YMMV / Suikoden V

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Sialeeds — specifically, for betraying her nephew, the Prince. While both sides agree she was meant to come across as well-intentioned, namely that her goal was to purge Falena of its corrupt nobility from the inside because she knew the Prince and Lym wouldn't be merciless enough to do it after the war, they disagree on whether her actions were justifiable. Or if she prolonged a war in which thousands died needlessly as a diversion, just so she could kill two people. One of them being Salum Barows, whose reputation is already pretty much destroyed at this point.
  • Lyon. Some fans sees her as a refreshing change of pace on the Protagonist's main companion, yet other finds her bland and not much developed, unlike the Prince himself.
  • Lucretia Merces has became quite polarizing as the years went on, due to how the story portrays her intelligence and tactical prowess. Some fans consider her a cool tactician lady, and probably the smartest one in the whole series, while others find her to be a unrealistic effective tactician who is adored by everyone that isn't Sialeeds.
• Complete Monster: 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.
• Game-Breaker: Has its own page.
• Ho Yay: Richard's complete and utter admiration of Mueller borderlines this.
• Iron Woobie: Lymsleia. At the start of the game, she's ten. The stuff she goes through would usually Break the Cutie.
• Love to Hate: Salum, and Euram (before his optional Heel–Face Turn), are villains and selfish traitors. But let's face it. They are also deliciously hammy and every scene in which they gleefully chew the scenery is a delight to watch. Special mentions go to the first meeting with them and Euram's speech in Sable.
• Memetic Badass: Georg Prime, the Chuck Norris of Suikoden universe.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Zahhak crosses it when he burns a town filled with Godwin sympathizers simply to provide a distraction to allow his army to escape.
  • Marscal Godwin crosses it when he orders Dolph to burn down Beaver Lodge.
  • Dolph crosses it when he stabs his Forgotten Childhood Friend Lyon with a poisoned knife that almost kills her.
  • Salum Barrows crosses it when it is revealed that the Lordlake Rebellion was sparked off by his building a dam near the town. When citizens staged a peaceful protest, his son panicked and ordered his garrison to attack. Salum took advantage of the chaos by slipping some of his agents into the crowd (now moving towards Sol-Falena to tell the Queen) and had them steal the Dawn Rune, framing Lordlake and Lord Rovere for the theft. This led to Queen Arshtat nuking Lordlake. Not to mention Lord Rovere and his family being executed. What's more horrifying is that he crossed it before all this as it was Salum Barows who had primarily convinced Princess Falzrahm to try and steal the throne from her older sister Shahrewar, the rightful heir. His machinations for power led to the Succession Conflict where a lot of people died, including his oldest son and his cousin Kauss, who was Falzrahm's husband. Given that everything listed above occurred after the Succession Conflict, it's pretty safe to say that Salum never learn his lesson about what happens when he tried to make power grabs.
  • Childerich crosses it when he orders the execution of Godwin supporters in Doraat because their town was conquered by the Rebels, claiming that they were traitors for letting that happen.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page.
• Player Punch: So, so many. No Suikoden game is complete without them.
  • The biggest one is, of course, the deaths of the Prince's parents, Arshtat and Ferid. It happens early in the story, at the end of the first act, and may take an unsuspecting player by surprise. The fact that you only learn it afterwards without seeing it, and in a rather abrupt way to boot, makes it hit very hard. Especially since you're forced to abandon Lymsleia just after. Then, later in the story, you get to actually witness the whole scene in a flashback. Only to learn that Arshtat actually accidentally killed her own husband with the Sun rune, which made her snap and allowed the Rune to completely possess her. Georg then had to kill her to stop her from destroying the whole queendom.
  • An optional one. If the player chooses to stay in the castle during the conjoint attack of the Godwin Faction and the Southern Mountain Corps, Roy will sacrifice himself to buy enough time for the reinforcements to arrive.
  • Sialeeds' betrayal took many players by surprise. This event upsets a lot of characters, and especially your protagonist: while Luserina tries to comfort him, the protagonist just turns around and walks off. You aren't even given the opportunity to select a dialogue option like usual. The betrayal cut so deep that the player doesn't have their word on the matter: the silent protagonist is just too distraught and wants to be alone.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The first hours of Suikoden V suffers from this because of Worldbuilding and for highlighting the Sacred Games.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: This game was much better received than Suikoden IV and Tactics.
• That One Boss: The second duel, Chuck, is honestly the hardest in the game. Mainly due to the duels relying on you being able to read your opponent combined with him being The Stoic.
• That One Level:
  • The Ranro Mountain combines a long dungeon with a high random encounter rate. Plus, once you've defeated the boss at the end, you have to go back down. And if you chose some wrong dialogue choices during the Bandit Prince arc, you have to climb the Mountain again to recruit Faylen and Faylon. Its only saving grace compared to the game's other annoying dungeons is that its path is rather straightforward.
  • The Deep Twilight Forest is loathed by players for being utterly baffling to get through: it constantly leads into dead ends, and circular paths that, if not careful, will lead you right out to where you started. The whole visit is punctuated by a high random encounter rate. It has treasures too, so god help you if you intend to search for them. Then, once the Forest has been crossed, you have to walk through the Twilight Ruins, which are mercifully straightforward, but still with a high random encounter rate and with a potentially dangerous boss at the end. And once you've defeated said boss, you have to do the entire trek the other way around.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the Ashtwal Mountains, where you have to split into three parties and constantly switch among them to advance through the dungeon. While it isn't as bad as the forest above, there is only one Save Point (which is at the entrance) and, after the three parties regroups, it is a Point of No Return. Also, leaving the dungeon means that the three bosses have to be defeated again.
• That One Sidequest: Just like the others Suikoden, recruiting the 108 Stars of Destiny is no easy task, but V is the toughest one to accomplish that, as hardly anyone will join the Prince just by asking them to. There is always a pre-requirement, like having a certain character in the party or doing a Fetch Quest for them. To say nothing of the missable ones.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Getting Roy's Heroic Sacrifice, the Moment of Awesome for the entire game, locks out the best ending, leading to the death of the girl he loves, and who he sees as he dies. "Wasted" doesn't begin to describe it; more like "machine-gunned it and left it in a ditch."
• Too Cool to Live: Ferid, whose combat prowess is compared to Georg Prime.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Many players thought that the prince was a chick when they first saw the cover. His clothes look like ones that women would usually wear. And it even makes a kind of in-universe sense; the prince is, aside from his father, the only boy in a family entirely composed of women, as part of the royalty of a nation traditionally ruled by a matriarchal government.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: Depending on the culture, a rose tattoo symbolises anything from love and beauty, to connotations of being a prostitute. It's fair to say, Nifsara probably falls somewhere in the middle.
• Win Back the Crowd: After the stylistic deviations of Suikoden III with its paired party system and its trinity sight and Suikoden IV with its sea voyaging, lack of depth and shrunken parties, Suikoden V returns the series to a style of gameplay and storytelling much closer in style to the first two games. It seems to have mostly worked, as V is the less divisive game since the first two entries, but sadly was not enough to make Konami bother with the main timeline again (although the lack of Yoshitaka Murayama might factor on that as well) and they turned towards spin-off titles which are another can of issues.

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