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The Geographical Revelation Thread
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John Layfield

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 7:52 pm    Post subject: The Geographical Revelation Thread Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

A video link shown to us in this topic Here (WARNING: Linked topic contains Suikoden V Spoilers) has revealed a huge section of the Suikoden world to us by revealing a large map of the main Suikoden continent, the island nations region as well as the tip of a new continent that may or may not be the Queendom of Falena.

Using screenshots of the map, I managed to distill the image into something a little clearer than the smudgey brown effort shown in the video clip. So, without further ado, I'm presenting a look at the Suikoden world, seen with more detail than ever before!



Nation names as well as important cities have been added to give a 'feel' as to where everything is.

Interesting things of note (well, to me) include....

Gaien is much larger than most suspected it to be. I think just about everyone assumed that the area of Gaien we see on maps to this point was in fact the entire nation. Which, to be honest, was plausible given it's sheer size compared to the small island nations anyway. But, no, it seems to be in fact a lot larger than most could ever have expected it to be.

I assume Gaien's capital is on it's eastern side, perhaps explaining why the Gaien government didn't really care much about what happened to the west with Kooluk.

The bannana shaped island just off the southern coast of Gaien is in fact the part of land that cropped up on official Suikoden IV maps which a lot of people took to be Falena.

Distilling the image seperated a island sized landmass from the Kooluk region. I'm assuming it is, in fact, the El-Eal penninsula. Another interesting item of note is that Kooluk does not border any important Toran region by land. It does border Lorimar and the Great Forest regions by river. The short distance between the two works beautifully as even with possible Scarlet Moon expansion to the south, it doesn't change current maps of the former empire a great deal.

There's still a large area to the east of the Toran Republic that has yet to be identified. It's not just Goya, as that area is notoriously small. It could be just mountains, but I'd doubt it. The fabeled southlands perhaps?

A large island lies to the west of that unknown area. Is it Black Dragon Island? I doubt it, personally. A large island like that being home to some sort of All-Chef Commune? A complete mystery to me, it's hardly going to be Kanakan or the Southlands.

The Badlands aren't very big at all, are they? I'm delighted at this as it allows Jowston/Scarlet Moon Wars to make some form of sense. It may also diminsh the legend of Crowley and Mazus, but not by much. They still blew that much up to smithereens!

As speculated by just about everyone, the Grasslands, Zexen and Tinto are probably all larger than we've seen so far in the series. There's a large chunk of land south of the area where Suikoden III takes place where all three nations, as well as Harmonia, would border each other after expansion. This is the nearest to confirmation of this widely held belief, so far.

The Nameless Lands don't seem quite so large as one would have imagined them to be. It seems small city-states rather than a cluster of large, powerful nations are the order of the day.

Harmonia is definately a lot smaller than most of us would have cared to guess. That said, it would still be the largest nation on the main continent. Maybe Harmonia also holds a number of overseas territory? They wouldn't be the first nation to do so.

That's a lot of information from a map which seemingly just confirmed everything we thought at first glance. Anyone got anything else to add? Questions, comments and all the rest are appreciated too.

PS Don't steal the map. Steal the map and I will hunt you down like the dog that you would be for stealing the map.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 8:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

All I have to say is:

COME ON KONAMI!!!

It's about time for a full official map, we've guessed long enough don't you think, and I mean a completely complete map like the one featured above and the brown original only with full details and on paper.

I don't know they should give a detailed map with the Limited Edition of V or something, but I think is time, it is also time to see further than the current continent.

Good god is a good time to be a Suikoden fan!

Eh, as for the locations, not much to say, pretty much as I (and everyone else) thought would be, but I would really like to know what that big island is...
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 8:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I'm of the line of thinking that the proposed borders of the map on the north east and west aren't actually continental borders but more likely edges of explored map territory. I'm considering that the distortion on the edges of the screencap map does not represent a continental edge. I'm willing to bet that the mountains east of Scarlet Moon continue for some ways as well as the northern landmass. Whether or not the western grasslands actually drops off entirely or continues west of Zexen with a small sea divine it in uncertain, but I'm willing to bet that what is shown is not an isolated landmass but a portion of a much larger continent.
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John Layfield

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 8:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I see no evidence of this.

The western side of Toran, for example, clearly stops before the actual map border in the screenshot. Its boundaries are pretty clear and fit with current evidence and theories brought forward over the last five years.

Meanwhile, western Grasslands subscribe to the same theory. You can see it visibly stop before it reaches the map border. While it could be argued that this is an 'effect' of the map, then there would need to be a reasonable explanation why the north-east section of the same map (by Lake Budehuc) do not similarly fragment.

As for the northern edge of the continent, large areas of it clearly halt a medium distance away from the edge of the map with only small, localised areas brushing against the absolute border of the map as shown in the screenshot. It is indeed possible that these small areas could branch onto a whole new landmass but I see no reason to assume so based on such little evidence.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 8:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Making a full official map means that Konami has to commit to certain things being certain places in the world. They've done that as little as humanly possible, despite having made seven games set in the same world, with an eighth about to be released this year. Everyone is curious as to what the "big picture" is, where all the nations are, their relative sizes, and their relative positions to one another...but at the same time, so long as we never see the whole world, there can always be new places to explore and new nations to come to know and love.

