(Spoiler Warning)
Waktunya review berhubung sudah tamat. Enggak sampai 100%, cuma lengkapin 120 karakter doang. Makan waktu hampir 80 jam.
(Disclaimer: Tulisan ini pendapat pribadi. Mungkin bakal nyebut Suikoden because of obvious reasons. Meski cuma pernah namatin Suikoden 1-2 beberapa kali, yang 3 nyentuh doang dan baca komiknya.)

Apa ini betulan bisa disebut spiritual successor Suikoden?
Ya, bisa dianggap begitu.
Apa plek ketiplek sama Suikoden?
Karena (mendiang) orang yang bikin sama, gak heran kalau ada kesamaan. Toh tujuannya memang begitu juga. Cuma jawabannya antara ya dan enggak.
Diperhatikan sekilas ada ambil unsur dari Suikoden 1-2-3.

Pertama soal visual.
Wah, gak ada protes sih ini. Bagus banget. Sprite 2D rasa Suikoden 2 dipadu lingkungan 3D enak banget lihatnya.
Audio.
Ada beberapa komposer, salah satunya Motoi Sakuraba. Biasa tahunya dari seri Tales, tapi di sini agak beda. Oke, sih.
Oiya, dikasih full voice membantu banget bikin karakternya lebih hidup.

Cerita.
Meski hubungan antarkarakternya lumayan, tapi perkembangan cerita di awal sampai punya kastel sendiri terasa kurang ngena. Kalau saya bilang sih MC Nowa ini kayak enggak ada dorongan yang mengharuskan dia menjadi pemimpin pemberontakan. Ada satu pas kampung halamannya dibakar, tapi ini kurang bisa jadi dorongan karena orang-orangnya pada selamat. Pas balik lagi ke kampung, rumah-rumahnya masih berdiri, gak rata dengan tanah, orang-orangnya pun masih hidup di situ. Janji sama Perrielle pun gak bisa dibilang jadi dorongan kuat, karena di sini pun dia masih hidup sampai bisa direkrut entar. Beda cerita kalau dia ♥♥♥♥ di sini, dengan begitu, bisa jadi dorongan kuat (hehe).
Dibandingkan dengan Suikoden (khususnya 2), itu banyak banget kejadian-kejadian yang jadi dorongan kuat bagi MC supaya jadi pemimpin aliansi pemberontakan. Eiyuden jadi jadi terlihat "jinak" banget. Dibandingin sama Seign dan Marisa pun, ini berdua punya dorongan lebih kuat ketimbang Nowa.
Namun, cerita setelah dapat kastel saya pikir makin lama makin bagus. Di beberapa bagian kayak, "Kok yang ini kurang lama ya," meski play time sudah belasan-puluhan jam (wkwk). Di sini musuhnya fokus ke satu orang sampai akhir, si Adipati Aldric doang, jadi musuh bersama. Bukan hal buruk, justru oke ada musuh bersama sampai akhir. Itu 1-on-1 tiga kali di akhir keren.
Balik ke soal dorongan Nowa. Malah adanya pas mau terakhir setelah menang perang lawan Aldric, sebelum serbu kastel. Perrielle ♥♥♥♥ ngelindungin Nowa. Malah di sini njir, sebelum dungeon terakhir. Itu pun kasusny kalau belum ngumpulin 119 karakter. Kalau sudah ngumpulin 119, karakter ke 120 bakal muncul ngelindungin Perrielle, dan gak ♥♥♥♥.

