The first installment of the Suikoden series; naturally, many of the series' long-running themes are established herein.Young Master 'Tir' McDohl lives a comfortable, happy life in the Scarlet Moon Empire with his famous father, house full of personal bodyguards, and best friend Ted. However, everything gets turned upside down when he winds up with the Soul Eater, one of the 27 True Runes, stuck on his right hand. Turns out the empire's really interested in said True Rune, and young McDohl finds himself roped into the Liberation Army and forced to face off against his father and his country.Visit the complete character sheet here!No human-weapon transformations are involved.
Adam Smith Hates Your Guts - Seriously. Great, you have a headquarters with an inn, an item shop, an armoury, a blacksmith... not to mention that the shopkeepers are all in your employ. Can you expect to get any goods and services for free (or at least a hey-I'm-the-commander-of-this-army discount)? Nope.
Berserk Button - To quote from Ronnie Bell: "You bums! Calling me 'giant woman' over and over. I'll teach you a lesson!"
Betting Mini-Game - Certain recruits open up betting games. The dice game in particular is a useful method of building up gold to upgrade your characters.
Blessed with Suck - Guess what the Soul Eater does? Oh, it just sucks the souls out of your closest friends and family to power itself up, is all.
"Blind Idiot" Translation - Not too bad for its time really, except for Stallion's "True Holy Rune" that isn't one of the True Runes at all; a better rendering would have been the Godspeed Rune.
Also, an imperial commander makes a declaration about how 'God is dead', while in the original he just declares that deals with rebels are worthless.
The Stallion/Sonic thing does make some sense when you think about it. Super speed, only seems to talk about how fast he can go, blue hair, lives in a forest, decides to fight against an evil imperialistic empire after it destroys his home...
Character Development - Flik gradually matures from a Clingy Jealous Boyfriend who blames McDohl for Odessa's death to a driven, loyal companion. And this turns out to be just the start for him...
Cruel and Unusual Death - Gremio's Heroic Sacrifice involves him being trapped alone a room and eaten alive by man-eating spores. He does get better if you collect all the stars.
Fantastic Aesop - If you forgive the murderer of your friend/caregiver you can bring them back to life!
Fantastic Racism - Quite a bit. The dwarves hate the elves, the elves loathe and fear the dwarves, both groups think humans are dumber than dirt, the humans believe themselves superior to other races, and the xenophobic kobolds hate everyone. Fortunately, there are a few beings on each side who know that's all a bunch of crap, and most of the races generally get better as the game goes on. Except for the elves, most of whom die from Kwanda's Burning Mirror, but the few who escaped the attack do join your side.
Final Death - Make a bad decision during war battles and most of your stars are vulnerable to this. Don't worry, they'll let you know via dramatic Last Words before you're informed of their demise.
Oddly, if you use a game with dead characters to get the Old Save Bonus for Suikoden II, the dead people are alive and well. This is even lampshaded in the second game.
The Chick - Gremio (who gets this spot as opposed to Cleo due to the fact that he dotes on Tir like an overprotective mother, and tends to be the most emotional of the group)
Foreshadowing - Sanchez's name isn't inscribed on Luc's tablet of the 108 Stars of Destiny.
Guide Dang It - Recruiting several of the stars qualifies as this
Special mention goes to recruiting Mathiu's uncle Leon. To do so, you need to get the castle up towards its maximum size, which Leon will remark upon the next time you talk to him. Next, you have to get Mathiu to write him a letter asking for his services. Now, this ordinarily wouldn't be a problem, but since Mathiu is your strategist, talking to him normally causes him to ask you if you're ready to advance the plot. If he's doing this, he can't write the letter, so you have to do it in a lull in the storyline. It's all a bit much even for an optional character.
Actually, if you have everyone (and I do mean everyone) that you can get recruited up to the point when you head for the Dragon Den, the castle should be large enough to get Leon without any problems.
