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The drunk guy in the nightclub toilet told me to check GameStop on Fifth Avenue. Despite his state of inebriation in the wee hours of Saturday morning – his slurred speech barely audible against the muffled bass and piano loops booming from the main room – he was clear that the bargain bins at the video games store might, just might, contain one or two rogue copies of Suikoden 3. In a similar state of insobriety, I hugged the stranger with open arms, offered thanks, and staggered back onto the dance floor.
No matter what, I was now definitely going to pick up an NTSC-region PS2 to complement my PAL console back home in Scotland. I checked my watch: just after 5 o'clock in the morning. Dutch DJ Ferry Corsten still had another hour of his set left to go. I was flying home to Glasgow at 4pm later that day. And GameStop on Fifth Avenue didn't open for another few hours.
Play it again
Suikoden 1 and 2 remasters bring the old JRPGs to new players next year
I discovered the Suikoden series by accident. After my 12th birthday way back in 1998, I used money from my family to buy NanaOn-Sha's rhythm game, PaRappa The Rapper on PSOne. I hated it – so much so that I traded it in at my local video games store just a few days later. I hadn't heard of Suikoden before then, but its gorgeous box art caught my eye, and its promise of waging war against a corrupt empire and building an army of 108 playable characters captured my imagination. Having not long finished Final Fantasy 7 for the first time, my experience of JRPGs was limited, but I fell in love with Yoshitaka Murayama and Konami's flagship role-player from the title screen onwards.
Fast forward a couple of years, and Suikoden 2, a game that's now widely considered to be one of the best JRPGs of all time – one I've since likened to Pokemon-meets-Game of Thrones in more recent years – arrived on European shores. Building on everything its predecessor put in place and then growing it beyond recognition, the sequel is to this day one of the best games I've ever played; with over a hundred playable characters, each with an array of bespoke weapons, armor and magic, and a suite of heartfelt and sophisticated backstories to match.
When Suikoden 3 was announced in 2001, I was beside myself. The first of the series to land on PS2, the third entry was also the first to adopt 3D graphics – against the first two games' Alundra-style 2D visuals – and the first to weave its narrative around not one, not two, but three separate protagonists. Even from early screenshots shared in print magazines at the time, it was also clear a number of returning characters featured, both good and evil, and I could not wait to get lost in another high fantasy foray with magic and dragons and epic turn-based battles. That is, until it was announced as a US and Japan region exclusive. And then on July 11 (Japan) and October 24 (US) in 2002, days that should have been celebratory became days of mourning.
Suikoden 4 and Suikoden 5 landed in Europe in 2004 and 2006 respectively – the latter of which is the series' last mainline entry – and I jumped on them, playing and replaying both games shortly after completion. As you might imagine, each Suikoden game exists within the same shared universe and extended timeline, and while each game is pretty much standalone in narrative terms, I always felt like I had a glaring blackspot in my series knowledge. Fan-run websites such as Suikosource helped fill the gaps – it's worth noting that Suikoden 3 predates YouTube by a few years – but nothing beats getting your hands dirty with the real thing.
The same principles here apply to consumer-to-consumer sites, the biggest and most recognized of which is, surely, eBay. I knew what eBay was during the early-to-mid 2000s, but I didn't start using it with any degree of regularity until into the 2010s. That said, I did check for NTSC-region PS2 consoles in, I want to say in 2003, maybe 2004-ish, but any that were available, once I also factored in shipping, VAT and customs tax, were well out of my price range.
Victory
"Surely it was fitting given that I picked up the original Suikoden second-hand all those years ago in a video games store, right?"
And so, in 2008, following a close family bereavement, my mum, dad, girlfriend and I booked up for three nights in New York. With my parents traveling on to Boston after that, and my girlfriend and I heading back to Glasgow, we spent the first three days speeding round the Manhattan tourist circuit – from the Empire State Building to Staten Island, Little Italy, Central Park and more. By the end of it, we should have put our feet up on the final Friday night… but then I discovered the aforementioned DJ Ferry Corsten was playing at the nearby, now shuttered Pacha nightclub.
It was there in the throes of the party – punctuated by loud music, strobe lights and smoke machines – that I got chatting to that random stranger in the toilet about video games. We spoke about our favorites from over the years, our preferred genres and best-rated series. I mentioned Suikoden and how I always lamented not being able to play the third game from six years earlier in 2002, to which the stranger simply said: "Have you tried GameStop on Fifth Avenue?"
I hadn't, of course, but suddenly my mind was racing. I concocted a plan on the spot: I'd go to GameStop for it opening its doors, I'd grab a US region PS2 console, and I'd raid the bargain bins for a discarded copy of Suikoden 3. Surely it was fitting given that I picked up the original Suikoden second-hand all those years ago in a video games store, right? I'd then travel home to Scotland and play Suikoden 3 and fall in love with it in the exact same way I had all the other games to that point.
And that's exactly what I did. I stayed till the club's 8am curfew, long after the headline DJ had left. I dragged my girlfriend straight down to GameStop on Fifth Avenue in last night's clothes, I waited for the manager to arrive and open up, I grabbed a second-hand US region PS2 and… drumroll… did not manage to pick up a copy of Suikoden 3. I was gutted.
What I did do, though, was try eBay again for the first time in years. It took a bit of digging, but I managed to get a second-hand copy of Suikoden 3, plus VAT, plus shipping for under £50 (which, at the time, was probably around $80). I played Suikoden 3 to death, and it was glorious – so much so that it's now my favorite JRPG. I love Suikoden 2, and I love Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 7 and Final Fantasy 8, but Suikoden 3's story, characters, and sheer weirdness, for me, puts it just above the rest.
If you fancy checking it out, know that Suikoden 3 hit PlayStation's digital storefronts in all regions in 2015, and that it's also getting a beautiful HD fan-made remaster. I'd love to re-experience that feeling of playing it for the very first time – and I'd endure another six-year wait, a transatlantic journey, a drunken conversation, and a sleepless night in the Big Apple all over again in a heartbeat.
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