I hate the sound of a 'too safe story'. Asif no one has played a JRPG before and knows whats at stake. I really appreciate the depth of your review. I do love player management and the looting for base building, but looks like there is too much here for the time I have to game. I think their goal sometimes is to make a JRPG that becomes the only source of entertainment a player could possibly need, and perhaps there are still enough people out there that this is suitable and desired for.
The amount of time required varies a lot depending on if you just want to beat the game (fastest), or if you want to get all 120 characters (takes longer but not too bad) or if you want to get all the Steam achievements (which would take a lot of time). The looting you can generally do on the side while walking through areas, you don't need to go actively farm resources much.
If you enjoyed Ni no Kuni II, then you might enjoy this - but it's a big collectathon so I am not sure you'd enjoy that aspect of it (with regard to collecting all the characters, and some of the back tracking that's needed to do that).
I think this is a fair review. I like the game but it's more for JRPG fans who want another fix than for the broader gamer. I was happy to get to band 100+ chars together once more and I liked both the art and the voices. The story falls a bit flat to me, like you say it's very black and white with limited moral gray area. The antagonist also doesn't seem to cause that much harm, mostly invasions led to people just evacuating to safety or remaining in place and being just fine. There are exceptions but that was the big picture for me. I liked the three different perspectives but I agree it was better executed in Suikoden III. Overall I would rank the game ahead of Suikoden IV (and Tactics, which I outright disliked) but not as high as the other 4 Suikoden games.
Right? And even Nowa's home village was quick to be restored. This plot had nothing on the plot of Suikoden II, where the razing of a village had very dire consequences, and made you feel hopeless and helpless. I am sorry to hear that you disliked Tactics. I am looking forward to getting around to it eventually, as I did enjoy my time with it and respected that the order of recruiting characters was reveresed from Suikoden IV, so characters you got late in Suikoden IV had more of a chance to shine.
@@Venoix Yeah, Suikoden II's plot was amazing. Tactics... it did have some good points. I felt strongly for the main character, he had good character development and his background was compelling. Overall I thought Suikoden Tactics did a better job than expected at character development and making more than a few characters feel relevant. The main drawback for me was that the difficulty level was punishing. If you lose a non-story character in a battle there's a 50/50 risk they die permanently. And losing a character over a small misstep was very easy. I still wanted to fight with my favorite characters, but fighting with story characters (or accepting permanent deaths) would make the game a lot easier. Sadly the game isn't really for the 100% crew either, as getting an S rank on a mission depended on various factors, including your level going into the battle. In practice that meant you're less likely to get a S rank on a mission if you got a high rank on the mission before, so stringing S-ranks seemed impossible to me. The story was compelling, and I did feel that the protagonist's cause was of utmost importance... it was even a bit too dark for me, as people were effectively being killed by the antagonists throughout the game, and not just mainly in the first half like in Suikoden II. I do recommend trying to do Simeon's side quest too. It doesn't affect the game much but it does add interesting lore. I was sadly also disappointed in how the game ended for the main character. It felt almost anti-Suikoden to me, but I realize others may feel differently. But yeah, the difficulty level combined with the ending kind of ruined the game for me sadly. I didn't replay it, which is necessary if you want to recruit the last character.
I hate that so much of this game just... didn't hit the mark. Like you said with the castle building feeling like a checklist, I feel like the game itself was built as a checklist, it has the building blocks of a Suikoden game, but many of those blocks are just there to be 'like Suikoden' and aren't fully used as they should have been. That said, I did enjoy most of my time with Eiyuden :D Beigoma was... not much fun... but a number of the characters were fun to have around, and it was interesting seeing how other characters chime in in different scenes during a second playthrough after having everyone recruited in my first (Markus cracks me up XD) Worth a play or two while waiting for the Suikoden 1&2 remasters :)
I hate the sound of a 'too safe story'. Asif no one has played a JRPG before and knows whats at stake. I really appreciate the depth of your review. I do love player management and the looting for base building, but looks like there is too much here for the time I have to game. I think their goal sometimes is to make a JRPG that becomes the only source of entertainment a player could possibly need, and perhaps there are still enough people out there that this is suitable and desired for.
