Ha ha! Gon dropped the Soap!

Suikoden Interlude!
It's time now, gang, to answer a burning question. I just signed Kage on for 20,000 bits. But am I really going to get my money's worth? You might remember this little tidbit...

Originally posted by: back in the great forest scenario

So, Kage snuck into the Dwarf Vault alone, did he? I picked on the Dwarf Vault quite a bit, but truth be told none of my guys could have made it through alone at the time. Well, maybe a Fire Rune user might have done well, if s/he took time timt to level up on some of the easier battles, and stocked up on huge piles of Medicine, and got to the point where s/he could Let Go the monsters inside... anyway, the point is, it's time to put Kage to the test.



Here are Kage's unaltered stats from right when he joined up. I'm assuming for the sake of argument that he's not any weaker now than he was then, and that if he had better equipment than what he's currently wearing he would still be wearing it. So we're gonna run this here ninja through the Vault with exactly the stats and equipment you see here. His inventory is completely empty except for his Karate Uniform.


First order of business is getting Kage alone in the party, which means stripping ○×∆□☆ and Tai Ho down to their skivvies...


...then having Viki warp us over to Kalekka so they can get raped to death by birdmen. Thanks, Viki!


Wow, Kage is a damn good ninja. You can't even see him in this screenshot; he's hiding behind the somehow still-animated corpse of his current employer. I'm beginning to think he might pull this off!


As we can see, Kage is strong enough in this state to Let Go from the encounters. Which means if he were so inclined he could rush right to the end without ever fighting a single monster. But that's not how I roll; for the sake of SCIENCE!, let's see how well Kage can fight these guys.



Ouch. Looks like he can take the robots out with a couple hits, but the damage he sustains in return is brutal considering he'd be soaking up 100% of the hits and he's only got about 350 HPs. If Kage did break in here previously, he sure as heck didn't fight his way through.

A true ninja, of course, wouldn't be fighting anyway; he'd sneak in, silent as the night, then spirit himself away, leaving no traces of his visit behind.


I do believe, though, that Kage has an unfair advantage, seeing as how ○×∆□☆ has already solved all the "puzzles" and the dwarves didn't bother to reset them after he left. Since the "puzzles" were laughably dumb to begin with, though, I feel we can safely ignore them. We'll just assume Kage has an intellect at least equal to a reasonably smart monkey and would have thought to at least flip some levers randomly for a few seconds.


Just for fun, let's see how much damage Kage sustains by hanging out and killing these two Death Machines...


Ouch. Yeah. And that was from one fight. The "Let Go" mechanic is actually pretty silly, since it seems to work only on the party's average level, and is not at all an indication of how easy or difficult the fight will actually be. I think I've sated my curiousity as to Kage's martial prowess; I'll let him Let Go every other battle from here on out.


Ninjas are not daunted by floating platforms.


Haha, yeah, right. I'm about 99% sure there's no possible way Kage could win this fight. In fact, his lights would probably be out before the first round is over.


Ninjas do not abide by riddles. I'm sure Kage solved this "puzzle" the only way he knew how: punching the stone slab over and over until it started to make sense.


Hmm... a wrench in my experiment. You'll recall there was a boss fight here...

Originally posted by: back in the great forest scenario again

Yeah, that's the guy. Unfortunately there's no way to bring the big monster back for our test. Honestly I can't think of a single way Kage could win that fight, at least not in this state. His weapon is as sharp as ○×∆□☆'s and friends were back in the day, but his armor isn't up to snuff and he has nothing to heal himself with. But, as it happens, it may not be a problem.


See, Gigantes was very clearly guarding the Running Water Root. Kage wasn't here for that; he was here for Burning Mirror schematics. It's plausible that they were hidden in one of the empty rooms ○×∆□☆ encountered, and not guarded by a giant creatures. Indeed, that's pretty much the only way this whole thing could have worked.

So there you have it. Kage is a bad enough dude to brave the Dwarf Vault all by himself, thanks in large part to Suikoden's broken "Let Go" mechanic.

Next time: ○×∆□☆'s dad can beat up your dad! (Or something.)


Oh god it says the same thing on the back. DWARVEN GIBBERISH CONFOUNDS ME.

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