Time To Start Over... Again!

I'm twenty-five hours into Suikoden 3, and in Thomas' chapter one. The Japanese adore their RPG systems. New to Suikoden 3 is the Trinity Sight System. The game is told from three separate points of view. In the beginning of the game you watch one of three character introduction scenes, then proceed to choose which character to start with. You have Hugo, a hunter from the Grasslands.  Geddoe, a mercenary and outsider to the region. Chris, the leader of the knights of Zexen, the well-off merchant state. You can choose to play them in any order you wish. You could go ahead and play Chris' chapter one, two, and three, before going on to Hugo's chapter one.  However you wish. Somewhere along the line the completely optional chapters of Thomas open up. Skipping them would be insane to me. As anyone who has played Suikoden knows, half the fun is in the castle building aspect of the game. In each game of the series, you acquire and manage a castle. It serves as far more than a story point, or just the home of the 108 Stars of Destiny. In the series, you recruit people. The aforementioned 108 Stars of Destiny. 108 people who change the course of history by small and great means. They all have their purpose. Some of them will become your strongest characters in battle. Some of them perform the daily tasks of the castle. They cook, they build, they farm, they entertain, they're blacksmiths, merchants, strategists, and more. And of course, in all games in the series, they're the key to the real ending. You'll need all of them for it. Anyway, with the Trinity Sight System, the three characters reveal the main story, and Thomas is this game's castle master. It's in Thomas' game that most of the castle's aspects are played out. Although you can recruit the 108 Stars of Destiny with all of the characters, except for the few character specific recruitment situations. The Trinity Sight System is a more advanced means in which to tell the story. A more dangerous one. You're jumping around in time, seeing many of the same events from the different main character's points of view. Getting new angles on each one. New wrinkles. With this comes different character levels. So if you start with Chris for example, all your characters for her initial party are around level twenty. Which makes sense for the story. They are experienced knights. And Hugo's an experienced hunter starting around level twelve or so. Switching to Thomas, who comes into play some twenty or so hours in, is sort of a shock. He and his initial party are all level one. So twenty or so hours in, you're starting over, so to speak. It's quite the bold choice. Not the easiest path to RPG accessibility. But then, Konami isn't really trying to put this series in as many systems as the average Final Fantasy RPG. They aren't trying for mass-appeal. They're trying to merely put a twist on what their fans expect. Suikoden games become scarce on store shelves because Konami releases the exact amount of games it knows the series will sell, plus five...