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It is not a true rune.  The game makes that clear in the plot.

Also, a FAQ on Suikoden V speculates that if you're too mean to Lymsleia, you don't get two choices in the ending for getting 108 stars of destiny.

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Remember why the Dawn and Twilight Rune exist.  Zerase, et. talked about this in and out.  So, this is the first game I am aware of where the hero doesn't have a true rune.  True runes usually have some ridiculous condition to be removed from the host.  Yet, you can see in the ending...(highlight below for text)

The Dawn and Twilight Runes have returned to their statues.

Finished...

54 hours later...

14 hour marathon, a new personal record (for RPG's anyway)...

No guide...

MAYBE 55 stars (they're harder to randomly find in this one...I was looking pretty hard...after reading some of the requirements just now, I'm sure there's no way to do it without outside help)...

Normal Ending sucks (though I expected that...)...

Last Dungeon and final bosses were great...Credits were too long for a normal ending, but good music though...I'll appreciate them more with a better ending...

Time to break out the guide and go for the (really) good ending....

Tomorrow.

I can finally look at Suikoden V threads on the 'net and not worry about spoilers now...

First RPG I've finished since Ys VI last year...

*dies*

And didn't it rock?

Yes indeed, it did. My detox has so far involved me putting in ANOTHER 4 fours today to get past the lengthy "playable beginning" where you're introduced to everyone (I'm actually being nice to Lym this time for the "best" ending, then I'll just make a save so I don't have to do that part again) and a quick mapping out of how to get the 108 stars this time around (I'll probably snag a strategy guide later on in the week to ease things up, plus the added purpose of having more of a visual memory of the game.)

Great examples of both old-school gameplay with newer styles of RPG storytelling. And it still maintains the Suikoden-edge of surprises/teases, development, a good mix of quantity-and-quality, and well placed humor (the Barrows clan was a riot). Good show all around to the sound department...Fantastic dubbing and a very good soundtrack, one that works far better ingame than it does as a bunch of short tracks on CD (though I did find myself wishing for something more explosive, like the first 2 OST's were...I hope I never have to listen to the main Stormfist BGM or the Haud BGM again). And those duels actually sound painful.

And mega props on the "Die Pig" line from Childerich. He was too much of a wuss to be as bad as Luca Blight, but that was a personal "holy shit" moment for me that the writers would think to revive that.

Gripes (nothing major)
-loading times
-a lot of scenes ended up being a tad too "chatty"...a lot of stuff could have gotten by without being said or thoroughly elaborated on. Not a big deal, considering most of the cast members were fairly interesting.
-harder than usual finding stars. I was being REALLY careful this time too, but some characters just never popped up again.
-I probably missed some stuff, but I could never get my skills past level C on anything.
-Not really a lot of dungeons or places with a lot of normal battles. The strategy battles picked up the slack.

Valkyrie Profile 2 has its' work cut out to top this one later this year...I'd probably rank this one right up with Suikoden 2, maybe slightly above it for the great strat battles, better main cast and overall immersiveness.

BTW, my final party for the final battle was the hero, Miakis, Lyon, Goesch (big dude with the log...had him equipped with a Crazed Rune through most of the game), Bernadette and Lun, with Roy and 2 other mages as backup (the Armes girl and the lady in the black cape that had the Star Rune...too lazy to check names).

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I found getting the stars was also quite a bit more difficult in this game. Even with a guide, I didn't end up with all of them. As for the soundtrack, it works fantastically in the game but I find it contains a lot of filler in the OST, enough so that I only listen to maybe half of it on a regular basis. Mostly the town and emotional themes. Pretty much all of the battle tracks are dull, dull, dull.

It was a great game... but I doubt I'll replay it. Half the fun was experiencing the plot and character development first-hand.

Wow, 700 pages...As long as I don't have to get it EMS'ed, I might have to pick that up. The Brady Games guide might be a necessary evil as an English companion though...Poorly implemented English is still more useful than Japanese at this point for me and I can just cross-reference it with various FAQs.

Heh, I actually do own the Prima Guide for Suikoden 2. Can't say I'd part with it even for $100 up front...It was too useful when I did a complete Suikoden 2 run. It's earned the right to sit on my shelf and be flipped through every now and again. They omitted maps of the final area in that one as well. Same deal for the Valkyrie Profile one (although that will likely be reprinted for VP: Lenneth).

