Since No More Heroes probably won’t last too long, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to start getting another RPG ready, so I started up Suikoden V today. I’ve finished 3 and 4 so far, but haven’t gotten very far in Suikoden Tactics yet, but it can wait a bit since it’s not really related and I just finished another SRPG. Like those others, I’ll be consulting a walkthrough for this one, too, since in order to get the good ending you have to have recruited the 108 “Stars of Destiny” characters, some of which can be rather obscure or permanently missed along the way.

You’re a prince of some kingdom, and it starts off with a flashback to a trip to a rather desolate town, where I learn that it’s not a good idea to piss off the Queen, who appears to be mad with power once we resume our meeting with her. After that I explored the castle, found my sister (who seems rather attached to me), and checked out a nearby Senate Hall, where we met one of the creepy nobles who’ll be competing for my sister’s hand in marriage. Speaking of which, I also have a rather cheerful, friendly female bodyguard… (Women seem to be the dominant sex in this kin-, er, queendom, as only they are allowed to be monarchs and rank highly within the Knights. As a prince, you’re seen as somewhat unimportant to some people.)

I then checked out the nearby town, found where all of the shops are, and then got sent off to Stormfist to prepare for this combat festival where my sister’s husband will be decided. People have complained about how slow Lost Odyssey is to start, but here I’ve had barely any combat at all in the first two and a half hours of the game. I’m sure it’ll pick up soon, once something or other inevitably goes horribly wrong…

It has a lot of familiar elements from the previous games, but there are some differences, too. Runes seem to be used the same way and weapons are upgraded rather than replaced, like before, but skills are different in that although you have a set of them and the same kinds of rankings, only two of them can actually be active at the same time. Combat is kind of a hybrid of 3 and 4; you stay fixed in place like in 4 rather than moving around as in 3, but you have ranges on your weapons, so distance does still matter some, and formations can put people behind others defensively, which you couldn’t do in 4. Unlike 3’s set of varied protagonists, you’re controlling a single, mute protagonist again like in 4, which makes cutscenes kind of awkward when you’re the only one not talking.

Of course, I’ll know more when I actually get to some decent combat…