This feels like Suikoden 3 done right

[The A**kins Diet]

Most of the time this game feels like 1 and 2, clearly that's what they were going for.

On occasion I'll see camera transitions that remind me of 3. Like that checkpoint castle wall gate area at the beginning you travel through. Nowa's hometown layout and the camera leading into it reminded me a lot of Hugo's village in 3.

Then there's having a non silent protagonist and later on *spoiler* multiple povs. I still haven't finished the game, but the first time we get a glimpse of it is when the game switches to Marissa. This signaled to me that we were getting other POVs. Suikoden 1 and 2 never did this.

3 did it all day long and I really didn't like that game. I didn't like the shift in graphical style. The janky looking camera. Areas that were too big and took too long to run through. Being forced to run through them again and again in linear order. Battle system being weird with pairs. I didn't like having to pick each chapter and how they overlapped and you had to replay the same day again. All of it made the story crawl.

I see Eiyuden executing some of these same ideas, but it's doing it without ripping me out of the game or even slowing it down much. *More spoilers* It just transitions to these other POVs, or later with Seign, they leave it up to you to branch out to his story, but it never rips you out of the game like the Fire Champion level select screen did. Or chaptering it, which I really like.

[Raelic]

Suikoden 3 was done right.

I know many people don't like it... or at least they didn't until people started pushing back on their opinions... but I liked it always.

It did take some adjusting to move into three characters from one main "Chosen One" hero, but I liked the overlap. I liked the forethought.

Nowa feels just slightly less silent, but still almost as silent as the three protagonists in 3.

The camera was janky.

The zones were repetitive.

I'm not saying it was perfect, but it was hardly terrible. So acting like it needs to be attacked just feels unnecessary.

The major battles in 3 are a lot better than this one.

[The_Box]

Originally posted by Raelic:

Suikoden 3 was done right.

I know many people don't like it... or at least they didn't until people started pushing back on their opinions... but I liked it always.

It did take some adjusting to move into three characters from one main "Chosen One" hero, but I liked the overlap. I liked the forethought.

Nowa feels just slightly less silent, but still almost as silent as the three protagonists in 3.

The camera was janky.

The zones were repetitive.

I'm not saying it was perfect, but it was hardly terrible. So acting like it needs to be attacked just feels unnecessary.

The major battles in 3 are a lot better than this one.

I always preferred the first two over the third, but that's probably just my bias as somebody coming from the NES and SNES era of JRPG's. The changeover from 2d to 3d was a messy affair.

That said, yeah, it certainly wasn't bad. Like every game, it had strengths and weaknesses.

[CLG]

The only bad things about Suikoden 3 was the back tracking and odd audio design. You would get a lot of conversations with people just standing around with no music playing and it was just odd pacing. The games story is really good for long time fans of the series but i would still rate the game the worst in the mainline series. Yes, I enjoy 4 more than 3 simply because it has more highs in the story along with better music.

Also I would not say Eiyuden comes anywhere near any Suikoden game unfortunately. It emulates a lot of the systems that Suikoden is known for but the series misses on pretty much all of them. The characters and story are just so disjointed and pacing is absolutely terrible that it makes it hard to believe that this was from the original Suikoden devs. The overall game still feels rushed and the story suffered from it.

[Kil0]

Same! When asked what its like i say "Its what you imagined the next game was going to be when you finished Suikoden 2"

[Roundabout]

Hoping for a remaster 3 and the rest of the Sulkiden games. Sulkiden 1 & 2 remaster was supposed to be out by now.

[Do It For Hargon]

majority of my friends say it feels mostly like ii. i havent played ii (yet) and think it feels like i or v. regardless which, the undeniable fact is that at least eiyuden is VERY suikoden-y. lol i prefer eiyuden to suikoden, though. i love all the suikodens ive played, especially v which is my fav~

[Obi WanX Konami]

Reminds me of Sulkiden 1 which to me i feel was better than 2

[tonberry]

Suikoden 3 as it should have been. Not perfect but a good one.

[Vex]

Suikoden III had many, many problems, but pushing for innovation was not one of them.

Eiyuden does address quite a lot of those problems rather well.

In Suikoden III, the Chapter System was built in a way that you were repeating events over and over with the same character. This became tedious as the same story was revisited again and again, just from a slightly different perspective that added nothing of substance. The destruction of the Karaya Village was a tragedy the first time. The second time, I can't say I felt the same emotional investment. By the third time, I was just annoyed.

Another issue was how characters recruited by a specific character could only be used by that character. I don't think the number of characters one could recruit by different protagonists overlapped too badly, but it was still quite annoying.

Suikoden III's story was also a hot mess in terms of pacing.

As mentioned before, the three character approach with chapters meant repeating many stories over and over. So, you played a total of 9 (11 counting Thomas) chapters before you got to the point where you get your True Rune, Castle, and to the plot moving forward via a single experience. By then, however, there were only two chapters left in the game, so it all but sprinted to the finish line.

It's the equivalent of getting the castle after the events in Athrabalt. There just wasn't much story left in Suikoden III once you hit that pivotal point. In this, Eiyuden also feels a bit like it sprinted towards it's end.

I think where Suikoden III really suffered for me personally (aside from the story), was the combat system. Skills were an interesting addition to the game, but desperately needed tuning and polishing (Suikoden V perfected the system in my opinion). It was also very weird how they doubled up party members. If I recall correctly, if you wanted to use more than three runes, too bad: if one character used a rune, the other couldn't. That's to say nothing about how bad it felt that Suikoden III didn't allow for Rune Magic combinations as the first two games did, DESPITE being the game featuring the elemental True Runes.

There were other, small things that grated on me, such as chests being gone except as rewards from bosses. The use of a map in place of an over world didn't feel all that great either.

That said, the spell effects were impressive, and being able to ride a mount outside of combat was nice, although it'd have been nice to be able to do so freely rather than only for missions. Like I said, Suikoden III gambled hard on innovation, and that was it's strength and it's weakness.

Personally, I rate Suikoden III above Suikoden IV in every list I make, because nothing is as bad as IV. I still feel the original was better than three just because it didn't mess up the gameplay and story so bad. The original's gameplay and story may have been bare bones, but it felt good and well paced. The same I can't say for III.

All that having been said, people can absolutely enjoy Suikoden III to their heart's content and even think it's a better game than I, V, or even II if they want. I disagree with that assessment for the reasons I listed, but to each their own.

[KingUrameshi]

I got that impression as well.

[SimranZenov]

3 was definitely the worst of the series...