Gameplay.
Tentu saja, basisnya diambil dari Suikoden (khususnya 1-2). Gelut enam orang bisa magic/rune dan unite/combo. Ada beberapa tambahan seperti karakter support dan gimmick. Juga ada SP dan MP, serta jenis serangan.
Cuma ini di awal-awal kerasa gak balance. Butuh SP untuk skill dan hero combo itu gak enak TBH. Apalagi syarat hero combo kudu sama-sama keisi, terus pas dipakai, DMG-nya gak ada rasanya. Malah lebih cuan ATK masing-masing. Untuk MP, kerasa mahal karena potion MP mitos. Refresh point juga mitos, harus balik ke penginapan kalau mau ngisi HP/MP. Beneran di awal-awal itu gak enak banget. Kena DMG sampai 100, heal cuma 40-an, kocak.
Idealnya, kalau kasusnya begini, tiap sumber daya ya harus untuk masing-masing command. SP untuk skill doang, MP untuk rune doang, hero combo harusnya terpisah (atau gak pakai SP, jadi kalau DMG gak seberapa, gak bakal protes). Misalnya, kalau pakai hero combo ada drawback-nya gitu. Itu baru resource/sumber daya buat gelut, belum lagi angka stats yang agak gimana gitu di awal.
Bisa jadi karena sistem strong-weakness juga. Selain elemen, ada slash-thrust-blunt-grapple-aerial. Tapi gak ada dikasih tahu sebelum kita ngalain musuh dan sebelum punya perpustakaan.
Baru kerasa lebih enak ketika di pertengahan dan akhir. Ya karena baru pahamnya di sini.

Sistem & QoL.
Mayoritas jadul persis Suikoden 1-2 memang karena basisnya dari situ.
Mungkin bagian paling bikin santai bagi saya fitur auto, dan ini bisa diatur sebagaimana rupa di menu Battle Plan. Lalu QoL paling bikin terima kasih adalah karakter peramal yang bisa ngasih tahu hint di mana karakter yang bisa direkrut. Berkat ini bisa lengkap 120 karakter meski blind run. Ada menu Story, ada sedikit rangkuman dan petunjuk harus gimana/ke mana, cukup membantu. Nunjukin siapa jalan kapan tiap gelut juga membantu.
Sebelum ada yang bilang, "Ada skip gak?" jawabannya ada. Memang gak tampak, tapi pencet dan tahan B/lingkaran di kontroler.
Ada yang gak enak juga tiap kali buka menu. Buka menu itu gak bisa pilih langsung menu apa, harus satu-satu, mau geser pun ada delay-nya. Anjim bet, lama. Gak wuss-wuss.
Contoh lain, tiap tempa senjata itu harus satu-satu juga, gak bisa skip skip level. Ini gak perlu kayak Suikoden yang satu-satu. Capek.

Markas & Mini games.
-Perang. Cukup asyik, hanya saja, ini juga lama. Perlu ada fitur fast-forward. Tapi mungkin ini juga alasan kenapa mini game ini jarang banget di main story. Bisa dihitung pakai jari berapa kali.
-Naikin level markas di sini gak otomatis naik kalau rekrut tiap beberapa karakter. Naikin level manual, begitu juga fasilitas-fasilitasnya. Markas dan kamar bisa dihias juga setelah dapat karakter yang bikin dekorasi. Butuh kolektibel kayak kayu, batu, hasil tambang, dll.
-Masak. Persis banget sama Suikoden 2 (wkwk). Pencet tombol A/X bukan lagi teori, di sini beneran membantu. Cuma di sini skornya rigged, gak balance.
-Balapan. Asal dapat binatang bagus yang statnya dinaikin terus, pasti menang.
-Mancing. Sederhana sesuai namanya.
-Beigoma. Ini mah beyblade. Susahnya di awal pas nyari drop beigoma. ♥♥♥♥ mah. Baru enak pas udah dapat equipment nambah drop rate dan rekrut Dr. Corque.
-Kartu. Cukup seru dan menantang. Sudah jelas ada momen brewek kartu. Aturannya gak susah, lawannya yang susah, Hildi awikwok.
-Duel satu lawan satu. Keren banget. Visual top-notch. Cuma gak kerasa batu-gunting-kertas kayak di Suikoden. Asal level mencukupi/gede, atk atk atk doang menang sendiri (lol).
-Teater. Terbaik. Nonton drama panggung dengan peran yang bisa kita atur sendiri. Seiyuu-nya rekam semua peran di semua skenario. Alasan delay setahun.

