Genso Suikoden 3 - Strategy Guide (Page 02)

Below are the cheat codes, hints and help for Genso Suikoden 3 - Strategy Guide (Page 02).

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3f.  Runes and Magic

All magical ability in Suikoden III revolves around runes.  Basically, magical
power is stored in rune crystals.  Rune sages can unseal the crystals and
embed characters with the runes inside and the magical properties that come
with them.  A description of 12 of the major runes in the game is included in
the instruction manual.  I will note the relevant runes as they come up during
the course of the walkthrough.  As a general rule, I'm heavily biased against
using Fire and Earth Magic.  The first because it has a tendency to hit your
own party members and the latter because it's virtually useless until very late
in the game.

The only way to replenish your spells is by resting at an Inn and when story
elements dictate (usually when a chapter turns over).

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3g.  Battle Formation/The Pairs System

When you access the formation screen from the main options menu, it shows 7
slots like this:

                       ------
                       ------
                      (Pair 1, bottom left on battle screen)
                       ------
                       ------
                      (Pair 2, middle on the battle screen)
                       ------
                       ------
                      (Pair 3, top right on battle screen)
------
(Support Character)

You can have up to six party members in your group plus one support person.
The pairs system means that during a random encounter or boss battle, you will
give only 3 commands for all six characters.  You never give commands during a
battle to support characters.  Item use is restricted to each individual pair.
That is, someone in Pair 1 can never use Medicine or a similar item on someone
who is in Pair 2 or 3.  This also dictates that it's a bad idea to pair 2
magic users together.  Since you can only give one command to both of them per
turn, you negate their ability to both cast spells during the same turn.

By pairing certain characters together, you can access combos.  These combos
range from the 2-person variety all the way to combos that involve up to 5
characters.  In addition, you can pair 3 characters with their mounts in order
to form a mounted unit.  To not spoil anything, I will mention these characters
in turn during the course of the walkthrough.

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3h.  Strategy Battles

These battles represent confrontations between entire armies rather than the
random/boss battles involving small groups.  Strategy battles are initiated
only by the story, meaning there are no "random" strategy battles in the game.
Each strategy battle has a specific goal given to you, such as staying alive
for [X] amount of turns or defeating a certain enemy unit.  Depending on how
well you did in accomplishing the given goal, you may receive loot afterwards.
You do not receive skill points for fighting these battles.  With the exception
of the first strategy battle in Chris' chapter 1 (which involves the level 99
trick), you do not gain experience or levels either.

The most important thing to note about these strategy battles is that certain
characters can die permanently in them.  The way you can tell if someone has
died forever is if they meet ALL the following criteria:

-They are not a unit leader
-They're HP are reduced to 0 _and_ the unit leader's HP were reduced to 0 in
 the same field battle
-They have a dialogue box after the battle and say something.  This comes after
 the unit leader's dialogue box which always pops up if a unit is defeated

If a character dies permanently in these strategy battles, you will not receive
the 108 Stars of Destiny bonus at the end of the game and you can't use them in
your party again.  One of the options for the formation setup screen, which I
discuss in detail later in this section, is Story VIPs.  To see if someone is
vulnerable to dying permanently in battle, select this option then Confirm.
The characters that get switched into the Reserve boxes are the ones that can
die forever in the strategy battles.  Note that the Story VIPs can change from
battle to battle.

The actual gameplay for these battles is highly simplified.  The battlefield is
represented by a group of circles connected together by dotted lines.  The
starting position of your Army units and the enemy's is preset before each
battle.  Actions are turn-based, meaning you will do everything you want with
your units then end your turn then the AI will do the same.  You can only give
1 command to each unit per turn.  When a unit is moved into a circle occupied
by an opposing unit, a field battle will commence.  The field battle screen is
the same as those for random/boss battles, except you only have commands to
Attack, Defend, and Retreat.  The field battle ends if 1 of the 3 occurs:

1.  A unit leader's HP is reduced to 0 or
2.  A unit chooses the retreat option or
3.  Three turns elapse and 1 or 2 did not occur

From the main battlefield screen, you will have the option to Move (the Boot
symbol), Defend (the Shield symbol), or use a Special Skill (the Lightning Bolt
symbol).  Moving is self-explanatory.  Choosing Defend will reduce a unit's
damage taken by 1/2 if they're attacked and get into a field battle.  Special
skills are various offensive and defensive abilities that affect entire units.
Certain characters on your roster possess these skills.  The most notable
Special Skills are:

-Lightning.  Reduces each member of a target unit's HP by 1/3.  Affects only
 one individual unit and has a range of two connected circles.
-Fire.  Reduces each member of a target unit's HP by 1/5.  Affects ALL units in
 the target circle and has a range of one connected circle.
-Water.  Heals all of a unit's HP and has a range of one connected circle.
-Heal.  Heals 1/2 of each member's HP in the target unit.  Can only be cast on
 a unit in the same circle.

