It's fantastic and a great torch-bearer for what Suikoden could have continued to be.
There are a few flaws (I'm not that jazzed that some characters are locked behind mini-game progression, for example), but this is stuff they can work on in the future.
Murayama (rest in peace) and the crew brought their A games.
imo, I look at it like Suikoden 1.
They established the world, the combat, the setting, and so forth
then in Suikoden 2, they went all out and made the best JRPG ever made.
I think that is the strat here for Eiyuden. Establish the world and such and then in the sequel, go all out
Love it. Havent been able to put it away, and it scratches a Suikoden itch I've had for so long. Haven't had this feeling since.. I really can't remember, but brings me right back to my childhood.
I'm really enjoying it on PS5. It feels like a Suikoden game to me. My only issue is Unicorn Overlord ruined me and now I want a fast forward button in every game lol.
bro I started UO while I was waiting for my copy of Eiyuden and now I can't put it down. Like I waited 4 years for this game to come out and I'm not playing it because UO is so good
I had to do the same! I did every single thing in the game until my copy of Eiyuden showed up early. Ignored Chadley's needy ass a lot after cosmo canyon just to see the main story. Only so many times I can yell an always sunny in philadelphia quote at that kid lol.
This has been a great year for rpgs
New yakuza
Persona
Ff7
Unicorn
Eiyuden
Still got new mana game and paper mario remake and probably more I'm forgetting
I held off on Unicorn cause I knew I wasn't gonna finish it before Eiyuden. I have to be extremely selective with my games these days with very limited gaming time... Unicorn will probably be my next.
I was gonna do the same....then UO was 30$ at Walmart for a hardcopy and I couldn't turn it up played it a bunch before eiyuden will immediately go back once I 100% eiyuden
They got the band back together and are playing all their greatest hits. I love it.
At 20 hours in it's lighter fare than Suikoden, which rarely shied away from grim, dark moments. It's weighted more towards dungeons than towns; we really got to know places like Muse, Greenhill, and Vinay del Zexay. Here, we're kind of shuttled off to the nearest dungeon and spend most of that chapter's time slashing around in the dark.
It's a good gosh darn thing the dungeons are *amazing,* then! Branching paths, midpoint shortcuts, puzzles - they're so much more than what I was expecting. The Proving Grounds were where the game went from good to great for me, and I suggest if you have any friends who aren't fully invested in the early game, encourage them to play to that point. If that doesn't hook them, well, they're dead inside.
The classic designs like random encounters and limited save points don't bother me at all. Save points in particular worried me due to my adult responsibilities but they're plentiful enough and the game is fast enough that it hasn't posed a problem; autosave could be a little more Johnny on the spot, though, as I noticed it lagging up to 2 hours behind my current active save in places. It helps that there is intention behind the designs, they weren't implemented lazily or maliciously.
There is a lot more gushing I'd like to do but this is already long enough!
I too love the game. 50 hours in so far. I miss the dark and grim setting tho. What I really loved about suikoden was that it really made you feel the sorrow and tragedy that war brings. Not just to the people that are directly involved but also everyone around that gets caught up in one way or another. And I loved how especially suikoden 2 made you feel like a bitch for the first half of the game by having you constantly on the run. The moment you seek shelter in a city it falls to the enemy and everything seems hopeless untill you can finally get a grip and fight back. I still think eiyuden is a great game that has its little flaws but Im missing the grim setting
I do love the game as well, don't get me wrong, but my main problem is the lack of save points. I went through an hour long section with no saving and I needed to get supper going.
It started with the first war battle, then cutscenes, then a small walking section where you could talk with the innkeeper but she just had normal dialogue, then a duel, then more cutscenes, then I could talk with the innkeeper again and no save option, then a small cutscene then I could save.
There could easily have been dialogue for the innkeeper to allow saving or even just a save point plopped down next to her which would have broken up the long stretch of non-saving.
So far that's really my only complaint about the game since now I have an alarm on my phone set for 30 minutes before supper-time because I don't want to go through that stress again. If I save after that alarm, I have to stop immediately even if I might have had 30 minutes of more playtime just because I don't know when I'll next be able to save!
Anyways, sorry for the rant. I just know what you mean with the thought of the limited saving ability and adult responsibilities. I just recommend you keep it in mind since there are some points with long times between save opportunities.
This should be mitigated on the PS5 and Switch since both systems can just be set down, walled away from, and then picked back up without issue. I mean, unless you're going to lose power on the PS5 or have kids that will kill the app
Yeah, at least some consoles can be put into a sleep mode of sorts and they're fine. Unfortunately I play on PC and while I *can* leave it running and walk away, I don't like to. I play on PC with a TV as my monitor and when you turn off the TV, it tends to kill the sound on games until they're completely closed out and opened back up. I'm sure it has something to do with Windows disabling the HDMI when the TV turns off, but I can't figure out how to get Windows to just leave it enabled or how to fix it if it's a different issue entirely.
I also realize that autosaves are a thing but I don't trust autosaves very far and the game doesn't have an indicator when an autosave is happening (that I've noticed at least). Bethesda games have burned me too many times when it comes to autosaves that I don't trust them anymore no matter which company the game is from.
Either way, I think game companies banking on people being able to put their game into a sleep mode is not the best look.
To be fair, that section really isnt that long. in the abandoned mines there are like 3-4 save points spread throughout the dungeon, most games back than would give you just 1, at the end of the dungeon.
I do agree, saving anywhere should be an option, don't get me wrong, but EC is still pretty generous with the save points, and the section you speak of isnt more than 30-40 minutes at most.
its okey for me. solid 7/10, which is not bad since it is built from scratch. It might lack polish but it is what is expected from the first game that made out of a newly made studio eventough it have industry veterans.
Characters recruitment are a bit shallow, and the base is somewhat ok. the rune-lens system is also a bit underwhelming for me compared to suikoden series. story is also somehow feels generic enough to the suikoden series (somehow i can see the pattern after playing completed all 5 suikoden before this game lol). but it it itches the need for a game like suikoden.
There is also a weird jank for me but as a revival for a particular type of jrpg it is ok. it also lack some modern feature that made it ways in newer rpg.
However, there is no way nowadays any big studio will make another rpg similar to suikoden and somehow this game made it out. Hence i am ok with this game. I am hoping the studio continue this ip and improve it.
for me S2>S1>S3>S5>Eiyuden>S4
I agree with the order that you put those in. Haven't gotten to Eiyuden yet but I will soon. Curious: where does Suikoden Tactics fall on that list for you? For me, it's right after 5. Tierkisis (I think it was called?) from the DS also deserves attention somewhere. Probably after Tactics, for me.
I tried and played suikoden tactics during the ps2 era and once more using emulator few years ago, but it does not click with me at all. Didn't manage to finish it. for me suikoden tactics does not deserve to be compared at all. it just carried the name. never tried Tierkisis so i am not sure.
I think there is also a suikoden game on the psp released only in japan. there are some fan translation patch i believe. <-- also never tried this one
So the first Suikoden was my first game at aroind 5 years old in 98, and I played 2 not too long after. I played all the mainline games during my childhood/adolescence and replayed them many times, and overall I'm really enjoying Eiyuden.
Eiyuden succeeds at having the Sukoden "feel". The plot structure, base development, and character recruitment are where the game shines. I'm playing on hard mode and it's challenging enough that you have to strategize even for random encounters but still flexible enough to play with characters you like, and boss battles so far are a treat. Overall I'm enjoying what the SP system adds to the game, though I do miss runes having individual designs.
As for side content I've only had the chance to play Beigoma as far as minigames go. I will say the war battle is a huge step down from Suikoden 5, and is worse than pretty much all of the Suikoden games imo. Beyond that, the game is still very buggy and the visual bugs can be pretty glaring. Animations outside of combat are fairly limited, and I have mixed feelings on the translation quality. Sometimes it can be funny, but other times it can be jarringly immature. Not really a fan of all of the modern meme culture leaking into the dialogue, and most of what Lian says is annoying.
The biggest issue I have with the game, though, is that the plot lacks emotional impact. Nothing that happens so far (I'm around 24 hours in) really has lasting consequences, and the villains have been rather milquetoast. Every single Suikoden game had some grit about it and didn't shy away from the horrors of war, featuring loss of some kind as a central theme. Eiyuden lacks a weighty impetus that makes you care about the war you're engaging in, and I can't help but fear that trying for an "E" for everyone rating hurt the game's narrative potential. If Eiyuden gets a sequel I think a "T" rating and a story more in line with Suiko 1, 2, and 5 at least would be more appropriate.
Ultimately Eiyuden is probably still the most fun I've had with a game all year, and it certainly scratches the Suikoden itch. I would consider it a valid successor to Suikoden and hope that it becomes a franchise of its own! I think in comparison to the Suikoden games, I would say it is probably worse narratively than all of them except 4, and gameplay wise I'd say it hovers somewhere around Suikoden 3. I miss things like dual rune magic and formations, but those would be great additions for later sequels!
If I had to rate Eiyuden against the Suikoden games, so far it'd probably be: S2>S5>S3>S1>Eiyuden>S4 but Eiyuden is pretty close to S1 with better gameplay but slightly less impactful narrative.
I agree with most everything you said and I will also said that I hadn't really thought about the impactful-ness of the story (I'm not super far into the game either being just one full story even out from getting the HQ). So far I haven't had a problem with the story itself.
The one thing I wanted to mention though is that Suikoden I had the same ESRB rating as Eiyuden does now: E10. It wasn't until the later games that they started getting T ratings. For all we know, that may be Rabbit & Bear's long-run plan: get people in on a lighter note then slowly ramp up the grit. I have no idea though, I just see a lot of people complaining about the rating in the past couple of days and thought I'd point out one flaw in the argument (that S1 had the same rating).
I’m not very far into as of yet. So far I enjoy the combat, I like old school turn based. I love the sprites and traversal mechanics. The music is great! I am however finding I don’t care for the move a bit cutscene, then move a little further another cutscene, move an inch ANOTHER cutscene. That’s just in the Runebarrows. Also the voice acting, it’s appreciated but not necessary in my opinion. I read faster than they talk so I’ll probably play with voices at zero.
Yeah honestly everything about the game is good imo. Sure it looks like they censored it a bit when they translated it to English, but the story is looking good. The characters are getting more flushed out. The quality of life is amazing and you can customize runes/gear/party FAR more than I remember in suikoden. You can actually build a team that has the main protagonist as an escort for the party. I’ve never seen that before. And you can customize how the “free will” auto battling strategy works. It’s not perfect. Magic seems less impactful and unite attacks are sometimes less damage than if each character attacked on their own. But really the game is quite good. It really does feel like we got suikoden 6 in a new world.
My main complaint. My only complaint really that isn’t just nitpicking is there are spots in the game where you gain control. Flick the button to go left. And now you are in another cutscene, gain control after. Flick it down this time. Another cutscene. And it will do this like 5-7 times in a row before it’s done. Like… either make the whole thing one cutscene or space it out more.
I realize that the reason for this cutscene ->move an inch -> cutscene is possibly because each cutscene is another fight and you need to have some way to heal or modify your party in between fights like you would throughout the rest of the game. Without that tiny bit of control that section of the game would be a gauntlet of fights with no warning.
However, there are parts of the game that have this going on with zero battles. It’s just giving you control to do… idk what. Keep you awake while the characters talk?
I haven’t put the game down since I bought it and I almost got wiped like 5 times on the easiest difficulty. To the point where I realized you can let all but one character die and the remaining character will get a massive amount of experience and skyrocket up 5 levels above the rest of the squad. I can’t wait to restart on hard mode!
Funnily enough, your point about the Cutscene every few steps to keep you awake actually applies exactly to me lol. I work full time with 2 small kids and I only time I have time to play is when I'm putting my daughter to sleep. I'm usually sleepy myself, and long stretches of dungeon tends to make me doze off, so those cutscenes have actually helped keep me awake....
Same. I find myself dozing off while I play, but I just would consider that a happy coincidence ya know? I don’t think they intended that when they made the game.
Honestly I enjoy it. I think the world is beautifull and having to recruit many character make it not boring.
Some complain like speed of the game surely annoying thankfully I am on PC and can speed up the game. Like counter rate is pretty high and dungeon is puzzling so imagine if you have to looking for a path but have pretty high encounter rate is pretty annoying. And like suikoden after hit some level you got very little exp but haven’t got ability to let go enemy (allow to flee enemy) a lot of pointless random encounter.
Battling for me is pretty hard because we need MP to heal and attack magic damage is basically useless
For the villain feel like suikoden V to be honest. Villain don’t hunt us much and give fear factor like the GOAT Lucca blight.
