Leaving Neclord's castle, you'll encounter Flik, along with Apple, and other allies, whom have fled from South Window. It has been occupied by Highland, with Granmeyer being killed...Your party with gather, in what will be called the war room from here on out, to discuss the situation. Have Riou choose to find another way other than fleeing from Highland and Apple will suggest that we recruit a strategist named Shu in Radat. You will get a chance to form a party and that is our next destination. Apple and Leona have officially joined the Stars of Destiny at this point, as well as you being able to explore your newly-acquired Castle. There's not much else to do here at the moment, but to recruit our first new character, form a party entirely of females, and head back over to Kuskus.
In Kuskus, try to cross the bridge with a party containing Riou and only female members and they will be harassed at the end of the bridge by some men. After roughing Riou up a bit, Oulan will make the save. Ask her to join your group and she will. With Oulan recruited, let's head over to Radat Town.
Stop by the tavern near the entrance of Radat and talk with one of the chefs to receive Recipe #14.
Earlier, you could have picked up Recipe #18 and the Sound Set #5 in the item shop's rare finds. You can find the rare Speed Ring here as well; in fact, it's the only place in the game you can get this accessory. This and the Winged Boots are your best accessories for increasing a character's SPD stat. The Speed Ring will offer more SPD, but less defense, while the Winged Boots will have more defense, with less of a SPD boost.
Shu's house is the mansion on the east-side of town, near the road to the harbor. As you might have expected, he's not going to agree to help easily. After showing you out, hop over to the tavern and you will run into Shu when you try to leave. Even Apple's begging like a dog isn't going to change his mind...
The private investigator, Richmond, is hanging around in the south of Radat, near the appraiser. Ask for his help with Shu and agree to pay his fee of 1500 potch; then return to the inn. Richmond will show up in the middle of the night, scaring the crap out of everyone, but with information that Shu has a trade deal going down at the harbor that night and you can corner him there.
At the harbor, head across the bridge and the party will stop and wait for Shu to show up. When he does, he presents Apple with a challenge: Find the gold coin he throws into the river and he will join you. Sounds reasonable...
Apple will suggest that we get the workers to close the sluice gate for us so we can search for the coin. Talk to the guy, Gin, near what looks like the controls on the bridge. The only way they're closing the sluice gate is if Riou battles it out with Amada, first. You'll be thrown into a duel, which you should have no problem winning with Riou's weapon sharpened to lvl 6 and a Chain Mail equipped for armor. Having won the duel, Amada will close the sluice gate for us.
Head down into the water and watch the scenes as the party searches for Shu's coin. Eventually, a small glitter will be seen in the water and Riou will pick up the submerged coin. Shu will appear and honor his promise to join your party. Seeing Riou's Bright Shield rune, he thinks we may just have a chance. When you are ready, return to the Castle and into the war room there.
Back at the castle, Shu will "kindly" introduce himself to the others and lay out his plan to defeat Solon Jhee's troops. He also decides that Riou, himself, will be the unit that attacks Solon directly. The next morning, make sure to save your game, and proceed back to the war room to begin the battle. This will be your first real, major battle. From now on, if Riou's unit is defeated, it's game over. Also, you will need to closely watch the message that follows when other units are defeated. If you get a message saying that a character has died, immediately reset your game and try again. If a character dies in battle, they are gone for good, and you will unable to recruit the 108 Stars of Destiny. For the battle itself, when Riou's unit appears on Solon Jhee's flank, attack him once. You either have the choice to try to defeat Solon's unit or to distance yourself and wait for him to retreat. Attacking him is risky, but it is very possible to take his unit out; just be sure to make use of his Bright Shield and Heal Self specials. When Solon retreats, the battle is won. Returning to the Castle, Riou receives a hero's welcome and Shu suggests that Riou become the leader of this new gathering.
That night, Viktor will have invited you and Nanami to hear the story of Genkaku at the tavern of the Castle. You can skip this, and simply return to your room to sleep, but for story purposes, I always go to the tavern to hear the tale. Watch the scenes as Viktor tells you of how the State betrayed their grandfather, a State hero, and how he came to live in Kyaro Town with them. In the morning, return back to the war room to accept Shu's role of leadership.
Upon accepting, you will be prompted to name your new Castle. I always go with Dunan, the same as the army; boring I know, but choose whatever you like. Huan, the doctor from Muse, will make an appearance and join your army as well. You will see that Barbara, from the warehouse at Viktor's old Fort, will be here and has joined the Stars of Destiny too. Thank goodness; my bag of holding was busting at the seams.
Leknaat will appear to Riou and the others to announce, yet again, the gathering of the Stars of Destiny. She will present the Tablet of Stars and her apprentice, Luc, from the original Suikoden, to your party. Then disappear, announcing that Riou and Jowy have hard roads ahead of them...With that, the scene ends, and our recruiting of the Stars can begin. Nanami will join you in the morning, but you can remove her, if you like, but make sure to add Freed to your party. At the Castle gates, you will run into Fitcher, from Muse City. He will blow off that Riou is the leader of this new army, and head off to the war room. Ignore him for now and let's get started recruiting some new characters.
Back in Radat Town, check around the clearing across from the appraisal shop with Freed in your party to find his wife, Yoshino. Agree to let her join the group, and she will; much to Freed's reluctance.
