Suikoden II Backtracking by John Hummel 05
I buy stuff from Play Asia. So should you.
From TheGamersPress
Suikoden II Backtracking 05: From Riches to Rags
The Buttheads are coming! The Buttheads are coming!
Oh, no - Prince Luca the Jerkly is coming! Run, everybody! Run for the hills! Run for your lives! Hide your women, your children, and your collection of anatomically correct Neon Genesis Evangelion dolls.
Not that I have any, of course. Honest.
But the problem is that Prince Luca the Lame is coming, and we have to fight him off. Instead of a nice little one on one fight like we had with Flick, or a party based fight, we now enter the strategy portion of the game. If you played Suikoden (like I did), then you'll remember the battles being something of a Rock-Paper-Scissors affair. You could either Charge, use Arrows, or use Magic. Charge beat Arrows, Arrows beat Magic, Magic beat Charge.
Suikoden II completely changes the game and actually has a turn based strategy game inside. Now, instead of just picking types of attacks, I have to worry about moving my troops into position, worrying if they're going to be counter attacked by someone with an attack they can't defend against - like arrows against cavalry or something. Luckily, Apple was there to tell me what to do with comment like "Hey, dumb ass - move your troops over here. What - are you trying to get them killed? Who do you think you are by walking them right into disaster like that - George Bush?"
Thanks, Apple. You're a real peach.
More importantly, though, I have Fire Spears! Fire! Yeah! Fire! Burn 'em up! And even better, this stuff works like gangbusters. A couple of shots with the Fire Spears, and these guys are going down. OK - so this is the first fight after all, so it really can't be that difficult, but there's always that feeling of a job well done. Before I know it, I have crushed these guys.
Yeah! That's right, Luca! Eat it! You are my bitch now, baby! How's that feel, huh?
Oh, what's that? You're coming back for seconds? You want some more Crapper Pie? Come on then - I'll crush you again, with my massive Fire Spears! Bwahahahahaha--
Wait. My Fire Spears are useless? Hey - thumb|Lord Luca just teleported behind me. Ah, crap. I've gone from conquerer to One Hit Wonder in one fight. Now, instead of a victory speech, all I get to say how it - Run away! Run away!
I have only just enough time to run inside and save Pilika. I would worry about Nanami, but last time I checked she had done a Chuck Norris and roundhouse kicked something like 30 guards in the face. With one kick.
After some looking, I finally locate Pilika - just as Prince Luca is about to kill Pohl and Pilika. No - wait, just Pilika now. Sorry, Pohl - I'll always remember how you made me moved boxes. Well, that just leaves Pilika to kill. Jowy and my character try to get in between, but Luca just shoves us off. Dude - that's the deal with the beheadings? Look, if you're *really* into that thing, how about you move to Iraq or something, where your talents can be appreciated?
Just when things look their darkest, hope comes in the form of Viktor. Yay! Who just shoved all of the Fire Spears into the furnace, so the entire building is about to go up like a Roman candle!
Um - boo?
We make it out in time and leave Luca behind. I'm betting that he comes back, only scarred like Doctor Doom or something. With a metal mask. That would be so Airwolf. We get out with our lives, hoping to get to Muse before the rest of the Highland Army can.
A Story of Two Friends
On our way to Muse, we have to pass through Toto. As soon as we reach town, Pilika takes off running. Yup - somebody's got Post Tramatic Stress Disorder for sure. With her luck, she'll get stationed in Walter Reed. As I follow her, I happen to spot Hanna looking over the ruins. She doesn't look like she's doing anything important, so I ask her if she wants to join my merry band of adventurers. Obviously she was taken with my charm, and capacity to fit my head in her elbow to crack my skull like a walnut. Chicks totally dig that.
After leaving Hannah behind I finally found Pilika at the alter. While Pilika hasn't said much lately, she is a source of information. What follows is - weird. Somehow, Jowy and my character find themselves alone (oooo) and inside the shrine (ahhh) while some mystery woman named Leknaat pops in out of nowhere and tells us we are on the Path of Fate.
What follows is the story of Jowy and John from their youth. We see how we meet. We see them growing up. And most importantly, we learn that my character has been wearing that stupid head band all of this life. Is that thing stapled on? And why can my character talk in the past but now he's Mr. Mute?
When it's all over, Leknaat tells us that we get one of the 27 True Runes. My character gets the Bright Shield Rune. With it is the power of Heart. Jowy gets the Black Sword Rune. Dude - why does he get the cool one? I wanted to be the black sword.
Jowy gets all of the cool runes. Well, that's fine. On to Muse!
Show Me Your Papers
In between leaving and coming back, Muse seems to have turned into a Soviet style city. Do you have papers? No, we don't have the papers. Now, Nanami tries to vamp it up. Yeah - she should have tried the roundhouse kick to the head. Instead, we are not only kicked out, we are kicked the hell out of Muse.
Well - great. Now what are we suppose to do? We're screwed! Now we'll never know how the game ends.
After some thought, I decided that perhaps the developers weren't quite that stupid. Since I needed to heal up anyway, I found a local inn to stay at with a nice looking lady - Hilda, who runs the White Deer Inn. She has a husband named Alex who's a treasure hunting fool. A treasure hunting fool who just happens to have an entry permit to Muse.
Huh - who would have guessed that would happen?
Naturally, Alex decides to let us have his entry pass - in exchange for helping him find the treasure. OK - all we have to do is find his ruins. So, I start looking.
I head North. No ruins there. West? A big wall, but no ruins. South is the sea. Hold on - where the heck are the ruins? I'm looking all over the place, visiting every town I can find, and there's no bloody ruins here. What gives?
After an hour or two of looking, I headed back to the White Deer Inn. And that's when I figured out - well, it was there all along. In the back yard. Now, really, who builds their hotel right next to the ruins of an ancient civilization? It just doesn't seem like a safe place to raise your children. Next thing you know, the kids have run into the backyard, get possessed by some ancient demonic entity, and you've got to call an exorcist. The dry cleaning bill alone for the "spin your head around the vomit pea soup" is murder.
Alex tells us some very important information: the might be monsters inside the ruins. Monsters explain why these are ruins; if the local population gets eaten, then I guess the place is ruined. I set out, and these monsters are stronger than what I've run into before. That's a good thing: I can level up faster.
The ruins consist of an interesting challenge. You know those shape blocks you played with as a kid, the ones where you had to drop the square or traingle into the square and triangle shaped holes, and your parents would tell you how clever you were? You get to do the same thing here. The ruins hold artifacts of various sizes and shapes. You find the shapes, find the corresponding holes, and unlock an entry into a new section.
If I have one complaint about this place, it's how much back and forth I was doing. You unlock a door, or drain the water, and it wasn't always clear to me which way to go. I did a lot of wandering, trying to figure out which way to go. It took awhile, but I finally got all of the pieces into place.
Just in time to meet up with a giant two headed snake. I wonder how it decides which way to go. Do two headed creatures take turns eating? Well, either way, I get to crush it. Thanks to my aimless wandering about, I was strong enough between my runes to utterly crush this thing. And now, we can get the treasure! Yay!
It's - a weed. Yes. All right, it's a "healing herb". Gee - that was worth it, wasn't it? I mean, it's not like we know anybody that's sick right now, do we? All of that effort, just to find some leaves. Yay for us. Alex throws the herbs away at the ruins entrance. Even better - now when you get home, you can really show nothing for it. I hope you're proud of yourself.
Right until we get Alex home. What's that, Lassie? Hilda is sick and is dying of a fever, and no one can save her? If only we had some kind of medicine that could save her life!
A-hem! I said "If only there was some medicine that could save her life!" Oh, yeah - the Healing Herb! One short trip to pick them up later, Hilda is right as rain (yay!), we have our pass into Muse (yay! yay!), and I've got matching snakeskin heads for each foot.
OK - the latter one is a lie. But wouldn't that be cool?