Karakter.
Banyak sekali yang likeable. Benar-benar hidup punya kisah sendiri. Saya suka banget ini karakter yang direkrut random sama ternyata jadi penting di main story, atau setidaknya di cerita selama dijalani. Misal Carrie, secara cerita kan dia random banget nongol di Hishahn, tapi justru hampir selalu ikut tiap rapat karena dia orang penting untuk transportasi... pakai teleport. Atau Milana, yang tiba-tiba dateng di ruko, ternyata punya interaksi bagus sama Markus kalau ikut dibawa.
Semuanya punya satu-dua line voiced di main story. Jadi punya rasa keikutsertaan.
Shipping. Enggak terlalu ditampakin sih, tapi ada yang jelas dari dialognya. Kayak Yaelu punya rasa ke Seign, soalnya punya event ngobrol malam, seperti Suikoden. Ada juga yang eksplisit dikasih tahu cinta segitiga antara Alwe, Lilwn, dan Lakian. Kurtz (chef) sama istrinya drama banget (lol). Cuma satu yang menurut saya harus ditambahin lebih, Nowa sama Perrielle. Nanggung banget ♥♥♥♥♥. Bisa balik lagi ke masalah dorongan padahal.
Lalu, minusnya di karakter ini justru tiga MC-nya ini kayak kurang ada hubungan bertiga. Sering kali misah. Kalah jauh sama tiga karakter Eiyuden Chronicle Rising, yang mana chemistry-nya bagus bet, dari kerja sama sampai cekcok konflik. Bahkan bagusnya CJ-Isha-Garoo kebawa sampai main game-nya. Cuma bentar, tapi saya bisa bilang ngalahin Nowa-Seign-Marisa.


Kesimpulan.
Secara pribadi, memuaskan meskipun cerita di awal kerasa lemah. Seiiring berjalannya cerita ada momen-momen bagus yang bikin ngena. Bagi saya sendiri, worth nunggu empat tahun, toh banyak juga yang masih bisa dimainin.
Entah ngomentarin apa lagi. Kalau gak ada, berarti lupa ditulis.

sebagai fans suikoden aku sangat senang dengan game ini!
sejauh ini paling puas sama music & art design gamenya, it's really beautiful!~

meskipun masih ada beberapa hal yang kurang, semoga bisa di improve di series selanjutnya :)

let's go eiyuden 2~

K*nami made a big mistake by abandoning the Suikoden series.

One of my favorite JRPGs is Suikoden 2. This review is me comparing it to that.

This is a game that feels like it was made during that era of JRPGs. It ticks all the boxes. Tedious random encounters, not being able to save anywhere, archaic minimal hint based objectives.

I played through multiple 60+ hour jrpgs (FF7R2, Unicorn Overlord) this year and this is by far my favorite out of all of them.

Compared to Suikoden 2 though, the game Eiyuden is heavily based on.
This game just can't hold a candle to the PS1 classic.

The story feels like they played it safe, It's more heroic than S2's Dark Grim Crisis-filled story, While there's nothing wrong with something more lighthearted. I really wanted something that made me feel the same way as Luca Blight did in S2. This doesn't make the story bad though, just more predictable and cliche.

The character recruitments are one of the strongest points of Eiyuden. Suikoden 2 also has all the mundane very forgettable recruitments but I think that's just part of the charm. There's always a character for someone in this game.

The combat is awesome. A lot of people say the enemies are very spongy but if you experiment with some characters some of them turn out to be insanely good, to the point where some of them can 3-4 turn bosses by themselves. So ofcourse people are gonna struggle if they keep using the character that shines later and hits for 85 per attack instead of the character that comes out of the box doing 300 per turn. So I made sure to experiment with character combinations and that made the game much more deep for me, despite it being really simple.

Overall, If Suikoden 2 is a 10/10 for me. This game is an 8. I highly recommend it. There's nothing like this right now and with S2 Remaster in the horizon. There's no better time to enjoy this love letter to the franchise.

RIP Yoshitaka Muruyama, And thanks R&B, 505 games for this fun and amazing game.

Suksesor suikoden

This game really evokes nostalgia. I'm a fan of Suikoden and have played Suikoden 1 through 5, Suikoden Tactics, and Suikoden: The Woven Web of a Century. Overall, this is the best game of the year.

I have been reading a lot of comments about players outright hating the English translation of the game and because of that, i decided to play in my native language (Spanish) and its a completely different story.
Getting that out of the way, this game is amazing, it looks beautiful, sounds really good, there are a few songs that are repeated a lot, specially in towns but that's ok.

