gag that at the victory banquet at the end of each game, she sneezes herself straight into the middle of the next one, despite the games being centuries apart, and not in chronological order.)
* DuelBoss (Several of them at regular intervals.)
* DragonRider (The aptly named Dragon Knights.)
* EarnYourHappyEnding (Carried out both in the story and in the gameplay. The characters will suffer through all the tragedies and losses of war and then some, but if you can recruit all 108 Stars of Destiny, the ending makes it all worthwhile.)
* ElementalRockPaperScissors (Played straight, but also used sans elements during One-on-One [[DuelBoss Duels]])
* EmpathicWeapon (Although not weapons in the traditional sence, all 27 True Runes are sapient for the most part, one of them takes the form of the Zodiac/Star Dragon Sword)
** Interestingly, the sword is an absolute {{Jerkass}} to everyone. Even it's 'prefered' wielders.
* EnsembleDarkhorse (Viktor and Flik)
* EstrogenBrigadeBait (Flik. It's hard to tell in the original, what with the low quality graphics, but he DOES get one character to join the group by drinking tea with her all night (at her request). It's far more prevailent in ''Suikoden 2'', where women regularly hit on him, and is constantly being pestered by [[StalkerWithACrush Nina]]. Most of the heroes are this as well, with the possible exception of Lazlo.)
** Lazlo might even qualify too, since he technically has 3 girls (Rita, Rene, and Noah) that are interested in him instead of the usual 1 that the rest of the characters get. There's just not that many scenes where you see it. Just an optional bath scene where they discuss getting him a gift (Rene even suggests "a girlfriend"), plus the three of them give him a wooden amulet as a good-luck charm on the night before the final battle, acting like schoolgirls the entire time (giggling and everything).
** The heroes' tendency to be this is humorously lampshaded in the unlockable sidequest in 2. During Riou's conversation with Cleo, you can choose to hit on her, causing her to remark that "you're a lot like the Young Master in many ways."
* TheEvilPrince (''Prince Luca Blight'', though Bat Shit Insane Prince would be more appropriate.)
* {{Eyepatch of Power}} (Worn by Georg, arguably one of the most physically powerful human characters in the game series, and by Geddoe, the most bad-assed of the three main heroes in ''Suikoden III''.)
* FakeDifficulty (Some of the easily lose-able one-on-one duels occur right after a long and involved tactical battle campaign, with no opportunity to save in between the two events -- this seems to occur for no other reason than to heighten the player's tension.)
* FalseFlagOperation: ''Suikoden 2'' opens with Riou and Jowy almost falling victim to one of these.
* FinalDeath
* FuroScene - A series tradition. Taking the right people into the baths triggers {{Subtext}}-laden scenes, for all your HoYay / LesYay / [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity Ensuing]] needs.
* GameBreaker (Viki in ''Suikoden V'', whose powerful Chain Magic ability- once trained up- lets her cast incredibly powerful spells twice in a row at no additional MP cost, letting you wipe out enemies with astounding ease. Not to mention Zerase's completely overpowered star rune, and Richard's godly stats.)
** Viki isn't quite so broken as she seems; her non-removable Blinking Rune isn't that great, and the position it's stuck in means that she can never equip a Magic Absorb Rune. Meanwhile, the Magic Absorb Rune itself is ''even more'' of a game-breaker in that game -- in earlier games, it recovered a single spell of the lowest level only, 15% of the time when your attacks hit. In V, for some reason it recovers a spell of ''any level'', 100% of the time, every single attack -- including high-level spells that, for most of the game, you would otherwise only be able to cast a handful of times over the course of a level, boss fight, or whatever. With a Magic Absorb Rune, you can cast them ''every other round'' and never run out.
** In ''Suikoden IV'', the team of the hero, Kika, Ted, and Snowe is also considered a GameBreaker, because of the astounding ease at which they can take down any opponent. In fact, Kika alone could be considered a GameBreaker, since her Falcon Rune does about 3x her normal damage, never misses, can be used infinitely, and has no apparent drawbacks. Slap a Fury Rune on her and you've got a character capable of one-shotting almost any non-boss.