...At the same time, that's annoying, because that means that they want to whore the series out as long as possible, when I'm sure everyone would, at the deepest core of their being, prefer the storyline to have its definitive endpoint. I guess there's not too much harm in spinoffs, but they won't be as true to the original series...

It is interesting information though, no less than I would expect from John Layfield... who never fails to provide interesting little tidbits.

A few specific points:
Quote:
A large island lies to the west of that unknown area. Is it Black Dragon Island? I doubt it, personally. A large island like that being home to some sort of All-Chef Commune? A complete mystery to me, it's hardly going to be Kanakan or the Southlands.


I agree that it doesn't seem likely to be Black Dragon Island. Also, the way the Southlands are referenced in the games has never led me to believe that they might be an island of any kind, so that seems unlikely as well...it seems too big to be any of the other islands who's locations we don't know that have been referenced or visited (like Leknaat's Island).

Quote:
Harmonia is definately a lot smaller than most of us would have cared to guess. That said, it would still be the largest nation on the main continent. Maybe Harmonia also holds a number of overseas territory? They wouldn't be the first nation to do so.


Considering that they evidently held territories a long way off in the Gregminster area way back in the day, the idea of them having overseas territories seems quite likely. At the same time, I don't know if I agree with you about Harmonia being a lot smaller than we would have guessed...it's still pretty bloody massive, especially given that we haven't got any exact nation boundaries, so it could well occupy most of that undefined green. It obviously moves in pretty close on the Grasslands, and we don't know how big the Nameless Lands are, either.

I do think the Nameless Lands are quite a bit smaller on here than I initially imagined them to be. I, also, was picturing a vast landscape ruled by a few great nations, each owning a huge portion of land. Oh well.

Quote:
There's still a large area to the east of the Toran Republic that has yet to be identified. It's not just Goya, as that area is notoriously small. It could be just mountains, but I'd doubt it. The fabeled southlands perhaps?


I assume you're talking about west? There doesn't seem to be much land east of Toran, but...in any case, definitely looks like a likely spot for the Southlands. It'd be nice to actually get some information about that region in-game, as that and the Nameless Lands both remain entirely enigmatic so far as substantative information is concerned.
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Lucent

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 9:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List



I dunno, the way the map's edges are distoryed with the darker edges implies that the lighter spots are landmass. The northern continent border and the eastern mountains in the Toran look to go all the way to the edge. Whether or not the western Zexen/Nameless Lands border really goes to the map edge or not I can't tell.
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John Layfield

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Hmm, that map seems clearer even though it's the same map as my own....

Looking at that screenshot, it seems clear that the northern area does indeed blend into the edges of the map, indicating further land to the north while the possibility does seem open that there may be further western lying land as well.

As for Toran, it still seems to stop slightly sooner than any comparable land mass approaching the edges of the map.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I'm pretty shcoked that the map is frighteningly similar to the worldmap Kornholio made 6 years ago for the "Castle of Kain."
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Is El Eal detatched from the mainland? WHile playing tactics I didn't get the feel for that from the map. I suppose it's possible but... With there existing a "Small Border Village" with Scarlet Moon and Scarlet Moon being on the mainland, I assumed the entire peninsula was apart of the mainland. Maybe I'm reading into this.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

El-Al may not be an island.

I made a composite of the landmass when compared to the screenshot of El-Al from Tactics. It's not an island, the map confounds me. So unless something happened in the hundred and fifty some-odd years from the end of Suikoden tactics to obliterate a chunk of the land-mass into an island, the big map is incorrect.

Edit: You know, looking at my composite and comparing it to the map in the original post, I can almost see where the title bar on the maps hides that El-Al is an island. That's bizarre.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Probably some old rune cannon blew up because Snowe tripped on it, blowing himself up along with 3/4 of the peninsula. If cornered, that's what Konami would tell you.
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John Layfield

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

I usually sweep any such inaccuracies with the logic that it's obviously meant to be a map drawn at the time within in the Suikoden world by someone, therefore it's going to have several errors and inaccuracies.

It's what I decided has managed to screw up the position of the southern island region and I'm also applying it to this extreme inaccuracy surrounding El-Eal.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 3:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

Doesn't that map look like a slightly skewed earth? With Europe, Asia and Australia shown?

Thanks for sharing!
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John Layfield

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 3:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

'Slightly skewed'? :P I can kind of see what you're getting at if I turn the map sideways, close the image program, log off my computer, go upstairs to my bedroom, look on my bookshelf, find my atlas and open up a map of the Eurasian continent and see if THAT resembles Europe, Asia and Australia in some way.

Besides that... I don't get it. o.o;
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 3:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Add User to Ignore List

John that's fantastic work.

I'll just comment and confirm one of your points John.

Quote:
Harmonia is definately a lot smaller than most of us would have cared to guess. That said, it would still be the largest nation on the main continent. Maybe Harmonia also holds a number of overseas territory? They wouldn't be the first nation to do so.


I'm sure there was a comment by someone (perhaps even Murayama) that Harmonia had territory across the sea on a northern continent.
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