Suikoden II Bonus Subset Missables Guide (Playstation) - RetroAchievements/guides GitHub Wiki

Achievement set developed by televandalist (he/him). Guide written by benit149 (she/her).

This guide serves as a detailed walkthrough of the Suikoden II Bonus Subset's missable achievements, which has high-difficulty achievements that would not be allowed in the regular Suikoden II set. I’ve made comments in many of the achievements’ comment pages if you wish to look up tips for a specific achievement, but this serves to compile all of them into one tidy package while also including some personal observations. This guide contains major story spoilers, so please do not read if you have not played Suikoden II before and wish to enjoy the story for the first time.

Before ever starting this set, you’re going to need three things:

Save data from Suikoden I to import, required for one achievement, and is an option for another. This means you have to play through all of Suikoden I and reach the final save point inside Gregminster Castle.
Optional, but you’ll want to have played Suikoden II as normal to understand the story route and how to recruit SoDs, since I won’t be covering those here. For more details, you can search through GameFAQs and/or SuikoSource.
Lots, and lots, and lots, and LOTS of patience. This is an exceptionally grind-heavy set, so if you don’t think you can handle it, don’t attempt this set.

If you feel you’re ready, then let’s dive in.

1) Achievement Set Synopsis

Set Difficulty: 8/10; not as challenging as Suikoden I’s Bonus subset, but the absurd number of complex story triggers and recruitment rules can be staggering if you’re not prepared

Approximate time to master: About 200 hours, depending on efficiency and use of emulator speed-up

Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 3 at minimum -> Suggestion Box + Richmond’s investigations, defeat Beast Rune with no optional recruits, and recruit all Stars of Destiny for Clive’s sidequest

Number of missable achievements: 98, each of which will be detailed

Does difficulty affect achievements: No difficulty settings available

Hardest achievement of the set: For grinding, All Secrets Revealed and Dear Riou, plus certain limited time item drops. For actual difficulty, that’s harder to say since I found this set easier than Suikoden I’s Bonus Subset. I’d choose Amidst the Squish since the Whack-A-Mole minigame is really difficult without using the emulator’s pause function or a slowdown feature.

2) Introduction

Suikoden II, known as Gensou Suikoden II in Japan, is a Japanese role-playing game developed by Konami for the Sony Playstation, released in late 1998 in Japan, 1999 in North America, and in 2000 in Europe. The plot sees Riou, adopted son of the disgraced hero Genkaku, building an army on behalf of the Jowston City-States to resist the tyranny of Prince Luca Blight and his invading Highland Army. The primary sell of the Suikoden series is the recruitment of 108 Stars of Destiny (abbreviated as SoDs), based off of the Chinese novel Water Margin.

While the plot and gameplay of Suikoden II are highly regarded, it’s also notorious for its various bugs and exploits. This set takes advantage of many such bugs to provide a new experience you wouldn’t have if playing the game normally. This guide will outline the steps needed to perform all of the bugs. This guide only covers how to perform the glitches, not why they happen. If you want to understand the flawed programming behind these bugs, that can found on SuikoSource’s In-Depth Analyses page for Suikoden II.

3) Routing

As stated in the minimum number of playthroughs needed, you are going to need three separate saves (four as an option, but if you know what you’re doing, you could get away with three). Furthermore, your Suggestion Box + Richmond Investigations file MUST have Suikoden I data imported, while your No Blacksmith file CAN’T have that data. For these two files, I recommend going through the story normally until you defeat Mist Shade on North Sparrow Pass, then make your “starting” saves at the crystal there. However, if you’re doing the Reminiscence and/or Rare Drop I achievements, only two playthroughs will be viable since you lose a lot of time for the Clive sidequest. Each save, as well as why other routes are impossible, will play out as follows:

Recruit all Stars of Destiny for Clive’s sidequest. This makes doing the Suggestion Box + Richmond Investigations impossible, since you cannot recruit Rulodia and Chuchara for Abizboah’s letter. It’s also wise to avoid doing the Reminiscence and/or Rare Drop I achievements if attempting this, since Clive’s sidequest is essentially a “speedrun” that Konami implemented.
There’s One Over Here, Too achievement (Defeat the Beast Rune with no optional recruits). Clive’s sidequest plus the Suggestion Box + Richmond Investigations become impossible, since both Clive and Richmond are optional recruits. You would also have to skip recruiting Gilbert, Viki and Jess during the story, which subtracts too many letters and investigations.
Suggestion Box + Richmond Investigations. Recruiting all 108 SoDs is impossible here due to having to recruit Rulodia and Chuchara for Abizboah’s letter. Both of Badeaux’s Listening Crystals will be consumed here, and Rulodia and Chuchara are not SoDs, forcing you to give up on Ayda and Feather in Forest Village. Furthermore, you are required to import Suikoden I data and recruit Kasumi to get her letter, since it’s tied to the McDohl sidequest. Richmond’s fourth investigation into Kasumi is also tied to this.
No Blacksmith Run + No MP Usage Run. This is an optional file you can make, but the No Blacksmith and No MP Usage achievements might be particularly challenging to micromanage while also doing the other routes. These achievements have to be done in one session during certain story points, meaning you’ll want to know when to make saves so you can do other things without screwing yourself. Unlike the Suggestion Box + Richmond Investigations file, you CANNOT import Suikoden I data since McDohl’s weapon is sharpened, thus breaking the No Blacksmith achievements since all weapons must be at their default values.

