Suikoden IV

Set over 150 years before the events of the first Suikoden, Suikoden IV takes place in the ocean far south of the Scarlet Moon Empire, revolving around the islands that would come to be known as the Island Nations following the events of this game. It tells the tale of Lazlo, a recent graduate of the Gaien Marine Knights Academy on the nation's island colony of Razril. He gets snared in a deadly chain of events involving the Rune of Punishment, one of the most dangerous of the 27 True Runes, and winds up wrongfully accused of murder and exiled. From there, he is drawn into the resistance movement as the islands are attacked by the aggressive Kooluk Empire.

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Suikoden IV provides examples of:

 * All There in the Manual - A lot of important details about the plot only come out if the player makes sure to talk to everyone as much as possible, and even then, a great deal was left out. Enter the sequel...
 * And Your Reward Is Clothes - Oddly enough, the clothes you find? Are for Snowe.
 * Aristocrats Are Evil - Vincent Vingerhut and Schtoltenheim Reinbach II. Their sons aren't quite as bad.
 * Badass Family - Lino En Kuldes and his daughter, Flare.
 * Blessed With Suck - The Rune of Punishment.
 * To explain in detail, as a True Rune, it desperately wants its massive power to be used. It will do its best to put the host in situations where the power has to be used. And it has the power of pure destruction. But it gets worse. The Rune of Punishment also drains the life force of its host. For in-battle usage, that means it drains some of Lazlo's HP every time one of its spells is cast. For the wider-scale plot-based uses, he tends to be put into a coma for a while. And eventually, it'll drain enough that the host dies. The Rune of Punishment does halt the aging process like other True Runes, but its previous hosts have never lived long enough for that to matter.
 * Boss in Mook Clothing - Leviathan, which is encountered randomly in the world map.
 * Butt Monkey - Snowe. Not played for laughs.
 * But Thou Must - Subverting this a couple of times leads to a few Bad Endings.
 * Also used in the final dungeon, when
 * Can't Drop the Hero: Averted in the first stage of the final dungeon, where, although Eleanor is directly controlled on the field, your party can be anyone else from the army.
 * Catgirl - Played with by Noah, who has cat ears and huge cat paws... which may or may not be a headband and gloves, though she insists she's a Nay-Kobold.
 * Given that she clearly doesn't look anything like a Nay-Kobold, clearly she's an eccentric human girl who wants to be a catgirl.
 * She also explicitly states when you recruit her you're an idiot for believing she is a Nay-Kobold (even though you have to have the Idiot Ball to recruit her...)
 * Character Development - Snowe's character arc is given the most attention in the game, mirroring your Silent Protagonist's own -- and since Lazlo doesn't emote much, that makes him more or less the main focus by default.
 * Chest Monster - Golden Hairballs and Angel Hairballs.
 * Clingy MacGuffin - The Rune of Punishment, as is typical of a True Rune, is very hard to get rid of. managed to do it in the past, but that ended badly.
 * Cool Ship - Your headquarters. A massive, multi-leveled ship with more than enough space to give most of your important Stars individual rooms, as well as hold a roomy lounge/inn/bar where all your MiniGames go, Suikoden's equivalent to a strip mall, a blacksmith, two hot-spring style baths, a training hall, a specially designed room for the mermaids...
 * Continuity Nod: The Hero's weapon is named after Riou's from Suikoden II. Or is it the other way around?
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: La Mer, the Opening theme.
 * Dark Skinned Blond - Jewel, Axel, and other natives of Na-Nal.
 * Defeat Means Friendship - Helmut is a textbook example; Snowe subverts this.
 * Dem Bones - Skeleton enemies.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything - One feature (for some reason only available in a New Game Plus) is the ability to switch your onscreen character to someone besides the hero. If you go into first person mode with a variety of different people, you'll notice that this isn't just cosmetic; the perspective actually changes to match the height of the character. It's a susprising amount of effort for a feature most players will never notice.
 * Dirty Coward - Snowe.
 * Earn Your Happy Ending - Kind of important for Lazlo, as only by gathering all the Stars of Destiny can he.
 * Emotionless Girl - Mizuki, Paula.
 * Mr. Fanservice: Lazlo, surprisingly, has quite a few girls giggling over him. There's Rita, Rene and Noah, and then there's his self-appointed bodyguards Millay, Gretchen and Helga.
 * And when asked what she thinks of Lazlo, Millay apparently has some Bodyguard Crush.
 * Cute Kitten - The Nay-Kobolds - feline counterparts to the usual canine Kobolds.
 * Evil Plan: It seems like the Cray Trading Company wants to take over the Islands but the Big Bad has something else in mind.
 * Fantastic Racism - Goes both ways between
 * Fishing Minigame - Naturally; you can also throw a net off the back of the boat and snag items  that way.
 * Flying Seafood Special - Plenty of the enmies out in the sea.
 * Four Is Death - This is the fourth Suikoden game.
 * Arguably, one could say that this game nearly "killed" the franchise as well. It's debatable as to if Suikoden Tactics/Rhapsodia, Suikoden V, and Suikoden Tierkreis have revived it to its former glory or not.
