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auronlu... Is when, out of over a hundred possible player characters, the coup de gras to your former-party-member-turned-betrayer is delivered jointly by (a) that character's lover and (b) best friend. Not because you planned it, but due to a complex series of turn-by-turn battle choices and game mechanics.
I am listening to the "you just won!" victory music and gaping at the screen.
So. It's almost the end of Suikoden V, and it's time for the big battle to liberate the Queendom of Sol-Falena from the usurpers. All that stands in your way is dear Aunt Sialeeds, who's trying to take out two noble families, or get her hands on a Rune because she's tired of playing second fiddle to her sister and nephew, or perhaps she's starting to go a little psycho because of the Rune's power, or maybe she just wants to destroy Raftfleet so she can kill her best frenemy Lucretia. (The correct answer: all of the above.)
(ETA: whoops, I forgot. She was trying to drive the prince's army off to protect them from a Godwin trap.)
I often make battle choices are often dictated by story rather than logistics. So I packed all the Queen's Knights into the party to recapture the Sun Palace.
In the Sialeeds showdown, I was experimenting with various Union spells and Coops combining the abiltiies of various party members. After a few rounds, the killing blow came from Kyle and Georg with their joint "Flash of Steel" Coop attack.
Ouch.
When the game started, Georg seemed to be Sialeed's unofficial bodyguard and often served as co-chaperone with her, watching over and guarding the younger party members, much in the same role that I see Auron and Lulu when I'm not messing about with AU. Old hands, both well-versed in cynicism. Their banter suggests a very comfortable friendship.
Except that Georg killed Sialeeds' sister to stop her from killing her own family in a Rune-induced frenzy, and that murder-- justified or not -- is eating him up inside.
So now I just made him do it again.
Plus, there are hints all through the game that Kyle was sleeping with Sialeeds -- even on the very night when she disappeared, and she apparently ran out on him during foreplay. ("We were just...never you mind.") Also, Kyle is missing her on the night before the big battle, if you sneak into Sialeeds' bedroom where he's keeping vigil.
So there's that.
Incidentally, on the night before the big battle, there's a ton of optional cutscenes if you take the time to wander around. The Dragon Cavalry will play a gorgeous multi-part flute tune if you go chat them up. The music keeps playing through all the other cutscenes until the next morning.
Okay. So. Sialeeds' swansong. It will be angstfest galore, but I just made it worse. I am mentally inserting some coolly ironic remark from her to Kyle and/or Georg.
*hits "proceed" button*
Post-battle comment: I understand why Sialeeds did what she did: she was trying to wipe out both warring noble factions, and keep Lym's and the prince's hands clean by doing the dirty work for them. However, I still don't understand why Gizel gave her free rein to do whatever the heck she felt like and even supplied her with the Twilight Rune. He had to know she was working against him...didn't he?
I am listening to the "you just won!" victory music and gaping at the screen.
So. It's almost the end of Suikoden V, and it's time for the big battle to liberate the Queendom of Sol-Falena from the usurpers. All that stands in your way is dear Aunt Sialeeds, who's trying to take out two noble families, or get her hands on a Rune because she's tired of playing second fiddle to her sister and nephew, or perhaps she's starting to go a little psycho because of the Rune's power, or maybe she just wants to destroy Raftfleet so she can kill her best frenemy Lucretia. (The correct answer: all of the above.)
(ETA: whoops, I forgot. She was trying to drive the prince's army off to protect them from a Godwin trap.)
I often make battle choices are often dictated by story rather than logistics. So I packed all the Queen's Knights into the party to recapture the Sun Palace.
In the Sialeeds showdown, I was experimenting with various Union spells and Coops combining the abiltiies of various party members. After a few rounds, the killing blow came from Kyle and Georg with their joint "Flash of Steel" Coop attack.
Ouch.
When the game started, Georg seemed to be Sialeed's unofficial bodyguard and often served as co-chaperone with her, watching over and guarding the younger party members, much in the same role that I see Auron and Lulu when I'm not messing about with AU. Old hands, both well-versed in cynicism. Their banter suggests a very comfortable friendship.