Listened through the soundtrack again today at work (all of it). I have to say, while there are only a handful of tracks that are really awesome, it works well together as a whole and was easy to marathon-listen through. I wouldn't call it nostalgia at this point...More like good music already, but the game was a better listening vehicle than my computer or Ipod because it tended to highlight the best tracks (most of the fillers are one-shot event themes). It can rightfully boast my favorite opener of the series (Wind of Phantom) my favorite ending-ish theme (To The End of the Woven Tale of 108 Stars), my favorite version of "Theme of a Moonlit Night", some of my favorite battle themes in awhile (the main, "Dancing Rhapsody" and all of the massive army themes) and some of the best area themes of the series ("Arena", "Imperial Capital", "Holy Land", "Deep Forest, Lost Forest", "Town on a River" (!), "The Water Capital", "The People Underground", "Crossing the Mountain River", "Traces of the Sindar Civilization", all Castle themes, "Fort Town"...basically everything except for the Haud Theme, "Godwin Family Castle" and the theme for the Dragon Cavalry castle...but all of the ones I listed are definite favorites). I think I'm going to pool all of the tracks into a single album on my Ipod (as opposed to doing things by disc) and just weed out some of the filler. That's the way I have Suikoden 2's OST (among others) set-up and it works perfectly. Very strong OST overall...Just a tad unfocused in album format.

Question though (and don't worry about spoiling anything)...Where does "Dancing Rhapsody" play at? I didn't come across it ingame.

I triggered the first "positive" Lym scene at the spring area, even though I wasn't perfect in my responses (guess I shouldn't try to keep it hidden why I'm upset about Godwin winning...she gets PO'ed at that).

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"Haud" is truly horrific... but in a good way. The look on my face was probably pretty priceless when I entered that town for the first time...

I'll have to check out that movie. I chose to abandon my headquarters. It was really the only tactically sound thing to do. I hated doing it though.

The entire "Theme of a Moonlit Night" sequence is brilliant in-game. The way it captured all of the emotions about going into battle for possibly the last time... It didn't hurt that it's one of my favorite pieces from Suikoden II either.

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To quote Georg: "I'd hate to see what happened to the artists who DIDN'T have promise." Imagine IRL how everyone must have felt, coming from the Sun Palace after everything happened and ending there...

Dancing Rhapsody was the hard rock version...I kept figuring it would show up in a boss fight. Guess I can challenge myself and use Moroon in my main this time around. Makes sense, since he had an electric guitar in the ending sequence.

JUST got the other Lym sequence (with her flapping her arms around). I'm good to go in that respect. And I will check out the Roy video now. Thanks!

Edit: Holy shit...Roy's the man!

Last question: Is the US guide at all useful for the stars? The S2 Prime guide was really careful with that. I love the game, but I'm doing everything I can to avoid going through it a 3rd time for the best ending...

I'll definitely have a flip-through before I actually buy it.

I was never a big Roy fan but that movie made me very sad...

There's still a lot of context missing from the beginning though, like exactly what happened before Roy and Childerich ended up on that bridge...

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The artwork winner should go to the Suikoden character guide that was published separately from the strategy guide, no?

Gamefaqs people have dubbed George Prime the new Chuck Norris (i.e. George Prime Facts -> Chuck Norris Facts)

George has a few more memorable quotes in the game.

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So Konami makes the consummate Suikoden art fan buy all of them!
bleah

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Hmm, just a thought about the Roy scene...What if you haven't acquired Faylen and Faylon yet, who are smack in the middle of the scene, yet completely optional characters? I'm guessing other characters show up...Or Roy doesn't kick the bucket?

One thing's for sure...They HAVE to keep that scene if they ever decide to go the anime series route with S5. It's much more interesting than the Goran route (aside from the one part with Rahal and the Godwin soldiers...Comedic gold there).

Just got the Brady guide...I'm satisfied with the content (it has recruiting notes in the walkthrough, which is what I was hoping for in addition to a character-by-character breakdown), although it is skimpy. I missed several chances to speak to people back in Stormfist early on (which wasn't mentioned in the FAQ I was using)...Hopefully, that won't hurt me later on.

Just a thought...Suikoden VI=Armes?

Edit: And while I was at it, I picked up Suikoden III as well...While I'm on my kick, I want to see how this one works. Worse comes to worse, I can always mute the music.

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Suikoden V is cruel in that it makes it fairly easy for you to miss SoD's and you can't go back and get them. This happened to me with the detective. I was able to get Murad though.

I wouldn't mind Suikoden VI taking place in Harmonia, myself.

The best part about III are the load times. After playing through V, I had VERY fond memories of the early Suikodens as far as those went. III is also the longest Suikoden so if you like long games, you'll probably adore it. Unfortunately, a lot of that length comes from the massive backtracking that the game makes you do. The story is pretty good. It starts out painfully slow but by about ten hours in, it picks up.