The combat is fun, specially boss fights, which all have different ways to be approached to be beaten.
Theres a lot of characters so of course not all of them are gonna be balanced but i feel that that's ok, i wouldn't expect an army in real life to have people of the same skill in their troops. Its also worth remembering that this game was made by the creator of Suikoden and that game had unbalanced character and we loved them.

Overall, this a Suikoden game through and through and if you love Suikoden, you are gonna love this game just as much as i do, however if you can read in another language i definitely suggest playing this game in the language of your preference. The Spanish version so far has being respectful of the story and characters, status changes, attacks and such.

8/10 awesome Suikoden successor

As a hardcore Suikoden fan, this is an easy thumbs up. It's absolutely nowhere near the high point of the old series, but it's perfectly serviceable and hits the right spots for nostalgia to kick in.

But there's been very few points where I'd recommend it to anyone else. It's lows are REALLY bad and it's highs are just pretty good.

The plot is generic Suikoden. Evil empire, encouraged to start a resistance army, face off against your friend on the battlefield... y'know... the usual. I actually enjoyed most of the characters and the plot.

The dungeon design ranges from mediocre to absolutely dreadful. Mostly, it's a linear path with branches for chests. Mostly, it's more forgettable than bad but the low spots were hard-to-see hidden paths, long stretches of boring nothings, and doors locking behind you preventing you from resupplying...

Because this game LOVES to lock the metaphorical door behind you.. and I repeatedly found myself unable to switch party, buy supplies, free-roam, etc until I beat the rock wall that is the next boss/several bosses. After a few soft-lock risks, I found myself afraid to move forward until I was over-leveled and overstocked. This severely hurt the experience.

The combat system is deeper than it looks at first glance, and more importantly deeper than the useless tutorials teach you. It has a massive focus on initiative timing, multiple MECHANICALLY different damage types, unique defenses/dodges per characters, load of options, etc. There is alot here to love here... BUT...

Balance is non-existent. Some characters are amazing, some are useless, most hero combos are inferior to basic attacks, and I've found magic to be entirely worthless. One of the first bosses in the game took me 45 minutes due to an insane life pool, yet nothing has come close to that since. It's been a roller coaster of difficulty spikes. It NEEDS some balance patches.

This leads to the best/worst part of the game... bosses. Nearly every boss has a gimmick. Sometimes it's a literally battle "gimmick" such as having a random chance to hit the boss with a powerful attack or avoiding powerful attacks by hiding. Sometimes it's a non-labeled "gimmick" such as the boss countering certain attacks or having an ultra-attack every X activation. Learn the gimmick and you'll win the fight.

The problem is that too many gimmick fights make me feel like I'm exploiting the mechanics more than playing the game. Guess what... having the characters in the front blocking to avoid triggering the combo just isn't fun... neither is a party-wipe sleep spell before you can buy defenses for it.

This is made worse by many specific battle mechanics that end up feeling more tedious than challenging. Whether its enemies with "Intelligent targeting" that will all target one single hero repeatedly or being unable to revive since enemies will 100% of the time target a revived hero before they can heal... I found myself abusing the systems rather than playing the game. (For example, stocking up on revives to guarantee a wasted enemy action each turn)

Recruiting is fairer than the past games and easier to find heroes. On the other hand it's now a series of fetch quests which has lead to me spending hours grinding for rare drops for each of the different characters. I can understand if it's one or two characters.... but I've had to catch the rare fish, find multiple rare artifacts, find the rare lumbers/irons/bones, etc. It's reaching a point where things are just tedious. (I've probably spent 4 hours of my game so far trying to recruit 3 specific heroes due to trash my RNG)

All of my complaints are made worse by bugs in the recruiting, random battle rates, balance jank and potentially other hidden stuff. I've had a few crashes, I've had a few areas where things seemed to get locked, etc.

I do feel that this review is far too negative compared to my actual feelings... but these are the emotions that are standing out. I do like this game alot and that's why I'm giving it a thumbs up even now. But they still have work to do to make this anything close to a great game. (And I do have faith that they'll put in that work)

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (2024) represents a Japanese role-playing game (JRPG), developed by the company Rabbit and Bear Studios and published by the company 505 Games.