Guns Are Worthless - Only the Howling Voice Guild uses guns in this world. Clive is one of the best damage dealers you get, though.
Hello, Insert Name Here - Young McDohl can be named whatever you please. Same goes for your base and army.
Due to data read error, when you use an Old Save Bonus to unlock extra stuff in Suikoden II, McDohl doesn't really get renamed. Instead, the first letter of his name in Suikoden I becomes the first letter of his name in Suikoden II. So, he could be named TcDohl. In other words, name him something that begins with an M.
According to Suikosource.com, McDohl's name in Suikoden II gets overwritten by uppercase letters, so if you named the main character in all lower case letters, the second game would still have his name as McDohl. However, whatever you name him is saved and carried over to the third installment in full form, so if you named him Tir, the play about Suikoden I's main character refers to him as Tir McDohl.
Hidden Elf Village - Subverted, in that it's out in the open and rather easy to find. They're not very hospitable toward humans, though
Highly Visible Ninja - What's proper kunoichi attire? Kasumi says bright red and no pants! And the Shrike Rune involves high-jumping! Um...
To say nothing of Fuma in his bright red outfit. Really, only Kage gets it right.
I Call It Vera - Traditionally, the men from Warriors' Village name their weapons after what is most important to them. Usually, it's the girl they love.
Letting the Air out of the Band - Near the beginning of the game, the party is given a reward for getting rid of some bandits, cuing a happy little Item Get sound. Then the Obstructive Bureaucrat tagging along steals it, and this happens instead.
Never Found the Body - Odessa Silverberg suffers lethal wounds during an Imperial attack. Before she dies, she asks Tir McDohl to weigh her body down and throw it in an underground river, so that friend and foe alike do not learn of her death. He does so, and keeps the secret for the better part of a year, revealing the ruse only when La Résistance is fully established.
New Powers as the Plot Demands - Sort of; the Soul Eater has four spell like any other rune, but McDohl only gains access to each successive spell after certain plot points.
Mostly a subversion though, as not only the new skills have no relation to the plot, they are gained after the Soul Eater eats the soul of someone close to you, so the powerup is vaguely justified.
Non-Action Guy - Hix can fight — he just isn't very good, and prefers avoiding combat when he can. Unfortunately, the poor guy lives in the Warriors' Village and has Tengaar as his love interest, and she's bound and determined to make him a man.
A bit of a subversion, though, as Hix has good stat growth and can be quite a good fighter if you give him the right rune.
Our Elves Are Different - For a start they're moronic to the point of retarded, they think they're the most advanced civilization around despite being the smallest faction and then there's Stallion, an off-beat blue haired speedster.
Please Spare Him, My Liege! - Tir, as commander of the Liberation Army, will be given the task of deciding whether captured Imperials should be put to death. Most troops will endorse this, but a couple times, someone will raise a red flag and ask for the person to be spared. No such objection is raised for Kraze, though. He's also the only character you can willfully kill off without sacrificing a Star of Destiny.
Required Party Member: Any given leg of the quest will have Tir journeying with someone who has to do with the plot at hand. Also, Gremio insists on coming with him up until his Plotline Death. This is rather annoying come end-game when one half of your party is made up of required people.
Rouge Angles of Satin: At one point several party members refer to a machine as a "contraction." A contraption is a machine. A contraction refers to something shortening or to a shortened form of a phrase, such as "it's" for "it is."
Self-Made Orphan - A rare heroic example can be found here... the main character.
Sibling Yin-Yang - Mathiu Silverberg is a strategist who was formerly a pacifistic teacher, who was formerly a master strategist in the Imperial army. His sister Odessa is a rebellious girl, leads the Liberation Army, and at one point calls out Mathiu as a coward.
Sprint Shoes - The Holy Rune, which doubles walking speed when the run button is held down in a dungeon or village, and Stallion's Godspeed Rune, which does the same, but also increases walking speed on the World Map.
The Stoic - Humphrey is one of the first instances of this in the series.
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