Niahak's Place

Started Suikoden 2 this morning. Great game.

There is one plot point early on that I don’t think I ever made note of before. When you first see Luca, he says “all I’ve had to fight lately is that old man”.   I guess you never do find out how Genkaku died…

Anyway, the main point of this post was to comment on another aspect of Suikoden 2.  I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this, but Suikoden 2 has several links to Three Kingdoms.  Some of them are more tenuous than others, but here’s what I could come up with off the top of my head:

• When you’re in Genkaku’s house, take a closer look at those weapons.  There are a pair of swords, a long spear, and a halberd.  If you “search” them, you find the halberd is named the “Blue Moon Dragon”, one of the multifarious translations for Guan Yu’s weapon.  The others would be for Zhang Fei and Liu Bei.
• When you recruit Shu, I believe you have to meet him 3 times (and pass his last test) to get him to join you.  This would be a parallel to the Three Visits.
• Look at the geography.  Highland’s mostly in the East and North; when you flee the sacking of Muse, you go South across a river and seek refuge with the leader of South Window (Granmeyer?  South Window is probably a mistranslation, but whatever).  If you look at him as Liu Biao (or Liu Zong), notice he surrenders and is immediately executed.  Your first task is – after beating back the Highland troops initially – to unite that small area, which could be a parallel to Jing.  After a while, you get the Western areas to ally with you, and eventually the far Southwest (a mountainous area… a parallel to Shu?).  You also ally with the Blood Moon Empire (Wu?) in the Southeast and eventually take Greenhill in the Northwest (Hanzhong?)
• Maybe a bit of a stretch, but Viktor is a parallel to Zhang Fei and Flik to Guan Yu.  If I remember right (I’ll confirm it if necessary when I reach that part) they don’t really trust Shu at first.

More on this later, I guess, if I find more.

I started Suikoden yesterday morning.   I finished it about a half hour ago.

I recruited all 108 stars and my last save point had a timestamp of 13:30ish.  I beat my old record of 14 something.   I never realized how incredibly short that game is.  True, I have practically no homework this quarter, but still.  If I hadn’t recruited all the stars or improved my characters for loading into Suikoden 2 I probably could’ve finished in less than 10 hours.  It’s a really fun game, but it’s too short.  And the strategy battle system is too simple, but that’s been true of all the Suikoden games.  Also, the translation is pretty bad (“We’re all over.” “See the power of the science!”).  But it has more flavor of the original material.  To explain a bit, all Suiko games are loosely based on the Shui Hu Zhuan (Outlaws of the Marsh), one of the four Chinese Classics (Others: Three Kingdoms, Journey West, Dream of Red Chamber).  I think I have a bit on this in my Suikoden series review (which I plan to rewrite after beating them again, naturally).  Anyway, Suikoden has several scenes that are almost directly from Shui Hu, including the tea scene and the recruiting of Lepant.  The game’s more enjoyable if you’ve read the book, and I can but recommend it, since its flavor is very similar to that of Three Kingdoms, even if it does tend to ramble more.  Sadly there is no place I know of to read it online.

I’ll probably start Suikoden 2 tomorrow.  Hope to do the Clive subquest, and I think I’ve got a good idea of what order to recruit characters in to do so.  I just hope it doesn’t have any issues playing, what with its scratched-ness and my PS2 not liking the cleaner Suikoden 1 (no major issues, just the “insert valid PS1/2 disc” screen when starting up every so often).

I’m minoring in East Asian Studies (as well as Japanese) – probably the only senior doing so, actually.  To do this I had to take three separate Japanese culture/society classes, one in Japan and two here at school.  That one was even offered last quarter was somewhat of a fluke (if fortunate for me, since it got me the minor).

Anyway, I’d like to share one of the most foreign-seeming yet familiar aspects of the culture: Amae.  The dictionary I have says it means “depending on others’ kindness”, but it’s a bit more complex than that.  The word contains the kanji for “sweet”, but the actual concept involves showing one’s weakness to others.  From what I recall, this means showing some sort of flaw in one’s personality to others, and to depend on them in that regard.  To have amae for someone is to sort of entrust them with the knowledge of this weakness.  This can mean simply revealing some sort of vice or even a bad habit.  It’s not an entirely foreign idea; we only show our worst parts to those we trust.  Amae is sometimes it is something harmful to others as well; the most extreme example we learned was a husband beating his wife: the wife can, in some way, see this as an expression of his love for her, as he is revealing a weakness in his soul (the fact that he beats his wife).  I very much doubt it is seen as a positive thing to others; this is just an example I remembered.  Something to think about.

I may do a little bit on tatemae and honne (one subject, two words) later.  Could be an interesting topic with the way anonymity works on the internet.

It’s too early.

That aside, a recent post on one of the forums where I lurk got me thinking.  The question was “what games do you regret buying?”.

I don’t do that too often anymore.  I don’t have a whole lot money so I have to be careful when I decide whether or not to make a purchase.  I tend to read several reviews and some personal testimonials before I buy much of anything anymore (excepting the few cases where I think I can trust a developer, such as Level 5).

That said, it still happens every once in a while.  The biggest one was Crimson Sea 2.  The game sounded marginally interesting, and it was made by Koei, so I thought I couldn’t lose even at $50.  I was unfortunately mistaken, as the game becomes Dynasty Warriors in space before too long, and there’s no storyline co-op (despite having two playable characters).  I ended up trading it in.

More recently, when Gamestop was selling off the last of their PSX games,  I picked up Beyond the Beyond for $13.  I had bought (and then sold) it when it was the first RPG on PSX.   When I tried playing it, the game was almost painful in parts.  It’s one thing to have lots of encounters and require strategy… it’s quite another to have a lot of encounters and also expect the player to keep tapping X to get lots of critical hits and blocks.  Considering that Wild Arms was the same price, I feel ripped off at $13 for that game.

The last game I regret buying new was probably Romance of the Three Kingdoms X, but I feel I haven’t given that game a decent chance since the first time playing it so it’s not in any danger of being sold.  As monotonous as it became, Final Fantasy XII had its moments, so I don’t much regret buying it.

I accepted a job offer from a company today, so it looks like I finally know for sure what I’ll be doing in 3 months or so.

I’m in the final section of Rogue Galaxy, and I have to say, the earlier plot points are better done than the last parts.  The game starts out light and fun, but events become really heavy-handed after a bit and it turns out I like some of the subplots better than the main one.  Game’s still fun, but it’s winding down.  What’s next?  I have no idea.  I’ve been meaning to replay Wild Arms ACF, as well as the entire Suikoden series.  I’ll just have to see how I feel in the next few days.

I do have to say one thing, though.  This game is very pretty.  I liked FFXII’s graphics for a while, but I thought they were grainy, and there were too many browns and grays (the foresty and snowy parts tended to be pretty short, while dungeons were quite long).   Rogue Galaxy, meanwhile, has a few scenes that are absolutely amazing, between a landscape of a tropical water planet to a far-reaching view of a futuristic city.  Most areas are well-fleshed out, and even in some hostile areas I would rotate the camera just so I could see the background.