Some battlefield circles also have effects.  To check what these effects may
be, move the pointer over a circle.  Some Plains circles, for examples, heal
the HP of an occupying unit.  You can view what comprises an enemy unit by
placing the pointer over them and hitting X.  If more than one enemy unit is
stacked together on the same circle, you can switch to the one you want to
target/view by hitting X then moving the D-Pad left or right.

If you're able to flank an enemy unit, you can put your teams into a Cover
position.  When you do this, you bolster the damage down by the attacking unit
who's being covered.  The more units covering from different circles, the more
damage.  Each cover unit bolsters damage done by about 50%.  Putting units into
a Cover position does not influence the Retreat success of the enemy nor does
it bolster your attacking units' defense.  In the strategy battles in chapters
4 and 5, moving your units into Cover positions can mean the difference between
Victories and Major Victories.

During the actual field battle, you have three available commands:  Attack,
Defend, and Retreat.  If you choose Attack, your unit will do just that.
However, you have no control over their actions after that, meaning you can't
choose who they attack, what type of attack they will use, or anything else.
Choosing Defend will boost your characters' defenses as they normally would in
a regular battle.  Unless your characters are stunned or unbalanced, there is
no reason to ever choose the Defend option.  Retreat will cause your unit to
leave the field.  Most of the time when you do this, the enemy will get a free
turn to attack you.  Note that you cannot Retreat if there is no open circle to
go to on the main strategy battle screen.

Before most, but not all, strategy battles you will talk to either Salome or
Caesar and they will ask you to organize your units.  This screen is different
from the main formation screen used for regular/boss battles.  You will be
given the options of Alter, Auto, Story VIPs, and AllReserve.  Alter allows you
to swap your characters around.  Auto allows the AI to organize your units for
you.  NEVER pick this option.  Story VIPs will put all characters who can die
permanently in the upcoming strategy battle into reserve to keep them safe.
AllReserve will empty all the units out except the unit commanders.  A very
important thing to remember about organizing your units is that after you tell
Salome or Caesar that you're ready to battle, you cannot go back to change the
formation again.  As long as you tell them to wait or you're not ready to
proceed, you can talk to them again to change the formation.

In terms of individual unit formation, it looks like this:

-------- (Slot 1)
-------- (Slot 2)
-------- (Slot 3)
-------- (Slot 4)
-------- (Support)

Like in regular/boss battles, the Support character does not show up on the
field battle screen but provides some benefit to the unit.  Slot 1 will be at
the front of the unit on the field battle screen and will be the first choice
of an enemy attack.  This changes if you have special runes or items that
affect the enemy's choice of target such as Blue Ribbons, Skunk Runes, and
Firefly Runes.  Slot 4 is usually occupied by the unit leader.  The unit
leader's position can never be changed.  Slots 1 & 2 and slots 3 & 4 are
considered pairs to a certain extent.  No unite attacks or mounted units will
be in effect but how each character reacts will still be dictated by the pairs
system.  That is, if you place a Berserker type character who always attacks
into Slot 3, they will drag up the person in Slot 4 with them, just like if
they're paired in a regular or boss battle.

This watered down version of the pairs system affects your formation choice in
a few ways.  First, the person in Slot 1 should have good defense and, if at
all possible, high attack skills as well.  This is because they're usually the
first person to attack as well as be attacked.  If the unit leader is in Slot
4, it's a bad idea to put a magic user or archer in Slot 3.  This is because
the enemy always starts far away from you in the field battle and only the
fastest unit leaders will be able to drag up the magic user/archer with them.
Slot 2 is the best for magic users and archers since it's close enough to the
enemy to allow the person in Slot 1 to still attack.

The best way to ensure your success in these strategy battles is to train up
and properly equip the characters who will participate in them.  It's really
not more complicated than that until the game's last strategy battle.
Strategies are provided for each of the battles in the Walkthrough itself and
in section 9.

The most useful items for strategy battles are Sacrificial Jizos, Firefly
Runes, Skunk Runes, and Haziness Runes.  Sacrificial Jizos need to be equipped
in a character's personal inventory.  They essentially add 1/3 of the wearer's
HP to their total HP.  For example, a character with 300 HP wearing a
Sacrificial Jizo would really have 400 HP.  When a character's HP are reduced
to 0, the Jizo will activate and restore that 1/3 of HP back.  However, if a
character receives a damage amount that exceeds what the Jizo can provide, they
will still get knocked out.  To take the above example further, let's say the
wearer is down to 100 HP.  They get hit for 400 HP of damage--200 HP more than
what the Jizo provides for.  They would then get knocked out.  However, if they
got hit for exactly 200 HP, they would get 100 HP back and not get knocked out.
This is not the exact formula for Jizos, but it is an accurate analogy.  Jizos
are active during strategy battles and you can equip up to three of them on one
person.

