The beta version is out

[Vextor]

I started playing the beta version in steam.
Due to a request from Rabbit & Bear to make sure nothing is spoiled to non-backers, I can't say much.

However, I have already spotted a few "easter eggs" that would only be recognizable by fans of Suikoden.
I am just grinning as I play this game (but I am only about an hour into it)

[Vextor]

I have finished playing the beta version -- I think it only covers around 10%-15% if the total game?
Using Suikoden 2 as a comparison, I feel the beta version stops just around when you arrive at Muse for the first time.

Some things I have seen:
1) Characters can have up to 7 rune slots.
2) Freely recruitable characters in the beta version -- I think only 3, but they are all awesome. So far it seems they put a lot of focus on giving each character some... character. Suikoden 1 and 2 had a handful who had very little development, but so far in Eiyuden Chronicles each recruiting event was fairly well written.
3) I played the Japanese version so I cannot say much about the English version, but the voice acting is superb and they have some big names for sure.
4) Unfortunately you don't have small interactive objects in cities / towns such as what we saw in Suikoden 2 (where you can basically inspect any bookshelf, barrel, shelf, etc and get some text explaining what it is). I was hoping this would return, but nope. I guess I had my hopes up too much considering this was a feature only in Suikoden 2).
5) The beta version already had some premium backer reward objects included, such as portraits, cat / dog names, NPCs with names that sound like they belong to someone in the USA, etc. Some of these look sort of "out of place" but I guess this is the nature of kickstarter games.
6) I played the game in "hard mode" (you get to select at the start of the game, and also can change back to "normal" any time... or you can disable resetting the difficulty), and it does make the game somewhat challenging, especially the early boss battles because you really don't have too many resources you can play with.
7) On difficulty, you can select only "normal" and "hard," but you can also set various other things to make the game more challenging, such as "No healing possible during battle" or "No money dropped by enemies" and others. This can be handy for people who like a challenge.
"Trade" is back, although there was only one trader accessible in the bata to fully utilize the feature.
9) The battles play closely to Suikoden 2. The great thing is the load is very fast. Encounter rate is fairly low which can be frustrating when you want to just mindlessly grind.
10) Auto attacks can be tailored in a separate menu at a party level or also at an individual level. This seems to be fairly sophisticated to the point of instructing characters to focus on a single enemy or things like "use area effect attacks when there are more than 3 enemies" etc.
11) Equipment slots are Head / Body / Shield / Accessory (only one accessory).
12) Items can be used directly from a general inventory during combat -- no need to equip them to the character nor is there any *individual level inventory for each character.
13) It seems the "party inventory" bag can be upgraded. In the beta there was a limit of 30 items which seemed a bit too small at times.
14) "Materials" can be collected in dungeons (such as "iron ore", "Boar Meat", "Flour", etc) which had no real function in the beta. Perhaps related to the HQ?
15) No HQ in the beta yet.
16) In battle you have 3 people in the front row, three in the back, and there are 4 slots for "support." (Nobody in "support" was recruitable in the beta).
17) Regular attacks have attributes, such as "slashing" "blunt weapon" "martial arts" "light element (this was for a magic based normal attack I guess)"
18) Doesn't seem to have a separate "skill" system, and instead skills are included in runes. It seems some runs slots are exclusively for "skill runes" (not totally sure yet about this). Some skill runes will get you additional skills as you gain levels. In combat there' s a separate skill point system which accumulates each turn (separate from MP).

That's all for now, but I feel the more I learn the more interesting the game seems to be from a mechanics perspective. Hopefully I can gain more insight through the beta version.

[Julian]

I only played the beta for about an hour and a half, probably stopping there.

I couldn't help but have a big smirk on my face the entire time.

I am so happy this happened, and it's so sad that Murayama is not around to see the fan response.

[KFCrispy]

The consensus on number of recruits available is 7 characters. English VA is very good!

With respect to the party, there's only 1 slot for a Support (there aren't any support characters, right?) and 3 "Attendants" who can only be story-required characters. You can't assign any optional characters as Attendants and can't swap Attendants into the active party except when using the Party Formation at "HQ".

I found a total of 3 unites in the game. 2 with the main character, and one that involves a late recruit.

Overall it was great!

Negative criticism

1. There's got to be a faster way to travel through a dungeon you have "completed." There's one story mission with an extremely long dungeon, and you can return to it to check out a non-dungeon area you didn't get to explore due to the mission ending and placing you back in HQ. Then from there, I returned to the dungeon and tried to use a Rune of Return (this game's escape talisman), which didn't work as it didn't bring me to the entrance that goes to the world map, just the entrance to the non-dungeon area!
2. Going to the menu is kind of slow. Maybe having a faster PC would improve the performance...
3. The "Escaped" animation that plays when fleeing or letting enemies go feels too long. I wish you could skip it.
4. The map is awkward to use. There's an area map that doesn't list the names of the locations, and a world map that does list them, but you're zoomed ALLLLL the way out. You can zoom in to look at your area, but I wish the area map was more useful.
5. Magic spell animations feel really underwhelming.

[Antimatzist]

I really liked it and it was definitely better than I feared it could be.

I also found KFCrispy in the game, which I found incredibly funny!

I'm slightly optimistic for the full game, but hope for some QoL additions and bug fixes. That mine dungeon was hell and I just hope later dungeons are a bit more manageable.

[Vextor]

Thanks KFC for the correction! Yes, it seems support is only 1 slot, and 3 slots are for additional folks you can bring along (most likely plot-required types).
I also found additional recruitables in the beta version -- how great that there's some level of challenge.

Finding KFC's restaurant in the first village was a shock for sure! Man you are legend!