Hola everyone!
In light of sweet Nan's recent suikoden room post, I thought i'd share with you my suikoroom as well. This has been several years in the making, and involves lots of blood, sweat, and tears so I hope you are completely jealous ^^
Glorious, no? Okay so I lied, it looks like urine. It isn't so much a room as it is a couple of drawers and bins :(. I haven't had the time or wilpower to build something as nice as Nanamis yet, but I plan to move houses in the not too distant future. Once i'm nice and cozy in this new place, you can be sure i'll be getting out the ol' hammer and nails to build my suikoden collection a nice display area, as well as building lovely Nanami her very own Suikoden castle ^^.Why did I chose to collect Suikoden you may be wondering? Let's travel back in time to when I was a young scrawny boy vs the body building hunk I am today. I would have been about 15 years old when I first saw Suikoden 2. At the time I considered rpg's to be the most boring types of games imaginable, I was more into games like Resident Evil, Goldeneye, and Mario Kart. I remember I was in my friends basement and he was playing some game that seemed highly outdated, as if it were a port from Super Nintendo. In fact I even remember making fun of the game, calling the graphics horrible and laughing at the sound effects. He told me the game was called Suikoden 2 and that I absolutely HAVE to try this game, even if I didn't like rpg's. Usually I would have told him to go straight to hell :D, but I had recently had my playstation 1 modded to play backup games, and I was copying every game I could get my hands on, so I copied this "suikoden 2" game he raved so much about. I have to admit I was very intrigued from him telling me I could recruit 108 members to build an army. Not more than a few days later I tested the game out based on his recommendation. I tell you, playing this game was one of those sweet moments in life that you'll never forget, like getting married or having a child :). Something about this game was so magical that no one can easily explain without actually playing it for themselves. I literally played this game 15-20 hours a day, I would wake up very early in the morning and play it until very late at night, repeating this schedule until I beat it. I remember even calling my friend at key moments in the game and discussing it with him as we both played. No game has ever touched me in the way Suikoden has. About a month later I was in a flee market when I found the original Suikoden for $20 used. I snatched it up right away and immediately fell in love with that game as well. One of the only games I actually spent money on instead of copying, that says a lot haha.
Now fast forward to not so many years ago in 2005. I was living in England for the better part of a year making tons of cash for school. I came back to Canada with loads of money to spend :). I had never owned an official copy of Suikoden 2, and it was always something I wanted to own. So I looked it up on ebay and saw how much a used copy was selling for (over $100). Then I saw one auction for a brand new sealed copy, at the time I had no idea about people collecting this stuff as a hobby so I figured a sealed copy must be SO rare, thinking this copy might be the only one in the world haha, I decided to buy that for an outrageous price (over $200). From there I researched everything about suikoden merchandise including all the stuff released in Japan. This led me to some wonderful sites which in turn led me to meeting the most beautiful girl in the world, and I think we all know who i'm talking about :).
It really is quite an amazing thing to reflect on after all these years, to think how it all began with a game that I once called a cheap super nintendo port. Suikoden holds a huge place in my heart, and so does the girl I met because of it.