Firefly Runes make the wearer the first choice of an enemy attack.  This is
invaluable when placed on a Tank (characters who receive very little damage
from melee attacks).  Because most of the field battles involve melee attacks,
the enemy will go after the Tank first and ignore everyone else, even if the
rest of the Tank's unit is ripping them to shreds.  You can recruit someone who
has a removable Firefly Rune.  In Thomas' chapters 1 and 2, the Purple Creepers
in the North Cavern drop them.

Skunk Runes are the opposite of Firefly Runes.  The wearer is the last choice
of an enemy melee attack.  This is not a 100% guarantee, though.  I have found
that it's fairly effective but I highly recommend that you don't take the
approach of equipping everyone except a Tank with a Skunk Rune.  I just haven't
seen this work consistently enough.  It is a good choice for more vulnerable
characters, though.  Skunk Runes can be bought at the Duck Village Rune Shop
from chapter 3 onward.  Blue Ribbons are an accessory that function like Skunk
Runes but have a higher rate of success.  Only females can wear them.  They are
a Rarity at the Duck Village Item Shop from chapter 3 onward.

Haziness Runes improve the wearer's chances of evading an enemy melee attack.
I've probably fought around 50 strategy battles and these Runes activate quite
often, probably around 1/4 to 1/3 of the time.  Best used for characters with
low HP or bad defense but who are really good attackers.  It seems to activate
more often for characters with good Repel, Armor Protect, Shield Protect, and
Parry skills.  They are a Rarity at the Duck Village and Le Buque Item Stores
from chapter 3 onward.

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3i.  Duels

Duels are one-on-one contests where you are given 3 options:  Defend, Attack,
or Deathblow.  It's a rock-paper-scissors type battle with an advantage meter
thrown in.  Basically:

When your Enemy does:         You Should:

Attack                        Deathblow
Defend                        Attack
Deathblow                     Defend

You'll note a small green circle at the bottom near the duel gauge.  This
indicates a DISadvantage.  That means if the circle is under your character's
portrait, your enemy has the upper hand.  In this case, the usual rules above
will be bent somewhat in favor of the person with the advantage.  For example,
normally if you Deathblow when your enemy Attacks, you take no damage.  On the
other hand, if they have the advantage, they will still get in an Attack and
cause you damage.  Therefore, if the advantage is totally in your favor, you
have some leeway to make a mistake and not pay for it.  It works the other way
as well.

An important thing to remember about duels is that some Runes that affect your
status will be in effect when you duel.  This can be good in the case if you
have something like a Fury Rune or very bad if you forgot to remove that
Hunter Rune you were messing around with.  I've covered every winnable duel in
the game to let you know what your enemy's comments mean so you can counter
accordingly.  I probably have missed a few of the comments but have supplied
more than enough so you can win every duel.

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3j.  Character Types

Each character has a personality "type" that describes their tendency in
battle.  The manual describes these tendencies on page 24.  The vast majority
of your non-support characters are Offensive Fighters.  The two classes to note
are Berserkers and Magic Users.  Berserkers will always attack even if you give
them the Defend command.  Magic Users are the opposite--they almost never do a
melee attack even if you give them the Attack command.  This is especially true
for Magic Users if they're paired with someone else.  To avoid spoilers, I have
noted which characters are Berserkers and Magic Users in the 108 Stars of
Destiny section.  When I make suggestions for formations in the walkthrough, I
take the various character types into account.

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3k.  Treasure bosses

During the course of the game, you will run into monsters that are guarding
treasure chests.  Each of these treasure bosses are located in a specific area
and by the end of the game there are 6 of them in all.  When you defeat the
boss, there's usually around 2-24 items in the chest plus a nice cash reward.
If you loot the entire contents of a chest, that treasure boss will re-spawn
after about 30-45 minutes, with more loot in the chest and more cash.  If you
don't loot all the contents, it will take _much_ longer for the treasure boss
(and his treasure) to re-appear, usually at least a few hours.  There are
benefits to doing one or the other depending on whether or not you want to
keep fighting a certain boss.

The location of the treasure bosses and the earliest chapter they appear for
each character in parentheses:

1.  Mt. Hei-Tou, Geddoe (1), Chris (2), Hugo (3)
2.  North Cavern, Geddoe (2), Chris (2), Hugo (3), Thomas (1)
3.  Mt. Path, Geddoe (1), Chris (3), Hugo (3)
4.  Mt. Senai, Geddoe (2), Chris (4), Hugo (4)
5.  Hideaway, All (3)
6.  Cyndar Ruins, All (5)

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3l.  Recipes, Old Books, Medal Sets, Antiques, Bath Items, and Scripts

-Once you recruit the chef character in the game, you can give this person the
Recipes you find from corpses, treasure bosses, and lottery prizes.  With these
recipes and the right spices, you can put together usable food items that heal
Hit Points as well as put your character into various states.

