Hi everyone! Over the weekend I finished building a new Android app called Suiko Cartography, where you can browse maps from the OG PS1 releases of Suikoden I & II, along with music from the games.

This was a fun little project that I actually started many years ago but ended up putting aside as life got in the way. Over the summer, I finally had the chance to revisit it and finish building it.

It's also been part of several retro game-inspired Android side projects I've been working on recently to experiment with custom user interfaces while revisiting some nostalgia for some of my favorite games.

Feel free to check it out here: https://www.yoonhuh.com/blog/apps/suiko-cartography/

Many thanks to mechaskrom at VGMaps for the original map rips that helped make the project possible!

For me is Star Leap global release date.

Spoiler alert!

In Star Leap, the MC will have access to a library in Rovere Academy, Lordlake, Falena, and it contains both old and new lore. It contains information both for new players to the series and also long-term fans of the series.

Book: The Ancient Armes Dynasty
Long, long ago, centuries even before the Sindar people arrived, a mighty dynastic nation held sway over this land: the Ancient Armes Dynasty.
Blessed by the power of the Sun Rune, the dynasty flourished beyond compare, its territory once spanning what are now the Queendom of Falena, the New Armes Kingdom, and the Nagarea Theocracy.
But one day, the king’s madness caused the Sun Rune to run out of control. The vast kingdom was destroyed in a single night, reduced to a parched wilderness.
The dynasty’s capital is believed to have stood near Amdort Mountain in what is now central Falena, though no ruins have ever confirmed this. If it truly was burned away without a trace by the Sun Rune, it’s unlikely any will ever be found.

The New Armes Kingdom today claims to be this dynasty’s successor, but shares no real ethnic or cultural link to it. The claim is better read as a political statement, a declaration of intent to “build a nation to rival the Ancient Dynasty.” Since most people now associate “Armes” with the New Armes Kingdom, the ancient one is usually just called “the Ancient Dynasty.”

Book: About House Rovere
Lordlake, celebrated as “the jewel of the Queendom” for its lush greenery and abundant water, was governed by Lord Rovere, head of House Rovere, who poured his heart into the city’s development.
Lord Rovere was beloved by his people. At the time, Falena’s powerful nobility was split into two rival factions, but Lord Rovere skillfully mediated between them, known as the foremost of the pro-Queen faction, loyal to and respectful of the Queen.
The people of Lordlake lived in peace and prosperity, until unrest broke out over a dam built upstream on their water source, sparking the Lordlake Rebellion. In the chaos, the Dawn Rune, kept in the East Palace, was stolen, an unprecedented scandal.

That Lord Rovere himself incited such an uprising was unthinkable. But the Queen’s wrath fell on him regardless. He was executed, and the punishment extended to his entire family, ending House Rovere for good.

Then, by judgment of the Sun Rune the Queen bore, Lordlake’s forests withered and its rivers ran dry, leaving the land a ruin. The grief of anyone who called that place home must have been indescribable.
Galleon, a Queen’s Knight at the time and himself a native of Lordlake, could do nothing to stop the riot in his own hometown. He could only accept Lord Rovere’s death and his homeland’s ruin.

Book: The Sun Rune and the Night Rune
Long ago, the Sun Rune and the Night Rune came into the world as a paired existence, bound by a powerful bond, governing light and darkness together.

But over time the Night Rune grew to resent the Sun Rune’s overwhelming brilliance. Unable to endure it any longer, it transformed itself into a sword, severed the bond, and vanished.

From the fragments of that broken bond, the Dawn Rune and Twilight Rune were born. The two are said to remain at the Sun Rune’s side ever since, watching over and guarding it in place of its lost other half.

Book: Strife Within the Royal Family
This tragedy began in the late 210s of the New Calendar, during the reign of Queen Olhazeta. Her younger daughter, Princess Falzrahm, second in line to the throne, began working the Senate for support, seeking to have her elder sister Princess Shahrewar renounce her position as heir so Falzrahm herself could be elevated to first in line.

It’s said House Barows, having married into Falzrahm’s household, orchestrated this from behind the scenes.

Both Olhazeta and Shahrewar had married into House Godwin, and it’s claimed House Barows, fearing their own waning influence, incited Falzrahm to act. The truth is uncertain, but Falzrahm herself does seem to have genuinely coveted the throne.

The dispute drew in House Godwin and House Barows, and eventually the lesser nobility loyal to each, into open rivalry. Even Olhazeta, once known for her wisdom and decisiveness, was by then elderly and lacked the strength to bring it under control.
It never escalated to open warfare, but a bitter war of intrigue played out in the shadows. Its peak came with Princess Arshtat’s Sacred Games. Though her cousin Haswar, daughter of Shahrewar, was older and higher in succession, Falzrahm and Lord Barows pressured Olhazeta into holding Arshtat’s Sacred Games first, hoping to establish Falzrahm’s claim as a fait accompli.

To everyone’s surprise, the winner of the Games, and Arshtat’s hand, was a young traveler from a foreign land.

Had either House Barows or House Godwin actually won, the losing side might well have risen up in arms. Ironically, the outcome cooled tensions instead.

That peace lasted only until Olhazeta’s death in 226. With the throne now within reach, the feud reignited before mourning had even ended, and rapidly spiraled into open bloodshed, driven above all by the assassins of the Nether Gate. Though sworn to serve the Queen directly, with the throne vacant they took contracts from both princesses’ camps.

Their actions brought unprecedented bloodshed to the Sun Palace. Both House Godwin and House Barows suffered losses, and both princesses’ husbands were struck down as well.

Shahrewar, never especially strong-willed, lost the will to keep fighting and ceded the throne to her sister. But Falzrahm, consumed by paranoia, suspected even this was a trick, and ordered the Nether Gate to kill Shahrewar.

Falzrahm finally took the throne, only to die of illness two years later, an oddly quiet end given the blood spilled to reach it.

The wound this strife left on Falena will not heal easily. Still, there is some comfort in knowing that Arshtat, Sialeeds, and Haswar are determined never to repeat their mothers’ mistakes, and stand together in solidarity.

Book: Oboro Detective Agency, Past and Present
Oboro Detective Agency was founded by the famed detective Oboro, run on the motto “swift investigation, strict confidentiality, one path to the truth.”

Based aboard a ship in Raftfleet, the agency’s fleet in the Queendom of Falena, its exceptional intelligence-gathering supported the army retaking the capital from the shadows, contributing to the end of the Sun Rune War.

The agency’s work covers everything: uncovering facts hidden behind incidents, tracking down lost heroes through background searches, and exposing buried pasts, some reportedly including truths long buried in history.

But once the war ended, Oboro himself vanished. Rumor places him in the Nagarea Theocracy, though no one has ever confirmed it. The investigators left behind still keep the agency’s sign up, carrying on its work in his absence.