Guide by BacktoEdgar

Genso Suikoden Card Stories is a pretty niche spin-off game, the story is a retelling of Suikoden II with some changes here and there. So if you didn't play Suikoden II on PS1, I strongly recommend that you do that first.

The story is mostly in a visual novel ADV format, you can move around the world map from town to town outside of that or inside dungeons. The gameplay revolves around collecting cards, building your deck and win the fights by using cards that represent "Missions" and then playing character cards to win those missions which will earn you points (VP) and then win the fight once you reach the requirement number.

If you never played this game, especially if you're not familiar with card games, I recommend to just play the game casually on your first run at your own pace. There's a New Game+ feature, so you can tackle whatever you need and continue your card collection afterwards. Some challenges might be rough on your first run if you didn't prepare a good deck for it. It's impossible to finish the game in 1 playthrough, mainly due to The Mad Prince achievement.

You can tackle this set however you want. There's no difficulty option, and except for progression nothing is blocked from NG+.

• The game can glitch during fights sometimes and it isn't a very rare thing unfortunately, so save often. Save often regardless of that in case you lose a fight in a dungeon (since some NPCs can steal a card), and make backup saves before every chapter or however you feel like just in case you want to backtrack since there's only one save.
• There are 2 versions of Lorelai that you can meet in dungeons, if it's the shop version, then no worries. But if it's the version that asks you specific cards to trade with, refuse because she's bugged.
• The set supports both the vanilla JP version and the English patched version. If you're one of the players who went with the former, then keep in mind that you need to save towards the end of the game and switch versions to do the event related to A New Comrade from Afar, which will also give you another card for your card collection. You can switch back once you're done with that.

If you're still reading, then you probably want to know some more. This step is if you want what to keep in mind for a casual run or if you want to know the minimum required about the set/game. But first, a breakdown; the set has 78 achievements:

1. 17 for story purposes: 11 Progression + 3 Endings + 3 for optional story decisions
2. 9 more that you can get along the story: 3 tutorials + 5 chest collections + 1 sidequest
3. 13 for Challenges
4. 9 for Trading
5. 2 for Cards Collection and for unlocking all possible locations
6. 24 for NPCs that you find in dungeons
7. 4 miscellaneous: 3 for Training + 1 for Squirrels

For this step, I'll talk about a bit about (1), (2), (4) and one of the achievements from (3) and (5). First off, (1) and (2), there isn't much to talk about since the achievements are ordered. For the 3 endings, you accumulate "Ending Points" (tentative name) and depending on how many you have, you'll have access from 1 up to all 3 endings. But rest assured as it's pretty lenient, more about that at the bottom of this step. The chest collection achievements are missable because they're in one-time-only story dungeons, unlike the randomly generated dungeons you have access to at any time. So make sure to pick them up!

The 1 achievements for the "sidequest" is an optional event in Sajah Village for A New Comrade from Afar, it's not missable since it's only available towards the end of the game, but if you refuse the first choice when you trigger the event then it's gone. This event isn't present in the non-translated version because it was meant to be activated after some event at Konami with the employees which apparently never happened (read more here). But thanks to the translation team, they activated it for everyone to experience.

For (4), you need to enter the Training facilities in certain towns and trade all the required cards to unlock them. You're free to do them as soon as possible or later on, but the one in the Mercenary Fort is missable as soon as the end of Chapter 2!

The 2 achievements I want to talk about from (3) and (5) are:

• The Mad Prince: Forget about doing this on NG, you need to prepare a very good deck to attempt that and that's impossible on your first run.
• Templeton's Student: The only reason this is missable is because of 1 location that needs to be unlocked in Ryube. Make it a habit that each time you enter a new town to talk to every shopkeeper and you'll get it just fine.

You can read additional tips in the translation group's page if you're struggling, these tips are still things you can learn just by yourself but just in case: https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/Gensou_Suikoden_Card_Stories_GBA

Now for the endings. It's pretty simple, you start with 0 points, you lose or gain points depending on some choices. If you have more than 0 points, the second ending will be available. If you have more than 3, the third ending will be available.