The amount of time required varies a lot depending on if you just want to beat the game (fastest), or if you want to get all 120 characters (takes longer but not too bad) or if you want to get all the Steam achievements (which would take a lot of time).
The looting you can generally do on the side while walking through areas, you don't need to go actively farm resources much.
If you enjoyed Ni no Kuni II, then you might enjoy this - but it's a big collectathon so I am not sure you'd enjoy that aspect of it (with regard to collecting all the characters, and some of the back tracking that's needed to do that).
I think this is a fair review. I like the game but it's more for JRPG fans who want another fix than for the broader gamer.
I was happy to get to band 100+ chars together once more and I liked both the art and the voices.
The story falls a bit flat to me, like you say it's very black and white with limited moral gray area. The antagonist also doesn't seem to cause that much harm, mostly invasions led to people just evacuating to safety or remaining in place and being just fine. There are exceptions but that was the big picture for me.
I liked the three different perspectives but I agree it was better executed in Suikoden III.
Overall I would rank the game ahead of Suikoden IV (and Tactics, which I outright disliked) but not as high as the other 4 Suikoden games.
Right? And even Nowa's home village was quick to be restored. This plot had nothing on the plot of Suikoden II, where the razing of a village had very dire consequences, and made you feel hopeless and helpless.
I am sorry to hear that you disliked Tactics. I am looking forward to getting around to it eventually, as I did enjoy my time with it and respected that the order of recruiting characters was reveresed from Suikoden IV, so characters you got late in Suikoden IV had more of a chance to shine.
@@Venoix Yeah, Suikoden II's plot was amazing.
Tactics... it did have some good points. I felt strongly for the main character, he had good character development and his background was compelling. Overall I thought Suikoden Tactics did a better job than expected at character development and making more than a few characters feel relevant.
The main drawback for me was that the difficulty level was punishing. If you lose a non-story character in a battle there's a 50/50 risk they die permanently. And losing a character over a small misstep was very easy. I still wanted to fight with my favorite characters, but fighting with story characters (or accepting permanent deaths) would make the game a lot easier.
Sadly the game isn't really for the 100% crew either, as getting an S rank on a mission depended on various factors, including your level going into the battle. In practice that meant you're less likely to get a S rank on a mission if you got a high rank on the mission before, so stringing S-ranks seemed impossible to me.
The story was compelling, and I did feel that the protagonist's cause was of utmost importance... it was even a bit too dark for me, as people were effectively being killed by the antagonists throughout the game, and not just mainly in the first half like in Suikoden II. I do recommend trying to do Simeon's side quest too. It doesn't affect the game much but it does add interesting lore.
I was sadly also disappointed in how the game ended for the main character. It felt almost anti-Suikoden to me, but I realize others may feel differently. But yeah, the difficulty level combined with the ending kind of ruined the game for me sadly. I didn't replay it, which is necessary if you want to recruit the last character.
I hate that so much of this game just... didn't hit the mark. Like you said with the castle building feeling like a checklist, I feel like the game itself was built as a checklist, it has the building blocks of a Suikoden game, but many of those blocks are just there to be 'like Suikoden' and aren't fully used as they should have been.
That said, I did enjoy most of my time with Eiyuden :D Beigoma was... not much fun... but a number of the characters were fun to have around, and it was interesting seeing how other characters chime in in different scenes during a second playthrough after having everyone recruited in my first (Markus cracks me up XD)
Worth a play or two while waiting for the Suikoden 1&2 remasters :)
Haha, yes Markus was another character I liked, but sadly didn't have room for in my party, unfortuantely. Maybe next time I'll shaft Nowa? ;D