** Sheena can be turned into a Game Breaker at higher levels in II.
** The more powerful unite attacks in the series can become this as well.
** Georg in V can be a Game Breaker in the right hands. Although slapping a Double-Edged Rune on him is risky, since his magic defense is poor, he can pretty much rip a huge hole in almost anything with one on. For that matter, Isabel, Mathias and Miakis have devastating setups too.
* GuideDangIt (Many of the "Stars of Destiny" you must recruit can only be acquired through obscure or non-intuitive means, or during very narrow windows of opportunity between certain {{Event Flag}}s.)
* GunsAreWorthless (In a world of swords and magic, The Howling Voice Guild uses assault rifles. {{Lampshaded}} in ''Suikoden V'' when a member of the Guild explains that rifles are inferior to the bow-and-arrow because of the cost, difficulty to manufacture and reduced accuracy: however, they ''are'' useful as an intimidation tactic.)
** (In game however the gun users are actually quite powerful. Both Cathari and Clive are some of the best damage dealers of the games they appear in and both rarely ever miss)
* TheGunslinger (Elza)
* HeroicBSOD (Poor Pilika watches as Luca Blight stabs Pohl to death right before her eyes, and after recovering from her BSOD she and her current guardians discover she's been rendered mute - for the rest of the game. Talk about UnluckyChildhoodFriend...)
*HelloInsertNameHere (You name the main character in each game except 3, however their 'canon' names are given in supplementary material. Tir McDohl in Suikoden 1. Riou in Suikoden 2. Lazlo in Suikoden 4 and Freyjadour Falenas in Suikoden 5. Most players abbreviate Freyjadour to Frey however.)
*HeroAntagonist - Jowy in SuikodenII
* HeroicBastard (Hugo in 3)
* TheHighQueen (Queen Arshtat of the Queendom of Falena fits this trope rather well, at least while at court, and ''especially'' while being influenced by the Sun Rune)
* HighlyVisibleNinja (Kasumi wears bright red and no pants in 1, and many of the others are just as bad. The only ninja that seems to avert this trope is Kage)
** Suikoden 2's Mondo and Sasuke, as well as 3's Watari and Ayame, mostly avert it as well (only "mostly" because Mondo is wearing white and Ayame bright purple, but they're at least dressed like ninjas, color aside). The ninjas of 4 and 5 are also debatable, as they seem to make an effort to dress more like normal people. In fact, 5's duo of Shigure and Sagiri are never outright called ninjas at all, many just think of them as such because [[spoiler:they're former assassins for Nether Gate]] and they wield ninja weapons (Shigure uses a ninja-to while Sagiri throws kunai).
* HopelessBossFight
* HoYay / LesYay
** Its easy to read Gremio being this towards TheHero in the first game. Almost every sentence he speaks relates in some way to the "young master". Though he claims he thinks of Tir as more of a son or brother.
** Lucretia from V, with both Cathari and Lelei. Lelei has a decidedly suggestive scene where she suggests that Lucretia not go to bed just yet on the night before the big battle, while Cathari notes that she and Lucretia were "more than just friends" when she joins.
** This troper will always be firmly convinced that Jowy and Riou from the second game were crushing on each other. [[TriangRelations Not to mention Nanami.]] [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming Which makes the best ending even better.]]
* ICallItVera (It's a tradition for the men from Warriors' Village to name their weapon after what is most important to them, a tradition followed by Flik, Hix, and Mathias)
* IneffectualSympatheticVillain (Euram Barrows in 5, until [[spoiler: his optional HeelFaceTurn.]])
* JerkAss (This is Luc's entire personality for the first two games. He's one of the most powerful characters in the setting, and at least until his CharacterDerailment in the third, he uses that power exclusively to ''be petty and irritating''.)
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold - Chris is a fairly decent person, but her personality can be kind of grating. She comes off as a bitch to practically everyone. She's a lot better in the manga adaptation, though.
** YourMileageMayVary. This troper appreciated the attempt to humanize Chris in the manga, but felt they went completely the opposite way, instead turning a strong knight into a weepy girl who spends more time crying than actually doing anything until near the end. A balance between the two would've been nice.
* KatanasAreJustBetter - (The setting is a fantasy world where Eastern and Western weapons and armor exist side by side. Except for ''Suikodens III and IV,'' the main heroes in all the games have a tendency to favor Asian style weapons -- like bo staffs, tonfa and nunchaku -- over Western style swords.)