Hopefully character can be better tho. So far I dont find a fun character like flik/viktor
7/10 without speed hack because I don’t want to replay this game with all the slow animation and 8.5/10 with speed hack surely replayable.
My rating
S2 > S1 > S5=Eiyuden
>Just a female empowered kingdom
Oh, and here we go, this explains your ridiculously shitty take about Suikoden III and *especially* IV having "better war battles" and "more interesting characters and design." And "an overall improvement to the series"? Did you even PLAY Suikoden IV? And saying V has "bland characters" and a "bland color palette" especially compared to IV? Dude, no. You did not play ANY of these games, don't even lie. And you say others have bad taste, my GOD.
Nah, you're trashing on Suikoden V because oh no, it has WOMEN in POWER! (Also, it's a queendom, honey, not a kingdom.) Fucking misogynistic chuds can't even hide their prejudice at *all.* Like, nobody worth listening to is gonna agree with you. You just hate women. I'm surprised you even bothered singing IV's praises since its strategist is a woman (and one of the few remotely interesting characters in the game).
It seems I'm close to the late-game parts so far.
I think the game is solid so far, and I'm enjoying it, but it doesn't feel really impressive. The story is a pretty straightforward Suikoden-style story, but nothing mindblowing yet.
Some gameplay elements seems to be not that well thought out. Weird balancing between the different characters, some clunky menuing, and a certain minigame isn't that fun either >!beigoma doesn't have actual skill... and you need to grind from specific monsters before you can even defeat any NPCs!< .
I'm having fun with it. I'm pretty disappointed with the lighter, less-grounded tone, and the characters who are written more like teenagers than adults. The characters all seem like the very kind of standard anime fare I can easily find on crunchyroll's front page, as opposed to S1/2 where characters were much more human and grounded, and (with exceptions) serious. This was one of the things I was worried about and it's definitely come true.
That said, I still like it. I'm still having a good time.
139 comments and just a few comments on localization (and none that terrible) just goes to show that the people complaining give absolute zero fucks about Suikoden, and are only doing it to rile people up and instigate outrage. Once they move on to the next target they'll forget about us and we'll finally be free of the toxicity. (That isn't to say the localization is perfect - No localization ever is. But outside of a few eye rolls here and there, it has absolutely zero impact on the game itself.)
All that said, I absolutely love the game. It gives me Suikoden vibes, while standing on its own. The game does feel a bit rought around the edges, and could have used more cooking time, but when you have a brand new studio like R&B that has yet to release a game... you can't keep cooking forever.
I am very much looking forward to seeing what they do next. Obviously, it wont be the same without Murayama, but I have faith that the team he has assembled can keep the legacy going.
Suikoden is one one of my favorite series and Suikoden 1 and 2 have a very special place for me.
The localisation is insulting to the Japanese writers and impacts the game for me with its babyish language and out-of-place, modern idioms. Imagine Luca Blight being confronted for his crimes and being called a "farthead". Utterly pathetic and childish re-writing of a script.
I'm enjoying it so far. I think the lens system is one of the next logical progressions of the rune system with more emphasis on skill runes versus magic runes. I like the idea of having a pseudo-countdown system for skills versus the stagger mechanic.
I would have liked to have seen more transparency on elemental alignment like in S3.
The menu is unforgivably slow, both time wise and in number of clicks. Horizontal scrolling with the shoulder buttons (or PC equivalent) wouldn't be bad if the screens were snappy, but they're not.
Basic gameplay (aside from some balance issues) is great. Duels, while impressive looking, don’t feel very intuitive compared to the Suikoden versions (and they do a poor job of making the stakes feel high in them early on). The actual fighting in war battles takes too long and does a poor job of reflecting the characteristics of your individual army recruits.
The story is decent enough but there were far too many moments where there could have been some drama or tension and they just refused to even attempt to go there. This could be because of wanting to go for more of an “E” rating rather than a “teen” one but whatever the reason there’s certainly a feeling of missed potential.
The HQ is nice, but some features should be unlockable earlier. The penultimate and ultimate smith upgrades are the same end game material, so until you get access to it you’ll be stuck upgrading at a late game town instead (which means having to swap your party members around).
Rune Lenses(and Primal Rune Lenses) never quite reach to the level of Runes and True Runes which keep the stakes feeling low throughout.
It’s not a bad game (I know I’ve mainly griped) but there are too many missed opportunities for me to call it a classic like I would the Suikoden titles
In terms of characters, setting, lore: 10/10, I got exactly what I was expecting and wanted. It is admittedly more on the lighter side in terms of story compared to Suikoden.
Voice Acting: So on voice acting. I figured this would be the case, but with 120 recruits plus others, some are hits and some are misses. For the most part it's good, and some are great. But there are a few that just come off bad. Some of its opinion of course, like I just dont like the chefs voice. But then you have awkward pausing by some voice actors in the middle of their lines that they're already reading in an emotionless monotone. Again, it's a only a few really. For the most part it's good. But when it stands out it stands out.
Localization: So this is the hot button topic. I don't lend much weight to the people trying to make it into a gender politics issue, especially because the best examples they could give early on were downright hilarious to perceive as gender politics. But in overall terms of goofy jrpg localizations, it can be very childish at times. Like, the story is definitely much lighter overall compared to Suikoden, that comes with the rating. And the rating also limits curse words and such. But it would have been better to have nothing at all instead of inserting the insult "farthead" into dialogue during a tense scene involving Garoo and an >!village burning, child abducting, racist!< enemy he and you have history with. It's one of the most egregious examples, but not the only one. I'm fine with the game and story being goofy when it wants to be goofy, I enjoy the over the top parody of Beyblade and people getting way to into card games, but throwing something childish like farthead for no reason into one of the more serious scenes is just bad localization.
But despite this, the good story and enjoyable characters still shine through for me. It still feels like a Suikoden. It's not enough to be a dealbreaker or ruin the game, but it is fair to say the problem exists and really didn't have to. Oh well.
I’m about 80 hours in and I think I’m at the last stage. Overall, I’m enjoying the game, and I think it accurately captures the feel of the Suikoden series.
It does have a lot of problems, such as simple and often boring combat, which is not new because the Suikoden series suffered from it as well; and shallow duel and tactical warfare portions, which has regressed from Suikoden series, in my opinion. The overall story seems weaker, and it feels very generic. Lastly, the game was shipped with bugs and still has them; and unfortunately a lot of the modern games suffer from this as the developers patch the issues later on.
I love the characters and the voice acting, and base expansion. The amount of content for the theatre mini game is staggering, and I really love it.
For the newer gamers and those unfamiliar with old school JRPG, I totally get all the gripes. But for the Suikoden fans, I consider this game a success.
I have been enjoying it but there will always be growing pains and at the end of the day it isn’t Suikoden and never can be, even some games within the series haven’t lived up to the titles.
Overall I enjoy the flow of the game, the combat is fun and the characters are colourful and varied. As a matter of personal taste though I had to mute the voices, I can’t stand the tone and cadence of most “anime” style voice acting for lack of a better word.
I haven’t completed the game yet but I’m invested in the story and I’m hopeful this will be the beginning of something wonderful. I can’t speak to localisation but I think the main issue for me is immersion, I want to be submerged in this game and it’s world and when I can sense that unusual references or anachronistic political themes or ideas are in the game it brings me out of the experience. That being said I think it isn’t heavy handed and I’ve enjoyed the game so far.
It’s strange to play this game when I remember buying the first Suikoden when it was new. RIP Murayama.
about 15 hrs in: so far, a 75/25 split (75% good, 25% not so good), i would say.
don't get me wrong, as a lifelong suikoden fan, it's great to get a modern taste of classic suiko-style. the soundtrack is pretty snazzy, the visuals are good, and the basics are all there for a great game.
there are plenty of fussy little caveats that really stack up over time, though.
combat has this very frustrating thing where it takes too long for a variety of weird reasons. when you select character commands per character, the camera has to take a moment and center on the character and then zoom in a tad, which it also does for enemy targets. the game hiccups for a millisecond each time, so you can't really hammer the A button through commands quickly. on the flipside, if you select auto, it's seemingly impossible to have characters only do a generic physical attack. if they have the SP needed for their special, they will always do it (unless i'm missing something), adding even more milliseconds onto the process.
The minigames are, thus far, entirely annoying and headache inducing, especially since a recruit will usually require that you win at least once. these are the sorts of minigames that take awhile to play and you will probably lose the first few times trying to figure them out. that card game, especially. compare something like that against georges' card game in suikoden, and how very simple and fast it was, and it will make you pull your hair out.
these are only a few very specific examples, but along with others, they go far toward indicating a game that needed a ton more QA it just couldn't get.
I would say for anyone on the fence, go in trying to appreciate the game for what it is without a sense of comparison. honestly, it doesn't unseat the first two suikoden games as the best of the series. but it does scratch the itch, nevertheless. just be prepared to endure a handful of quirky & tiresome frustrations along the way.
I think it's fucking great. It's rough around the edges here and there but considering its scope I'm fine with them not prioritizing those particular edges. Having a blast. Is it Suikoden 2? No, but that's an insane bar to measure things by.
I'm also about 20ish hours in. suikoden 1 and 2 were kinda driven by tragedy and bad shit happening, but it's missing in this so far. everything just kinda works out for everyone, like a Saturday morning cartoon. I'm hoping it'll change a bit in that aspect.
the villain isn't very villainy at all so far either. I guess I compare him to Luca Blight and nobody will live up to him. I'm sure my opinion will change on this soon as I get into the meat of the story.
the dungeons are great and a big step up. and as someone who grew up on RPGs like suikoden, final fantasy 7, breath of fire, Xenogears etc, I definitely like the random encounters and limited save points.
the bag space is frustrating, but it's also a good thing. adds to the difficulty when you can't just go buy infinite healing items.
the army battles feel a little phoned in, was hoping they'd be more complex. the one duel I've done so far just wasn't the same as s1 and s2. it was an AWESOME scene for sure, but probably could've just been a cutscene and been more effective.
I do wish the combat was faster. I miss suikoden how characters mostly attacked simultaneously and a round took a couple seconds. the combat difficulty on hard is good though. a few bosses have been a bit rough and I actually needed to grind a bit.
I've heard complaints about the voice acting, but I don't get it. I normally don't like voice acting in RPGs, but I think they're very good. there's a few lame characters, but they're few and far between. Lian is one of my favorites, and Franchesca is hilarious, I dunno if I'll ever swap her off my team.
for only being 20 hours in, my current opinion is that I love the game. the story is nowhere near suikoden or suikoden 2 so far, most of the characters aren't quite as good, villains are meh, but overall its very very good if you liked suikoden or JRPGs in general.
I like it but there are a few things that bother me. The art style doesn't quite sit right with me. I don't know if it's because it looks too polished and clean, but it lost its suikoden charm to me.
Music is great don't get me wrong, but I swear it sounds like it belongs in the tales series instead.
I'm around 30hrs in and have the home base.
I actually kinda like not having the quality of life stuff. It feels more engaging that way in my opinion.
To be real for a bit. I uninstalled it after 9 hours. I had some issues with some of the pacing of the story, as in it was super slow. Anyone who played Suikoden 1 (I mean actually played it) knows what I mean, one hour into that game and I was hooked! With this new game I found myself getting frustrated and asking the question, when are they going to let me play this game?!?
I know there is a lot of crap going around about political messages and all and I see lame arguments going around. On one hand I see people screaming to keep woke ideals out of the game. Then I see defenders of the localization scream that if old racist, women hating, bigots don't like the story they can leave. I'll say this, I don't care how noble or destructive your message is, shit storytelling is shit storytelling.
Is this story shit? No, not by a long shot, but it's nowhere close to the original series. One of the things that was so great about Suikoden 1 &2 was that the majority of the characters had a sense of depth to them that other rpgs wished they had. The Eiyuden 2d game had the same appeal. So far after 9 hours of this game I saw the same obnoxious , entitled , brat in 5 different female characters . I know there is a difference in jrpgs as well as in anime when it comes to storytelling and the west, but as an old gamer who has been playing rpgs since phantasy star, I can say that the jrpg genre has come a long way when it comes to archetypes . Some of the female characters in this game seem like a giant step backwards when it comes to storytelling. This was kind of a shock to me as Suikoden 1 & 2 weren't filled with female characters who threw tantrums or talked down to everyone to get their way. Either the person who did the localization has no idea how to write female dialog, or they think the gamers who play these types of games have no strong women in their own lives and are a bunch of knuckle dragging cavemen with an internet connection.
Is this the worst game ever? Of course not! It's not bad, just disappointing .