4) What is the Matilda Glitch?

A lot of the set’s exploits involve using an infamous bug called the Matilda Glitch. To trigger this, go to the Muse-Matilda border at the far north of the Muse region. There are two guards flanking a closed door, but Konami incorrectly implemented the door as a pushable box or NPC, rather than as a solid object. You can push the door upward and access the Matilda region, which shouldn’t be accessible until about 40% into the storyline when you’re only less than 10% in. The monsters here are much stronger than what’s available in the early game, making traversing the overworld pretty scary until you reach Highway Village. By recruiting two optional characters in Highway Village, namely Humphrey and Futch, as well as buying gear in Highway Village and Rockaxe, your low-level party members will become much stronger. You can even complete their sidequest to officially recruit them as SoDs, and the storyline proceeds without any issues since Humphrey and Futch are given lines despite not being available so early. Doing this trick nets you the Hey, Stop That! achievement.

5) Missable Achievements

Literally half of the set has an extraordinarily large number of complex missables. I’ll detail them in chronological order as best as I can, but you need to pay strict attention to the story moments for the Rare Drops achievements. The first two achievements will involve a lot of preparation though, so plan your route for them before even starting the game.

Dear Riou (50) Read all letters from the suggestion box

This involves reading 140 letters from the Suggestion Box located on the second floor of the castle, in the same room as the save crystal. I have already made a detailed checklist for this achievement, so please peruse it for further details. As mentioned earlier, this is the one and only achievement where importing Suikoden I data is required, specifically for Kasumi’s letter. As for when the letters show up, you need to wait 10 minutes between each check. Both the senders and number of letters that show up are determined by RNG plus some character-specific rules outlined in the checklist.

CHECKLIST: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VLsd4i32i7gJDTD5sJa54Kk76qhYwNSu/

All Secrets Revealed (50) Have Richmond complete at least 405 investigations

“The game is afoot…” – Sherlock Holmes

Hoo boy, where do I begin with this one? I had quite the time figuring out how to route this to be efficient with Dear Riou, and it turned out to be a lot harder than I expected.

Richmond is a Star of Destiny you can recruit very early on in Radat, after Apple convinces Shu to join the cause and the war battle at North Window against Solon Jhee is completed. If you’re going for this achievement, and you’ve planned which characters to recruit, get Richmond ASAP so you can get started. Every time you initiate an investigation, you need 10 minutes to pass before he returns with the results.

There are 422 total investigations. 116 entries for basic info + 306 secrets. But then there's stuff like this:

Abizboah (4) - if you recruit Rulodia before doing his third investigation, that and the fourth one will not be available, meaning you'd only have 2 if you do this incorrectly
Rulodia (3)
Chuchara (2)
Ayda (4)
Feather (3)
Siegfried (4)
Valeria (4)
Kasumi (3) or (4) if Suikoden I data is imported
Anita (3) or (4) if Valeria is picked
Ridley (3)
Boris (4)

To save yourself a lot of headaches, get Ayda, Feather and Siegfried for 11 investigations, then choose Valeria in Gregminster since she doesn't need the Suikoden I data, and Anita's fourth investigation is available for 8 total. Including Boris, that's 23 investigations, which is the highest number you can get from these pools of optional characters. You will have to do this separately from your Dear Riou file though since the recruitment requirements are different there. If you absolutely want to do this concurrently with your Suggestion Box run, you must follow these steps:

import Suikoden I data, to unlock Kasumi's fourth investigation
recruit Abizboah, but do not recruit Rulodia yet!
do Abizboah's first three investigations, with the third one mentioning that he has a wife. His fourth investigation mentions Viki, so I'm guessing you need to recruit her as well
now you can go get Rulodia and finish Abizboah's investigations
recruit Chuchara, and do his and Rulodia's investigations

If you do this correctly, you will have 406 investigations. I had messed up when I made this discovery, so I wound up with 404. Certainly wouldn't want that to happen to you after putting in all that effort, right?

