Thoughts About The Game?

[JuveLeo]

For the early release folks, how is Eiyuden so far? I still got to wait another week or two until I receive my copy but I'd love to hear your thoughts about gameplay, story, characters, likes/dislikes etc. Does it feel like a Suikoden game?

[Julian]

I loved it. It feels very Suikoden, but at the same time, still stands on its own two feet.

That said, the game can feel a bit rough and "undercooked" in various areas. But, y'know, game development is a lot harder and longer these days. If they could sit on the game for another year or two, I'm sure they could iron a ton of it out, but that's not really a financially responsible move for such a young studio.

But still, for R&B's first game, it met and blew all my expectations. I am so thankful that this happened, and that we received one more game from Murayama. Who would have thought we'd be here after all these years?

[JuveLeo]

Thanks for the reply! From what I've heard so far is, gameplay is great but the story is somewhat dull? Apparently there's been a few bugs as well? Hopefully they'll patch that if true. I just got my copy and I can't wait to play tonight!

[Antimatzist]

My first ~10 hours in, I think it is as good as I hoped. Which means it's not perfect - but it is exactly what it promised, a modern interpretation of Suikoden II, with all its flaws and features.

The story feels a bit forced so far, but at least there's not "destiny forces you to do it" yet. It's just a bit unbelievable in parts, but then again, it is pretty much a typical JRPG. On the other hand, the world/country feels a bit more alive and real than in most Suikoden titles.

Music and presentation are great, technical bugs are there but hopefully get fixed.

[KFCrispy]

It feels like a new Suikoden game, which was exactly what I wanted! There are actually a couple mechanics I thought of for future Suikoden games, so it's pretty cool for me to see I had similar ideas as the development team! Some of my ideas included a more comprehensive "wardrobe" system that lets you equip all recruited characters in a single interface, and they did that with the vault. Now my idea included being able to buy equipment and runes from the shops in your HQ, but this was definitely an improvement over character management in the past. Another idea was to have a rune or special skill of a character to apply Sword of Magic to other characters, and there are multiple ways this happens in this game, which is pretty cool.

This is the non-spoiler forums, so I won't go into too much detail about the story, but just talk about the gameplay in general. But I agree the story is a bit weak--the main antagonist's story isn't too well developed, and as you progress throughout the game, it feels like we're jump-cutting events instead of seeing them unfold gradually or being caught off-guard.

Exploration is nice - the dungeons are more interesting than most Suikoden games. It feels there's a lot more to do, partially because you have to gather resources and upgrade the castle. The mini-games can be hit and miss, but I'm hearing there's some interesting equipment you can get from them, so I'll eventually work on them. The beigoma game has its own massive storyline and challenging "battles", and we have a cook-off story, although I feel it's extremely flawed right now, and the overall cook-off storyline seems like too much of a copy of Suikoden 2's.

The battle system is quite fun and allows for creativity, but it does have flaws. First and foremost, the game feels too slow. I hope they will consider player feedback and increase the speed of running and battle animations. I didn't see complaints about this during the beta, but I had already felt it. Now, I see a lot more complaints. I expect mods to come out for the PC version just to make it faster (and possibly fix bugs they never fix-- someone just published a mod to fix a broken recruitment sequence!). Secondly, some characters simply don't have the potential to become better, because of how the rune lense slots work. Many characters are stuck with just 4 slots total, but even if they have more, not too many characters are allowed to wield the stronger runes you acquire later in the game because the rune lense slots have a maximum rarity. You have to find the right combination of rune lense type AND rarity, and you'll end up finding most characters can't use the new powerful rune you got, or if you do find some, they might not be your favorite characters. Thirdly, magic in general feels like it should have a larger impact in battle, even the level 1 spells, because of how hard it is to replenish MP. I hope the dev team considers revamping some of these aspects to make the game as enjoyable as possible.

[Gullars]

I loved the game, but it has it's flaws to be sure.

The plot isn't the best, feels like it wasn't reviewed by a editor. But there was potential there.

Some aspects of the game might be fixed with some patches. so here is hoping for that.

[wataru14]

I just got my castle and I am in LOVE with this game. I have had a smile on my face every second of play.
It's everything I wanted Suikoden 6 to be. And I'm basically considering it as such, even if it isn't. Make the Empire Harmonia, make the League the Nameless Lands, and viola. There ya go.

- Francesca, Yusuke, and Zabi all made me laugh out loud. I adore Kogen. Although I haven't warmed up to Mio yet and I'm hot-and-cold on Lian. Sometimes I love her and sometimes she irritates the hell out of me. Kuroto is a little meh, though.
- Nowa has a surprising amount of personality for the main character of a series known for silent protagonists. And he's incredibly likeable. I'm quite pleased.
- I found myself scrolling through the sidebar after the first military battle to see the play-by-play. It looks like they're sneaking backer names into the list of the fallen soldiers. Makes me wonder when I'm going to "fall in glorious combat."
- I've also found myself thinking "if this were a true Suikoden, which Stars would these characters be?"

I have so much to say, but I want to wait until I've seen more of the game to comment.

[srd_27]

As a Suikoden fan, I definitely had a lot of fun in this game, it hits all the checklist on what to expect for a Suikoden clone.