-Once you get the librarian character, you can give them Old Books and read
them.  The Old Books contain various information such as a bestiary, listing
where to find rare items, histories on the Suikoden world, and so forth.

-Once you get the Appointer, you can give him Medal Sets.  These Sets contain
Titles (like "Top Commander") that give boosts to your characters' skills such
as Accuracy, Swing, etc.

-Antiques include Paintings, Statues (big and small), and Figurines such as
vases and urns.  You can place all these items for display at Lake Castle.  To
place a Painting, walk up to an empty picture frame and hit X.  To display
Statues, go up the stairs to the 2nd floor and go to the first room on the
left.  This is the statue room with several pedestals where you can place the
Statues.  For Figurines, walk up to any of the desks inside the Castle and hit
X to display them.  Most of the time when you first get an antique, it will
have a ? symbol next to it, meaning it needs to be identified first.  Take the
item to an appraiser shop and they will identify it for you.

-Once you get the bath character, you can take a soak in the bath house at Lake
Castle.  If you equip your character with a bath item, you will see different
effects while in the bath house.

-Once you get the theater director, you can put on plays at Lake Castle.  The
director comes with one script but you can find others to give him to perform
different plays.

As I stated earlier, this walkthrough isn't intended to grab all these items.
I haven't included it because Ryvius' FAQ here on gamefaqs covers it quite
comprehensively.  During the course of the walkthrough, you will get most of
the items but I don't make it a point to get _all_ of them.

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3m.  What's the Chris Level 99 trick?  Should I do it?

Blue Moon and his excellent site, suikosource.com, first posted this trick so
I will refer you to them for how to do the trick.  The trick needs to be done
during a certain event in Chris' chapter 1.

As for the question of should you or shouldn't you do it, it's up to you.  Keep
in mind that after your characters reach level 60, it's extremely difficult to
level up.  At a certain point you will receive only 5 experience points per
battle, meaning you'd have to fight 200 battles just to get up a single level.
Because a good number of characters come in at a level dependent on the person
who recruits them, you can get about a dozen or so characters at level 99 or
very close to it by using this trick then using Chris as a recruiter.  You can
check section 5e to see who these level dependent characters are.  The section
does contain minor spoilers in terms of character names, so fair warning to
you.  The trick takes about 15-20 hours from start to finish.

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3n.  What's the stat stones trick?

This trick takes advantage of the same gameplay mechanism that makes the Chris
level 99 trick work.  Save your game with some Stat Stones in your inventory.
Use the Stat Stones to boost some stats.  Die, then select No Way! when you're
asked if you want to give up.  When you continue from the save point, you will
still have the Stat Stones along with the boosted stats.  Keep repeating as
many times as you want.  As I mentioned in the Skills/Stats section, it appears
that Skills are much more important than Stats.

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3o.  I need money and lots of it!

The best way to earn money early in the game with Hugo, Geddoe, and Thomas is
through the lottery.  Later on, treasure boss monsters are the best way to go
for Geddoe and Hugo.  Chris starts with 200,000 potch so money isn't really an
issue for her.  Later on in the game (chapter 4) you'll have the opportunity to
acquire the Prosperity Set, a group of items that includes the Tunic of
Prosperity, the Prosperity Hat, and the Prosperity Ring.  I have described this
method in detail in the Walkthrough.  Full credit for the Prosperity Set method
goes to Abraxas from the gamefaqs message board who first posted about it.

As for the lottery, buy 5 Sequential tickets and 5 Random tickets.  The lottery
results turn over every 20-50 minutes of real time.  BEFORE checking the
results on the lottery board, save your game.  Check the board and if you did
not get the prize you wanted, soft reset by pressing all shoulder buttons along
with Start and Select.  Check the board and keep repeating until you get what
you want.  On average, it takes me 5-10 minutes before getting the 2nd prize
(100,000 potch).  I've hit the 500,000 prize a few times.  I have never hit the
grand prize so I don't know what it is.

sim st-pierre e-mailed me with this helpful tip to get money in chapters 4-5:

"hi, i checked a bit ur walkthrough. i just want to say that when it comes to 
money, there's something really really easy to do. with the trade centers. 
simply buy a lot of gold bars and pearls. lets say 15 gold bars and 30 
pearls. gold bars can be bought at caleria and vinay del zexay and pearls at 
budehuc and another place. anyway, get as much as u can and go to caleria.( 
for the pearls, if u can have the rumor about a town being a sea 
something,cant remember, u can get a lot of pearls for less than 10000)

sell all ur gold bar and buy all the pearls at caleria(do the oposite if 
gold bars are low, 25000 and below) well when u come back in, lets say, 10 
minutes, the ones u sold will be pretty low(gold bars are suposed to be 
15000 and pearls are 13333, depends which u sold) and the other should be 
high. anyway i was doing, one time i was selling my gold bar a around 60000 
and buying the pearls at 13333, and when i come back, i was selling my 
pearls at 30000 and buying my gold bars at 15000. so with not much time, u 
can get a lot of money. if u want u can do the same thing with deer antlers, 
then are sold a 2500 and bought at 7000-10000.

the trick is that the trade is having a lot of one item so they drop the 
price and when its very low u buy it, after it will rise greatly. takes not 
much time for the price to change. so u do something, u teleport to caleria, 
u buy/sell u come back. takes about 10 minutes for each set of cash. i was 
doing this at the same time i was forging everyone and equiping after. it 
works as long as u want, the game is too stupid. (at one point, i had 25 
gold bars and 40 pearls, i was selling like 23 goldbars and i had 1 million 
this include the rebuy of the pearls. same thing with pearls, selling 35 and 
had 1 million with the rebuy of the gold bars.)

this is the easiest and fastest way i think to make money, because the card 
games sucks.  u get the hang of it pretty fast(i had the pearls and gold bars
accumulated since the beginning of the game.)"

Thanks to sim st-pierre for this tip.

The method I have laid out in the Walkthrough is to play the lottery in the
early chapters then get money by way of treasure bosses from chapter 3 onward.
With this method, I _never_ had to play Mike at Kabu to get cash.

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3p.  I was just walking around minding my own business, then the screen
     turned yellow and this funny music played and this monster killed me!

Yes, you ran into a rare encounter.  On most of the areas where random battles
can occur, there is a monster that will show up about 5-10% of the time.  You
can tell because the screen will fade out in white and yellow before going to
the battle screen.  The bad news is that these monsters are usually super tough
and can wipe out your entire party pretty easily.  The good news is that
they're worth a ton of skill points and give a nice load of cash.  I will
mention these as they come up in the Walkthrough section.

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3q.  Looting corpses

It used to be you got random treasure by finding treasure chests in the
Suikoden world but I suppose Konami thought it was unrealistic that shiny metal
treasure boxes were just lying around everywhere.  Instead, they've replaced
the treasure chests with corpses you can loot.  Amazingly enough, after you
loot these corpses someone else will come around and die in the exact same
spot, leaving more loot!  I like to think they were philanthropists who just
continue to give from the great beyond.

Most of the time, the first item you can get for looting a corpse is a fixed
item.  After that, the item is random.  I'm quite sure although not 100% that
the items you can get rotate after 30-45 minutes.  That is, it doesn't work
like the lottery where you can save your game, check the corpse, then re-load
if you didn't get what you want.  Instead, the random items that are there just
naturally turn over after a period of time.

Some of the better runes and items you can get will be found as random items
on the corpses, but they're very rare.  I will note the good stuff in the
course of the Walkthrough section.  Hugo and Geddoe can loot any time all the
time.  Chris takes some time to get over her squeaky clean image and will loot
corpses from her chapter 3 onward.  Thomas will never loot corpses but I love
trying to get him to do it anyway because he says, "What? Oh, cruel world!"
which never fails to crack me up (it reminds me of an associate over in the
English department).

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3r.  What's a Tank?

The term "Tank" was coined a while ago to describe characters who take very
little damage from physical attacks.  These characters were ideal for putting
on the front line to absorb enemy attacks.  In Suikoden III, the value of these
characters has been drastically increased because of certain skills and runes.
Specifically, the skills Armor Protect, Shield Protect, and Adrenaline Power.
The first two skills are self-explanatory and the third automatically revives
a character if their HP go down to 0.  Characters like Leo and Fred can go up
pretty far with Adrenaline Power and one of Jefferson's appointments will boost
this grade by two levels.

With regard to runes, Firefly and Double-Strike are of particular note.  The
Firefly Rune makes the wearer the first choice of enemy attacks.  In strategy
battles where most of the attackers do melee damage, a Tank with Firefly can
take all the hits while the rest of your party destroys the enemy.  It's the
same in boss battles where the enemy primarily deals melee damage.  The Double-
Strike Rune multiplies the damage given and received by 2 for the wearer.
Because Tank characters receive 0 or 1 damage from physical attacks, this Rune
only benefits them without the inherent penalty from melee damage.