**It should be noted however that most of the best fighters use western swords ie. Sheena in 2, Pesmerga in 1 and 2, Belcoot and Richard in 5.
**And then there's Georg, who seems to like both, using a western sword in 2, but wielding a katana (actually an Iai blade, which may or may not be the same thing, depending on who you ask) in 5.
* KickTheDog (Every single thing Luca Blight does.)
** And quite often Shu, the protagonist's strategist in Suikoden 2, albeit because it was the most effective or only proper way to achieve a goal. Chucking little Pilika across a room full of crossbowmen ( who are on the brink of firing ) as a distraction to prevent them executing his army's leader, then abandoning her there, for instance.
* KidHero
* KilledOffForReal (In tactical battles when a unit is wiped out there is a chance the characters in that unit can be killed off permanently unless you have the appropriate skill user with that group. Also Ridley, if you want to get all 108 stars, and Kiba in 2)
** Roy in 5, [[spoiler: if you stubbornly choose to defend your castle instead of abandoning it.]] This is not recommended, [[spoiler: as unlike Ridley, Roy has no replacement in the 108 stars, preventing you from getting the best ending.]]
* KillItWithFire:
** In the first game, Yuber burns down the Village of the Hidden Rune because... he was bored. Damn pyromaniac Black Knights. And hey! Those fire spears look mighty useful, don't they?
** In ''Suikoden II'', Luca Blight practices a 'Scorched Earth' policy of his own: burning down two of the City-State's border villages. Viktor does something similar when he 'accidentally' leaves a bunch of the Fire Spears in the Mercenary Fort's forge. Oopsie!
* LeaveHimToMe: Usually done in the ''heroic'' inversion, with the heroes insisting or agreeing to a one-on-one duel despite outnumbering the enemy, as an excuse to use the game's dueling system.
** When you finally get to fight Childerich in Suikoden V, several people on your party (if you have them with you) can step forward and demand the right to duel him alone (since he beat or disqualified them in an earlier fight through trickery); if you have all of them, it results in a comical extended argument over who gets the duel.
** Pesmerga and Yuber only join (in their respective games) because the other person is on the other side, and only to get a chance to fight their counterpart personally; in the first game, Pesmerga specifically demands that you LeaveHimToMe as part of his condition for joining.
** Played straight with the duel between Teo and Pahn in Suikoden I.
* LadyOfWar (Lots and lots, but Chris Lightfellow, one of the main characters from ''Suikoden III'' stands out above all of them.)
* LethalChef (Nanami. Her cooking makes Nash pass out in Suikogaiden Vol. 1)
* LetsSplitUpGang
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters (Just counting the 108 stars gives you '''540''' characters in the ''main'' five games alone.)
**Not quite, since that counts recurring characters multiple times. Viki, and Jeane, as noted below, appear in every game; and several others appear many times, like Lorelei in I, II, and V.
* LoadBearingBoss: Happens without fail every time, usually attributed to a big discharge of energy during the battle. Even in Suikoden III, where the fight takes place in a faily big open-air area that still manages to fall on the boss and kill it, while your characters flee to safety... through the underground tunnels.
** Oddly subverted in Suikoden II, where the L'Renouille castle begins to rumble immediately after the battle prompting everyone to flee... until then the rumbling ceases and the castle appears to be just fine.
* LostForever (Every one of the Stars of Destiny save the plot-relevant main characters. If you fail to recruit even one of the Stars or allow one of them to die permanently in battle, you can kiss the [[MultipleEndings Best Ending]] goodbye.)
** Bizarrely, though, while several Stars of Destiny are absurdly easy to miss -- several in each game can usually be missed simply by proceeding in the logical fashion through the plot without revisiting old areas -- this trope is generally subverted with nearly everything unique ''other'' than Stars of Destiny. Frequently, minor unique items like music or voice sets that you miss the first time around will appear in shops elsewhere as rare finds... this sort of thing does ''not'' (generally) happen with the far-more-important missable characters, for some reason, although there's a few exceptions.
* LostTechnology (All games reference the mysterious and ancient ''Sindar'' race, whose technology-filled ruins and artifacts litter the landscape.)