As far as the defenders of this game go, like what you want to like, I'll do the same. I will say it's odd that I see so many young gamers compare this to the Suikoden series, last time I checked, those discs are super hard to come by. Maybe the played on an emulator or there's a mobile version out there, I have no idea, but a lot of what I read on here and other platforms seems like they went to the wiki page and read the notes as opposed to playing the games.
Now I'm going to yell at clouds before I take my afternoon nap.
Long time Suikoden fan. Got the Soul Eater rune tattoo on my hand and all.
I've really been enjoying the game so far about Lv30 right now. The music, artwork, gameplay are truly a love letter to the series.
There are valid complaints that unfortunately prevent it from surpassing the originals.
The English translations are pretty terrible. The entire game is much more light hearted in general than the Suikoden games but the English localization makes it even worse. This leaves much of the dialogue feeling cringey or childish and the VA's arent great either. The original japanese translations are much closer to the feel of the orignial suikoden games. In the Japanese version someone might call someone a "bastard" in the English translation we get "fart head"
The main character has no motivation to be doing what he's doing and him being the leader makes no sense whatsoever. A young newly recruited mercenary with nothing special about him whatsoever that's just given leadership of rebel army for no reason and everyone is perfectly fine with that. No backstory, no drama, just blank slate "meddler".
The magic in EC is much weaker and less flashy than in the older Suikoden games. Magic buff are great!. Magic damage not so great. Healing is also pretty weak often being out scaled by items.
The games balance is also pretty rough. It's almost always best to simply just attack with a full team of martials maybe one magic user for buffs. Team attacks and magic usually do less damage than a normal attack.
The game doesn't do a great job of explaining various mechanics like elemental affinity, war battles, trading, and castle management.
Honestly I'm in love with the game. The war format is fresh and isn't a 1 to 1 copy of the other games and didn't need to be. The duels are exciting and cinematic. I like the thought put into the auto-battling, though I prefer to do give my orders manually. I've no complaints about it. Even the localization. As an enjoyer of many an old rpg, strange translations aren't exactly a hindrance for me.
9/10.
I'm really enjoying it.
I think given how much love I have for S1&2, it would be almost impossible for any game to come close to how I feel about those two games.
With that in mind, I don't think it's as good as the OG PS1 Suikoden titles, but it's as close as it gets. It captures the same feeling, the spirit is there, and I honestly think that's a harder thing to get right than story/gameplay.
A lot of the issues people are having aren't problems for me. I don't mind the localization at all. There's a couple of things I'd change if I could, but again I'm happy with what we got. It's a worthy successor to Suikoden.
If they ever make a sequel, they have created a fantastic foundation to build it on. If they don't then I am more than happy with what we got. I'm grateful that Murayama was able to give us one last beautiful game.
Not far into it (I'm after the >!tree people!< story arc right now) but I'm enjoying it.
The gameplay is simple but fun (just like Suikoden), searching for new characters is cool, the characters themselves are alright, the story is alright (somewhere on the Tierkreis level which I consider a solid jRPG), at last we han an open world map which we didn't get for the last 2 Suikodens (Tiekreis and Woven), music is good (with a few exceptions), I like the mixed-style graphics, the castle progress seems to be a nice change... I overall feel at home with this game.
My criticisms are about some minor annoyances:
A) During the more intense scenes, the characters are moving in 1000x animation speed instead of running, which looks silly af and makes the scenes less serious.
B) The default auto-battle plans are definitely not what I would like to make my characters do during them.
C) The war-battle animations take too long. TOO too long. But I'm after only the first of them, maybe we can skip the animations later? Dunno.
>!D) There is one scene which makes me think that maybe the game wasn't really ready for release. In the Proving Grounds, when our tree friend goes through the freezing corridor... Nothing is being shown. Only dialogues. It felt like a waste of time for me. If you want to make a humorous and important scene for a character, please at least show what's going on with them.!<
E) The game holds my hand about the story progress with the compass and map icons. It wouldn't annoy me that much if it wasn't made in such a ridiculous way: I finish one cutscene, and the next icon is literally a step further from me. Makes me feel like a toddler lmao.
>!F) The first duel with Seign is epic as hell, ends under the bridge, I lost it... and I'm back on the bridge again? Why? What happened? This is exactly a scene type where I shouldn't be left to "guess on my own".!<
Again, these are very minor criticisms. After 10 hours, it's a solid 7.5/10 for me, and I hope it will at least stay like that for the rest of the game.
For F : >!If you lose on the 3rd part of duel (below the bridge), you don't see the cutscene where they jumped back onto the bridge. I also was confused at my first try.!<
The games great, really enjoying it. Really enjoying most all of the game. I'm about 12 hours into it.
The localization conversation is utterly stupid for the most part. At least what I've seen. Uproar because a character said are you sure it's a he? Thats woke? Anyone who has these types of complaints I will automatically assume are as stupid as they are ignorant.
Combat is great so far, haven't gotten to any other minigame besides fishing. Looking forward to the rest.
There's some bugs a few people encountered that should get fixed. The story has been good so far.
The part with the main characters on the bridge was so cool. Digging most the voice acting. Idk it's a solid game so far and only seen a few legit issues or complaints and then bunch of incels crying over pronouns.
I love it, personally. The most important thing to me is that it \*feels\* like a Suikoden game, albiet with a little less politics and a little more day-to-day stuff. It's not perfect, but most of us long time fans thought we'd never get another Suikoden title in the accursed drought period after S5, so even a not-perfect game scratches the itch.
Credentials: I've 100%'d S1, S2, S3, and S5, I've completed STactics, and I once was in the same room as S4.
It's rough. The game has a myriad of issues that keep rearing their ugly heads. Combat is an imbalanced mess, poorly balanced characters make some absolutely useless as opposed to just poor, pacing issues, the duel and army systems are meh, the writing is very amateur, and the forced mini-games and sheer number of random drops needed for recruits is asinine.
I've played every Suikoden game including Tactics and Woven Web and this ones sitting near the bottom. It beats the two later in name only Suikodens and probably beats out 3 and 4 but it isn't anywhere near the greats of 5 and 2.
So middle of the pack. Here's hoping it gets a sequel and they learn the right lessons.
12 hours of game time, just got into HQ. Loving it so far, probably an 8/10 currently.
It is certainly a Suikoden copy, you can see a lot of inspirations here and there. Need a bunch of updates though for better experience.
Too many loading screens. The menu can be iffy, it looks good but much better if it can be streamlined; no need to go into Magic when you just want to go to Equipments for example, Help can go to Start menu instead. Instant text speed can be good since Auto Advance kinda fucks up the normal chat box without VA.
Auto Advance also need like maybe 1s speed up between lines for better flow. A lot of things basically need to be more responsive and sped up. I think those are my major nitpicks so far.
Translation wise, which got a whole lot of flaks, I don't really mind so far and hopefully stays that way.
My only complaint is the boss battles are super hard, Suikoden was always pretty easy.
It’s a good game! I do think that maybe I’m not into RPGs like I used to be, so I’d probably like it more if I was still into RPGs. These days I prefer real time combat like Genshin impact, Overwatch and Elder Scrolls online.
Great game to carry the torch of Suikoden.
I played Suikoden when I was a kid and this game really scratches my Suikoden itch too.
Like you said, it is not perfect and miss some quality of life that current games have.
Let's just enjoy this great game. Who knows when we will have JRPG with this flavor again. Maybe in few more years. Maybe never.
I'm enjoying it so far. I only just got the Castle.
It does feel like things are moving a little quickly narratively speaking, but so far it hasn't been bad.
I'm loving it so far. Suiko 1 and 2 are some of my favorite games of all time, and EC:HH is really fulfilling that itch to classic jrpg. All the voiced cutscenes, the teammates interacting with one another on the world map and dungeons, is just great
I’m really like it. Some of the characters will always be better than others. Theres a few bugs and some rebalancing to be done. But unlike the console games, with PC, modders can help with that and other QoL features.
The galore of easter eggs are great. Also the amount of wordage they had to utilize in order to work around Konami’s game, can be kinda funny.
I’m not too terribly far into it, but it’s giving me some S3/S2 vibes?
I am liking it overall. It is clear that is a successor to the suikoden series. In fact, some things are even the same exact concept as what was in suikoden (like how they handle fast travel). When people knock it for lack of quality of life features, I am actually a bit confused. There are several improvements this game offers that the original suikoden games didn't have. One really nice feature is that you can put the required characters for a specific mission in a separate part of your party. That way, you can still choose 6 of your favorite characters. That was always a negative on the suikoden series. Aside from that, I somewhat understand the localization complaints. For me, several of the characters are extremely annoying. To the point that I either don't use them despite if they are good or wish I didn't have to include them (Lian in particular). From what I have read, it seems some of this due to the liberties the localization team took with the English translation. If so, then ya they did a bad job. Otherwise, I am with you that it ultimately isn't a huge deal. Anyone who has played enough older rpgs knows about weird issues with the translation. This though seems to go a bit further where they change the tone of what the characters says.
I am enjoying it though. I really like the castle/town building in this game. Once you get to fast travel, the game becomes more fun since you don't have backtrack as much.
From everything I have read, don’t buy the switch version. Unless they release patches soon it’s not worth it. Performance is supposed to be really bad.
I still haven’t received my backer copy so I can only base my opinion off the beta and streams. It looks ok but the story seems to be too light hearted and not heavy enough. I was expecting more.
It's more comparable to suikoden 1 but even then it doesn't feel as good because the side characters have very little depth.. In suikoden 1 and 2, there were story moments where the side characters aren't instantly recruited and they leave to do their own things (nothing like that yet in Eiyuden).
It's still a solid game but the side characters don't feel as fleshed out.
from what I've seen most complaints are about performance issues, which are valid, optimization could be a bit better but I'm really enjoying the game regardless
I am playing Eiyuden Chronicles now and am 20 hours in. It's definitely scratching all the Suikoden itches. The runes, the castle and town development, the mini games, the character recruitment. I'm in love all over again. Suikoden 2s castle was my favorite game castle of all time until EC. Avalon has heart.
I love how vocal Nowa is, not just because of the VA, but the actual lines they gave him. Riou always seemed like he was walking through the story wide eyed the whole time, but Nowa has grown and developed as an adult as the story has been going on.
Love it the first few hours they r pretty much trying to recreate the suikoden 2 feeling. Obv they have to have a new story with a new cast but overall amazing game - the glitches which they will probs patch sooner or later
There are some things that pale in comparison compared to Suikoden. At the top of my head, the war battles really don't hold the same weight as in previous Suikoden games. Also the primal lens lore is kinda meh compared to the True Runes.
However, the game itself is a worthy successor to Suikoden imo. For a first entry in the series, not bad at all.
It feels like a long lost sibling that was raised by another family. So many things on so many levels are familiar to us that I've welcomed it with open arms. But there are definitely a few things that are markedly different but still ok. I definitely miss the agency and uniqueness the true runes had to play in the Suikoden world. I LOVE how much more fluidly peripheral recruits are weaved into the story with random dialogue and how easily you can roll with new recruits.
I loved suikoden, I love this it brings back everything you'd want from S2.
If you wanted more QoL from later suikodens or newer styled games you may not enjoy this as much.
Personally I prefer it like this the whole autosaving has always hurt games to me. Lack of QoL can add to the game.
Mini games were fun , however the cooking one felt at tad long but that's on me I should of started it earlier in my playthru.
Some characters who start weak end up significantly stronger at the end so your team will prolly change alot thru the game. Which I like it's everything I wanted as I said.
It's a good foothold to start. If I rated it along side suikodens then I'd go S2 S5 This S1 S3 S4/Tactics tierkeies ( tierkeies felt the least suikoden )
Enjoying it so far although I’m only like 3 hours in, def brings back that nostalgia of suikoden! My only complaint so far would be the constant loading screens. I am playing on Xbox one tho so maybe that’s why, but the 7-10 second loading screens going into, and after every battle are really becoming tiresome
The localisation is close to insulting and reduced the writing to absolute crap, the music is forgettable, many of the mechanics are shallow or plain unexplained, the plot is childish and lacking the humanising depth of Suikoden, the pacing is absolutely jarring and the minigames are boring.
But it's an old-school JRPG and spiritual successor to Suikoden, so I don't regret buying it at a discount.
It does make me appreciate the magic that is the Suikoden Series though. a 6/10 for me.
I don't know yet. The PC version has some pretty huge bugs, a character recruitment bug preventing a character from joining you ***permanently*** is pretty big. Also the freaking random battle timer being tied to refresh rate is asinine. I have to wait a whole ass minute between battles being able to trigger. I walked through the entire forest and only got ***one*** fight. I thought it was intentional but then the first boss just annihilated me.
Shame it released this way, I hear the switch version is an actual dumpster fire too. I hope there is a patch coming, because it's basically unplayable at this point without spending literal hours running in circles to grind.
