Reappearing events

[Aerolithe Lion]

Anyone else notice that they keep giving nods to previous games when replay an event with different characters? I first noticed this when Neclord popped up in front of Yuber before he kills your party in the past in S1 JUST LIKE the way Sarah does it in SIII in the Sindar tunnelway. The way she teleports up out of the floor right in front of him, and his 'Your timing is regrettable' reaction, very much a nod to its predecessor.

And then on top of that, larger storyline-based events may just be templates for how all these games are made, like how lifelong friends near the main protagonist seem to always turncoat (Pahn, Snowe, Jowy) or die (Lyon, Gremio, Lulu) in climactic scenes.

Also, every Suikoden game starts out with the main guy (would say Tenkai, but Hugo...) in an event that he returns home from. This may be an obvious JRPG cookie cutter thing to start with, but Chrono Trigger, T of Symphonia, and FFVIII you start already at home with nothing yet unfolding; FF VI, VII, IX, BoFIII, IV you don't really have homes... just seems like a very Suikoden thing. "Be in an event or returning home from an event to reaction from it at the start of the game." S1 the meeting with the king, then reaction at home. SII the Highland betrayal, then major reaction at home. SIII Chris returning from a bloody war, or Hugo returning from hunting. SIV returning from a training exercise at sea, and SV again returning by boat from what you witnessed to give your report to the Queen.

[Piisuke]

There's a few events like this. In Suikoden II the re-enact the opening scene from Suikoden I where Tir and Teo talk to Barbarossa. As soon as you see it in Suikoden II, you'll remember it.

There's indeed a few scenes that are nudges to the previous instances of Suikoden and they're quite fun to spot. On top of that, if you imported your Suikoden I data in Suikoden II and named your hero the same, you'll get a little dialogue where people say that it's a funny coincidence the heroes' names are the same.

[Aerolithe Lion]

I did that, but I heard his name just becomes 'TcDohl'.

Also I cheated a bit and read up on future SoDs, and it seems like there's another bandit hero lookalike, like Roy?

[Nikisaur]

There are plenty of similar themes and events. Suikoden is based on The Water Margin so all of them draw from the same source. For example, all of the HQs are on or around water, which (as I have been told) is a reference to the Water Margin. Themes of friendship and betrayal run throughout the series. It makes sense that there is continuity between games. From what I know of game series, they love to refer to the previous installments when possible!

Yeah there's Hoi. He's nowhere near as cool as Roy.

[Piisuke]

I did that, but I heard his name just becomes 'TcDohl'.

Also I cheated a bit and read up on future SoDs, and it seems like there's another bandit hero lookalike, like Roy?

Yeah, there's a glitch in the US version, which was fixed in the European version.

If his name would be TcDohl in SII and you would name your hero TcDohl in SII, you'd still get the little reference. It's just an extra line or so, nothing major.

There's indeed Hoi, but he's forgettable.

[dragons_descent4]

Hoi wasn't even a very good look alike,the story and the abuse of power was there,but the look really wasn't.

[Piisuke]

To be fair, he wasn't a look alike. Like, at all.

[dragons_descent4]

Yeah,he was a really bad fraud fooling some seriously naive people. But to their defense,a lot of the people he conned hadn't ever seen Riou in person to know what he looked like exactly anyway...

[sticky-runes]

Suikoden 4 had quite a few nod-backs to Suikoden 1.

The biggest one to me is when you meet Lino for the first time outside his palace - he tells you the king is probably inside, when he IS the man you are looking for. This reminds me of S1, when you meet Mathiu outside his home, and he tells you that he lives just up those steps.

There are other little things that made me think of the first game.

Agnes drugs your food when you come looking for Elenor - Ledon drugs your tea when you spend the night at his inn.

Elenor lives on a place called Hermitage Island to escape her life as a tactician. Liukan lives in a Hermitage to escape his life as a doctor.

And at the end when Graham Cray speaks to the rune of punishment about not wanting to return to him... Sort of harkens back to Windy being rejected by the Soul Eater at the end of S1.

[freshmetal]

Suikoden 4 had quite a few nod-backs to Suikoden 1.

The biggest one to me is when you meet Lino for the first time outside his palace - he tells you the king is probably inside, when he IS the man you are looking for. This reminds me of S1, when you meet Mathiu outside his home, and he tells you that he lives just up those steps.

There are other little things that made me think of the first game.

Agnes drugs your food when you come looking for Elenor - Ledon drugs your tea when you spend the night at his inn.

Elenor lives on a place called Hermitage Island to escape her life as a tactician. Liukan lives in a Hermitage to escape his life as a doctor.

And at the end when Graham Cray speaks to the rune of punishment about not wanting to return to him... Sort of harkens back to Windy being rejected by the Soul Eater at the end of S1.

Also like Suikoden 1, Suikoden 4's story was relatively short and to the point.

[sticky-runes]

Oh, and another thing - in Suikoden 1, we got locked in an elven cage by the chief of the elves and released by Sylvina.
In Suikoden 4, the elven elder locked us in a cage, and we were released by Selma.

[sticky-runes]

The scene where Belcoot rushes the men who kidnapped Marina sort of reminded me of when Lepant barges into Kraze's house to rescue Eileen.

Sialeeds is always in a bad mood when she wakes up - like Cleo (only Cleo doesn't beat the sh!t out of people who try to wake her)

The elf trail from Suikoden 1 (when Kirkis guides us to his homeland) is reintroduced in Suikoden 5 when Isato helps us escape from Lunas.

If you don't agree to escape from the Sun Palace, Lyon will knock you out, which reminded me of when Flik knocks out Teresa when you escape from Greenhill.

[bluemask]

^ I think the elf trail was an SOP for the elves since their villages are supposed to be hidden from outsiders. Nice catch though.

[bluemask]

Double post.

I just noticed. The infamous my arm thingy. Not exactly the same how it happened but after defeating Kwanda, he says "My arm!!" it reminds me of Snowe's "My arm!" line lol. It doesn't have to do with a rune though...

[sticky-runes]

The Queen's Campaign in Suikoden 5 was obviously an attempt to recreate the ambush against Luca Blight from Suikoden 2, because you get to organize three different parties. Not quite as effective, though, because Luca was much tougher than the queen's knights, and we got those nice little animations of him getting hit by arrows. And S5 doesn't even show your supporting party members when you confront Alenia and Zahhak, so that looked really sh!t compared to when S2 shows your whole party stepping into battle.
And besides all that, you don't even get a chance to change positions when you arrange parties.

Also, the scene where everyone is waiting outside the doctor's surgery for news of Lyon brought back memories of when Nanami was being treated after Rockaxe.