There are 13 achievements for various challenges with cards/deck setup. 10 of them are for restricting the usage of certain cards which give you an advantage in those specific fights by either bringing down the required VP from the player or increasing the enemy's accompanied with a line from a character related to that event. The Toran Republic Might is pretty simple, and isn't part of the previously mentioned group. The Mad Prince is one of those "unwinnable" fights, you'll need to prepare a good deck to counter his duels and rack up VPs quickly or survive enough to make him run out of cards. As It Was Meant to Be is a challenge to re-enact the event as played out in the original game. You'll need a bunch of "Teleport" cards and characters geared for BLD and MIL to also counter his mission cards. Good luck!

Now for (6), when you go to any optional dungeon, you'll notice that they're randomly generated along with their content; chests, layout, visible enemies (on top of random encounters). Among these are NPCs with different interactions from fighting them to just simply just talking to them. Technically, all NPCs except for two are missable if you reach the last chapter or the epilogue, but I only noted those that have a much earlier cut-off point than Chaper 10 to be missable. Some have a very tight window! Besides the trader version of Lorelai (read the warnings part), I want to mention that if you meet Sierra, don't worry about recipes and give whatever she wants, if you have it.

I'll list here the starting and ending points of the NPCs' availability, and order them.

There are some miscellaneous achievements such as those 3 for training, which you can do in any town. Just know that the enemy pool and the price may differ from town to town. And there's 1 more for using only squirrels on a mission to win it. I suggest to stack up on those cards whenever possible before attempting it. Keep in mind you can only start the chain with a Silver card of Mukumuku since he's the only "Leader" type. And that should be all, good luck on your grind towards 100% of the cards collection!

Here's a helpful JP link for the cards among other things: https://web.archive.org/web/20190329100011/http://www.geocities.co.jp/Bookend/2172/card/free.html

There's leaderboard for fun for grabbing your NG time when you beat Chapter 10 very shortly before the ending decision, any time beyond NG+ isn't gonna count since the time carries over. If you do stumble on Leknaat, do try and make a save state or send me the details of where/when you found her. I doubt it'll end up as an achievement since I couldn't trigger her "naturally" and that may be a bug but who knows.

One more thing since this took me some time to fully figure out, the recipes. And since it isn't explained anywhere so might as well explaining it before ending this guide. You get Recipes as drops like anything else, some are common, some are unique from story events. Their only real use is to trade them with Sierra. Their other.. use is to go to a Cafeteria. You got 3 options there:

• Recipe List: Your list of registered or created decks. "Select" button gives you a variety of options, "Build Deck" allows you to copy its "template" into one of your 4 decks.
• Select Recipe: Select the recipe you want to register. "Select" button shows you the missing ingredients and the "Start" button shows you the list of cards in that recipe.
• Select Deck: No need to explain this.

As you've guessed after seeing it in-game and reading this, the "Recipes" are completely pointless. They offer some template decks, but you can just... make one yourself instead of that. Maybe there's that one useful template among the many recipes but I'll leave that for you to discover if you care about it. That's why I said earlier in the guide to just give them away to Sierra when asked, treat them as another monetary means.

And that's all, I hope this was helpful.

There are 2 NPCs that didn't make it in. At least in the English patched version, according to the JP link above one of them was found but they didn't give details besides the quote below since she didn't give anything. The other though, is definitely unused in both.

ダンジョンにランダムに出現するキャラをまとめてみました。
カードをくれない補助キャラ（アップル、シュウ、クラウス、レックナート）は、除外してあります。
しかし、レックナートって何の役に立つんでしょう･･･。

Leknaat

After finishing that dialogue, the screen will flicker/flash and the dungeon will get randomized again throwing you at another room. See? Nothing interesting, but I thought I'd share it. The other is...

Jowy

After that, you'll start a fight with a common enemy...

If you win...

If you lose...

And that's it! The End.