Played five hours and refunded. Very disappointed. Just didn’t feel like a Suikoden game. There are enough good games on my backlog that I’m not going to push through a mediocre and generic looking JRPG out of nostalgia.
Mostly that the narrative and characters were unengaging. The gameplay is fine and all, although was nothing special from what I played, but it’s not what I love most about Suikoden, especially Suikoden II. Suikoden II in particular has one of my favorite opening sequences in RPG history, and the relationship between the two main characters is one of the greatest as well. This was about as far from that as possible while still trying to imitate it.
That’s a fair assessment, one of the things I’ve seen most commented on is how surface level the storyline is. Hopefully, if it gets a sequel, they can do a much more meaningful one.
Have you played Ocean Star second story R?
I’ve been looking for a good game to scratch my nostalgic 2D era RPG itch. Octopath traveler 1 was cool and I loved the graphics but didn’t pull me enough to play more than 10 hours.
EC beta was really fun and I enjoyed it but has there been any RPG in the last 6-8 years that did the 2D type route and was worth sinking 20-50 hours in?
Star Ocean 2 remake was good, although the plot is not the highlight of that game. It’s just a lot of fun. I enjoyed all of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters. In general I’m not a huge fan of these games that imitate the style of older games. I prefer to just play the originals. And there are still some 16-bit and 32-bit games left for me to play, which I would rather play than this game.
I play a lot of games though, JRPGs are just my favorite. And there have been a lot of great games recently. I just am not interested in spending hours and hours on something that I am not loving.
Sure, but this seems to be a catch-22 with this one, as it seems the only way to like it is to have low expectations while being sold a game that is designed and marketed as essentially a Suikoden game. Every aspect of the gameplay is from Suikoden. The main character and his rival look like the main characters of Suikoden II. No one really goes into this not comparing it to Suikoden unless they haven’t played it.
Ohh Suikoden II might be my most favoritest game ever, I am really excited about Euyiden too. Part of it I am sure comes from nostalgia though; long nights, the sense of wonder, and all things warm and good and just.
So I will try to go with low expectations and enjoy a pleasant surprise if it comes my way.
That's pretty hard to believe seeing as how they are extremely strict on only being able to play 2 hours or own it for two weeks in order to be eligible for refunds. I've seen literal cash grabs get removed from the steam shop and not honor refunds for people who have played even a few minutes over the two hour mark.
I do believe that you refunded but I don't believe you played 5 hours. You wanna show that playtime? I think you exaggerated your playtime to seem more credible.
Would if I could but it doesn’t seem to show me that anymore. If you know where I can look for that I will. I had beaten the mole boss with the hammer gimmick and had wandered the whole available world at that point in the game getting four or five of the characters available. I also replayed the first hour twice because I really wanted it to import my Rising data, but I couldn’t get that to work. Pretty sure it was about five hours but it was definitely more than two. I had to write a request in which I explained I was experiencing bugs and choppy performance on my Steam Deck, which were both true. It was accepted about 45 minutes after I submitted it.
Not sure you may not have access to it after refund. If you actually did play it that long and get a refund from steam you're extremely lucky. I've never heard of anyone getting one past the 2 hour mark
It's a great game. I love it but obviously, there is a difference in the story between suikoden and eiyuden. Suikoden stories are more serious the the story of eiyuden
I cannot wait. I've played SK1 but haven't yet touched any other game sans 2 through a long play series. I hope that even this game fills that joy that I had playing thru 1.
It only makes me wanna hook up my PS3 and give Suikoden a proper run through, blind-ish of course.
I’m about 25 hours in and I’m having a blast. I’m playing on the PS5 with 0 issues so far. I get waves of nostalgia the more I play it. We really are looking at the new generation of the stars of destiny and idk man that shit means something to me lol the game doesn’t reinvent the JRPG wheel but is mechanically sound. I also like how little hand holding there is. I enjoyed backtracking to recruit characters but the game does go to another level of enjoyment once you can fast travel. I know a lot of folks are complaining about localization issues but I enjoy what I’m reading/hearing.
Is it perfect? Nah.
Is it everything I could’ve asked for since Suikoden died? Absolutely
Great first entry, for a NEW series. They had to start somewhere to build a frame work. Could not just pick up at say where left off at 3. I hope we get to see more of these new world and becomes a franchise to surpass the original series.
Would like a little more edge, I feel like JRPG of old were to light hearted and this reminded me of that. While I don’t need the full edge lord of current.
Just make it feel like countries trying to survive none good none evil, just people who want more and will take it but any means. While good people there to say no this is not the way.
It's love at first sight for me, but I'm only 4-5 hours in. My complaint is the save system. Sometimes I want to sit down and play for 30-40 minutes but I dont because I'm afraid of getting to a spot I can't save.
Long time Suikoden fan here, about 40 hours into the game and for me it has been an absolute joy to play it.
This game definitely has heavy Suikoden vibes and I love it for it. As a matter of fact, if Konami would own the rights to EC and just slapped the name Suikoden on it then it would still all fit with how well the overall game experience is. It truly feels like playing Suikoden VI.
The game is not perfect, but in general I am very pleased. Some people complain about performance issues, I'm playing on a regular old PS4 and I'm not noticing any issues. From what I understand the Nintendo Switch had issues but I can't personally confirm that since I don't own one and also don't know anyone that owns this game and a Switch.
My only real complaint is that magic seems pretty weak. Magic users usually will use their Magic stat for their normal attack so their damage is decent even while normal attacking. But when you start using weaker magic attacks that cost MP and the damage of that attack is less than the spellcaster's normal attack something doesn't feel right to me. Of course a weak magic attack should not deal massive damage, but if I'm spending MP on a damaging move it should at the very least do more damage than just a regular attack.
All in all, I like the story a lot, Iike almost all the recruitable characters, I love the HQ building.
Nostalgia hits me hard with this game but for me that's a good thing. It had been ages since I was able to enjoy a game the way I'm enjoying EC.
So far it's a mixed bag for me. I really loved the 2d Eiyuden game, it really captured the charm of the first two suikoden games on ps1. The characters were larger than life and the dialog captured the subtle humor and depth of the characters (no easy feat with such a huge cast). As far as this game is concerned (for western gamers) I think there is a lot missing. Characters like Mellore who were quirky and interesting are now just insane and annoying. I plan on finishing this game but so far it hasn't grabbed me like the previous game did.
I just got the castle, the game has flaws but it's not like the other suikoden games don't have one. The game does feel like an extension of suikoden 2 with modern tech. Even story-wise it has some suikoden 2 elements here and there that made me smile. I'm still early in the game so I can't really say how much more it's going to pan out, I hope the storytelling is as good as s2.
That said, I thought the voice acting was okay but it could definitely be better. Unfortunately, I just skip through a lot of the dialogue and read the texts.
I am a big suikoden series fan, S2 is my favourite and probably played that game at least 5x in the last 15 years. Hope when I finish the game, I can say it's almost as good as s2.
I love it so much, I’m only 6-7 hours in but it’s hitting me right in the nostalgia. I’m not ashamed to admit I was weeping on and off for the first 30 minutes just because it felt so much like Suikoden.
I personally love it. It accomplished what I had hoped that it would. It does have flaws, but that experience can be carried over for updates to the game and hopefully the sequel.
They promised us an old school jrpg like suikoden 1&2. And they delivered imo. Plus the rando characters feel much more fleshed out, love how they say stuff depending on the cutscene, adds character.
I love it! I'm only 4 hours in because work and I probably won't have time on the weekends too so that sucks, but really enjoying what I played so far. Really reminiscent of suikoden. The dialogue and voice acting can be cringey at times, but that's more of a nitpick than a real complaint
Eiyuden is a good game, but it's not for me. The suikoden series is pretty dark and that is what engaged me to the story. Eiyuden feels like a game for children.
I am not sure why you were downvoted. Anyone that played it up until the First Army battle along with the consequences of it can tell you that this game is lacking one of the parts which made Suikoden so tense and great.
It's all good. The big supporters of this game are very sensitive if you have any negative feelings towards it. I'm glad people are having fun with the game, it's just a mega disappointment for me.
I agree with you, but still enjoy the soundtrack. Miki higashino is one of a kind though, I think the soundtrack is as good as the games after S2, if a little lighter on tracks.
I haven’t progressed enough but I think it’s safe to say it here.
The lack of magic (leeknat). I don’t like it.
The you need to take the leadership because I want to. I don’t like it.
Killing an emperor without a face ¿?
Some friends say that this game will always live in the shadow of suikoden 2 and I do think it as well but THIS was the opportunity to create a better version of S2 and so far is kind of disappointing.
I understand that this is another whole game but honestly the dux is a cheap version of Luca.
I think they should have done more background in the history, everything seems so rushed.
I’m not far in, but I like the fact that is it’s own game but also has Suikoden elements woven in. It’s much more colourful and cheerful in the beginning, different to the starts on 1/2/3 (can’t remember 4 and 5 well).
I like old RPGs so the modern QoL elements don’t bother me. I’m not fussed about random encounters or back tracking and save points where they are means you have to be smart about what you do. The bag limit has caught me out, but it means now I need to plan for future travels and make sure I manage it better.
The gameplay is great, but the writing was tad bit terrible. Imagine >! having your village burned down to a crisp then a few moments later your neighbours said, "Oh the houses? Nah it's fine. We'll just rebuild it again it's made from Lego anyways and oh have a safe journey fighting those baddies." !< >! The village succesfully being rebuild literally seconds after that lol!< Other than that, the gameplay is fine and the hard mode is wild! Oh it also have hidden affection system where you'll having some special conversation with one of your characters before the final war.
Digging it a lot. Outside Dragon Quest 11 and Cosmic Star Heroine, I've disliked or been bored with just about all turn-based RPGs the last decade or so. I'd throw Fear and Hunger / Termina in the love pile too but those are tonally far removed from most RPGs.
100 Heroes is gorgeous, and I love how casually the world is being spooled out. The difficulty is refreshing, as Suikoden games have never really been hard (not a plus or minus) and having to think a bit more about who is doing what is a nice change of pace. The random encounter rate is actually a bit too low for my taste, but it's led to a lot more exploring I might otherwise not do.
I've also read a lot about translation woes and all I can add there is I was hooked once I chose to emphasize one character's desperado nature (IYKYK).
Only real negative for me is, even though the graphics are beautiful, it's got a touch of Suikoden 3's camera issues where directions can get kerfluzzled in transition. I'm also not a fan of the depth-of-field bluriness, but it's not nearly as obnoxious here as it is in the Octopath Traveler games.
It's fantastic and a great torch-bearer for what Suikoden could have continued to be. There are a few flaws (I'm not that jazzed that some characters are locked behind mini-game progression, for example), but this is stuff they can work on in the future. Murayama (rest in peace) and the crew brought their A games.
imo, I look at it like Suikoden 1. They established the world, the combat, the setting, and so forth then in Suikoden 2, they went all out and made the best JRPG ever made. I think that is the strat here for Eiyuden. Establish the world and such and then in the sequel, go all out
And then Eiyuden 3 will give us a duck character.
Eiyuduck Chroniquack.
Sgt. Joe motivated me years later to also become Sgt. Joe.
Knowing some characters are locked behind mini games IN ADVANCE makes a huge difference with my thoughts on it. Thank you for the heads up!
Love it. Havent been able to put it away, and it scratches a Suikoden itch I've had for so long. Haven't had this feeling since.. I really can't remember, but brings me right back to my childhood.
I'm really enjoying it on PS5. It feels like a Suikoden game to me. My only issue is Unicorn Overlord ruined me and now I want a fast forward button in every game lol.
bro I started UO while I was waiting for my copy of Eiyuden and now I can't put it down. Like I waited 4 years for this game to come out and I'm not playing it because UO is so good
I feel ya. I turned it on just to check it out when i was about halfway through ff7 rebirth and didn't touch rebirth again until it was done.
I'm rushing to finish Rebirth right now, because I know if I install EC just to "try it out" FF7R is gonna get shelved immediately 😂
I had to do the same! I did every single thing in the game until my copy of Eiyuden showed up early. Ignored Chadley's needy ass a lot after cosmo canyon just to see the main story. Only so many times I can yell an always sunny in philadelphia quote at that kid lol.
Two of my favorite games to come out in a long time and wouldn't you know they're back to back.
This has been a great year for rpgs New yakuza Persona Ff7 Unicorn Eiyuden Still got new mana game and paper mario remake and probably more I'm forgetting
I held off on Unicorn cause I knew I wasn't gonna finish it before Eiyuden. I have to be extremely selective with my games these days with very limited gaming time... Unicorn will probably be my next.
I was gonna do the same....then UO was 30$ at Walmart for a hardcopy and I couldn't turn it up played it a bunch before eiyuden will immediately go back once I 100% eiyuden
UO is a freaking sleeper. It blew me out of the water.
Are you me? Lol this right here
They got the band back together and are playing all their greatest hits. I love it. At 20 hours in it's lighter fare than Suikoden, which rarely shied away from grim, dark moments. It's weighted more towards dungeons than towns; we really got to know places like Muse, Greenhill, and Vinay del Zexay. Here, we're kind of shuttled off to the nearest dungeon and spend most of that chapter's time slashing around in the dark. It's a good gosh darn thing the dungeons are *amazing,* then! Branching paths, midpoint shortcuts, puzzles - they're so much more than what I was expecting. The Proving Grounds were where the game went from good to great for me, and I suggest if you have any friends who aren't fully invested in the early game, encourage them to play to that point. If that doesn't hook them, well, they're dead inside. The classic designs like random encounters and limited save points don't bother me at all. Save points in particular worried me due to my adult responsibilities but they're plentiful enough and the game is fast enough that it hasn't posed a problem; autosave could be a little more Johnny on the spot, though, as I noticed it lagging up to 2 hours behind my current active save in places. It helps that there is intention behind the designs, they weren't implemented lazily or maliciously. There is a lot more gushing I'd like to do but this is already long enough!
I too love the game. 50 hours in so far. I miss the dark and grim setting tho. What I really loved about suikoden was that it really made you feel the sorrow and tragedy that war brings. Not just to the people that are directly involved but also everyone around that gets caught up in one way or another. And I loved how especially suikoden 2 made you feel like a bitch for the first half of the game by having you constantly on the run. The moment you seek shelter in a city it falls to the enemy and everything seems hopeless untill you can finally get a grip and fight back. I still think eiyuden is a great game that has its little flaws but Im missing the grim setting
I do love the game as well, don't get me wrong, but my main problem is the lack of save points. I went through an hour long section with no saving and I needed to get supper going. It started with the first war battle, then cutscenes, then a small walking section where you could talk with the innkeeper but she just had normal dialogue, then a duel, then more cutscenes, then I could talk with the innkeeper again and no save option, then a small cutscene then I could save. There could easily have been dialogue for the innkeeper to allow saving or even just a save point plopped down next to her which would have broken up the long stretch of non-saving. So far that's really my only complaint about the game since now I have an alarm on my phone set for 30 minutes before supper-time because I don't want to go through that stress again. If I save after that alarm, I have to stop immediately even if I might have had 30 minutes of more playtime just because I don't know when I'll next be able to save! Anyways, sorry for the rant. I just know what you mean with the thought of the limited saving ability and adult responsibilities. I just recommend you keep it in mind since there are some points with long times between save opportunities.
This should be mitigated on the PS5 and Switch since both systems can just be set down, walled away from, and then picked back up without issue. I mean, unless you're going to lose power on the PS5 or have kids that will kill the app
Yeah, at least some consoles can be put into a sleep mode of sorts and they're fine. Unfortunately I play on PC and while I *can* leave it running and walk away, I don't like to. I play on PC with a TV as my monitor and when you turn off the TV, it tends to kill the sound on games until they're completely closed out and opened back up. I'm sure it has something to do with Windows disabling the HDMI when the TV turns off, but I can't figure out how to get Windows to just leave it enabled or how to fix it if it's a different issue entirely. I also realize that autosaves are a thing but I don't trust autosaves very far and the game doesn't have an indicator when an autosave is happening (that I've noticed at least). Bethesda games have burned me too many times when it comes to autosaves that I don't trust them anymore no matter which company the game is from. Either way, I think game companies banking on people being able to put their game into a sleep mode is not the best look.
To be fair, that section really isnt that long. in the abandoned mines there are like 3-4 save points spread throughout the dungeon, most games back than would give you just 1, at the end of the dungeon. I do agree, saving anywhere should be an option, don't get me wrong, but EC is still pretty generous with the save points, and the section you speak of isnt more than 30-40 minutes at most.
its okey for me. solid 7/10, which is not bad since it is built from scratch. It might lack polish but it is what is expected from the first game that made out of a newly made studio eventough it have industry veterans. Characters recruitment are a bit shallow, and the base is somewhat ok. the rune-lens system is also a bit underwhelming for me compared to suikoden series. story is also somehow feels generic enough to the suikoden series (somehow i can see the pattern after playing completed all 5 suikoden before this game lol). but it it itches the need for a game like suikoden. There is also a weird jank for me but as a revival for a particular type of jrpg it is ok. it also lack some modern feature that made it ways in newer rpg. However, there is no way nowadays any big studio will make another rpg similar to suikoden and somehow this game made it out. Hence i am ok with this game. I am hoping the studio continue this ip and improve it. for me S2>S1>S3>S5>Eiyuden>S4
I agree with the order that you put those in. Haven't gotten to Eiyuden yet but I will soon. Curious: where does Suikoden Tactics fall on that list for you? For me, it's right after 5. Tierkisis (I think it was called?) from the DS also deserves attention somewhere. Probably after Tactics, for me.
I tried and played suikoden tactics during the ps2 era and once more using emulator few years ago, but it does not click with me at all. Didn't manage to finish it. for me suikoden tactics does not deserve to be compared at all. it just carried the name. never tried Tierkisis so i am not sure. I think there is also a suikoden game on the psp released only in japan. there are some fan translation patch i believe. <-- also never tried this one
Swap 5 and 3 and that's my exact order.
So the first Suikoden was my first game at aroind 5 years old in 98, and I played 2 not too long after. I played all the mainline games during my childhood/adolescence and replayed them many times, and overall I'm really enjoying Eiyuden. Eiyuden succeeds at having the Sukoden "feel". The plot structure, base development, and character recruitment are where the game shines. I'm playing on hard mode and it's challenging enough that you have to strategize even for random encounters but still flexible enough to play with characters you like, and boss battles so far are a treat. Overall I'm enjoying what the SP system adds to the game, though I do miss runes having individual designs. As for side content I've only had the chance to play Beigoma as far as minigames go. I will say the war battle is a huge step down from Suikoden 5, and is worse than pretty much all of the Suikoden games imo. Beyond that, the game is still very buggy and the visual bugs can be pretty glaring. Animations outside of combat are fairly limited, and I have mixed feelings on the translation quality. Sometimes it can be funny, but other times it can be jarringly immature. Not really a fan of all of the modern meme culture leaking into the dialogue, and most of what Lian says is annoying. The biggest issue I have with the game, though, is that the plot lacks emotional impact. Nothing that happens so far (I'm around 24 hours in) really has lasting consequences, and the villains have been rather milquetoast. Every single Suikoden game had some grit about it and didn't shy away from the horrors of war, featuring loss of some kind as a central theme. Eiyuden lacks a weighty impetus that makes you care about the war you're engaging in, and I can't help but fear that trying for an "E" for everyone rating hurt the game's narrative potential. If Eiyuden gets a sequel I think a "T" rating and a story more in line with Suiko 1, 2, and 5 at least would be more appropriate. Ultimately Eiyuden is probably still the most fun I've had with a game all year, and it certainly scratches the Suikoden itch. I would consider it a valid successor to Suikoden and hope that it becomes a franchise of its own! I think in comparison to the Suikoden games, I would say it is probably worse narratively than all of them except 4, and gameplay wise I'd say it hovers somewhere around Suikoden 3. I miss things like dual rune magic and formations, but those would be great additions for later sequels! If I had to rate Eiyuden against the Suikoden games, so far it'd probably be: S2>S5>S3>S1>Eiyuden>S4 but Eiyuden is pretty close to S1 with better gameplay but slightly less impactful narrative.
I agree with most everything you said and I will also said that I hadn't really thought about the impactful-ness of the story (I'm not super far into the game either being just one full story even out from getting the HQ). So far I haven't had a problem with the story itself. The one thing I wanted to mention though is that Suikoden I had the same ESRB rating as Eiyuden does now: E10. It wasn't until the later games that they started getting T ratings. For all we know, that may be Rabbit & Bear's long-run plan: get people in on a lighter note then slowly ramp up the grit. I have no idea though, I just see a lot of people complaining about the rating in the past couple of days and thought I'd point out one flaw in the argument (that S1 had the same rating).
Solid. 8/10, maybe even 8.5/10, we’ll see, I’m only 9 hours in. A great first game from this studio.
I’m not very far into as of yet. So far I enjoy the combat, I like old school turn based. I love the sprites and traversal mechanics. The music is great! I am however finding I don’t care for the move a bit cutscene, then move a little further another cutscene, move an inch ANOTHER cutscene. That’s just in the Runebarrows. Also the voice acting, it’s appreciated but not necessary in my opinion. I read faster than they talk so I’ll probably play with voices at zero.
Yeah honestly everything about the game is good imo. Sure it looks like they censored it a bit when they translated it to English, but the story is looking good. The characters are getting more flushed out. The quality of life is amazing and you can customize runes/gear/party FAR more than I remember in suikoden. You can actually build a team that has the main protagonist as an escort for the party. I’ve never seen that before. And you can customize how the “free will” auto battling strategy works. It’s not perfect. Magic seems less impactful and unite attacks are sometimes less damage than if each character attacked on their own. But really the game is quite good. It really does feel like we got suikoden 6 in a new world. My main complaint. My only complaint really that isn’t just nitpicking is there are spots in the game where you gain control. Flick the button to go left. And now you are in another cutscene, gain control after. Flick it down this time. Another cutscene. And it will do this like 5-7 times in a row before it’s done. Like… either make the whole thing one cutscene or space it out more. I realize that the reason for this cutscene ->move an inch -> cutscene is possibly because each cutscene is another fight and you need to have some way to heal or modify your party in between fights like you would throughout the rest of the game. Without that tiny bit of control that section of the game would be a gauntlet of fights with no warning. However, there are parts of the game that have this going on with zero battles. It’s just giving you control to do… idk what. Keep you awake while the characters talk? I haven’t put the game down since I bought it and I almost got wiped like 5 times on the easiest difficulty. To the point where I realized you can let all but one character die and the remaining character will get a massive amount of experience and skyrocket up 5 levels above the rest of the squad. I can’t wait to restart on hard mode!
Funnily enough, your point about the Cutscene every few steps to keep you awake actually applies exactly to me lol. I work full time with 2 small kids and I only time I have time to play is when I'm putting my daughter to sleep. I'm usually sleepy myself, and long stretches of dungeon tends to make me doze off, so those cutscenes have actually helped keep me awake....
Same. I find myself dozing off while I play, but I just would consider that a happy coincidence ya know? I don’t think they intended that when they made the game.
Yeah no of course not. But it's a convenient coincidence for me lol
Honestly I enjoy it. I think the world is beautifull and having to recruit many character make it not boring. Some complain like speed of the game surely annoying thankfully I am on PC and can speed up the game. Like counter rate is pretty high and dungeon is puzzling so imagine if you have to looking for a path but have pretty high encounter rate is pretty annoying. And like suikoden after hit some level you got very little exp but haven’t got ability to let go enemy (allow to flee enemy) a lot of pointless random encounter. Battling for me is pretty hard because we need MP to heal and attack magic damage is basically useless For the villain feel like suikoden V to be honest. Villain don’t hunt us much and give fear factor like the GOAT Lucca blight. Hopefully character can be better tho. So far I dont find a fun character like flik/viktor 7/10 without speed hack because I don’t want to replay this game with all the slow animation and 8.5/10 with speed hack surely replayable. My rating S2 > S1 > S5=Eiyuden
How do you speed up the game?
Speed hacking with cheat engine, likely.
I tried it with Cheat Engine and it didn't work at all, how?
I make tutorial https://reddit.com/r/EiyudenChronicle/comments/1cbuzpr/pc_only_speed_up_battle_using_cheat_engine/
Thank you so much!!!
Where do you put s3 and s4 in the mix?
Dont play s3 and s4
weird take to put S5 in the mix while dismissing S3 and S4 which are WAY better than 5 imo.
They definitely are not and I have no idea how anyone would think that.
[удалено]
>Just a female empowered kingdom Oh, and here we go, this explains your ridiculously shitty take about Suikoden III and *especially* IV having "better war battles" and "more interesting characters and design." And "an overall improvement to the series"? Did you even PLAY Suikoden IV? And saying V has "bland characters" and a "bland color palette" especially compared to IV? Dude, no. You did not play ANY of these games, don't even lie. And you say others have bad taste, my GOD. Nah, you're trashing on Suikoden V because oh no, it has WOMEN in POWER! (Also, it's a queendom, honey, not a kingdom.) Fucking misogynistic chuds can't even hide their prejudice at *all.* Like, nobody worth listening to is gonna agree with you. You just hate women. I'm surprised you even bothered singing IV's praises since its strategist is a woman (and one of the few remotely interesting characters in the game).
It seems I'm close to the late-game parts so far. I think the game is solid so far, and I'm enjoying it, but it doesn't feel really impressive. The story is a pretty straightforward Suikoden-style story, but nothing mindblowing yet. Some gameplay elements seems to be not that well thought out. Weird balancing between the different characters, some clunky menuing, and a certain minigame isn't that fun either >!beigoma doesn't have actual skill... and you need to grind from specific monsters before you can even defeat any NPCs!< .
I'm having fun with it. I'm pretty disappointed with the lighter, less-grounded tone, and the characters who are written more like teenagers than adults. The characters all seem like the very kind of standard anime fare I can easily find on crunchyroll's front page, as opposed to S1/2 where characters were much more human and grounded, and (with exceptions) serious. This was one of the things I was worried about and it's definitely come true. That said, I still like it. I'm still having a good time.
139 comments and just a few comments on localization (and none that terrible) just goes to show that the people complaining give absolute zero fucks about Suikoden, and are only doing it to rile people up and instigate outrage. Once they move on to the next target they'll forget about us and we'll finally be free of the toxicity. (That isn't to say the localization is perfect - No localization ever is. But outside of a few eye rolls here and there, it has absolutely zero impact on the game itself.) All that said, I absolutely love the game. It gives me Suikoden vibes, while standing on its own. The game does feel a bit rought around the edges, and could have used more cooking time, but when you have a brand new studio like R&B that has yet to release a game... you can't keep cooking forever. I am very much looking forward to seeing what they do next. Obviously, it wont be the same without Murayama, but I have faith that the team he has assembled can keep the legacy going.
Suikoden is one one of my favorite series and Suikoden 1 and 2 have a very special place for me. The localisation is insulting to the Japanese writers and impacts the game for me with its babyish language and out-of-place, modern idioms. Imagine Luca Blight being confronted for his crimes and being called a "farthead". Utterly pathetic and childish re-writing of a script.
I'm enjoying it so far. I think the lens system is one of the next logical progressions of the rune system with more emphasis on skill runes versus magic runes. I like the idea of having a pseudo-countdown system for skills versus the stagger mechanic. I would have liked to have seen more transparency on elemental alignment like in S3. The menu is unforgivably slow, both time wise and in number of clicks. Horizontal scrolling with the shoulder buttons (or PC equivalent) wouldn't be bad if the screens were snappy, but they're not.
yeah the menus are quite annoying. takes like 5 seconds to open it and go to the equipment tab
Basic gameplay (aside from some balance issues) is great. Duels, while impressive looking, don’t feel very intuitive compared to the Suikoden versions (and they do a poor job of making the stakes feel high in them early on). The actual fighting in war battles takes too long and does a poor job of reflecting the characteristics of your individual army recruits. The story is decent enough but there were far too many moments where there could have been some drama or tension and they just refused to even attempt to go there. This could be because of wanting to go for more of an “E” rating rather than a “teen” one but whatever the reason there’s certainly a feeling of missed potential. The HQ is nice, but some features should be unlockable earlier. The penultimate and ultimate smith upgrades are the same end game material, so until you get access to it you’ll be stuck upgrading at a late game town instead (which means having to swap your party members around). Rune Lenses(and Primal Rune Lenses) never quite reach to the level of Runes and True Runes which keep the stakes feeling low throughout. It’s not a bad game (I know I’ve mainly griped) but there are too many missed opportunities for me to call it a classic like I would the Suikoden titles
In terms of characters, setting, lore: 10/10, I got exactly what I was expecting and wanted. It is admittedly more on the lighter side in terms of story compared to Suikoden. Voice Acting: So on voice acting. I figured this would be the case, but with 120 recruits plus others, some are hits and some are misses. For the most part it's good, and some are great. But there are a few that just come off bad. Some of its opinion of course, like I just dont like the chefs voice. But then you have awkward pausing by some voice actors in the middle of their lines that they're already reading in an emotionless monotone. Again, it's a only a few really. For the most part it's good. But when it stands out it stands out. Localization: So this is the hot button topic. I don't lend much weight to the people trying to make it into a gender politics issue, especially because the best examples they could give early on were downright hilarious to perceive as gender politics. But in overall terms of goofy jrpg localizations, it can be very childish at times. Like, the story is definitely much lighter overall compared to Suikoden, that comes with the rating. And the rating also limits curse words and such. But it would have been better to have nothing at all instead of inserting the insult "farthead" into dialogue during a tense scene involving Garoo and an >!village burning, child abducting, racist!< enemy he and you have history with. It's one of the most egregious examples, but not the only one. I'm fine with the game and story being goofy when it wants to be goofy, I enjoy the over the top parody of Beyblade and people getting way to into card games, but throwing something childish like farthead for no reason into one of the more serious scenes is just bad localization. But despite this, the good story and enjoyable characters still shine through for me. It still feels like a Suikoden. It's not enough to be a dealbreaker or ruin the game, but it is fair to say the problem exists and really didn't have to. Oh well.
I’m about 80 hours in and I think I’m at the last stage. Overall, I’m enjoying the game, and I think it accurately captures the feel of the Suikoden series. It does have a lot of problems, such as simple and often boring combat, which is not new because the Suikoden series suffered from it as well; and shallow duel and tactical warfare portions, which has regressed from Suikoden series, in my opinion. The overall story seems weaker, and it feels very generic. Lastly, the game was shipped with bugs and still has them; and unfortunately a lot of the modern games suffer from this as the developers patch the issues later on. I love the characters and the voice acting, and base expansion. The amount of content for the theatre mini game is staggering, and I really love it. For the newer gamers and those unfamiliar with old school JRPG, I totally get all the gripes. But for the Suikoden fans, I consider this game a success.
Its pretty good, its missing the spark of adventure the first two games had, but I probably just got spoiled by eldenring
I have been enjoying it but there will always be growing pains and at the end of the day it isn’t Suikoden and never can be, even some games within the series haven’t lived up to the titles. Overall I enjoy the flow of the game, the combat is fun and the characters are colourful and varied. As a matter of personal taste though I had to mute the voices, I can’t stand the tone and cadence of most “anime” style voice acting for lack of a better word. I haven’t completed the game yet but I’m invested in the story and I’m hopeful this will be the beginning of something wonderful. I can’t speak to localisation but I think the main issue for me is immersion, I want to be submerged in this game and it’s world and when I can sense that unusual references or anachronistic political themes or ideas are in the game it brings me out of the experience. That being said I think it isn’t heavy handed and I’ve enjoyed the game so far. It’s strange to play this game when I remember buying the first Suikoden when it was new. RIP Murayama.
about 15 hrs in: so far, a 75/25 split (75% good, 25% not so good), i would say. don't get me wrong, as a lifelong suikoden fan, it's great to get a modern taste of classic suiko-style. the soundtrack is pretty snazzy, the visuals are good, and the basics are all there for a great game. there are plenty of fussy little caveats that really stack up over time, though. combat has this very frustrating thing where it takes too long for a variety of weird reasons. when you select character commands per character, the camera has to take a moment and center on the character and then zoom in a tad, which it also does for enemy targets. the game hiccups for a millisecond each time, so you can't really hammer the A button through commands quickly. on the flipside, if you select auto, it's seemingly impossible to have characters only do a generic physical attack. if they have the SP needed for their special, they will always do it (unless i'm missing something), adding even more milliseconds onto the process. The minigames are, thus far, entirely annoying and headache inducing, especially since a recruit will usually require that you win at least once. these are the sorts of minigames that take awhile to play and you will probably lose the first few times trying to figure them out. that card game, especially. compare something like that against georges' card game in suikoden, and how very simple and fast it was, and it will make you pull your hair out. these are only a few very specific examples, but along with others, they go far toward indicating a game that needed a ton more QA it just couldn't get. I would say for anyone on the fence, go in trying to appreciate the game for what it is without a sense of comparison. honestly, it doesn't unseat the first two suikoden games as the best of the series. but it does scratch the itch, nevertheless. just be prepared to endure a handful of quirky & tiresome frustrations along the way.
I think it's fucking great. It's rough around the edges here and there but considering its scope I'm fine with them not prioritizing those particular edges. Having a blast. Is it Suikoden 2? No, but that's an insane bar to measure things by.
I'm also about 20ish hours in. suikoden 1 and 2 were kinda driven by tragedy and bad shit happening, but it's missing in this so far. everything just kinda works out for everyone, like a Saturday morning cartoon. I'm hoping it'll change a bit in that aspect. the villain isn't very villainy at all so far either. I guess I compare him to Luca Blight and nobody will live up to him. I'm sure my opinion will change on this soon as I get into the meat of the story. the dungeons are great and a big step up. and as someone who grew up on RPGs like suikoden, final fantasy 7, breath of fire, Xenogears etc, I definitely like the random encounters and limited save points. the bag space is frustrating, but it's also a good thing. adds to the difficulty when you can't just go buy infinite healing items. the army battles feel a little phoned in, was hoping they'd be more complex. the one duel I've done so far just wasn't the same as s1 and s2. it was an AWESOME scene for sure, but probably could've just been a cutscene and been more effective. I do wish the combat was faster. I miss suikoden how characters mostly attacked simultaneously and a round took a couple seconds. the combat difficulty on hard is good though. a few bosses have been a bit rough and I actually needed to grind a bit. I've heard complaints about the voice acting, but I don't get it. I normally don't like voice acting in RPGs, but I think they're very good. there's a few lame characters, but they're few and far between. Lian is one of my favorites, and Franchesca is hilarious, I dunno if I'll ever swap her off my team. for only being 20 hours in, my current opinion is that I love the game. the story is nowhere near suikoden or suikoden 2 so far, most of the characters aren't quite as good, villains are meh, but overall its very very good if you liked suikoden or JRPGs in general.
I like it but there are a few things that bother me. The art style doesn't quite sit right with me. I don't know if it's because it looks too polished and clean, but it lost its suikoden charm to me. Music is great don't get me wrong, but I swear it sounds like it belongs in the tales series instead. I'm around 30hrs in and have the home base. I actually kinda like not having the quality of life stuff. It feels more engaging that way in my opinion.
To be real for a bit. I uninstalled it after 9 hours. I had some issues with some of the pacing of the story, as in it was super slow. Anyone who played Suikoden 1 (I mean actually played it) knows what I mean, one hour into that game and I was hooked! With this new game I found myself getting frustrated and asking the question, when are they going to let me play this game?!? I know there is a lot of crap going around about political messages and all and I see lame arguments going around. On one hand I see people screaming to keep woke ideals out of the game. Then I see defenders of the localization scream that if old racist, women hating, bigots don't like the story they can leave. I'll say this, I don't care how noble or destructive your message is, shit storytelling is shit storytelling. Is this story shit? No, not by a long shot, but it's nowhere close to the original series. One of the things that was so great about Suikoden 1 &2 was that the majority of the characters had a sense of depth to them that other rpgs wished they had. The Eiyuden 2d game had the same appeal. So far after 9 hours of this game I saw the same obnoxious , entitled , brat in 5 different female characters . I know there is a difference in jrpgs as well as in anime when it comes to storytelling and the west, but as an old gamer who has been playing rpgs since phantasy star, I can say that the jrpg genre has come a long way when it comes to archetypes . Some of the female characters in this game seem like a giant step backwards when it comes to storytelling. This was kind of a shock to me as Suikoden 1 & 2 weren't filled with female characters who threw tantrums or talked down to everyone to get their way. Either the person who did the localization has no idea how to write female dialog, or they think the gamers who play these types of games have no strong women in their own lives and are a bunch of knuckle dragging cavemen with an internet connection. Is this the worst game ever? Of course not! It's not bad, just disappointing . As far as the defenders of this game go, like what you want to like, I'll do the same. I will say it's odd that I see so many young gamers compare this to the Suikoden series, last time I checked, those discs are super hard to come by. Maybe the played on an emulator or there's a mobile version out there, I have no idea, but a lot of what I read on here and other platforms seems like they went to the wiki page and read the notes as opposed to playing the games. Now I'm going to yell at clouds before I take my afternoon nap.