* MagicAntidote (Averted in ''Suikoden V''. The Hero's Rune has the power to keep Lyon from dying when she gets poisoned, but she still has to spend a long time in bed recovering from the poison.)
* MagnificentBastard (The evil inclined Silverbergs tend to turn into these. Strangely enough, so does Jowy.)
** Why not include Shu (from II) in there while you're at it? I mean, look at his strategies: Using poorly-armed members of the North Window Base as a diversion, as well as throwing poor Pilika out as crossbow shield too.
* MemeticBadass: Georg Prime, the Chuck Norris of Suikoden universe.
* MoralEventHorizon: Many of the villains indulge in this, but it is Luca Blight who takes it to an art form.
* MultipleEndings
* NightmareFuel All of the games have this in one form or another and in varying intensities
** ''I'' set the bar with [[spoiler:Gremio's horrible death by being dissolved alive by flesh-eating spores]]. This is all the more nightmare-inducing by the fact that [[spoiler:Tir is right on the other side of the door within earshot of any and all death wails Gremio may have made]].
** II has Luca Blight - period. Of course, what happens to Muse is bad too, but Luca still takes the cake.
** Though YourMileageMayVary, [[spoiler:Luc]]'s motives and claims at the end of III could be potentially traumatizing. It definitely caused a few bad dreams for this troper.
** The fact that the Rune of Punishment slowly kills its user every time he uses it could count as one of IV's.
** V - Childerich and Nether Gate in general.
* NonActionGuy (Thomas in Suikoden III, despite beig the Tenkai Star of the game, generally lets the others in Budehuc Castle do the fightng for him. He still manages to help out all three of the main characters by letting them use the castle as a base, though.
** Hix from 1 and 2 also counts a little, as though he ''can'' fight he's mediocre at best, not to mention preferring not to fight whenever possible. Unfortunately the poor guy is engaged to Champion {{Tsundere}} Tengaar, who is determined to make him a man and forces him into your party on two different quests to prove his worth.
* NonstandardGameOver: Can occur in many of the games if you make the "wrong" decision (e.g., decide to join up with a villain, or run off and desert your army, etc...)
* NurseJenny (Jeane, Viki and Leknaat show up in every Suikoden game, even though they take place across different time periods. Leknaat is immortal, Viki has been implied to be doing a bit of accidental TimeTravel, and the [[WordOfGod developers]] have stated that Jeane has a literal NurseJenny family. All three are the subject of huge epileptic trees, which the creators lovingly cultivate. Jeane in particular gains three different WordOfGod explanations a game, just for chuckles.)
* NotCompensatingForAnything Averted in games I, II, and V where the main hero doesn't use a sword, but affirmed in ''Suikoden III'' where two of the three main heroes wield European-style swords, as well as ''Suikoden IV'', where the main hero wields ''two'' short swords.
* NotQuiteDead (In Suikoden 2, [[spoiler:Nanami is seemingly killed when she is hit by an arrow. However, if certain conditions are met by the end of the game, it's revealed that she merely faked her own death so she could go home, no long able to bear the war her adoptive brother was fighting in. If said conditions are not met, however, she [[KilledOffForReal stays dead]])]]
* ObfuscatingStupidity - [[spoiler: Lord Barrows]] in ''Suikoden V''
* OldSaveBonus: For the 2nd and 3rd game, if you upload old data from the game previous to the one you're currently playing, you get some extra goodies. (Some of the library books you collect will have your old character's names and exploits in them, for instance.)
* OneHundredAndEight (108 Stars of Destiny. 108 divided by four is 27, the number of True Runes.)
* OfficialCouple (According to Genso Suikogaiden 2, Kasumi and Tir hook up)
* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou appears frequently:
** Valeria and Belcoot, both Falcon-style swordfighters, come with somewhat friendly rivals who join up with the player characters ''just'' to keep an eye on their competition.
** Subverted with Luc in II, who reveals that he has had [[spoiler:the True Wind Rune]] since he was introduced at the beginning of the first game, and uses it -- for the only time it is used in the entire first two games -- solely to ''annoy'' his counterpart... who doesn't even seem to know who he is, beyond 'that horrible guy who keeps coming after me.'