The primary drawback to Tank characters is they generally have horrible magic
defense, and this is true for the most part in Suikoden III.  In addition,
they generally can't equip more than 1 Rune even at the highest levels (60+).
Finally, their speed is usually way below average or just plain average,
meaning they will never get more than 1 or 2 attacks per turn.  This speed
problem is made worse if your enemy is lined up far away and your characters
have to run a long way to attack them.

To avoid spoilers, I have denoted which characters are Tanks in section 5.

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3s.  What are the Armor Sets and what do they do?

There are five Armor Sets in Suikoden III.  When a complete set is equipped on
a character in the active party, it gives certain bonuses.  The sets and what
they do:

-Prosperity Set.  Includes Prosperity Hat, Tunic of Prosperity, and Prosperity
 Ring.  Money from battles is x7.  The Hat is a Rarity at Chisha's Armor Shop.
 Estella comes with it.  The Tunic is a random prize for the 5,000 bet in
 Billy's card game.  The Ring is a Rarity at Chisha's Item Shop.  Placing
 someone with the support skill Potch Finder into the party raises the amount
 of potch received further.

-Destiny Set.  Includes Crown of Destiny, Robe of Destiny, and Gloves of
 Destiny.  Money from battles is x3.  The Crown is a Rarity at the Great Hollow
 Armor Shop.  Estella comes with the Robe.  The Gloves are a Rarity at the
 Caleria Armor Shop.  Chris automatically gets them at the end of her chapter
 2.  Placing someone with the support skill Potch Finder into the party raises
 the amount of potch received further.

-Pale Moon Set.  Includes Pale Moon Casque, Pale Moon Leather, and Pale Moon
 Necklace.  Adds 25% of melee damage done back to HP.  For example, if you hit
 for 240 pts. of damage, you get 60 HP back.  The Casque is a Rarity at the Le
 Buque Armor Stand.  Landis also comes with it.  The Leather is a prize for
 Kathy's races.  The Necklace is a Rarity at the Le Buque Item Stand.  It can
 also be won as a random prize for Kathy's races.

-Guardian Set.  Includes the Guardian Casque, Guardian Chainmail, and Guardian
 Shield.  Boosts Counterattack rate.  Yumi and Yuiri come with the Casque.  The
 Chainmail is a Rarity at the Caleria Armor Shop.  The Shield is a Rarity at
 the Vinay del Zexay Guild Hall Armor Stand.  Mua also comes with it.

-Mole Set.  Includes the Mole Helm, Mole Armor, Mole Shield, and Mole Gloves.
 Makes squishy noises when you walk and may boost the occurrence of random
 battles (not sure).  The Helm is a random item for the Magician treasure boss
 in Thomas' chapters.  It is also a random treasure for the corpse closest to
 the Blue Mantrix at Mt. Hei-Tou.  The Armor can be bought for 40,000 potch
 from Dominic.  The Shield is a Rarity at the Le Buque Armor Stand.  Twaikin
 also comes with it.  Cecile comes with the Gloves.

Credit and thanks to TexasAndroid who provided most of the content for this
section.

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3t.  Where do I get the Blinking Mirror?

You can obtain it in chapter 4 after visiting Lake Castle.  To avoid spoilers,
check the recruit list in section 5c and entries 100 to 101 to find out.

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3u.  No offense, but can you suggest another Walkthrough?

No offense taken.  To the best of my knowledge, neither Prima nor Brady are
planning an official strategy guide for the US version.  The Japanese strategy
guide is the only one I know of.  In terms of other available resources, I've
heard good things about Ruse's Walkthrough/FAQ here at gamefaqs on the message
boards but I've never checked it out.  Ryvius' FAQ also here at gamefaqs is
great if you want to know where to get items and has a spoiler-free recruit
list.  The best internet resource for all things Suikoden is definitely Blue
Moon's web site, suikosource.com.  The site contains comprehensive lists,
story summaries for the games, secrets, links to other useful Suikoden sites,
and lots of other goodies.

If you have a quick question, the message boards at gamefaqs and suikosource
are both great resources.  Be warned that you may see spoilers in the topic
headers at both places and please avoid doing the same with any questions you
may ask there.


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4.  Walkthrough

4a.  Introduction

The Walkthrough is intended mainly to get you through the story with some
helpful suggestions thrown in.  If you want to deviate from it to level up,
walk around and talk to the townspeople, watch some plays, and so on, by all
means, do so.  I have clearly noted what will make the story advance so if you
don't want to proceed at that time to do something else, go for it.  If you've
got a radio, CD, or MP3 player handy, it makes getting through some of the
leveling up/lottery sequences much easier.  This is especially true if you're
going for the Chris Level 99 trick.