The music is largely dreadful (aside from a few good tracks near the end of the game).

Haven't past Suikoden games (and the gaiden) alluded to something happening in Harmonia?

Successive games don't seem to take place near each other.  The country in a new game seems further away from the country in the previous game.  Since Armes and Naegera, the "violent theocracy," are adjacent to Sol Falena, it seems doubtful the script writers will go to those countries.

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I love that map. I wonder how accurate it is. Falena seems awfully big compared to the Republics.

Could be interesting to have a game in the Western Continent. We don't know anything about it.

Let's see...There was Egbert (out in the town), Dongo (who got kicked out of town by some soldiers) and Mueller and Richard, who apparently show up in the infirmary at some point. Definitely made sure to interrogate Norma...She was one that seemed to completely disappear on me in the previous game.

Personally, I would love the series to continue for a long time, simply because there's nothing else like it and Suikoden V is a complete next-gen refinement of the already-indepth story, development and gameplay of the original. And no other series comes remotely close with regards to the amount of characters in play. Of course, I wouldn't want to see a complete milking either (see various incarnations of FFVII and FFXIII and the FF label in general) or a dropoff in overall quality...I'd say one killer game that fits into the whole canon in this vein every 2-3 years would suit me just fine. Suikoden V-ish remakes of 1 and 2 wouldn't hurt either. I'd welcome the chance for more sidestories (since a lot of the plots focus on past events...especially V's, with the older Felenian Queens).

Besides, Konami's been itching to expand their RPG catalogue (which is why they're handling Falcom games)...I don't see them letting this series just stop like that.

*Sigh*...Suikoden VI may very well be the game that makes me fork over actual money for a PS3.

BTW, congratulations...I think this thread is about become the new STC's first 100-post thread.

Egbert rules. He's one of the funniest characters I've seen in any video game.

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Ok, I stand corrected then.  My memory is fuzzy.

Good gosh, someone has too much free time on his/her hands... it's a nice map.

The Norma/Levi/Ernst subplot may be usable as a future Suikoden game.  That western map is "unexplored" at the moment.

Well, the game series will "end" when all 27 true runes are revealed.  Konami will likely spread them out to prolong the series.
Do we have a list of true runes somewhere?

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Is that the default in the game?

I remember in Suikoden I, the hero didn't have a name, and then later Tir started to come up in internet articles, faqs, posts, etc.

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Okay, I goofed on something...I had the composers mixed up for this particular OST. I was thinking of Masahiko Kimura (who was partially responsible for Suikoden 3 and 4), but it was Norikazu Miura (who ALSO worked on Suikoden 4 and solo-composed Rhapsodia). I had the names mixed up somehow. And because I don't particularly LIKE Kimura (*hint* Dracula Apocalypse in addition to Suikoden 3), I probably half-assed my initial listens to the Suikoden V OST...Not a good thing, considering it has to grow on you, the best tracks can be tricky to find and the track lengths are generally short (most don't loop).

So really, this is pretty exciting in hindsight...Something of a breakout work for Miura (I wasn't taken in by the majority of Suiko IV or Rhapsodia). Sure there's filler, but the variety shown here is incredible and the high points are...well, very high. Hopefully, this composer will continue to improve. I wonder though...Which tracks did they do on Suikoden IV? And...Is it a he or a she?

I listened through the entire OST (again) and this time I kept tabs on which tracks stay and which ones go (shows how close they watch what I do at work...they thought I was writing tax information on those sticky notes!). Final score was 96 "keeper" tracks out of 148. I kept about 60 percent of everything from discs 1-3, then all but three from disc 4 (I left the stickies with the track names at work...) Most of what went were the more "brooding" tracks during the mistrust/conspiracy scenes and tracks like "Mansion on a Hill", which kind of worked for their scene, but that was it (I didn't hold onto the final battle music either). I kept all of the main battle theme variations, the castle theme variations and the variations for the games overall sadness theme (Overcoming the Grief, Bitterness, which was the music from the Roy scene, and A Sad Wish), as well as basically all the town themes and battle themes (including Haud, which now officially has nostalgia on its' side)...I think Kimura's strength, in addition to the peppy town music and blood-pumping battle themes, may be effectively remaking tracks (like Hamauzu and the many versions of the Saga Frontier 2 theme)...In addition to their own remakes, two of their best contributions were the remakes of Into a World of Illusions and Theme of a Moonlit Night remakes.

Hey, it's not Higashino, but I'm definitely up for another one like this. Bring on the S5 arranged albums!