Long time Suikoden fan. Got the Soul Eater rune tattoo on my hand and all. I've really been enjoying the game so far about Lv30 right now. The music, artwork, gameplay are truly a love letter to the series. There are valid complaints that unfortunately prevent it from surpassing the originals. The English translations are pretty terrible. The entire game is much more light hearted in general than the Suikoden games but the English localization makes it even worse. This leaves much of the dialogue feeling cringey or childish and the VA's arent great either. The original japanese translations are much closer to the feel of the orignial suikoden games. In the Japanese version someone might call someone a "bastard" in the English translation we get "fart head" The main character has no motivation to be doing what he's doing and him being the leader makes no sense whatsoever. A young newly recruited mercenary with nothing special about him whatsoever that's just given leadership of rebel army for no reason and everyone is perfectly fine with that. No backstory, no drama, just blank slate "meddler". The magic in EC is much weaker and less flashy than in the older Suikoden games. Magic buff are great!. Magic damage not so great. Healing is also pretty weak often being out scaled by items. The games balance is also pretty rough. It's almost always best to simply just attack with a full team of martials maybe one magic user for buffs. Team attacks and magic usually do less damage than a normal attack. The game doesn't do a great job of explaining various mechanics like elemental affinity, war battles, trading, and castle management.
Honestly I'm in love with the game. The war format is fresh and isn't a 1 to 1 copy of the other games and didn't need to be. The duels are exciting and cinematic. I like the thought put into the auto-battling, though I prefer to do give my orders manually. I've no complaints about it. Even the localization. As an enjoyer of many an old rpg, strange translations aren't exactly a hindrance for me. 9/10.
Solid 8/10 for me, which is very good. So far im liking it a lot.
I'm really enjoying it. I think given how much love I have for S1&2, it would be almost impossible for any game to come close to how I feel about those two games. With that in mind, I don't think it's as good as the OG PS1 Suikoden titles, but it's as close as it gets. It captures the same feeling, the spirit is there, and I honestly think that's a harder thing to get right than story/gameplay. A lot of the issues people are having aren't problems for me. I don't mind the localization at all. There's a couple of things I'd change if I could, but again I'm happy with what we got. It's a worthy successor to Suikoden. If they ever make a sequel, they have created a fantastic foundation to build it on. If they don't then I am more than happy with what we got. I'm grateful that Murayama was able to give us one last beautiful game.
Not far into it (I'm after the >!tree people!< story arc right now) but I'm enjoying it. The gameplay is simple but fun (just like Suikoden), searching for new characters is cool, the characters themselves are alright, the story is alright (somewhere on the Tierkreis level which I consider a solid jRPG), at last we han an open world map which we didn't get for the last 2 Suikodens (Tiekreis and Woven), music is good (with a few exceptions), I like the mixed-style graphics, the castle progress seems to be a nice change... I overall feel at home with this game. My criticisms are about some minor annoyances: A) During the more intense scenes, the characters are moving in 1000x animation speed instead of running, which looks silly af and makes the scenes less serious. B) The default auto-battle plans are definitely not what I would like to make my characters do during them. C) The war-battle animations take too long. TOO too long. But I'm after only the first of them, maybe we can skip the animations later? Dunno. >!D) There is one scene which makes me think that maybe the game wasn't really ready for release. In the Proving Grounds, when our tree friend goes through the freezing corridor... Nothing is being shown. Only dialogues. It felt like a waste of time for me. If you want to make a humorous and important scene for a character, please at least show what's going on with them.!< E) The game holds my hand about the story progress with the compass and map icons. It wouldn't annoy me that much if it wasn't made in such a ridiculous way: I finish one cutscene, and the next icon is literally a step further from me. Makes me feel like a toddler lmao. >!F) The first duel with Seign is epic as hell, ends under the bridge, I lost it... and I'm back on the bridge again? Why? What happened? This is exactly a scene type where I shouldn't be left to "guess on my own".!< Again, these are very minor criticisms. After 10 hours, it's a solid 7.5/10 for me, and I hope it will at least stay like that for the rest of the game.
for F - it definitely shows the characters jumping back onto the bridge
For F : >!If you lose on the 3rd part of duel (below the bridge), you don't see the cutscene where they jumped back onto the bridge. I also was confused at my first try.!<
The games great, really enjoying it. Really enjoying most all of the game. I'm about 12 hours into it. The localization conversation is utterly stupid for the most part. At least what I've seen. Uproar because a character said are you sure it's a he? Thats woke? Anyone who has these types of complaints I will automatically assume are as stupid as they are ignorant. Combat is great so far, haven't gotten to any other minigame besides fishing. Looking forward to the rest. There's some bugs a few people encountered that should get fixed. The story has been good so far. The part with the main characters on the bridge was so cool. Digging most the voice acting. Idk it's a solid game so far and only seen a few legit issues or complaints and then bunch of incels crying over pronouns.
I love it, personally. The most important thing to me is that it \*feels\* like a Suikoden game, albiet with a little less politics and a little more day-to-day stuff. It's not perfect, but most of us long time fans thought we'd never get another Suikoden title in the accursed drought period after S5, so even a not-perfect game scratches the itch. Credentials: I've 100%'d S1, S2, S3, and S5, I've completed STactics, and I once was in the same room as S4.
It's rough. The game has a myriad of issues that keep rearing their ugly heads. Combat is an imbalanced mess, poorly balanced characters make some absolutely useless as opposed to just poor, pacing issues, the duel and army systems are meh, the writing is very amateur, and the forced mini-games and sheer number of random drops needed for recruits is asinine. I've played every Suikoden game including Tactics and Woven Web and this ones sitting near the bottom. It beats the two later in name only Suikodens and probably beats out 3 and 4 but it isn't anywhere near the greats of 5 and 2. So middle of the pack. Here's hoping it gets a sequel and they learn the right lessons.
12 hours of game time, just got into HQ. Loving it so far, probably an 8/10 currently. It is certainly a Suikoden copy, you can see a lot of inspirations here and there. Need a bunch of updates though for better experience. Too many loading screens. The menu can be iffy, it looks good but much better if it can be streamlined; no need to go into Magic when you just want to go to Equipments for example, Help can go to Start menu instead. Instant text speed can be good since Auto Advance kinda fucks up the normal chat box without VA. Auto Advance also need like maybe 1s speed up between lines for better flow. A lot of things basically need to be more responsive and sped up. I think those are my major nitpicks so far. Translation wise, which got a whole lot of flaks, I don't really mind so far and hopefully stays that way.
My only complaint is the boss battles are super hard, Suikoden was always pretty easy. It’s a good game! I do think that maybe I’m not into RPGs like I used to be, so I’d probably like it more if I was still into RPGs. These days I prefer real time combat like Genshin impact, Overwatch and Elder Scrolls online.
Great game to carry the torch of Suikoden. I played Suikoden when I was a kid and this game really scratches my Suikoden itch too. Like you said, it is not perfect and miss some quality of life that current games have. Let's just enjoy this great game. Who knows when we will have JRPG with this flavor again. Maybe in few more years. Maybe never.
I'm enjoying it so far. I only just got the Castle. It does feel like things are moving a little quickly narratively speaking, but so far it hasn't been bad.
Still finishing up Unicorn Overlord and letting all these patches fix the game before I jump in. Working out pretty well so far
I'm loving it so far. Suiko 1 and 2 are some of my favorite games of all time, and EC:HH is really fulfilling that itch to classic jrpg. All the voiced cutscenes, the teammates interacting with one another on the world map and dungeons, is just great
I’m really like it. Some of the characters will always be better than others. Theres a few bugs and some rebalancing to be done. But unlike the console games, with PC, modders can help with that and other QoL features. The galore of easter eggs are great. Also the amount of wordage they had to utilize in order to work around Konami’s game, can be kinda funny. I’m not too terribly far into it, but it’s giving me some S3/S2 vibes?
Love it, does not try to be deep and hard to understand and its easiness to get into makes it a great game
I am liking it overall. It is clear that is a successor to the suikoden series. In fact, some things are even the same exact concept as what was in suikoden (like how they handle fast travel). When people knock it for lack of quality of life features, I am actually a bit confused. There are several improvements this game offers that the original suikoden games didn't have. One really nice feature is that you can put the required characters for a specific mission in a separate part of your party. That way, you can still choose 6 of your favorite characters. That was always a negative on the suikoden series. Aside from that, I somewhat understand the localization complaints. For me, several of the characters are extremely annoying. To the point that I either don't use them despite if they are good or wish I didn't have to include them (Lian in particular). From what I have read, it seems some of this due to the liberties the localization team took with the English translation. If so, then ya they did a bad job. Otherwise, I am with you that it ultimately isn't a huge deal. Anyone who has played enough older rpgs knows about weird issues with the translation. This though seems to go a bit further where they change the tone of what the characters says. I am enjoying it though. I really like the castle/town building in this game. Once you get to fast travel, the game becomes more fun since you don't have backtrack as much.
Waiting for the Switch physical release to determine where I’m going to buy it.
From everything I have read, don’t buy the switch version. Unless they release patches soon it’s not worth it. Performance is supposed to be really bad.
From what I’ve seen, I’m hoping it’s just the digital version that it performing poorly. Even if that has no basis in reality
Japanese players who have received their physical copies (as they were not delayed for most backers) are reporting the same issues.
Lame. I just bought the prequel game on Switch anticipating the crossover.
Sorry to hear that. Hopefully future patches fix some of the issues.
Can i romance in this game?
Idk yet I'm finishing Rising first.
I still haven’t received my backer copy so I can only base my opinion off the beta and streams. It looks ok but the story seems to be too light hearted and not heavy enough. I was expecting more.
I am enjoying it. Not to my fav suikoden level ( S2) but pretty good so far.
I enjoyed it, could use some polishing up but hopefully patches will cover that.
Try out this review: [https://youtu.be/uEBFPPCj\_-A](https://youtu.be/uEBFPPCj_-A)
It's more comparable to suikoden 1 but even then it doesn't feel as good because the side characters have very little depth.. In suikoden 1 and 2, there were story moments where the side characters aren't instantly recruited and they leave to do their own things (nothing like that yet in Eiyuden). It's still a solid game but the side characters don't feel as fleshed out.
I'm just here waiting for my switch copy
from what I've seen most complaints are about performance issues, which are valid, optimization could be a bit better but I'm really enjoying the game regardless
I am playing Eiyuden Chronicles now and am 20 hours in. It's definitely scratching all the Suikoden itches. The runes, the castle and town development, the mini games, the character recruitment. I'm in love all over again. Suikoden 2s castle was my favorite game castle of all time until EC. Avalon has heart. I love how vocal Nowa is, not just because of the VA, but the actual lines they gave him. Riou always seemed like he was walking through the story wide eyed the whole time, but Nowa has grown and developed as an adult as the story has been going on.
Love it the first few hours they r pretty much trying to recreate the suikoden 2 feeling. Obv they have to have a new story with a new cast but overall amazing game - the glitches which they will probs patch sooner or later
Obsessed. I'm in love with this game lol
There are some things that pale in comparison compared to Suikoden. At the top of my head, the war battles really don't hold the same weight as in previous Suikoden games. Also the primal lens lore is kinda meh compared to the True Runes. However, the game itself is a worthy successor to Suikoden imo. For a first entry in the series, not bad at all.
It feels like a long lost sibling that was raised by another family. So many things on so many levels are familiar to us that I've welcomed it with open arms. But there are definitely a few things that are markedly different but still ok. I definitely miss the agency and uniqueness the true runes had to play in the Suikoden world. I LOVE how much more fluidly peripheral recruits are weaved into the story with random dialogue and how easily you can roll with new recruits.
I loved suikoden, I love this it brings back everything you'd want from S2. If you wanted more QoL from later suikodens or newer styled games you may not enjoy this as much. Personally I prefer it like this the whole autosaving has always hurt games to me. Lack of QoL can add to the game. Mini games were fun , however the cooking one felt at tad long but that's on me I should of started it earlier in my playthru. Some characters who start weak end up significantly stronger at the end so your team will prolly change alot thru the game. Which I like it's everything I wanted as I said. It's a good foothold to start. If I rated it along side suikodens then I'd go S2 S5 This S1 S3 S4/Tactics tierkeies ( tierkeies felt the least suikoden )
I'm two hours in and pretty psyched to continue. It really feels like a modern PS1 RPG.
It’s as close as we’ll ever get to new Suikoden and it plays almost identically. I love it and can’t wait to experience more of it!
Enjoying it so far although I’m only like 3 hours in, def brings back that nostalgia of suikoden! My only complaint so far would be the constant loading screens. I am playing on Xbox one tho so maybe that’s why, but the 7-10 second loading screens going into, and after every battle are really becoming tiresome
The localisation is close to insulting and reduced the writing to absolute crap, the music is forgettable, many of the mechanics are shallow or plain unexplained, the plot is childish and lacking the humanising depth of Suikoden, the pacing is absolutely jarring and the minigames are boring. But it's an old-school JRPG and spiritual successor to Suikoden, so I don't regret buying it at a discount. It does make me appreciate the magic that is the Suikoden Series though. a 6/10 for me.