In terms of skill selection, I have a tendency to go for physical skills then
healing magic.  I am severely biased against Fire and Earth Magic-the first one
because it generally will hit your own group and the second because it's only
useful in a fight at the very end.  I go for physical skills first because your
characters will either be too low of a level to effectively use most offensive
magic or you won't get better magic users until later in the game.  The skills
system is meant so you can customize your characters the way you see fit so the
ultimate decisions are up to you.  When I mention what skills to boost, they
are also just meant as recommendations. 

I have denoted when you recruit and how many stars with brackets [ ] at the end
of each chapter so as to avoid spoilers before they happen.  If a character is
marked with an asterisk (*) it means they are one of the NON-automatic stars.
In terms of when you should save, I will mention it at key times but other
times I leave it up to your common sense.  It goes without saying but it's the
angriest player who beats the Super-Mega Boss From Hell then the console resets
and 40 hours of game play time are lost forever.

It is always a good idea to fight all the possible treasure bosses in a chapter
at least once.  To make them re-spawn after 30-45 minutes, loot the entire
chest.  The only time you don't want them to do that is if you really don't
want to fight them again-leaving some items in the chest will make the bosses
re-spawn at a much slower rate (usually a few hours).  Fighting treasure boss
monsters is a great way to make a lot of money not to mention getting a nice
stash of skill points.  In my walkthrough I generally suggest fighting these
bosses at least more than once per chapter.

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4b.  Hugo Chapter 1

Pick Hugo's story from the Trinity Site.  After the cutscene, pick his story
again to start playing.  When the conversation's done between Hugo, Lulu, and
Sgt. Joe, I suggest you put and keep your team in this formation:

Hugo
Fubar
-----
-----
Lulu
Sgt. Joe
(No Support)

Walk to the right of the screen to talk to the man with his arms folded outside
of the hut.  This is the bujutsu teacher.  Talk to him and select Notes to get
a quick primer on how skills work.  Select lesson next and raise these skills
for your characters:

Hugo-Swing up to a D, Accuracy up to a C
Fubar-Accuracy up to a C
Lulu-Repel up to a C
Sgt. Joe-Accuracy up to a C

Hugo's Repel skill (which you'd have to add for him) can naturally go up to an
S but I don't give him this skill until chapter 3 at the earliest.  He is at
his best when paired with Fubar.  Lulu is similar to Hugo in that his best
asset is his speed.  Sgt. Joe is a serviceable healer and his melee attacks do
good damage but his speed, like all duck characters, is below average.

You can walk around and talk to all the villagers if you like.  Talk to the
little girl running around up the main street outside to get an Antitoxin.  You
can also talk to a duck clan member inside the inn to get a Medicine D.  Go to
the item hut and buy another Medicine D and also an Antitoxin.  To make the
story progress, go to the front of the village and talk to the man shining some
armor outside his hut.  This is Jimba and he will (not) tell you the story
about the armor.  Luce and Lucia come out at this time to tell Hugo to deliver
a message.  Cycle through the dialogue options from top to bottom to get filled
in on the mission.  When you're given the choice of whether or not to accept
Lucia's request, you can pick the top choice if you're confident ("I'm up to
it") or the second choice ("Um...") if you want some encouragement.  When Lulu
says he wants to go, too, you can say that you'll look out for him or that
everyone will be fine together.  After everyone's done talking, you'll receive
the !Letter to Zexen.  You can wander around the village some more if you like
but you can't exit.  When you're ready to make the story progress, enter the
top hut on your mini-map and choose "I suppose so."

The next morning everyone will gather to give your group a proper send off.
When Lucia gives Hugo a hug, you can pick the first choice ("Well then, I'm
off") to properly say goodbye or pick the second choice ("I'll be fine!") to
act snippy with Lucia.  When you exit the village, you'll run into Jimba, who
will ask you to do a favor for him.  Hugo will accept and you'll receive the
item !Pentacle.  After you leave the village the world map will open up.  Go
back to Karaya and save at the inn or at Lucia's house.  Exit Karaya again.

Here's the first lull in the game when I recommend taking some time to get some
money.  As I said before, the first chapters for each character except Chris
will be similar to this.  It really pays off to take the time to do this now
rather than later but again it's up to you.  Head to Plain of Amur-North.  If
you run into some spiders and get poisoned, wait until after the battle to
heal.  Access Sgt. Joe's Water Rune by going into the Rune options and heal
with the Kindness Drops.  If you run out of that spell then use the Antitoxin.
Cross the plains to get to Duck Village.

