Niahak's Place

I enjoyed journaling progress through Strange Journey in 2022-23 and wanted to do a similar project, but didn’t really think of writing down thoughts as I go until now. These posts will likely contain some spoilers for Suikoden III but I will try to obscure them behind the “more” section where possible. Suikoden III is one of my favorite games (as evidenced by the favicon I’ve had for over a decade). Since this is my 4th or 5th play-through, I wanted to do a longer-form

I’ll apologize in advance if anyone is offended by the black bars in screenshots in this series.

Hugo

I forgot just how slow the game can be early on, especially if you try out the lottery system. While it’s still fun (and gives you an “excuse” to grind for early skill improvements) the game feels glacial in some ways despite not being that much slower than the old games.
Rare encounters are a cool feature, but it would be nice if there were a way to increase their chances. It seems like a static percentage, not a ramp-up or anything.
I think a part of that is that movement is fairly slow and zones are actually pretty small – so you’re seeing much the same scenery for most of the time.

Another part of it is likely that for the other characters in chapter 1, you’re seeing the same scenery again, for the second or third time (assuming you didn’t also have to “backtrack” – although this would be happening if it had a world map too, it just might feel faster).

Sgt. Joe is a particular standout character for Hugo’s chapters. Despite his own apparently patchy family history (divorced dad), he works hard to protect and instruct Hugo. He is also, later, the first Grasslander character to question a major story event witnessed in Geddoe Ch. 1. I also appreciate that his goofy appearance contrasts with the attitude of this battle-hardened guy… er, duck.

Hugo’s chapter 1 has a sidequest that you can entirely skip, in which Hugo plays along with a trio of kids being bullied by an “antique dealer” named Guillaume. They ask Hugo to help him search a cave for a purported ship and/or Melville’s father. This quest has no material rewards. It includes a couple short story scenes in which you find out one of the kids is so eager to complete the quest because her family is moving away and she wants to help her first real friends before leaving. It’s a little vignette that is at home in a Suikoden game and the fact that it’s skippable is itself interesting. This quest is also Hugo’s only real interaction with Zexens that feels genuinely positive, so it suits his later character arc well.

It’s easy to see Hugo’s Chapter 1 as the starting point for his later vendetta with Chris (and more generally the Zexen council and knights). From his perspective, in particular, the knights betrayed an attempt at cease-fire. But it’s also where Hugo realizes he has a responsibility to care for others – and where he initially fails.

Chris

The other side of the coin is Chris, the “Silver Maiden” (and numerous other epithets) of Zexen. While Hugo is stepping into a leadership role, Chris is thrust into one – but proves herself capable thanks to the guiding hand of her advisor Salome and, to an extent, her own anxiety about living up to her rank. We do see some of the Zexen council’s actions – while only a couple of council members are named, none of them have portraits. The council is generally self-serving and bureaucratic, and in fact in this chapter it is implied they knowingly send the knights into harm’s way for their own profit.

Salome is the only person in Chris’s chapters that takes a broader view of the conflict – and we don’t actually see much of his perspective although we see his actions in Thomas’ and Geddoe’s chapters. He notices the Zexen council’s meddling and looks for ways for the Knights to follow the letter of the law without betraying their ideals. It’s likely that Salome also facilitates some of the legal maneuvering that allows Thomas a little more time in his chapters.

While Chris’s other companions are less interesting (mostly various knight cliches), they’re still a lively bunch. I appreciate in particular the ambiguity of what Borus does in this chapter – if I remember right, we never really discover the actual truth of whether he lies in the following chapter or actually did what was suspected. What Chris herself does is indisputable, but there is also an element of ambiguity there that we learn about later.

Geddoe

At several points in Geddoe’s chapters we see what his companions see and do, rather than what he himself does. Geddoe has friends in surprising places, and his conversations with most are secretive. His own motivations are obscured until his chapter 3, and you don’t actually see much of his personality for the first two.

Geddoe is at least nominally the leader of the 12th unit of the Southern Frontier Defense Force of Harmonia. In practice, though, they seem to be more of an investigative force and not a formal army unit – and we only see one other SFDF group, Duke’s. The mercenaries themselves are a melting pot and few of them seem to have much loyalty to Harmonia per se.

Ace, Joker and Queen have been working together quite a while. All of them like to drink, but frequently poke and prod each other over it – despite all that, though, they are competent fighters, and each have a different specialty and background. Jacques is newer and seems to have trouble understanding their behavior. All of his team are fiercely loyal to Geddoe, despite his reluctance to tell them what is going on.

Of all the early chapters, Geddoe’s is by far the trickiest. His group gets access to a treasure boss shortly before the chapter’s end, and there are also two boss fights that are optionally beatable (versus knights and… uh, actually also knights). Geddoe also has the most freedom, though, being able to visit both Grasslands and Zexen towns as well as having access to Lake Castle earlier. For these reasons I like Geddoe’s chapters better on replays, but they might seem intimidating to a new player.