 * Gameplay and Story Segregation - See Mass Teleportation. Can you imagine how broken it would be in the middle of a naval battle to suddenly teleport your ships behind the enemy and out of their guns' line of fire? In out-of-battle use of Viki's teleportation, it's made very clear that this is well within her ability, yet nobody ever thinks of it.
 * And if she messes up the teleportation that time? It's not uncommon knowledge Viki could very well, I dunno, sneeze and send the ships to the Grasslands or something. Or over a town.
 * Genki Girl - Jewel, Mitsuba, Rita, Noah, Wendel...
 * Giant Enemy Crab - The "Master" of the deserted island.
 * Giant Space Flea From Nowhere - The Final Boss feels like this, even if you've been carefully piecing together the plot:
 * Golem - Boss of the Ruins of Obel.
 * Guide Dang It - The Deserted Island where your characters end up near the beginning of the game is home to two recruitable characters later on. Good luck finding it again without help. Even the official guide doesn't say where it is!
 * Heel Realization -
 * Her Codename Was Mary Sue: The Rose Swordsman from the story published in Perrault's newspaper after Reinbach and Micky join.
 * Hidden Elf Village - A literal one on
 * Highly Visible Ninja - Arguable; Akaghi and Mizuki boast some striking designs, but don't appear to be aiming to get noticed...
 * Ho Yay - Aldo, to Ted.
 * I Did What I Had to Do - Snowe, after
 * Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain - Snowe has elements of this, but...
 * Intrepid Merchant - Chiepoo. He even attempts to sell Lazlo something during a bath once.
 * Jigsaw Puzzle Plot - The bare bones of the plot are presented to the player, yet plenty of important details require careful hunting, grilling every NPC, receiving and reading various notes in the comment box, tracking down Old Books to read...
 * In fact, it's possible that, unless you're previously informed, you won't even know the game is set before the original Suikoden until you come across Ted. Even then you might not know that it's 150 years before...
 * Light Is Not Good - Angel Hairballs.
 * Mass Teleportation - Viki in other games of the series is used only to teleport your active party around. This time, when she teleports you, she brings the whole fleet with her. A fleet that always includes one huge battleship and up to four smaller ships depending on how well you perform in the naval battles. She does this an unlimited amount of times, with no MP cost.
 * Meganekko - Rene, a treasure hunter who's just in it for the joy of discovery and lets you keep any treasures you find during her Mini Game.
 * Mini Game - A few, the most notable being Mahjongg Rita-pon.
 * Minor Injury Overreaction - "Ow, my arm!"
 * In case you're wondering, a fall where he hurts his arm causes the character to abandon the ship he is commanding, along with the crew, who are all his friends, to a bloodthirsty, unstoppable pirate.
 * Though it's rather likely that the character in question, who had been promoted beyond his competence due to political connections and had never seen serious combat before, simply panicked and used the arm as an excuse.
 * My Country Right or Wrong - Helmut and Troy.
 * New Game Plus - You get to keep your money and items except for a few artifacts, and, best of all, you can now skip the CG scenes by pressing the triangle button.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot - The Unicorn Zombies in the Ruins of Obel.
 * Old Save Bonus - The lack of one enraged the fandom, despite how the timeline would've rendered it impractical anyway...
 * Petting Zoo People - Nay-Kobolds.
 * Pirate Booty - Found through a digging Mini Game.
 * Pretty in Mink - Ameria
 * The Quisling -
 * Another example is
 * Random Encounters - Oh very much so. The rate's just a liiiittle bit high in this incarnation, and it hurts.
 * Fortunately, you get Viki later on to the point that you can just use her warping abilities. Except for those few times when she won't let you teleport due to story reasons.
 * Rebellious Princess - Flare, though her rebellion is aimed towards the enemy forces rather than her father.
 * Millay is a straighter example, though not royalty.
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old -
 * Rodents of Unusual Size - Killer Rodents.
 * Run Don't Walk - Default is running; you can walk by using the + directional pad and run faster by holding the R1 button.
 * Running Gag - Schtoltenheim Reinbach III appears in person this time around. As do the fictionalized accounts of his life that will make him famous to future generations.
 * The Scapegoat - Lazlo; at one point,
 * Smug Snake - Vincent Vingerhut, Snowe's father. The richest man on Razril, he  In the game proper, he
 * Spirited Competitor - Mitsuba, a Teenage Con Woman who doesn't mind getting beat when she gets recruited afterwards.
 * Start of Darkness -  has a surprisingly tragic one:
 * The Strategist - Eleanor Silverberg, who doubles as Lady Drunk.
 * Stripperific - Jeane's outfit this time around is... well. There was a joke theory in fandom that, since she was steadily losing clothes in each game, IV's position on the timeline meant we'd see her in full heavy robes. Didn't happen.
 * The Stoic - Lazlo, who combines this with Heroic Mime.
 * Weapon of Mass Destruction - The massive Rune Cannon at El-Eal.
 * Well Done Son Guy - Snowe. His sword's even called the Daddy Blade, for pity's sake.
 * Character Development: With enough sharpening it becomes My Blade.
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic - At the early part of the game, when Snowe gives Lazlo the chance to be the one to light the torches in the festival.
 * White Haired Pretty Boy - Snowe, Helmut and Axel all have elements of this -- but Snowe's also The Scrappy, Helmut's just doing his job, and Axel's a smug Jerkass.
 * Xanatos Gambit - Happens on
 * In short the planner is