Page "Suikoden II" Paragraph 9

* Massive battles: More interactivity was added to this element of the gameplay over that of its predecessor.

While some of the shades of the old " Rock, Paper, Scissors " style battle of the original ( where cavalry beats archers, archers beat magic and magic beats cavalry ) remain, Suikoden II introduces a grid style battle system reminiscent to that of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Fire Emblem games.

As the main character recruits characters for his castle, this opens up more options for more units.

Certain characters are ' unit leaders ' while others are ' supports '.

Every character adds a certain amount of defense or attack to a unit.

In addition, certain characters also add special abilities to the unit to which they have been attached.

The numbers affect the chances of win or loss as much as the type of units being pitted against each other.

Every unit may take up to a total of two ' losses ' which are counted when a unit suffers a severe amount of casualties.

Each skirmish they take part in might result in no loss, loss on one side, or even loss on both sides.

As mentioned before, certain characters add special abilities to the units.

Examples of these abilities include being able to take more losses than usual, magic or archery to allow attacks from a distance, healing of itself or others, etc.

When a unit suffers its maximum losses it will retreat from battle and, when this happens there is a possibility of the characters in the unit being wounded or even killed.

Should a character be killed in a massive battle, they are considered permanently dead.