As usual, enter the war room to begin the next section of the game. Shu will suggest that you get some rest in your room, fearing the Highland Army will come again soon. That night, watch a bizarre scene in Riou's room with Nanami and Pilika, and the focus will shift to Luca, Jowy, and a former friend from the original Suikoden, Leon Silverberg, whom will be plotting against King Agares. Head back to the war room in the morning to find that Highland has now occupied Radat Town. Viktor will join your party on a reconnaissance mission to see what is going on there.
If you make a detour to South Window, the rune and armor shops will have new inventory. Of particular note is the Darkness Rune that you can finally obtain more of now.
When you arrive in Radat, you will find General Kiba and his strategist, Klaus, declaring this town now being under Highland rule. Klaus will recognize Riou, and if you choose to stick around, will tell you that Jowy and Jillia Blight are being wed. It looks like inevitable war with Kiba, so afterwards, return to the war room at your Castle.
Shu will declare that our army is equal to that of Kiba's and suggest that we march to meet him at Radat Town. For reference, I have provided a screenshot of the battle units I am using; you can talk with Apple to modify these, if you weren't aware of this. During the battle, the most important thing to do is make sure that none of your units die; just play defense. Eventually, Ridley and the kobold units will leave and a few turns afterwards, Shu will order a retreat, ending the battle. Shu will tell you to return to your room while he devises his next strategy.
During the wedding of Jowy and Jillia, the plot against King Agares of Highland will come to fruition as Agares, taking a blood oath, will ingest poison that was laced in Jowy's blood. Luca Blight is now the King of Highland...
The next day, Shu has a plan for the next battle with Kiba. Make sure to save your game, if you haven't, then select to go to war against Kiba again. Just wait with Riou's unit until the rest of your units appear and attempt to pincer Kiba's unit. Focus your Fire Spears, magic, and heavy units on Kiba in an attempt to get him at least two swords of damage; at the moment, he cannot be damaged beyond that. Use your lesser units to pick off the rest of his troops until Ridley and the kobolds appear and surround Kiba. Once Ridley arrives, you can either attempt to take out Kiba's unit or simply wait a few turns and Rowd's unit will retreat and Kiba and Klaus will be forced to surrender.
Kiba and Klaus will be taken prisoner back at your Castle. Riou will attempt to get them to join your army, but they will steadfastly refuse. However, a messenger will arrive with information that Agares has been murdered and Luca is the new King of Highland. At this point, with his king having been murdered, Kiba and Klaus will agree to join your group to fight against Luca.
Kiba, like Ridley and Nanami, is a character that is only temporarily available to have Richmond investigations done on them. You still have a bit of game left before this happens, but try to prioritize getting his investigations done before going much further.
The morning following the Kiba battle, attempt to leave your Castle from the front gate and you will encounter Sheena, whom you might recall having seen with Tai Ho way back in Coronet, attempting to hide from a lovely lady chasing him. To continue the story, we need to follow him to the war room, however, before that, exit your Castle, and then reenter.
When you return to the Castle, you will find that it has grown, yet again, and like usual, this means that we now have new characters to recruit available to us.
Lebrante, the appraiser from Radat Town, can now join our group, but first we need to bring him a Celadon Urn antique. If you have been following along and collecting items, you should have a couple of these, if not, they can be dropped by the Flyers on the world map outside South Window, and also by the BonBons near Viktor's old Mercenary Fort. Alternately, this also appears as a prize in the rope-climbing mini-game at the Castle. Once you bring Lebrante one, he will join your army and open an appraisal service at the Castle. For the purpose of obtaining a character coming up soon, I highly recommend acquiring and keeping at least three Celadon Urns in your inventory.
For the next set of recruits, we need a few specific things. First, grab a Sound Set item that you hopefully have stored in your warehouse, second, we need one of the flying squirrel characters or Shiro in our party, and third, we need a young girl in our party. Options include: Nanami, Mikumiku, Millie, Eilie, Meg, ect...Next, have Viki warp you to the Path to Matilda. Near the entrance, you will surely have seen Badaeux earlier. With a flying squirrel or Shiro in your party, he will now speak with the animal and agree to join your party. He will also hand over to Riou two extremely important Mindfulness/Listening Crystal special items. These will require you to make a few tough decisions. You only have two Crystals, but there are 4 characters you can recruit with these. Of these four, only three of them are Stars of Destiny, and if you recruit the other, you will fail to obtain all of the Stars of Destiny and will be unable to obtain 100% completion. Note, however, that recruiting said character that does not count as a Star of Destiny, will produce another additional playable character that is, unfortunately, not a Star either. I will cover these characters as they become available to you. A small note about Badeaux, don't bother looking for him at the Castle. Due to another bug in the game, he will never appear there. Just pretend he is up in one of trees, or something. Badeaux is best deployed in your party along with animal characters. His Howling Rune allows him to instantly add the berserk status to any animal party member when used during battle.
The first Mindfulness Crystal character that is available to us is Sigfried, the unicorn, whom is a Star of Destiny. To recruit him, first we must have completed the Hix and Tengaar sidequest, and return to the big tree at the end of the Unicorn Forest with a young girl in our party. Choose to use the Crystal at the tree with one of the young girl characters in your party and he will join your group. Note, that these beast characters require two party member slots to use in your party. Sigfried makes an outstanding mage, although you will need to get him to level 70 to unlock his third rune slot.
Next, trek back to Forest Village with a Sound Set item in your inventory and talk with Connell; who lives in the house behind the inn. If you have a Sound Set, offer him a chance to join your army, and he will. You can bring him all of your Sound Set items at your Castle and he will change the menu cursor sound for you.
Still at the Forest Village, if you approach the trading post, you will encounter a griffin and a girl, Ayda defending it. A hostile group of griffins will appear and have Riou to select to save them to defend the girl and injured griffin. Now, we have another Mindfulness Crystal decision to make. If you win this battle, you will have to use the Crystal to recruit Feather and Ayda. However, if you intentionally lose the battle, you will save your Crystal and can recruit just Ayda, standalone. Both Feather and Ayda are Stars of Destiny, but you absolutely have to recruit Ayda, while you can choose another beast character over Sigfried or Feather to fulfill the Stars of Destiny roster.
If you win the battle, you will be given the choice to use the Mindfulness Crystal, resulting in both Feather and Ayda joining you. If you don't use the Crystal, neither one will join, so if you just want to recruit Ayda and save your Crystal, you need to lose the battle with the griffins and then talk to Ayda afterwards. That's all the characters we can acquire for now. Return to the Castle's war room to continue on with the story.
In the war room, the group is discussing how allying with Tinto does not seem to be an option at the moment, and all other options seem closed to us. Enter: Sheena, who suggests that we seek an alliance with his father, Lepant, President of the Toran Republic; much to the dismay of Freed. Shu will agree and Freed and Sheena will be required members of your party for the journey; with the latter being able to be placed in your convoy, if you would prefer. Your destination is the harbor at Radat Town, but you can fulfill a request by Freed to stop by South Window, near the city hall, where you can learn more about Freed and Granmeyer's history. Also, make sure to stop by Kuskus and sharpen Freed's weapon if you haven't used him lately. From the harbor in Radat, you can sail south to Banner Village by talking to the boat captain on the dock.
Right off the dock in Banner Village, we can search a barrel to obtain the nifty Alert Rune. When attached, the character will obtain the hyper status effect after 3 turns of battle have passed. While not much use during random encounters, this can be a valuable rune for boss fights. When under hyper status, the character's magic damage will be increased by 50%, but be very careful, regardless of the character's affinity with their rune, being under the hyper status gives a chance for the rune to backfire on your party, resulting in heavy damage. This is the only Alert Rune you can obtain in the game, so choose its bearer wisely.
Inside the house near the inn, we can talk to a lady here to gain a Seed Potato farm item for Tony back at the Castle.
