Stronger Female Characters in Suikoden V?

[Optimus Prime]

I just finished Suikoden V and, dare I say, it has become my third favorite in the series. However, upon finishing it ("bad ending" at 4 AM), something just seemed peculiar compared to the other four games. Compared to 1-4, Suikoden V seems to have a larger collection of strong female characters. In fact, for the most part, it can be argued that the strong female leads topple the male roles. Lyon and Miakis pull off the powerful protector roles, Sialeeds turns into a raging...villain, Zerase and Jeane are generally the more powerful sorcerers, Lucretia is THE tactician to beat, Raja controls the navy, Arshtat was the nation's best queen, etc., etc.

I am a male, but I do not mean any of this in a sexist way. I have just been more geared towards using the men in Suikoden; Crowley, Mazus, Pesmerga, Geddoe, Hugo, Humphrey, Flik, Viktor, Kage, etc. More females (powerful and what not) was indeed a welcome change in this series, but how did it come about?

Is it because Suikoden V takes place in the "Queendom" of Falena? Is Konami trying to appeal to a larger female demographic? Will these additions be consistent in future games, or will it all depend on the region of the new land(s)?

[DeathQuaker]

Suikoden has always struck me with having very powerful female characters, with the only possible exception being I (which certainly had powerful females but a lot more important "plot" characters were male--Pahn, Gremio, Liukan, Mathiu, and all of the generals except Sonya). III and IV especially struck me with some strong female characters--Chris, of course, and many of the Grasslander women; Kika and Elenor (okay, I'm the only human being on the planet who thought she was cool, but it's my list, so) and the female Razril knights, etc.

It may be somewhat from your perspective; being a woman I tend to notice and use the strong female characters a lot; the "strong males" you mention that you used I almost never used unless forced to (I was about to throw my controller at the screen for being forced to lug freaking Viktor and Flik around so much when there were so many other characters I preferred using)--although there were strong males I quite liked to use (loved McDohl's male companions; loved the Zexen knights, etc.).

And frankly, there are very, very few weak females in any Suikoden game--or weak males for that matter. You are recruiting individuals born under stars of Heroism, after all. Some exceptions include some folks like Sarah from III (powerful in terms of skill, but absolutely spineless in terms of personality) but usually this is for both plot purposes and diversity.

I do think there were a LOT of females in _plot_ roles in Suiko V, yes, because it was a Queendom--the leader and heir and ambitious sibling of said leader all of course had to be female. But others I think simply suited their roles as they should have.

And I think there were a lot of good and proud representatives of the male sex who certainly impressed me--whoah, Georg! Kyle was fun--kind of silly, but certainly powerful and a good guy. A lot of the generals were both fantastic and competent (e.g. Dinn; Craig). I had a lot of respect for folk like Talgeyl and Fuwalafuwalu too. And of course there were the Godwins--fatally flawed, but certainly shrewd, skilled, and powerful. They figured out how to unlock a True Rune that was only supposed to work for a very particular kind of woman--yeah, I wouldn't call them weak.

Overall, I still see it balanced, and give props to the makers of Suiko for making fabulous roles for women (since such are rare in many other RPGs). Now if we could just have one female Tenkai star, then I'd really consider them egalitarian.

[Komataguri]

Its a queendom, women rule the country


of course there are gonna be strong women

[FlameChamp]

I agree taht women in Suikoden V is stronger than the other Suikoden series. For the prove, I used 4 women at my last team and 2 men.
For the reason... I dunno maybe coz they're bored with strong male character...

[malicesoul]

Suikoden has always had strong women in it. Hell, how many games can you think of that even has a Queendom in it?

[Oppenheimer]

Even Suikoden I had strong women crucial to the plot, Oddessa, Windy, Leknaat. But, I agree that there are even more in V than in previous entries. Chris is still my favourite Suikoden heroine, but Arstat was very impressive and pretty deep for the short time she's in the game. I thought she was going to be a one sided raging crazy villian when I first picked up the game. Even Lym grows as a character throughout the game, the New Queen's Campaign really was a stroke of genius.

[deedlitmurata]

I'm glad that there were so many amazing female characters in Suikoden 5; there were quite a lot in previous Suikoden as well, with Chris being able to be the hero and all; but in S5 there were a bit more I think; almost all the great magicians of this game are female, except for Levi; there's Eresh, Zerase, Viki and Jeanne.. and they're all better than Levi anyway; also the main strategist Lucretia being a woman was perfect in my opinion; cause in previous Suikoden we always had men as strategist (except for Suikoden 4, but Eleanor wasn't that impressive in my opinion), and the assistant was usually female, like Apple; but in S5 we had both the strategy and the assistant female, and Lelei was lovely.

The best long range attackers are female in here as well Cathari and Sagiri, at least for me Another strong character was Lorelai, they really were able to portray her extremelly well; and well, so many more; Sialeeds etc etc.

The only thing that I wasn't so happy about is that this time the bearer of the Falcon rune wasn't female like in previous Suikoden (Kika and Valeria.. and Chris' phoenix rune is very similar) but at least Belcoot was a great character, so I wasn't so sad anymore, lol.

[xXSqualleoNXx]

What was great of Lucretia as a strategist is that she never hides her plans from the people she is working with, like other Tacticians *coughshucough*. She was always straight with the Hero whenever it was time to put the plan into action. The things she didn't mention were because she was just going on conjecture, and you can't base action on conjecture. I mean, if she had told the prince about Sialeeds' betrayal maybe not being a betrayal, he would have hesitated, and that would have put the Rebel Army into a corner.

But I agree, there were definately a lot of key plot females in the game. I never realized how much I used females in my party until I was forced to put together a male party for Gordius. I just stood there and realized, "HEY ! I have to fill 4 slots with underused male characters ! What gives !". Thankfully, there was only one measly boss battle.