History YMMV / SuikodenII

* NarmCharm: 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 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 [[ChewingTheScenery how many hams of pigs Luca could chew in this scene.]]

* EvilIsCool: Luca Blight pretty well cemented himself in this position given his DyingMomentOfAwesome 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. He's ''that'' iconic and cool as a villain.

* CompleteMonster:
** [[TheEvilPrince Prince Luca Blight]], the "[[TheCaligula Mad Prince]]" of the Highland Kingdom, relishes in committing murder and expresses disgust to anything that dares live. Having his own {{child soldier}}s slaughtered by his men dressed as soldiers from Jowston, Luca happily provokes war just to enjoy the carnage. Burning a village to the ground, Luca makes a point of killing each and every person and when a woman begs for her life, forces her to act like a pig before shouting "Die pig!" when she complies to try and save herself. Decimating a fortress, Luca is found [[WouldHurtAChild running a teenage boy through]] with his sword before trying to kill a young girl whose parents he had already murdered, and although she survives his attack, is rendered mute from the trauma. Sacrificing the entire population of a city to the Beast Rune in a bid for more power, Luca's war crimes prove to be so depraved he is eventually betrayed by the Highlanders who assist the player in defeating him, much to Luca's delight at the chance for combat this will provide him. Even dying, Luca declares himself "[[CardCarryingVillain the true face of evil]]".
** Neclord reappears, see the [[YMMV/SuikodenI original game's page]] for details.

** 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.

* EvilIsCool: Luca Blight pretty well cemented himself in this position given his DyingMomentOfAwesome 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.

** Clive's sidequest, a TimedMission 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 to complete both.

* TierInducedScrappy: 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.

* RetroactiveRecognition: The Drama CD featured the then-newbie Creator/YukiKaji as Jowy. This is waaay before he did something like [[Manga/AttackOnTitan Eren Yaeger.]]

** The final boss, [[spoiler:the Beast Rune]], 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.

* BadassDecay: Neclord in ''1'' was ThatOneBoss, 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.

* CultClassic: 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 [[CrackIsCheaper very high prices]] online, before Konami added it to the PSN store.

* TierInducedScrappy: Freed Yanamoto 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.

* TierInducedScrappy: Freed Yanamoto 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, which is why there's 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.

* TierInducedScrappy: Freed Yanamoto 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, which is why there's so much player hostility towards him.

* BadassDecay: Neclord in ''1'' was ThatOneBoss, 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). The only way you could screw up is if you burnt out all of your magic in the previous fight against the Stone Golem.

** Clive's sidequest, a TimedMission 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.

** 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!

* CatharsisFactor: 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.