The item shop has a variety of unique items in its rare finds. Rabbit Plans #3, a Tomato Seedling for Tony, and the Rose Brooch accessory can all show up here. The Rose Brooch, only found here, while a barely suitable accessory, we need to purchase to recruit a character. Once you have it, sail back north to Radat.
You will find Simone on the opposite side of the harbor that you sail in from. He is looking for said Rose Brooch and if you give it to him and ask he join your group, he will. Since he forces his way into your party, you may want to go back to your Castle to change him out and store items in your warhouse, but despite appearances, Simone can be a rather decent party member. When you are ready to continue, proceed to the north exit of Banner to enter our next dungeon, which is once again, another forest path.
We've got several rare drops to talk about inside the Banner Pass. First, the three lovely ladies with bo sticks, can drop two of them. The Ninja Suit (TenTen) is a mediocre piece of armor, despite its large boost in speed, but it can only be found as initial equipment on a few characters, dropped here, or from the rope-climbing mini-game at your Castle. Make sure to stash one in your warehouse.
The lady trio (RinRin) also carry the extremely efficient Barrier Rune. A higher percentage based on the character's magic stat, it increases the chance to repel magic attacks; like the Water Amulet, Mole Shield, and Protect Mist spell, but much more effective. As it stacks with other said equipment, this can be attached to low mag-def characters to decrease the likelihood of receiving magic damage.
The Tiger enemy carry the Window Set #1 Castle item. Try to obtain this item as soon as you can as there can be a potential bug involving the Window Set items. I, personally, have never experienced it, but I have heard that if you do not get the two Window Set items that are enemy drops before you recruit the character you give them to, then they will be unable to drop after that. Just leaving a warning here, to be safe.
There are two rare antiques being held by the Samurai enemies at Banner Pass: the Hex Doll and Bonsai. The Hex Doll is a frequent drop, while the Bonsai will take patience and returning to Radat to appraise your ? Ornaments to see if you have obtained one. The Hex Doll is dropped by a variety of enemies throughout the game, but the Bonsai can only be obtained from the Samurai. Note, in order to view a special bath scene, you will need to acquire six Hex Dolls.
When you reach the cliff section of the dungeon, with the myriad of ladders, you will find three rare items of note here. The first is the Stone of Luck; this is the single only one of these in the game. So, either store it in your warehouse or be very careful whom you apply it too.
Next, you'll come across the excellent Magic Ring accessory. You will be able to pick this up in a town's rare finds later, but it's the only accessory in the game that can boost a character's magic stat.
Then, you will find number three of four Poison Runes in the game.
After you leave the cliff area of Banner Pass, you will find a chest containing the Silver Shield. If you haven't played the rope-climbing mini-game, this is the only one you will find. It is, arguably, the second-best shield in the game, and best you can acquire more than one of, having adequate defense, reducing the damage from darkness-based magic, and +10 HP regen per turn.
Just after the save point, you will run across a boss: the basic Worm. This is pathetically easy and you shouldn't have any problems dispatching him, but this won't be the last we will see of this guy. Not too further in after the boss, you will arrive at the border of the Toran Republic. Talk to Varkas, a character you will know from the original Suikoden, and he will offer to escort the party to Gregminster, capital of the Toran Republic.
You'll be granted an audience with Lepant right away, but don't enter the grand hall just yet, instead, let's explore the town. When you go down the stairs, on the first room on the left, search the bookcase to obtain the Old Book Vol. 7.
Also in this room, search the bust here. I'm sure you have seen this before, but the hero, Tir, or whatever name you gave him, from the original Suikoden's, name is bugged. It was suppose to carry over with your save data, but as you can tell, something went haywire along the way. This wouldn't be a big deal if he was not able to join your party a little later on. Thankfully, we have a Gameshark code that can fix his name. The code is:
8006A8C4 194E
8006A8C6 0022
8006A8C8 0000
8006A8CA 0000
If you apply this code and then save your game, as you can see from the screenshot above, the name will be fixed to Tir. Much better!