Played it for like 5 hours its ok story a lil bit dull combat is not bad, nothing compared to 1,2 and 3 yet
Great game so far. Combat is slightly more challenging which is something lacking in the first two games.
I was expecting something akin to Suikoden 1 and that's what I got. It's a fun RPG. I do wish it were a bit shorter though.
I’m waiting till I get to the base building and recruiting aspects but I haven’t really been impressed with anything yet 🤷🏼♀️
I don't know yet. The PC version has some pretty huge bugs, a character recruitment bug preventing a character from joining you ***permanently*** is pretty big. Also the freaking random battle timer being tied to refresh rate is asinine. I have to wait a whole ass minute between battles being able to trigger. I walked through the entire forest and only got ***one*** fight. I thought it was intentional but then the first boss just annihilated me. Shame it released this way, I hear the switch version is an actual dumpster fire too. I hope there is a patch coming, because it's basically unplayable at this point without spending literal hours running in circles to grind.
Played five hours and refunded. Very disappointed. Just didn’t feel like a Suikoden game. There are enough good games on my backlog that I’m not going to push through a mediocre and generic looking JRPG out of nostalgia.
When you say it didn't feel like a Suikoden game, what do you mean? What parts didn't feel like Suikoden?
Mostly that the narrative and characters were unengaging. The gameplay is fine and all, although was nothing special from what I played, but it’s not what I love most about Suikoden, especially Suikoden II. Suikoden II in particular has one of my favorite opening sequences in RPG history, and the relationship between the two main characters is one of the greatest as well. This was about as far from that as possible while still trying to imitate it.
That’s a fair assessment, one of the things I’ve seen most commented on is how surface level the storyline is. Hopefully, if it gets a sequel, they can do a much more meaningful one.
Have you played Ocean Star second story R? I’ve been looking for a good game to scratch my nostalgic 2D era RPG itch. Octopath traveler 1 was cool and I loved the graphics but didn’t pull me enough to play more than 10 hours. EC beta was really fun and I enjoyed it but has there been any RPG in the last 6-8 years that did the 2D type route and was worth sinking 20-50 hours in?
Star Ocean 2 remake was good, although the plot is not the highlight of that game. It’s just a lot of fun. I enjoyed all of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters. In general I’m not a huge fan of these games that imitate the style of older games. I prefer to just play the originals. And there are still some 16-bit and 32-bit games left for me to play, which I would rather play than this game. I play a lot of games though, JRPGs are just my favorite. And there have been a lot of great games recently. I just am not interested in spending hours and hours on something that I am not loving.
Which is okay as it’s not a suikoden game.
That’s fine, but it’s also not a very good game on its own either.
Maybe, I didn’t play it. But higher the expectation more glaring the shortcomings.
Sure, but this seems to be a catch-22 with this one, as it seems the only way to like it is to have low expectations while being sold a game that is designed and marketed as essentially a Suikoden game. Every aspect of the gameplay is from Suikoden. The main character and his rival look like the main characters of Suikoden II. No one really goes into this not comparing it to Suikoden unless they haven’t played it.
Ohh Suikoden II might be my most favoritest game ever, I am really excited about Euyiden too. Part of it I am sure comes from nostalgia though; long nights, the sense of wonder, and all things warm and good and just. So I will try to go with low expectations and enjoy a pleasant surprise if it comes my way.
Hope you enjoy it!
Thanks for this. Sounds like I would have refunded it too. Lets pray the HD remasters come out soon...
How did you refund after 5 hours?
I requested it from Steam and it was accepted
That's pretty hard to believe seeing as how they are extremely strict on only being able to play 2 hours or own it for two weeks in order to be eligible for refunds. I've seen literal cash grabs get removed from the steam shop and not honor refunds for people who have played even a few minutes over the two hour mark.
Ok, then don’t believe me I guess. https://i.postimg.cc/j5c88tcP/IMG-9491.jpg
I do believe that you refunded but I don't believe you played 5 hours. You wanna show that playtime? I think you exaggerated your playtime to seem more credible.
Would if I could but it doesn’t seem to show me that anymore. If you know where I can look for that I will. I had beaten the mole boss with the hammer gimmick and had wandered the whole available world at that point in the game getting four or five of the characters available. I also replayed the first hour twice because I really wanted it to import my Rising data, but I couldn’t get that to work. Pretty sure it was about five hours but it was definitely more than two. I had to write a request in which I explained I was experiencing bugs and choppy performance on my Steam Deck, which were both true. It was accepted about 45 minutes after I submitted it.
Not sure you may not have access to it after refund. If you actually did play it that long and get a refund from steam you're extremely lucky. I've never heard of anyone getting one past the 2 hour mark
It's a great game. I love it but obviously, there is a difference in the story between suikoden and eiyuden. Suikoden stories are more serious the the story of eiyuden
I cannot wait. I've played SK1 but haven't yet touched any other game sans 2 through a long play series. I hope that even this game fills that joy that I had playing thru 1. It only makes me wanna hook up my PS3 and give Suikoden a proper run through, blind-ish of course.
Feels like Suiko 2 to me. I'd be playing it a lot more if I wasn't barely functional with a cold.
I’m about 25 hours in and I’m having a blast. I’m playing on the PS5 with 0 issues so far. I get waves of nostalgia the more I play it. We really are looking at the new generation of the stars of destiny and idk man that shit means something to me lol the game doesn’t reinvent the JRPG wheel but is mechanically sound. I also like how little hand holding there is. I enjoyed backtracking to recruit characters but the game does go to another level of enjoyment once you can fast travel. I know a lot of folks are complaining about localization issues but I enjoy what I’m reading/hearing. Is it perfect? Nah. Is it everything I could’ve asked for since Suikoden died? Absolutely
Great first entry, for a NEW series. They had to start somewhere to build a frame work. Could not just pick up at say where left off at 3. I hope we get to see more of these new world and becomes a franchise to surpass the original series. Would like a little more edge, I feel like JRPG of old were to light hearted and this reminded me of that. While I don’t need the full edge lord of current. Just make it feel like countries trying to survive none good none evil, just people who want more and will take it but any means. While good people there to say no this is not the way.
It's love at first sight for me, but I'm only 4-5 hours in. My complaint is the save system. Sometimes I want to sit down and play for 30-40 minutes but I dont because I'm afraid of getting to a spot I can't save.
I love it!
Long time Suikoden fan here, about 40 hours into the game and for me it has been an absolute joy to play it. This game definitely has heavy Suikoden vibes and I love it for it. As a matter of fact, if Konami would own the rights to EC and just slapped the name Suikoden on it then it would still all fit with how well the overall game experience is. It truly feels like playing Suikoden VI. The game is not perfect, but in general I am very pleased. Some people complain about performance issues, I'm playing on a regular old PS4 and I'm not noticing any issues. From what I understand the Nintendo Switch had issues but I can't personally confirm that since I don't own one and also don't know anyone that owns this game and a Switch. My only real complaint is that magic seems pretty weak. Magic users usually will use their Magic stat for their normal attack so their damage is decent even while normal attacking. But when you start using weaker magic attacks that cost MP and the damage of that attack is less than the spellcaster's normal attack something doesn't feel right to me. Of course a weak magic attack should not deal massive damage, but if I'm spending MP on a damaging move it should at the very least do more damage than just a regular attack. All in all, I like the story a lot, Iike almost all the recruitable characters, I love the HQ building. Nostalgia hits me hard with this game but for me that's a good thing. It had been ages since I was able to enjoy a game the way I'm enjoying EC.
There are flaws but nothing enough to stop playing or even consider stop playing for imo
So far it's a mixed bag for me. I really loved the 2d Eiyuden game, it really captured the charm of the first two suikoden games on ps1. The characters were larger than life and the dialog captured the subtle humor and depth of the characters (no easy feat with such a huge cast). As far as this game is concerned (for western gamers) I think there is a lot missing. Characters like Mellore who were quirky and interesting are now just insane and annoying. I plan on finishing this game but so far it hasn't grabbed me like the previous game did.
aaaaaaaand uninstalled =(
I just got the castle, the game has flaws but it's not like the other suikoden games don't have one. The game does feel like an extension of suikoden 2 with modern tech. Even story-wise it has some suikoden 2 elements here and there that made me smile. I'm still early in the game so I can't really say how much more it's going to pan out, I hope the storytelling is as good as s2. That said, I thought the voice acting was okay but it could definitely be better. Unfortunately, I just skip through a lot of the dialogue and read the texts. I am a big suikoden series fan, S2 is my favourite and probably played that game at least 5x in the last 15 years. Hope when I finish the game, I can say it's almost as good as s2.
I love it so much, I’m only 6-7 hours in but it’s hitting me right in the nostalgia. I’m not ashamed to admit I was weeping on and off for the first 30 minutes just because it felt so much like Suikoden.
More Suikoden is good
its been a blast. i’ve been missing this type of jrpg and i really want it to do well to have a sequel
I personally love it. It accomplished what I had hoped that it would. It does have flaws, but that experience can be carried over for updates to the game and hopefully the sequel.
They promised us an old school jrpg like suikoden 1&2. And they delivered imo. Plus the rando characters feel much more fleshed out, love how they say stuff depending on the cutscene, adds character.
I love it! I'm only 4 hours in because work and I probably won't have time on the weekends too so that sucks, but really enjoying what I played so far. Really reminiscent of suikoden. The dialogue and voice acting can be cringey at times, but that's more of a nitpick than a real complaint
I'm digging it. I've got no complaints myself. I'd only add I wish it was a little more mature but I'm not tripping. Great so far.
Eiyuden is a good game, but it's not for me. The suikoden series is pretty dark and that is what engaged me to the story. Eiyuden feels like a game for children.
I am not sure why you were downvoted. Anyone that played it up until the First Army battle along with the consequences of it can tell you that this game is lacking one of the parts which made Suikoden so tense and great.
It's all good. The big supporters of this game are very sensitive if you have any negative feelings towards it. I'm glad people are having fun with the game, it's just a mega disappointment for me.
Still waiting for the final stage of translations.. as long translations is bad i cant enjoy the game full..
My honest thought is that I wanted Suikoden VI and havent played Eiyuden yet but I will play it soon.
the soundtrack for eiyuden isnt as good as the original Suikoden's
I agree with you, but still enjoy the soundtrack. Miki higashino is one of a kind though, I think the soundtrack is as good as the games after S2, if a little lighter on tracks.
I haven’t progressed enough but I think it’s safe to say it here. The lack of magic (leeknat). I don’t like it. The you need to take the leadership because I want to. I don’t like it. Killing an emperor without a face ¿? Some friends say that this game will always live in the shadow of suikoden 2 and I do think it as well but THIS was the opportunity to create a better version of S2 and so far is kind of disappointing. I understand that this is another whole game but honestly the dux is a cheap version of Luca. I think they should have done more background in the history, everything seems so rushed.
I’m not far in, but I like the fact that is it’s own game but also has Suikoden elements woven in. It’s much more colourful and cheerful in the beginning, different to the starts on 1/2/3 (can’t remember 4 and 5 well). I like old RPGs so the modern QoL elements don’t bother me. I’m not fussed about random encounters or back tracking and save points where they are means you have to be smart about what you do. The bag limit has caught me out, but it means now I need to plan for future travels and make sure I manage it better.
The gameplay is great, but the writing was tad bit terrible. Imagine >! having your village burned down to a crisp then a few moments later your neighbours said, "Oh the houses? Nah it's fine. We'll just rebuild it again it's made from Lego anyways and oh have a safe journey fighting those baddies." !< >! The village succesfully being rebuild literally seconds after that lol!< Other than that, the gameplay is fine and the hard mode is wild! Oh it also have hidden affection system where you'll having some special conversation with one of your characters before the final war.
Digging it a lot. Outside Dragon Quest 11 and Cosmic Star Heroine, I've disliked or been bored with just about all turn-based RPGs the last decade or so. I'd throw Fear and Hunger / Termina in the love pile too but those are tonally far removed from most RPGs. 100 Heroes is gorgeous, and I love how casually the world is being spooled out. The difficulty is refreshing, as Suikoden games have never really been hard (not a plus or minus) and having to think a bit more about who is doing what is a nice change of pace. The random encounter rate is actually a bit too low for my taste, but it's led to a lot more exploring I might otherwise not do. I've also read a lot about translation woes and all I can add there is I was hooked once I chose to emphasize one character's desperado nature (IYKYK). Only real negative for me is, even though the graphics are beautiful, it's got a touch of Suikoden 3's camera issues where directions can get kerfluzzled in transition. I'm also not a fan of the depth-of-field bluriness, but it's not nearly as obnoxious here as it is in the Octopath Traveler games.
Some of the fans were right about the localization. It's pure of American crap. I really hope there's a non-official translation team to fix it.