Reminiscence (10) Fight 108 waves of Highland soldiers in the beginning and unlock the color intro

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Rare Drop I (5) Rare Drop - Unicorn Brigade Camp - Obtain a Cape from a Highland soldier (spear)

Defeat 108 waves of Highland Soldiers as Hero and Jowy right at the beginning of the game. You need to get into a rhythm of choosing the first option three times, and the second option once (“Look at that current! We’ll never make it!”) to trigger each fight, every single time. If you don't get the Cape by the time you have your 108 battles, just keep grinding away until you get one, then proceed with the story.

No Blacksmith Run/No MP Usage Run

Here’s where this subset of missable achievements begins. Each type has 23 achievements, for a total of 46. I won’t detail every one of them here since they’re tied to story progression, which this guide assumes you’re familiar with. Unlike in Suikoden I Bonus Subset’s Runeless Runs, where you can only use default Rune attachments there, you are allowed to inscribe new Runes onto characters here. The only rule is that you can’t use any spells for offense, healing or support. This means you can use very useful passive Runes like Fury, Killer, and Balance. For No Blacksmith Runs, you cannot boost any weapon’s strength, nor can you embed Runes like Poison, Magic Drain, Technique, Down and such onto weapons.

I will mention that while doing the majority of these achievements together is very simple, a couple of the late game bosses will be quite challenging with both restrictions active. Personally, I had a tough time with Stone Golem in Tinto Mines, Bone Dragon in Greenhill #2, the duel against Han in L’Renouille, and the Beast Rune final boss. If you’re struggling, manage your save so that you can do each achievement one at a time, then immediately resetting to do the other. I only did this with the Beast Rune, first doing the No Blacksmith Run by using spells, then resetting and boosting weapons for the No MP Usage Run.

Not Over Till It's Over (5) Start and win a battle with Riou at 0 health

This involves using the Eilie Knife Glitch. After Hero and Jowy escape from the Mercenary Fortress and are on their way to Ryube, get Hero’s HP down exactly to 1. Make a save in Ryube’s inn to be safe, then initiate the scene where Eilie throws her knives at fruit placed on Hero’s head. Choose to move either left or right at the first opportunity, which causes Eilie to damage Hero. Basically, Hero’s HP is always halved if he is hit during this segment, but half of 1 is 0.5, rounded down to 0, making his HP 0 during just one battle. Make sure he doesn’t take any damage while in this state, which is why I recommended the inn save.

Getting Rowdy in Kyaro (10) Defeat Rowd in Kyaro

Defeat Rowd in Kyaro using only Hero and Nanami (and Mukumuku if you recruit him). To trigger the fight, you have to choose “No!!!!” when Rowd confronts Hero and Nanami at their home. If you choose “Captain… why…”, the fight will be bypassed altogether. The Rowd battle is intended to be a forced loss, but with the Matilda Glitch plus some careful routing, you will be able to win this fight.

Upon entering Kyaro and parting company with Jowy and the circus travelers, make a save at the inn. Do not make any saves after this. Go through the story as normal, recruiting Nanami (and Mukumuku if desired) and returning to the Mercenary Fortress. Pass through Toto to the Muse region, perform the Matilda Glitch, and gain loads of levels. Around 35 to 40 should be acceptable. I would recommend at least getting Hero to level 80 on Rakutei Mountain for Felling the Blue Lighting, which will be detailed there. Now have your characters die and choose “Don’t give up!” to be taken back to Kyaro. Your levels will be preserved, and you can defeat Rowd now.

No Brats Allowed (3) Witness Nanami fail to seduce a guard

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Now You See Me (4) Get past the guards at North Sparrow Pass after returning to the Mercenary Fort from Kyaro and before meeting Pilika

Pretty simple, but missable. After escaping Kyaro and returning to the Mercenary Fortress, you’re free to wander around recruiting optional characters and passing time until you can meet Pilika in Toto. During this time, go back to North Sparrow Pass with Nanami in the party to trigger a near-similar cutscene to Rina’s, of Nanami attempting to “seduce” (read: beat up) one of the guards with no success, for No Brats Allowed.

To get Now You See Me, do this cutscene with an Escape Talisman in your inventory. Afterwards, use it. The game is now in a strange state where the guards won’t block the party from passing through back to Kyaro. If you forget to bring one, you can buy one in Ryube and use it anytime after doing the cutscene.

An important thing to note is that you actually have the option of leaving Nanami behind in Kyaro. When Viktor and Flik rescue Hero and Jowy at the gallows, you’re given the option of either rescuing Nanami or running away. Choose to run away three times, and you’ll leave her behind. She will rejoin at Muse City’s entrance after getting the Bright Shield/Black Sword Runes in Toto.

On Our Own (5) Trigger the Pilika event in Toto Village without any optional recruits

After returning to the Mercenary Fortress from Kyaro, you have “free time” to pass until triggering this event. There is an internal counter that increments up whenever you do certain actions;

Entering the Mercenary Fortress gives 1 point
Talking to the innkeeper in Ryube gives 1 point
Talking to the innkeeper in Toto gives 1 point
Recruiting Rikimaru gives 5 points
Recruiting Millie gives 5 points
Recruiting Kinnison & Shiro give 5 points

Many guides state that you need to get the internal counter to 17. However, this is actually 17 in hexadecimal. The real target for this achievement is 23 points. I just entered the fortress 23+ times to pass the counter, but you can do this however you want aside from recruiting the characters. Also, you want to avoid recruiting Mukumuku in Kyaro. You will get the achievement when Pilika gives Jowy the money for buying the wooden amulet in Muse.

Companions That Should Not Be (5) Recruit Futch and Humphrey before setting foot in Muse

Officially recruit Humphrey and Futch without ever stepping foot in Muse City. You obviously can’t do There’s One Over Here, Too due to them being optional recruits. They join permanently after defeating Harpy on Rakutei Mountain, meeting Bright, and choosing “Will you fight with us?” when given the option. I strongly recommend doing this after Hero and Jowy get the Bright Shield and Black Sword Runes during the story, since Harpy is a hard-hitting boss, and not being able to go to Muse means you can’t buy Water or Fury Runes, which aren’t available in Rockaxe.

Felling the Blue Lightning (25) Defeat Flik by getting his health to zero in a single hit during the duel at Mercenary Fort

Remember how I suggested getting Hero to level 80 in the explanation for Getting Rowdy in Kyaro? It’s going to be for this achievement. Just like in Suikoden I Bonus Subset’s Le Boost achievement, there is a bug in calculating the formula for a character’s level ups when fighting high-level enemies at a low level. To accomplish this here, get a character to level 20, preferably in the Muse region, then use the Matilda Glitch and fight a group of six enemies, ensuring that the character you want to level up is the only one who survives in the end. You can use six Phantoms on the overworld, six Assassins, six Spikers, or three Spikers + three Pixies on Rakutei Mountain. If successful, your character will jump all the way from level 20 to level 80.

You need so many levels for Hero because his strength has to be around 210+ to be able to strike Flik down in one hit with a Wild Attack. Note that you are allowed to miss Wild Attacks if Flik uses Defend. There is an alternative level up boost that takes you from levels 39 to 99, which is useful for the non-missable Unnecessary Toughness achievement, but for our purposes here, you have to do the boosting before bringing Tsai to the Mercenary Fortress. However, you will likewise miss out on the Riou, Supercharged achievement since you’re required to be below level 60 for that, and you can't get all of the stat stones until Matilda's liberation very late in the story.

Rare Drops (10 total)

A bunch of missable rare drops during the Mercenary Fortress ambush, Sindar Ruins, Muse peace conference, and North Window segments. For the Octopus Urn from the Highland Soldier, the achievement will pop even though you’re getting an unidentified vase, so don’t worry about possibly missing it. Later in the game, I recommend getting a Hunter Rune from Jude’s Guardian Deity statue, using either Unicorn/Turtle/Turtle/Unicorn or Unicorn/Unicorn/Turtle/Unicorn plans. Embed it to the character's weapon of your choice, and while their hit accuracy is dramatically lowered, you will be guaranteed an item drop if the attack connects. Some enemies have abysmally low drop chances, so a Hunter Rune will help you out a lot. Sadly, you won't be able to use it during this and the following section of rare drops due to not being able to get the necessary plans this early, so you're forced to rely on old-fashioned grinding.

XII: GoldBoar - Revenge Earth – Muse overworld #1 (cutoff is taking Tai Ho’s boat to Kuskus)
XIII: Highland Soldier (sword) – Octopus Urn – Mercenary Fortress (during Highland’s siege on the fortress. You can fight endless waves of soldiers at the entrance. Cutoff is confronting Luca inside the fortress)
XIV: Highland Soldier (spear) – Brass Armor – Mercenary Fortress
XV: Nightmare – Guard Robe – Sindar Ruins (cutoff is defeating Double Head. You're more likely to find Nightmares in enemy formations before draining the water, as enemy groupings change after this happens)
XVI: Salamander – Fire Lizard Rune – Sindar Ruins
XVII: Armadilloid – Blue Dragon Urn – Muse-Matilda Border (when Jess asks Hero and Jowy to infiltrate the Highland Camp. Cutoff is entering the camp in disguise)
XVIII: KillRabbit – Belt of Strength – Muse-Matilda Border
XIX: Highland Commander – Circuret – Muse City #1 (during Hero and Nanami’s escape from Muse after Anabelle’s assassination. Cutoff is exiting Muse City)
XXII: Zombie – Half Helmet – North Window (cutoff is defeating Abomination)
XXIII: Sorcerer – Fish Badge – North Window

Clive's Quest - All Recruits I (10) Have 16 Stars of Destiny recruited upon running into Elza in Muse for the first time [3h Limit]

Clive has a sidequest involving hunting down a woman named Elza. These story triggers must be reached by certain times, or you will permanently miss out. The added challenge here is knowing which optional characters you can recruit during each of these Clive segments. There is potential to screw yourself here if you miss Mukumuku in Kyaro, neglect to recruit Zamza in Toto Village, forget to pick up Tuta in Muse before heading out for the Highland Camp infiltration mission, miss out on doing Anita’s requests in Muse, and don’t pick up Humphrey and Futch through the Matilda Glitch.

Clive's Quest - All Recruits II (10) Have 38 Stars of Destiny recruited upon getting Elza's letter in Lakewest [11h Limit]

You need 38 SoDs before Clive retrieves the letter from Elza in Lakewest. Clive himself will be a recruit during this timeframe, and you have 16 for the previous achievement, meaning you need to find 21 SoDs before going to Lakewest with Clive. If you miss Anita in Muse, you don’t need to worry since you get a whopping 11 mandatory characters during the story. There are 3 in Radat, 3 in Kuskus, 4 in South Window (Clive included), 2 in Lakewest, and 1 in Two River, so more than enough characters are available.

Clive's Quest - All Recruits III (10) Have 55 Stars of Destiny recruited upon taking Clive to Forest Village [13h Limit]

You need 55 SoDs before bringing Clive to meet the Elza impostor in Forest Village. Do this before the Greenhill infiltration mission, since that is a fairly long segment and you may be tight on time. Otherwise, this part is pretty simple.

Clive's Quest - All Recruits IV (10) Have 62 Stars of Destiny recruited upon taking Clive to Rockaxe [14h Limit]

You need 62 SoDs before bringing Clive to Rockaxe during the first visit to Matilda. The rules for this segment are quite particular, since you need to visit Rockaxe’s inn while going after Miklotov when he runs off to Muse. If you fail to do this, the story will be on rails when returning to Rockaxe with him, giving you no opportunity to go to the inn.

Clive's Quest - All Recruits V (25) Have 75 Stars of Destiny recruited upon finding Elza in Radat [15h Limit]

You need 75 SoDs before bringing Clive to confront Elza in Radat. This is the hardest segment to worry about since you need to complete the three Luca battles to both liberate Radat from Highland’s occupation and to open up a bunch of new characters for recruitment. Humorously, when you go into the tavern, Hoi’s character sprite will be standing there while Clive and Elza have their showdown. Their cutscene obviously overrides Hoi’s cutscene, so he’s excluded from the recruitment pool.

Clive's Quest - All Recruits VI (50) Have all Stars of Destiny recruited upon finishing Clive's quest in Sajah village - must do before facing Lucia in L'Renouille Castle [20h Limit]

You must have all 108 SoDs recruited before bringing Clive to Sajah Village for the final cutscene with Elza. You also cannot go inside L’Renouille to fight Lucia, or the achievement will be invalidated.

A Worthless Winger (5) Chaco joins at level 1

This occurs at the conclusion of the story events in Two River. Chaco will be at the entrance to Two River’s human district, asking to join the Allied Army. You are given three choices: “Sure, okay”, “Absolutely not!!”, and “You’re not going to stay in this town?”. There is a bug that can be triggered during this choice that has Chaco join at level 1, rather than his default level 29. Simply keep choosing “Absolutely not!!” until Fitcher says, “Lord (Name), please let him come with us. I think his intentions are good, and besides that, he's got my wallet.” Now you can say, “Sure, okay,” and Chaco will be level 1.

Squirrel Squadron Supreme (10) The flying squirrel squad have each slaughtered over 108 enemies using physical attacks

Easy peasy. Once you have access to the Greenhill area after the events in Two River, you're able to recruit the four optional squirrels. You will need to recruit Mukumuku first, so if you don't get him in Kyaro, walk around on the road between Greenhill and the Greenhill-Muse border to encounter him. For the others, you have to get them in this order:

Makumaku (blue): path between Greenhill and Two River

Mikumiku (pink): path between Greenhill and Forest Village

Mekumeku (green): path between Greenhill and Greenhill-Matilda border

Mokumoku (yellow): directly south of Forest Village is an opening in the forest

The chance of getting them to show up in your party is random, so long as you have an empty slot in your party for them to fit in. If you're not having any luck, go into one of the towns and immediately exit to reset the RNG. Once you have your squirrels, it's just a simple matter of going into a low-level area and defeating enemies using their physical attacks. The website keeps tracks of your kills for you, but for information's sake, 108 x 5 = 540 total kills, so this might be a bit of a grind. You can either use the squirrels during your natural gameplay, or grind in the Ryube area late in the game.

More Rare Drops (13 total)

XXXIV: RaggedOne – Knight Statue – Greenhill overworld #2 (not 100% sure on the cutoff for this pool of monsters, but it’s definitely before liberating Greenhill later in the story)
XXXVII: Highland Soldier (sword) – Fire Wall x 1 – Greenhill #1
XXXVIII: Highland Soldier (spear) – Scale Mail – Greenhill #1
XL: Melonzoo – Viper Rune – Greenhill Forest #1 (cutoff is leaving Greenhill Forest with Teresa)
XLIV: PinkBird – Sylph Rune – Matilda overworld #1 (without Matilda Glitch, the cutoff is Camus and Miklotov joining the Allied Army. With the glitch, the cutoff is escaping from Muse City #3 with Teresa)
XLV: PinkBird – Skunk Rune – Matilda overworld #1
XLVI: Phantom – Healing Wind x 3 – Matilda overworld #1
XLVII: HawkMan – Great Hawk Rune – Rakutei Mountain #1 (same cutoff as Matilda overworld – must bring Humphrey and Futch to enter Rakutei at any time)
XLVIII: Spiker – Black Urn – Rakutei Mountain #1
L: WhiteTiger – Double-Beat Rune - Muse overworld #2 (cutoff is returning to Matilda with Miklotov)
LI: Griffin – The Shredding x 1 - Forest Village (only available during the battle with three Griffins while recruiting Ayda and Feather. You only get one shot at this, so make a save at the inn beforehand)
LVII: Highland Soldier (sword) – Steel Shield – Muse City #3 (cutoff is escaping from Muse with Teresa)
LVIII: Highland Soldier (spear) – Full Plate – Muse City #3

Not Much of a Raid... (10) During the third night raid battle, do the "Luca Battle Bug" and have a solo Riou defeat him without taking damage

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Rare Drop LVI (10) Rare Drop - HQ Area - Obtain a Thunder Runner x1 from WhiteWolves (sword)

When Shu receives a letter that Luca Blight plans on launching a night raid against Headquarters, he will ask Hero to form three battle parties. There is a bug with selecting Hero’s party, where if the Hero is in the back row of an existing party before forming his group, and Hero is the only character in this special Luca battle party, Hero will actually remain in the back row. Since Luca is a short-range attacker, while Hero is a mid-range attacker, Luca will never be able to attack Hero normally, while you’re free to lay the smackdown at your leisure. You still have to worry about Luca’s counterattacks, so keep an eye on Hero’s HP. Have a Silver Hat equipped so you can automatically heal a little bit each turn. Don’t bother with setting up parties for Flik and Viktor since winning those battles are optional – only Hero’s battle matters for story progression.

For Rare Drop LVI, this is only available from the two battles with soldiers after the three Luca battles. The Luca battles with soldiers never have reward screens, meaning no items will drop. If it doesn’t drop from either of these fights, you have to reset and do the three fights again. I recommend using the stat stone trick outlined in Riou, Supercharged to speed this up a little bit.

A Bit Out of the Way... (10) Recruit L.C. Chan in Rockaxe

To set this up, you have to have the castle at level 2, and the Hero at level 30. Go recruit Wakaba in Forest Village. Then when Teresa accompanies Hero to Muse #3 to speak with Jowy at Jowston Hill, bring Wakaba in the party, do the Matilda Glitch and go to Rockaxe’s inn to find L. C. Chan.

You are unable to do this during Muse #2, when you follow Miklotov from Rockaxe. Whenever you're in the middle of an important story segment, you're blocked from recruiting characters in the town the plot is occurring in. This means that L. C. Chan will not spawn at the inn while going through the first visit to Matilda, but will during Muse #3 when Teresa accompanies the party later in the game because the story is happening in Muse, not Matilda. Lisewise, you cannot do this during Muse #4 (with the Golden Wolves) because Viktor blocks you from exiting Muse City.