** On finding Elza's grave in Suikoden I, Clive refuses to believe that she could have died before he caught up to her and killed her himself (he was right, but ThisTroper preferred the original game's implication that she could really be dead and he simply refused to accept it.)
* PlayerPunch (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. These all tend to be player punches to some degree... At least one person went into deep mourning after [[spoiler: Sialeeds' betrayal]] in ''{{Suikoden}} V''. A much, ''much'' worse PlayerPunch is [[spoiler:Lyon's sudden death]], though this can be averted with HundredPercentCompletion.)
** Almost any scene involving Pilika in Suikoden II. Also [[spoiler:Nanami's "death" scene in Rockaxe]].
* QuicklyDemotedWoman (Odessa Silverberg, certainly. It also counts as an earlier PlayerPunch [[spoiler:(Though not as ''hard'' as Gremio's later...)]]. Also Apple in II, who demotes ''herself'' because she says outright that she's no good as a strategist because she's a woman, and has the player go find someone better. The strategists of IV and V are female, though, so it was likely more Apple's own lack of confidence than a statement by the authors.
* PettingZooPeople (Kobolds (dog people),[[IncrediblyLamePun Ney-Kobolds]] (neko=cat), [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Beavers]])
* PlotlineDeath
* PsychoForHire (Yuber, Childerich)
* RainOfArrows
* RandomEncounters (Present throughout the series. Especially bad in IV, which is actually a good game with a good story, but is plagued by FAR too many random battles.)
* RantInducingSlight (Egbert Aethlebald, who will always quickly descend to ranting about '''FILTHY GODWIN DEVILS!!!!''' in mere seconds)
* RasputinianDeath (Luca Blight. It takes tons of efforts to finally do him in.)
* RebelliousPrincess: Odessa, with regards of [[AllThereInTheManual her backstory with her first lover]]
** Flare from IV and Lymsleia from V are fairly rebellious as well, though not against their parents, but rather against the enemy forces that invade their homelands. Considering who their fathers are, it's not that hard to believe.
* RedundantResearcher: Zweig, Lorelai and the other scholars
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld (True Rune wielders are effectively ageless and immortal. Then there's Eresh, who doubles as a MysteriousWaif/WaifProphet)
* RunningGag (Schtoltenheim Reinbach III and onward, Viki's habit of accidentally teleporting herself to another game moments before a victory feast.)
** Should you insult Isabel in 5, her partner Mathias will inform you of his plans to [[CatchPhrase exact swift and final retribution and deposit your loathsome corpse in the nearest body of water]].
* TheScrappy (We may as well rename the second to last Star as 'The Star of Scrappies' since it mostly produces hatedom-generating characters, such as Krin, Hoi, Guillaume... (Roy is [[YourMileageMayVary debatable]] due to his story importance). There's also Kenji (not of the same Star), who is disliked due to his ridiculous fighting style. I mean... using aerobics and jogging to fight!? Can't forget Snowe either.)
** It’s worth noting that Guillaume is a French, overweight, cheating, dog kicking, lying paedophile. It’s safe to say he at least was intentional.
* SelfMadeOrphan (Strangely enough, the hero Tir in 1)
** Potentially subverted when [[spoiler: it's implied that Sonya Shulen, who was in a relationship with Tir's father, might be Tir's biological mother.]] This was never confirmed, though.
* ShockAndAwe (Flik always come with a Lightning Rune (and gets affiliated with lightning), and is even called [[RedBaron 'Blue Lightning']])
* ShoutOut: WordOfGod confirms that Yuber's eight-fold-rune is a reference to the [[TheElricSaga "Melnibonean Saga"]] by MichaelMoorcock, the eight pointed star of the Chaos God Arioch.
** This troper believes that Kidd of ''Suikoden 3'' is somewhat of an {{Expy}} of DetectiveConan.
*** '''''[[{{Understatement}} SOMEWHAT?!]]'''''
** Suikoden 2 examples off the top of my head:
*** Genshu (''Suikoden 2'') has similarities to [[SamuraiShodown Tachibana Ukyo]]: they both fight using Iai techniques, their stances both don't face their enemy directly, and both have techniques related Swallows (Genshu's rune, Tachibana's Tsubame Gaeshi) and their most powerful techniques are a series of very fast sword draws.