Time to play the lottery!  You have an option here.  I like to go to the Rune
Shop and remove the Sword of Cyclone Rune from Lulu and sell it at the item
shop.  All the Magic Sword runes have 2 spells-the first level one adds
elemental damage to your attacks and the other reduces elemental damage.  You
can tell what element each Magic Sword rune corresponds to by its name.  The
Magic Sword runes aren't that great until later in the game when your
characters can deal more damage so I feel it's pretty worthless early.  If you
_really_ want to hang on to it, then you can go back out to the Plains and
fight until you get 1,000 potch.  Either way, when you get the money, go to the 
lottery board and hit X.  A duck in a boat will come up.  Buy 5 Sequential
tickets and 5 Random tickets.  From here on, when I say buy tickets for the
lottery, this is what I mean.  You can go around the village talking to the
ducks if you want but I suggest you don't pick up anything they offer you.
This is because Hugo has limited inventory space compared to the other main
characters and he'll need it later on.  If you need to rest up to replenish
spells, go to the inn and rest/save.

You need to kill about 20-30 minutes for the lottery to turn over.  I spend
this time going out and fighting random battles to get experience and skill
points.  I recommend you do so because they'll come in handy.  If you don't
care to do that, send Hugo out to Plain Amur North and let the console sit
while you talk on the phone or watch TV.  Your best bets for exp/skill points
is fighting the yellow spiders at Plain Amur North and the Purple Creepers at
just Plain Amur.  The Blade Bunnies drop Gale Runes, which boosts the SPD stat
of the wearer by 50%, but this is a very rare event.  The Purple Creepers will
sometimes drop an item called a !Screw.  If you get one of these, hang on to
it-you'll need it to recruit a character later.  You only need one !Screw so if
you get more just toss the extras.

The rare encounter for the Plains is the Wild Boar.  If you run into him, I
recommend that you be at least level 14 with all your characters.  Just defend
with Lulu and Sgt. Joe and attack with Hugo/Fubar.  When anyone gets hurt
pretty bad, use Sgt. Joe's water rune to cast Kindness Drops.  Use your healing
items once that spell runs out.  You can get up to level 15 by just fighting
the yellow spiders for a while.

After 20 minutes is up, go back to Duck Village and save at the Inn.  Check the
lottery board.  If the results aren't in yet, go back out and check back in
after every 5 minutes or so.  When the results are up, check through your
tickets.  If you didn't get at least 2nd prize (100,000 potch) soft reset by
holding down the shoulder buttons plus Start and Select.  You should then load
your most recent game which is the one at the inn.  Check the board again and
keep soft resetting until you get at least 2nd prize.  It usually takes me on
average 5-10 minutes to get the 2nd prize but it may take you longer some
times.  I've won the 1st prize (500,000 potch) a few times but it'll probably
take you considerably longer before hitting it.  There's no reason to keep
losing lottery tickets so just discard those.

The complimentary lottery prize for Duck Village is Recipe #3.  After you get
that, the complimentary prize will always be a Fish Badge, which you can buy at
item stores later on and isn't that great.  If you were lucky (or patient)
enough to get the 500,000 potch prize, congrats-you won't have to worry about
money for Hugo again until his chapter 3!  The 100,000 potch prize will do you
just fine for now, though.

After you get the money, save your game.  Go to the item shop and buy Sgt. Joe
a Silver Beak.  Buy a couple of Escape Scrolls as well.  Escape Scrolls are
very handy items.  Any time you're in a dungeon area, you can use an Escape
Scroll to immediately go back to the exit regardless of where you are.  Very
nice for leaving quickly after beating a tough boss all the way at the end of a
dungeon.  Try to always have one or two of these in your party inventory for
each of your characters.

Head out of Duck Village and go to Brass Castle.  At the first screen of Brass
Castle, there will be a man with a black turban standing around by the
easternmost bench.  Talk to him and buy any Ancient Texts and Salt he has.  The
Ancient Texts are a rare item so he usually won't have it.  Keep going west
another screen and you'll come to an area with a Blacksmith, an Armor Shop, and
an Item Store.  Go to the Blacksmith and sharpen Sgt. Joe, Lulu, and Hugo's
weapons up to level 7.  Go to the Armor Shop and check their Rarity section.
If they have Byakko Chainmail, get it for Sgt. Joe.  Buy Boots for Hugo and
Lulu each (replace their sandals).  Go to the Item Store and buy a Belt of
Strength for Hugo and Lulu each.

You can talk to all the people if you like.  Most of them don't say anything
interesting but some of it is kind of funny.  Head west one more screen and
you'll trigger a cutscene.  When Hugo's given the option to respond, pick the
first choice ("And who might YOU be?").  After everyone's done talking head
east to go back inside the castle.  In case you're wondering, there's nothing
you can do with the hungry knight outside the dining hall who likes Super
Pickles.  Just trust me on that and don't go out of your way to get Super
Pickles.  Head to the bottom of the screen and go into the last room on the
right.  Walk up to the man behind the desk-this is the bujutsu teacher.  These
are the skills I suggest you get: