The act of "Running away" while holding a direction resets the volatile RAM state for the encounter table. When you re-enter the fight, the RNG is stuck on a specific loop. By killing the enemy immediately on the first turn of the new battle, you freeze the RNG on a "high drop" frame.
When you win a battle, the game rolls a number. Depending on the enemy, it checks against two variables: suikoden 2 drop rate cheat
Search for the enemy’s HP value, then look for nearby memory address 0x9C5D0 (drop flag). Freeze it to 01 before killing blow. Incident Report: Suikoden 2 Drop Rate Cheat Why
To understand the necessity of the cheat, one must understand the "Recruitment Nightmare." Suikoden II asks players to recruit 108 characters, many of whom are non-combatants. To recruit these characters—cooks, appraisers, farmers, and shopkeepers—the player must present them with specific rare items. These items are dropped by monsters, but the drop rates are notoriously low, sometimes hovering around 1% or lower. The Pagoda Cobweb, the Dragon Armor, or the famed Recipe #34 are items that players could spend hours grinding for without success. In an era before widespread patch updates or "quality of life" adjustments, this artificial difficulty gating was a source of immense aggravation. When you win a battle, the game rolls a number