Table of Contents

Western Versions
Japanese Version
Basic Characters
Extended Characters
Control Codes
Color Codes
All versions of Suikoden II use customized character encodings and fonts. The character set is complete for the purposes of the game, and includes several specialized characters, such as the Skull icon that indicates a character is poisoned, and characters that combine to spell out three-letter stat names (like "STR"), with one character containing the left half of the second letter, and the other character the right half.

Western Versions


The western versions, starting with the North American release, have a character set made up of a bit over 200 individual characters. This includes the full, English alphabet, Arabic numerals, necessary punctuation, several diacriticals, and other symbols. The result is a subset of the full Latin character set, and it is sufficient for all European releases without additional changes.


0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
A
B
C
D
E
F
1
space
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
2
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
x
y
z
é
à
è
ù
â
3
ê
î
ô
û
ä
ë
ï
ö
ü
ç
æ
A
B
C
D
E
4
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
5
V
W
X
Y
Z
É
À
È
Ù
Â
Ê
Î
Ô
Û
Ä
Ë
6
Ï
Ö
Ü
Ç
&
,
.
!
?
(
)
+
=



7



X


*


SK
BA
DB
Head
Lh.
Rh.
Lv.
8
Exp



ST
TR
MA
AG
DE
EF
MD
DF
TE
EC
SP
PD
9
LU
UC

:
%
#
Æ
β
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
A
8
9
:
;
"
'
`
SC
OR


á
í
ó
ú
ñ
B
Í
Ó
Ú
Ñ
¡
¿










C
















D









a
b
c
d
e
f
g
E
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
F
x
y
z
é
à
è
ù
â
ê
î
ô
û
ä
ë
ï
ö
The second set of lower case characters are rendered slightly larger. It is not known if these characters are referenced in any version of the game. Blanked-out cells are either nothing, space, or special symbols that didn't render properly in tests. The characters from 0x84 through 0x91 are the special characters mentioned previously. 0x84 and 0x85 always occur together, and combine to spell out "STR" in the statistical displays. Character 0x84 contains the "S" and the left part of the "T", while 0x85 has the right part of the "T" followed by the "R". There's no real way to represent this in normal fonts.

Japanese Version


The Japanese version has a much more extensive character set. There are about 750 Kanji, including a few composite characters like those in the Latin set, and a basic set made up of Kana, punctuation, and symbols, that totals about 240 characters. Comparisons to existing Japanese encodings, like Shift-JIS, various Unicode flavors, and older ISO standards yielded no pattern. The designers apparently decided upon a set of Kanji that they would need for the dialogue, and filled in the rest from the syllabaries.

Basic Characters


The basic character set in the Japanese version comprises Arabic numerals, the English capital letters, a few symbols, and the Hiragana and Katakana syllabaries. Each of these characters can be encoded with a single bytes.


0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
A
B
C
D
E
F
1
space
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
A
B
C
D
E
2
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
3
V
W
X
Y
Z
SK
BA
DB
ACORN?
Stun
X
Swirl




4
















5
















6
















7
















8
















9
















A
















B
















C
















D














"

E

(
)




!
?



Lv.
Exp.
"

F
+
-
bcl
bcr
bls
hbcl
hbcr
bls


-

?
?
?
?

The characters from 0xF2 through 0xF7 are pieces of bounding boxes, like those seen around dialogues and status displays. Above that, are codes for Kanji characters that are frequently used.

Extended Characters


The Japanese version also contains an extended character set, representing the Kanji required for various dialogues in the game. Encoding these characters takes up two bytes. Each one begins with a 0x01, 0x02, or 0x03. The following byte sets a specific character, and may be from 0x00 through 0xFF. This is the only time values lower than 0x10 identify printable characters, rather than control codes.


0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
A
B
C
D
E
F
010
















011
















012
















013




使











014














鹿

015
















016
















017
















018
















019






宿









01A







%








01B
















01C
















01D
















01E
















01F


退













020











西




021

姿














022




調











023
















024
















025
















026
















027
















028
















029
















02A
















02B













退


02C
















02D







殿








02E
















02F
















030
















031
















032
















033
















034
















035
















036
















037
















038
















039
















03A








鹿







03B







鹿








03C
















03D
















03E

















There are errors in this character set. The in-game font is sometimes too small to distinguish the real character. A native-speaker would likely know for certain, but this list was made by a novice with the help of an OCR program.

Control Codes


Control codes are common to all versions (with the exception of 0x01 through 0x03, which may or may not be considered control codes). They are values less than 0x10 in the game text, and they serve a myriad of purposes, from changing color, to setting print delays.


Color Codes

These are the colors available for use with Control Code 0x08.

0
White (Default)
1
Blue
2
Grey
3
Dark Blue
4
Dark Grey
5
Red
6
Green
7
Dark Red
8
Dark Green
9
Dark Red
A
Orange
B
Blue-Green
C
Black
D
Black
E
Black
F
Black