*** Wakaba's Tiger Rune animation looks an awful lot like [[KingofFighters King's]] Double Strike. Sometimes the animation for that attack instead ends with a [[StreetFighter Hurricane Kick]].
*** Oulan's attack animations look like [[KingofFighters Vanessa's]].
*** There's at least 2 charactes with [[StreetFighter Shoryukens]] in the games.
* SiblingYinYang (Mathiu Silverberg is a strategist who was formerly a pacifistic teacher, whereas his sister Odessa is a [[RebelliousPrincess rebellious girl]], leads the Liberation Army, and at one point [[WhatTheHellHero calls out Mathiu as a coward]]. This also gets carried over in a non-sibling relations on Mathiu's students: Shu is arrogant, doesn't have the sense of justice (At first, eventually [[IGotBetter he got better]]), but brilliant, whereas Apple is more humble, willing to help people, but... not-quite-so-brilliant)
* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil (Some exceptions to this occasionally pop up on the overworld, with superpowered monsters at a much-higher-than-hero level turning up during {{Random Encounters}}.)
* TheStoic (Humphrey Mintz is an early example, but later on Suikoden 3 and 5, you get a bath scene with 3 Stoic characters just being silent almost all the time in bath)
* TheStrategist: Each game has one whom you must find and recruit (and their last name is usually Silverberg.)
* {{Stripperific}}: (Jeane, especially in [[http://images.wikia.com/suikoden/images/2/27/Jeane0.jpg V]]; but what she wore in all the other games wasn't exactly ''modest''.)
** [[http://otonashi.akibakko-storage.net/image/93/1d/4tsp.jpg Just look at her evolution since her debut]]
* {{Subtext}}: This is one of those series that practically runs on it. Pick a character, and I guarantee that you will find subtext in their interactions with at least one other character. See also: HoYay / LesYay, above.
* SurprisinglyEasyMiniQuest: The castellan's bit in Suikoden 3. Also subverted later.
* ThisIsUnforgivable (Suikoden I:"You're the one person I can't forgive.")
* TreacheryCoverUp (near the end of Suikoden I).
* {{Tsundere}} (Tengaar, whose tsun-tsun side would make Hix's life like hell to shape him up as a 'warrior', but her dere-dere side would always get her to depend on Hix's help, in a honest, sometimes gushy, way)
* TwoGuysAndAGirl (Hero (Riou), Jowy, and Nanami from ''Suikoden 2''.)
* WarriorPrince (Freyjadour Falenas, Luca Blight, etc.)
* WhoWantsToLiveForever (Dealt with in III when a true rune bearer gave it, and its granted immortality, up so he could get old and die with the woman he loved. And ''so'' much Suikoden FanFiction deals with the main characters getting all {{wangsty}} because of this.)
* WhiteHairedPrettyBoy: The Prince in Suikoden V. He even gets called a pretty boy in-game.
* WhiteHairedPrettyGirl: Jeanne (though it's recolored pink in ''Suikoden V'').
* TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask - Arshtat
* WutaiTheft - Happens horribly often, because the games tend to have LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, and they are frequently called away by the plot; on top of this, the best characters and most plot-critical characters (who you're likely to give much of your best swag to, partially because you're often forced to bring them along) are also often some of the ones who disappear the most often.
* XanatosGambit (Any character with the last name "Silverberg" is assumed to be at least ''capable'' of this; Leon Silverberg is supposed to be the best, but this feels [[InformedAbility a little stretched]] at times. Lucretia Merces, TheStrategist of ''Suikoden V'', reaches XanatosRoulette status at times.)
** The strategists aren't that bad, really. The ''villains'' are often worse, with stupidly elaborate plots to get the heroes to fight some final-boss or another.
*** The fifth installment was especially bad, as the villain's plotting almost caused [[spoiler: Arshtat to go insane and destroy the entire country.]] The father of one bad guy even [[LampshadeHanging calls him]] on his plotting, as he leaves too much to chance and doesn't do anything to stop unintended effects of his plotting.
* YouCantThwartStageOne (especially obvious in V, though almost every installment has a doomed battle or two before you recruit your strategist.)

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