But, there's couple of obvious flaws in the game, outside of the technical issues.
For non-Suikoden fans, I doubt this game could convert them into a huge fan, when there are other polished modern RPGs out there.

Some gameplay elements just simply wasn't thought out well. Couple of examples:
(minor spoilers ahead)
- Clunky menu interface and lack of QoL features. (this game was supposed to be a classic Suikoden in spirit, doesn't mean it has to mimic classic RPGs with bad QoL)
- Battle mechanic in general is pretty straightforward. Especially when you're still in the early game, where all you can do is just use skills that deal a bit more damage than regular attacks.
- Weird balancing between different characters. Right at the start (when you don't have lots of characters yet), there's couple of characters that obviously sucks and rather pointless to use.
- Quite a lot of recruits have boring quests (e.g. grind a random rare drop, fetch x amount of resources). I thought after Suikoden 1, they already knew not to make another random-grind recruit like Jabba or Esmeralda, why do these kinds of recruits have to return?
- Some minigames are just not fun. e.g. Beigoma is just a stat check and it's pointless to do this minigame until you grinded the high-quality beigomas.

The plot itself doesn't have impressive mindblowing or emotional moments that we get to experience in the old Suikoden games. I did eventually got rather invested in the late game plot, but it's mostly a straightforward/filler plot for the first 60-70% of the game.
(I hope Murayama doesn't have to sacrifice plot ideas in exchange of getting an E-rating on the ESRB)

[Neclord X]

Ok, this time is the right thread, posted this in the wrong one

I'm still playing it, Im taking it slowly I dont want to feel affected by rushing it.

I did not have high expectations for this game, dont get me wrong I was very excited on the idea of getting the game, but I didn't have high expectation. Not because a lack of trust, is just because by this point in my life I know you can't really replicate experiences. You can't have the original SW trilogy again, you can't live the hype of TLOTR films again, you can't play Suikoden II for the first time again. You can get new exciting experiences, you can discover awesome new games but you can't replicate old experiences.

That being said, everyone seems to either hate the game or love the game.
Personally I think the game is... fine.

Not amazing, not awful, just...fine. There are lot of things I like and love, specially tiny pointless details, but I have lot of complains too, most of them are nitpicky, but there are a couple of things that are HUGE Issues that I can't overlook.

Just to name the most important stuff.

The GOOD
+The aesthetics, I think this in an acomplished "sprite" style
++Voice acting, because it really brings LIFE to the characters to the point characters would be dead pants feel filled with personality
+The overall classic "jrpg" part, party managements, tough battles, dungeons, having to prepare before going on a journey, tricky battles

The BAD
-Old mistakes that should have not carried such as characters with amazing requeriments but that join way underleveled and with piss ass equipment, like you need to be lv 35 to recruit them, they put an incredibly fight and they join at lv24-

--Now, this one may be is just me but the game feels way too desesperate to be suikoden. Now, let me explain, we all expected it to be suikoden, thats what we wanted, but this game feels like its on a hurry of being suikoden to the point it goes in detriment of the story.

Like you fought ONE battle, one, and you weren''t even on charge, you get a castle and everyone and their mother talks about your army, the resistance, and the war.
What resistance? what army? You didn't fight a single battle as "the resistance" you didn't even complete a single mission, drove away any attack or take any objective or achieve anything. All you did is scorting a magical tree back to its village and have a fight with some villains in a secluded ruins.

The problem to me its not aiming to be that, it being suikoden is what I wanted, my problem is inside the game they rushed to give you that rather than natually reaching that.

-Battle tricks may feel a bit too random sometimes, nothing steady you can rely on

The HORRIBLE
---Technical isssues, like what the focking hell, may be its just the ps5, but this game has some unbearable issues. Like when character shout the bubble moves for like half minute before settling, there is no way thats intended.
And the game seems to freeze for several seconds every time there is a "cutscene". Like after beating the first golem boss or in the duel on the bridge.

--Translation, may be this is only the spanish version, but oh god, is not about being accurate with the japanese lines, its beyond that, sometimes the lines don't even make sense.

[Vextor]

Like you fought ONE battle, one, and you weren''t even on charge, you get a castle and everyone and their mother talks about your army, the resistance, and the war.
What resistance? what army? You didn't fight a single battle as "the resistance" you didn't even complete a single mission, drove away any attack or take any objective or achieve anything. All you did is scorting a magical tree back to its village and have a fight with some villains in a secluded ruins.

This is an interesting point and makes me think.
In Suikoden 2, it really took a while before we got our HQ, and it was basically hell until we got there (of even after we got it).
We're almost slaughtered by our own military in the Unicorn Brigade camp, then in the Mercenary Fortress we are under intense pressure to barely survive, and even then we lose everything "again" and escape to Muse... only to lose everything again and escape with our lives to Southwindow, where we are again faced with the Highland Army... and by the time we are literally pushed against a cliff at Northwindow castle, the tide turns. That type of build-up certainly brings an amazing emotional rush because the story-telling in Suikoden 2 made you suffer so much.

It is definitely a difference in Eiyuden, and partly it may be possible to explain as a scheme by Perrielle to make sure she is not made into the leader, but even in that case it would have been nice to make us work a bit more before leadership fell onto our laps.

However, overall I am enjoying the game very much and haven't been able to get myself off of it for a few days. It is an amazing experience.