Except that Georg killed Sialeeds' sister to stop her from killing her own family in a Rune-induced frenzy, and that murder-- justified or not -- is eating him up inside.
So now I just made him do it again.
Plus, there are hints all through the game that Kyle was sleeping with Sialeeds -- even on the very night when she disappeared, and she apparently ran out on him during foreplay. ("We were just...never you mind.") Also, Kyle is missing her on the night before the big battle, if you sneak into Sialeeds' bedroom where he's keeping vigil.
So there's that.
Incidentally, on the night before the big battle, there's a ton of optional cutscenes if you take the time to wander around. The Dragon Cavalry will play a gorgeous multi-part flute tune if you go chat them up. The music keeps playing through all the other cutscenes until the next morning.
Okay. So. Sialeeds' swansong. It will be angstfest galore, but I just made it worse. I am mentally inserting some coolly ironic remark from her to Kyle and/or Georg.
*hits "proceed" button*
Post-battle comment: I understand why Sialeeds did what she did: she was trying to wipe out both warring noble factions, and keep Lym's and the prince's hands clean by doing the dirty work for them. However, I still don't understand why Gizel gave her free rein to do whatever the heck she felt like and even supplied her with the Twilight Rune. He had to know she was working against him...didn't he?
no subject
Date: 2013-02-04 02:12 pm (UTC)I think Sialeeds would have made a kickass queen, alas. She had the grit to take over from her sister when her sister went round the bend -- I think Arshtat should have bailed with her hubby and left the kingdom to Sialeeds as regent for Lym until Lym reached a more reasonable age. Sialeeds would have had the honesty to give up the throne -- and besides, she would've hated it -- and go into cheerful exile with Georg.
Of course, I always thought it would've been much more realistic for Arshtat to just drop the sun on the Godwins and their whole brainwashed city. I mean, she nuked the lake for someone stealing a rune -- why not nuke a town for their lords defying her and/or daring to order her around?
(Then again, people really don't always do the smart things. For instance, when Louis and Marie Antoinette escaped the mobs at Versailles, they fucking went back to Paris instead of running for the coast and sailing for England, which would have been the thing to save their lives.)
I also ADORE the last scene between Sialeeds and Lucretia. That was the reason I requested Sialeeds/Lucretia hatesex for the Yuletides I participated in. Sadly, no one ever gave me any. :(
no subject
Date: 2013-02-04 04:08 pm (UTC)I thought Kyle was just boasting and flirting and pining, sleeping with random chambermaids and hoping for Sialeeds, but there's some specific optional lines late in the game that made me revise that opinion.
Either way, having Georg and Kyle be the ones to kill her is marvelous, storywise.
And yes, that final Lucretia/Sialeeds scene rocks. I'm sorry I couldn't try it; I don't know if I can write hatesex. I've just passed the prompt to
I love the idea of Arshtat stepping down to give Sialeeds the regency. She certainly would've kept the nobles in check.
I think that in Arshtat's lucid moments, she didn't want to create another Lordlake -- too much collateral damage. In fact she DID start to use the Sun Rune while visiting the Godwins for the sacred games, but every time she started to go Scary Galadriel, her husband would try to snap her out of it, to keep her from losing her sanity and perhaps to make sure the Sun Rune's madness didn't drive her to wipe out the Queendom instead of just the target. She tried to burn the whole country to the ground once she snapped during the coup, despite the fact that her own children were nearly at ground zero.
Also, the political fallout to the royal family would probably have been pretty grim if she'd nuked a second city and one of the two most powerful noble houses in the Queendom, leaving a power vacuum for the other one to fill.
I really like the idea of Arshtat fleeing to hide the Sun Rune. I gather she couldnt't take it off -- very Ring-like -- but if she didn't have to deal with conniving nobles provoking her, maybe she could've held out, at least long enough for Lym to grow up.
I love Lym. The game designers did a good job of making her a tough little tyke with her own ideas. I loved it when she used her authority to march an army out to fight her brother in hopes of getting "rescued." (Although that was when I started to feel twinges about the body count from all those big battles... War is always nasty, but that battle achieved exactly nothing, and I annihilated the opposing army to the last soldier.)