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.