In the lower-right-hand corner room, talk to the soldier here to obtain Mose's old Copper Hammer. This is an item, like the Iron Hammer, that we cannot use yet, but go ahead and take it anyway.
Out in the city of Gregminster now, you will find old Suikoden friend, Lorelai, wandering around on the west-side of the area. Talk to her and ask her to join your party, and if your Castle has reached its latest size, she will join.
Just south of where Lorelai was located, you can talk to a man here to buy a Tomato Seedling item for Tony's garden at the Castle.
Inside the trading post, we can talk to Gordon and ask him to join your group. This is where the Celadon Urns you were, hopefully, keeping from earlier come into play. Gordon will only join your party if you have made 50,000 potch from trading. You should be able to sell just two of these Caladon Urns to Gordon to make this amount, if not, you have the third as backup. An important note here is: make sure you have not maxed out your potch when selling the urns. If you have already maxed out your money, the profit from selling them will not register. Once you have traded for 50,000, Gordon will join your army and create a trading post back at your Castle.
Still at the trading post, the two last ingredients to give Hai Yo's restaurant, Soy Sauce and Red Pepper, are sold here. Make sure to pick up one of each to take back to him to expand the amount of dishes you can create and sell.
On the second floor of the inn, talk to Sarah, another Suikoden original, to obtain the Cyclone Rune. She says she got this from a fool, but not sure whom she is referring. It may be Crowley, as he came with a Cyclone Rune in this game's predecessor. Anyway, this is, unfortunately, the only Cyclone Rune in the game you will find. I would recommend this to either Luc or Stallion; although Luc is highly superior to Stallion in the magic stat. The Cyclone Rune is a higher-grade than the Wind Rune, replacing the rather useless Wind of Sleep spell with the devastating Shining Wind, while granting additional MP to its lesser spells.
Now, onto Gregminster's shops. The item store contains two items of note in its rare finds. Recipe #28 and the Winged Boots. Other than way back in Kyaro Town, Gregminster is the only other place in the game you will find the Winged Boots accessory. It provides a nice ratio of both defense and increase in the speed stat.
Over at the armory, the Mangosh shield will show up in the rare finds. You should have at least one of these already, but this is the only place you can find them other than dropped by an enemy.
Finally, in the rune shop, two very nice runes show up in the rare finds: Flowing and Mother Earth. Both of these are the higher grade Water and Earth Runes, respectfully. Whether the Flowing Rune is better than the Water Rune can be debated. You will lose the spell Kindness Drops, but gain Mother Ocean, which will fully revive a downed character, much like the Ressurection Rune's Yell. I, personally, think that Kindess Drops is much more useful, however, the Flowing Rune will provide additional MP for Kindness Rain, and you can always use items for single-healing. So, you decide. There isn't much debate about the Mother Earth Rune, though. It replaces the nice Clay Guardian spell, which raises physical defense, with the amazing Guardian Earth, that raises the entire party's physical and magic defense; along with the upside of providing more MP for the Canopy Defense and Earthquake spells. You will be able to obtain both of these as rare monster drops later on in the game, but this is your first opportunity to pick these up. That's it for the city of Gregminster. When you are ready to continue, return to the grand hall to meet with Lepant.
Hearing the situation from the party, Lepant will see the same qualities in Riou that he originally saw in Tir, the hero of the Toran Republic. He will gladly join forces with you against Highland and will offer you one of his own generals to join you. You have the option to pick either Valeria or Kasumi, you can unfortunately, not get both to join you. Valeria is a vastly superior character both in normal and army battles, but Kasumi will allow you to obtain a few Stars of Destinys earlier than you would normally be able to. It's a difficult choice, for sure, but I generally end up taking Kasumi. Once you make your selection, Valeria/Kasumi and Sheena will both officially join your party. Lepant will also hand the Blinking Mirror item over to Riou. If you played the original game, you know how useful this item is. When out on the world map, under the special items tab, you can use this to instantly return to your Castle. With this and your new general in hand, you will be esorted back to Banner Pass to return to the Castle.
