It took much less time to finish off Suikoden V today, and I first spent an hour or so just getting ready, organizing my equipment and skills and such, and grinding for a bit more cash. Finally, with everyone at or near level 60, I was ready to set off for the final set of ruins.

At the ruins, I unexpectedly had to split up into three separate parties, which worried me a bit since I wasn’t sure I’d have enough people ready for that since I’d been focusing on a handful of ‘main’ people. Although I had to make do with some lower-level people, I finally got them formed so they each had a decent chance of surviving. The three different paths had a bunch of switches that opened up parts for the other groups, but it was still fairly linear and not too tough to get through.

At the end of that, each group fought their own separate boss monster. The first boss was really annoying since he kept doing attacks that damaged the whole party, knocking out my mages, but I managed to finish him off before it became too desperate. The second boss was much easier, only doing some moderately-strong physical attacks to the first few fighters. The third boss was annoying again because he kept stunning party members, but the damage wasn’t too dangerous, so it was just a matter of persistence and luck.

The groups rejoined after that and I reassembled my original party of the strongest people. Fortunately I also got my health and spell points refilled at this point, since I’d used a lot of spells on the previous bosses. I then encountered Dolph, the Nether Gate assassin who’d been a nuisance at various points, and had Lyon successfully duel him to finish him off.

And after that we finally found Marscal Godwin, who blabbed on about how he really does love Falena, and then challenged us to prove we can really handle the Sun Rune by using its power to evoke its guardian, a giant moth-like creature. It wasn’t terribly difficult though, and I was able to pound it with a lot of magic, and before long the final boss was dead.

At this point, Lyon collapsed and died of a poison Dolph had used on her after the duel. But, because I’d collected all the Stars of Destiny, an extra cutscene occurred where there was some kind of crossover into a ghostly world, the power of the Sun Rune kicked in, and Lyon was brought back to life, with Leknaat arriving to explain how the alliance of all the stars had switched the nature of the rune from its destructive phase to its merciful phase. Or something like that.

Cutscenes followed showing that the Senate had been dissolved and replaced with a parliament instead, Georg and the prince talked a bit, and the prince decided to stay and help rebuild the country while Georg had to leave because of his role in killing the Queen, and then the prince was appointed the commander of the Queen’s Knights. (I could have also chosen to follow Georg, but damned if I’m redoing the whole two-hour final boss sequence just for that.)

And then there was the traditional listing of the Stars of Destiny and their post-game fates, and so it ends, after 73 hours and 6 minutes. Even IV only took me around 44 hours, and I think I did a lot more grinding in it. I’ve still got plenty of other PS2 RPGs to finish, and I think Persona 3 FES will be the next of those, but after spending so much time on this one I think I’m going to do something else first…