Trapped in the Mining Town (5) [Softlock Warning] Find yourself stuck in Mayor Gustav's house

This is a glitch that causes you to be stuck in Gustav’s house, with no way to progress the plot. I’ll quote SuikoSource’s directions for activating this glitch, since the timing is very particular:

“The key bit occurs a short while after the argument with Jess and Hauser. Once they storm out of Gustav's manor, you have to spend the night. This is the series of events in which you have the option of getting one of the bad endings by choosing certain options with Nanami. Go upstairs and try to enter Riou's room, and Nanami will chat briefly then depart. At this point, you can either go straight to bed, be awakened by Leknaat, and then proceed to Nanami's room; or you can simply go straight to Nanami's room and skip the Leknaat events. None of this has any effect on the glitch. It is only mentioned to make it very easy to identify the right point in the script.

“The following morning, Nanami wakes you, and on talking to Gustav someone will run in to announce that Jess is foolishly ordering troops to take on Neclord. Everyone but Klaus will depart, Nanami will join you, and you get control back in order to go investigate. Exit the manor and now is when the bug can be triggered. All you need to do is enter any building other than the manor. The church will work, as will any shop (you can access the armorer and the blacksmith), and probably the homes past them and nearer the mine workers. After you exit your chosen building the glitch comes into effect. Proceed to the entrance where Jess is watching the troops deploy, and a conversation between Hauser and Ridley will ensue, followed by Jess and Hauser leaving. Finally, Klaus arrives and offers strategic advice. After this, you are automatically deposited back into Gustav's manor, and you should be standing right in front of Viktor under normal circumstances. However, with the glitch working, Viktor will not be there, and none of the exits from the room will work properly, leaving you unable to continue the game.”

Once you’ve done everything, the achievement will unlock when you walk out of bounds through the front door of Gustav’s house.

Rare Drop LXII (10) Rare Drop - Tinto Area or Tinto Pass - Obtain a Silver Necklace from a Zombie

This is a special Zombie only available when doing the bad ending sequence in Tinto. You only have four opportunities to fight this particular Zombie – two fights in Crom, and two when Nanami is carrying Hero on her back through the mountain pass. You might think that you could fight the endless waves of Zombies at the entrance of Tigermouth, but those are from the regular pool of Tinto Mines monsters, meaning their item drops are different. During my own testing, I got the Silver Necklace two separate times on the mountain pass, so I don’t actually know if it can drop in the Crom battles. I recommend bringing Stallion as one of the optional party members so you have faster overworld movement during attempts. This only has a 1.96% chance of dropping, so you’ll need a lot of luck and patience with going through the cutscenes repeatedly.

Kraken Lite (10) Recruit Chuchara!

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Bouncing Octopi (10) View the hidden bath scene with Abizboah, Rulodia, and 6 Octopus Urns

First, recruit Chuchara. To do this, you must first recruit Abizboah in the Tinto Mines after completing the Neclord story events, using one of Badeaux’s Listening Crystals. Next, build the castle up to maximum level, then go back to the very same spot and use the second Listening Crystal to recruit Rulodia. I put Abizboah in my party just to be sure, but I don’t think you need to. Now go to the castle’s docks and you’ll spot a small octopus loitering around. Chase it down, then Abizboah and Rulodia will convince the little guy to join. This is their son Chuchara, and his recruitment gives you Kraken Lite.

For Bouncing Octopi, you need to put Abizboah and Rulodia in your battle party, bring them to the baths, and set six Octopus Urns as decorations. The two easiest ways to find Octopus Urns are to either obtain them as drops from BonBons in the Ryube overworld area, or to buy them from Gordon in HQ’s trading outpost.

Our Might to Smite (25) Sharpen all weapons to Lv. 16 (Not counting Jowy, Nanami or McDohl)

This is potentially missable if you recruit Abizboah and Rulodia, because you can’t recruit Ayda and Feather. Ayda’s weapon can be boosted, so not having her blocks you from doing this achievement.

Rare Drop LXXII (10) Rare Drop - Greenhill Forest #2 - Obtain a Full Helmet from a Highland Commander

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Rare Drop LXXIII (5) Rare Drop - Greenhill #2, Greenhill Forest #2 - Obtain Iron Boots from a Highland soldier (spear)

The Full Helmet from a Highland Commander is only available in Greenhill Forest #2, during Greenhill’s liberation. Make a save before going through the forest battles. The Iron Boots from a Highland Soldier (spear) in either Greenhill Forest #2 or Greenhill #2 are a little easier to get. If you don’t obtain them in the forest, you can make a save with the soldier before entering Greenhill proper, and you have two free opportunities before reaching Bone Dragon.

