It’s been a few days since I updated. Let’s talk about Suikoden 2. I’ve been in a weird PS1 RPG mood lately. In what can only be considered a desire to return to the 90’s (Kiss From a Rose for the win) I’ve found myself spending hours upon hours in pseudo-3d, pixelated goodness.
A few weeks ago, I wrapped up the first Suikoden, successfully recruiting all 108 Stars, and destroying the final boss without even using my most powerful attack. On the whole, I loved it. I thought it was a great entry.
So, I went into Suikoden 2 with extreme excitement. I’d had a number of people tell me it was the height of the series, and if I loved the first one, this one was going to blow my mind. Alright, high expectations, sure.
In short, I am loving Suikoden 2, but it’s also annoying the heck out of me. See, every single location you visit, in the first 20 hours of the game, is attacked and either destroyed or occupied. At the very least, everyone you loved, within that location, is dead. Oh yeah, and you’ve been betrayed by your best friend. (Spoiler Alert: That was a spoiler.)
It’s this sort of forced angst that I used to find cool, when I was a teenager, but now I can see how transparent it is. I mean, I have real-world angst to deal with. I work 65 hours a week, yet can’t seem to pay all of my bills. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get noticed within the writing world, leading me to wonder if I’m just wasting my fucking time. I have a four-year degree in a field that I want absolutely nothing to do with. I’m stuck in a small town of 20,000 people, a quarter of which are addicted to Meth. And I can’t do drugs to escape it all for a while, because if I piss hot on a random drug test, I’ll lose my primary job. And, as I’ve established, that would be a bad thing.
In light of this, a one-dimensional villain cutting a path of destruction, through a fictional world, to achieve some level of forced pathos just seems dull.
But, things are looking up for my little team. I have won some very decisive battles, recruited some awesome people, and began building a totally rad castle, called the “Radical Castle”. Yes, indeedy, “Francis” and the “Awesome Army” are well on their way to saving the world from the one-dimensional villain.
On a side note, more games should totally let me name things. I come up with the best names.