Outside the appraisal shop, you'll find Richmond, again. He will join your party if you win a coin toss with him. Of course, Richmond will play dirty, and you can't win. Instead, go back to the tavern and talk to the patron sitting at the lower-right table. He will reveal Richmond's trickery and give you another coin to use. Take it back to Richmond and he will join your party.
Richmond is an important part of your Castle and 100% completion of the game. There are a few things involving his investigations that can be permanently missable if not done within a time frame. The first being: investigating Nanami. While you will have the vast majority of the game to do this, Nanami will eventually no longer be part of your party and you will be unable to do her investigations; best to go ahead and do them early on in the game. I will let you know when these types of situations present themselves.
Back to recruiting, check the top floor of the inn at South Window to find Alex and Hilda. Invite them to join you at the Castle and they will; providing a vital inn and item store.
Still in South Window, we can find the inventor, Adlai, in his home north of the armory. To recruit him we need a Wooden Shield (Buy in the armory), a Wind Rune (Buy at the rune shop), and a Sacrificial Jizo (Bolgan has one of these initially equipped, can also buy from Alex's new store at the castle). Give him the Jizo, then the Wooden Shield, and then finally throw the Wind Rune at him and he will join your party. Adlai will install an elevator for your Castle and also has a useful special attack when used in an army battle. That's it for characters, for the moment. Return to the war room of your castle.
Shu will introduce Riou as the leader of the army to a dumbfounded Fitcher. He wants to forge an alliance between our group and Two River, however, there is a problem of needing a boat to reach there. We have a boat, but no captain...Do we know anybody like that?
Wouldn't you know, Tai Ho and Yam Koo are back in Kuskus now. You didn't think they were going to join without playing Chinchirorin again, did you? This time, you'll have to win 5000 potch from him; which will be at least two games. If you lose, just quit and play again, to reset the potch counter. Afterwards, Tai Ho and Yam Koo both will join your party. Tai Ho has a rare Killer Rune attached which you can remove and place on another character, if you'd like. While Yam Koo is not playable this time around, he does offer a fishing mini-game at the docks of your Castle that will be important when the Castle restaurant opens.
Amada, back at Radat's sluice gate, can also captain a boat for you. You'll need to duel him one more time in order for him to join, though. With either Tai Ho or Amada in your party, return to the war room at the Castle. Note, if you take Tai Ho, you will get a special scene between him and Viktor. Fitcher and your chosen boat captain will join your convoy and you can now use the boat at the Castle docks. Sail out, and then reenter your Castle. We have one more character to recruit now that we have a boat.
In South Window, Clive can be seen brooding around near the entrance. Talk to him and tell him that you have a way to get him to Lakewest and he will join your party. That's it for characters in this chapter, but just a couple of other things I want to cover before moving on.
If you talk with the soldier standing near the cliff to the north of what will later become the Castle restaurant on the east side of the Castle, you will find a very simple rock climbing game. This is a source of some items you can only get here. Since they are all available to obtain at the start, I wanted to cover them now. You can exit the game and talk to the soldier again to reset the prizes that are available each time. Below are the rare items you can obtain from this mini-game.
- Ninja Suit - Fairly weak armor you can obtain as a rare drop later in the game.
- Taikyoku Wear - A great piece of armor but can get in rare finds later on in the game.
- Silver Shield - Arguably, the second best shield in the game. Your only source of these.
- Goldlet - The highest +DEF accessory in the game, except for Kobolds and Wingers. This is the only place you can obtain more than one of these.
- Sun Badge - Crummy accessory, but rare. Found in the rare finds in Muse commonly.
- Leisure Set - Unite accessory; only obtained here.
- Sunglasses - Unite accessory; only obtained here.
- Sexy Wink - Unite accessory; only obtained here.
- Millet Dumplings - Unite accessory; only obtained here.
- Lubricating Oil - Unite accessory; only obtained here.
- Rose Bouquet - Unite accessory; only obtained here.
- Secret Writings - Unite accessory; only obtained here.
- Dog Whistle - Unite accessory; only obtained here.
- Cup of Promise - Unite accessory; only obtained here.
- Invincible Smile - Unite accessory; only obtained here.
- Turtle Plans #4 - A Castle item you can only obtain in this mini-game.
- Stone of Magic - An extremely important item for your characters. The only way you can permanently increase a character's MAG stat, thus allowing them to use higher level spells. You cannot get these anywhere else.
- Stone of Power - A few of these are in chests, but can only get more from here.
- Boulder Set - A useless accessory to equip for the bath, you can get this as a rare drop later.
- Medicine x8 - Useless, but rare. It's the highest bundle you can find of this item.
The most important items here are the Silver Shield, Goldlet, Stone of Magic/Power, Turtle Plans #4, and the unite accessories. The unite accessories alter specific character unite attacks, usually to increase the chance of that unite using its rarer, secondary attack. In my opinion, these are just novelty items, and aren't worth an accessory slot, and should be stored in your warehouse.
The last thing I want to cover, is Jowy. If you're like me; Jowy is one of your favorite characters, but, unfortunately, he is a temporarily playable character. With a Gameshark, however, we can add him back to the party, which I will be doing. If you'd like to have Jowy back, simply enter the code: 3006AE60 0007 into your Gameshark and load up your game. Save, and then load your game back up normally, without the Gameshark, and Jowy will appear in your party select screen. This will effect your game negatively in no way and he is perfectly usable in your party for the entirety of the game.