Riou, Supercharged (25) Max out Riou's base stats while he is under level 60

Just like with Suikoden I, there is an exploit involving stat boosting stones and the ability to choose “Don’t give up!” when the party is KO’ed in battle. You would want to save this until you get at least one of every type of stat stone, of which there are seven types – Defense, Luck, Magic, Mag-Def, Power, Skill and Speed. You will likely find these stones in treasure chests during the story, but Rockaxe Castle during Matilda's liberation is the first chance to get the final type of stone, which is Speed.

Once you have your stones, have Hero alone in the party and below level 60. Get him damaged to low health. Embedding a Fire Lizard Rune on his weapon will help with this process a lot. Make a save at an inn or save crystal. I recommend Kobold Village’s inn since it’s very close to the entrance. Use the stones on Hero, get into a battle and die. Choose “Don’t give up!”, respawn in the inn, use the stones again, rinse and repeat until you reach maximum stats.

Rare Drop XC (10) Rare Drop - Tenzan Pass - Obtain a Cyclone Rune from a Chimera

This achievement is not missable, but it deserves special mention. For those not in the know, the Chimera enemies do not spawn in the vanilla game due to a programming glitch, so it's normally impossible to get a Cyclone Rune from them. If you're thinking of hunting the Chimeras in L'Renouille, it won't work because their item drops are different. Fortunately, Televandalist included a bugfix for the subset's patch so that Tenzan Pass' Chimeras will spawn. From there, it's just a simple matter of using a Hunter Rune to get one.

Rare Drop XCI (10) Rare Drop - L'Renouille Castle - Obtain a Mother Earth Crystal from Lucia

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Rare Drop XCIV (10) BOSS Rare Drop - L'Renouille Castle - Obtain a Thunder Rune from Culgan

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Rare Drop XCV (10) BOSS Rare Drop - L'Renouille Castle - Obtain a Rage Rune from Seed

Considering that the trio's drops are only 0.78% likely, having a Hunter Rune would help immensely. For each attempt against Culgan and Seed, you can only get one drop or the other, so resetting is mandatory.

There's One Over Here, Too (50) Defeat the Beast Rune without having any optional recruits

The storyline is pretty straightforward, but there are some characters you need to watch out for. If you choose Amada as your fisherman, your final total should be 37 characters. If you choose Tai Ho, it will be 38 since Yam Koo also accompanies him.

Gilbert: during the war battle in Muse, he can be recruited if his unit sustains damage one time. This tends to happen when Flik and Viktor’s units use Fire Spears on him. You want to avoid this from happening. The best way to do this is to move your three units up toward Gilbert to block Flik and Viktor. The game seems to be designed for you to move those units left to assist the Matilda Knights, but you can confuse Flik and Viktor’s units by moving up.

Tai Ho OR Amada: at the start of the Two River segment, you’re forced to find a fisherman to bring you and Fitcher to Lakewest. You have the option of choosing either Tai Ho and Yam Koo in Kuskus, or Amada in Radat. Once you make your choice, you have to ignore the other for the rest of the game.

Hai Yo: just avoid HQ’s kitchen area. I only bring this up due to how confusing it is to navigate Suikoden II’s castle compared to other castles in the franchise. If you accidentally bump into him, turn him down.

Mukumuku: while traveling in Greenhill’s overworld region, be sure to always have a full party so he doesn’t slip in unannounced.

Emilia: during the Greenhill academy infiltration segment, don’t talk to Emilia again after she gives the party a tour of the school. You’re able to recruit her here if you confess to her why you’re there, so you don’t want that to happen.

Viki: on route through the Greenhill-Matilda forest path to Matilda for the first time, Viki will suddenly pop in. Make her leave by saying, “Absolutely not!!” when she asks if she can go to the castle.

Kasumi OR Valeria: this is the usual choice you make in Gregminster. There is no way to turn down either of them.

Jess: at the conclusion of the Neclord events in Tinto, Jess will show up and state that he is not worthy of running Muse. You have the option to say “Let’s fight together,” or “I won’t fight together”. Choose the second option, and Jess will leave forever.

6) Conclusion

Yes, I will admit that as I wrote this guide, I came to realize how daunting this set can be due to how complex the glitches and story triggers are. However, as I am a fan of grind-heavy achievement sets, my greatest advice is to ignore the elephant's gargantuan size and eat it one bite at a time. Chip away at it bit by bit, following the order I suggest here as best you can, and you will whittle the set down to something more manageable. For JRPG fans, I really do recommend giving some of these bugs and exploits a try, as they provide a fresh experience that Konami never intended. Even I learned many new things while going through this.

Thank you for reading through to the end, and happy cheevo hunting!