Pros & cons:

++ Meet the members of my dream team, straight from the mental asylum. Mighty Mellore, a delusional sorceress in a sailor moon costume with late-stage OCD for justice one liners. Youngling Yusuke, the misunderstood gangster with his hands glued to his pants and the tendency to kick his enemies into a bloody pulp. Fierce Franscesca, a stereotypical tsundere character with a split personality. And yes, I can fix her! Crazy Carrie, the petite blond who is one teleportation away from summoning a demonic creature from the immaterium or falling victim to the infamous turning-the-inside-out incident. Muscle mage Maureus, a beefcake with a severe concussion trauma believing muscle points (MP) are the most crucial metric for determining how much magical power a caster can draw from. Punisher Prunella, the last survivor of a dwarven commando unit likes to clean her massive bazooka, that I call Fatman, at the campfire while telling stories about past war crimes.

+ You will be buried under an avalanche of 71 playable characters, who you can assemble into a team of six to fight a power-hungry empire that threatens to annex your worthless fishing village. But you will abandon your main quest soon enough, because of the countless distractions in form of customizing your castle, cooking, fishing, playing cards, spinning tops, and starting a breeding program for pseudo-chocobos. And for the ambitious among us, enter a neverending dungeon with overpowered mobs to reach your final form. Then steamroll the rest of the campaign.

o The supposed challenge of the cooking mini-game confuses me. I simply served the unwashed masses fried eggs, omelets and apple cider soda every time, and effortlessly rose to the status of culinary godhood.

- Some scripted sequences have a massive delay before they continue, e.g. the first duel on the bridge, or the song with the shi’arc. It required the patience of a saint to sit through those lags.

-- Dear developers, where is my option to double or even triple the speed during combat sections? Just look at The Last Remnant (2009) for such a quality-of-life feature. Heresy, I hear you scream as you try to suppress your tears and clutch your little game codex. But, to quote my arch-enemy and grand illusionist Todd Howard: it just works.

Summary:

To roam the realm of Allraan with the farmer-turned-warlord-protagonist Nowa and my bizarre team of MIN/MAX characters, provoking encounters and hoarding ridiculous amounts of money and resources for the end game weaponry of mutually agreed mass destruction, constitutes my only purpose in this game.

Recommended for JRPG freaks eager to refill their nostalgia meter.

Achievements:

Estimated time for 100% completion: +150 hours

Singleplayer achievements: 56
Multiplayer achievements: none

Worth the $50 for 66 hours so far. If you like classic JRPG's and enjoy a classic kinda figure it out yourself character collecting game with some grind, this is the right game for you. If you want something deeper and more personal with a detailed lore/history and in-depth tutorials, its probably not the game for you.

Is it a perfect game? No. Is it enjoyable? Heck yes. Does it remind me of the Suikoden series? Heck yeah!!!! Is a carbon copy? No. Did the devs make mistakes? You bet. Do I regret my purchase/support? No.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes has its pros and cons like every other game. Below, I will review some pros and cons and some comparisons with the Suikoden series.

Story/Characters:
Pros
-Very similar Suikoden vibes.
-I like the diverse cast of characters in terms of how they look and different races/tribes of people. Thats always been something the Suikoden game excelled at so it was reminiscent of it. And yes there is a LGBT+ character in this game and its not that deep.
-The story makes subtle references to other places that you do not see at the end of the game. Such as a University known for education and its observatory. Even some characters are from this university or has been there in this game. This was similar to Suikoden I and II where they referenced other places and then introduced them later in the series.
-There are lots of heroes to collect and I believe there's about 120 characters.
-There are lots of minigames to play. My favorite is probably the card game. There is a beyblade-esque game too.
-Has a killer/catchy theme song that is mostly in Japanese but then goes "hundred heroes" which was awesome.
-They definitely acknowledged the backers that helped make this game and I thought it was cute seeing people on reddit say they found themselves in-game.
Cons:
-The story could have been written and told better. Everything was there for a reason. They did not focus on building the characters relationships with one another. Lets just say even the game itself had some scenes where you see a black screen and it just says 6 months later...a few weeks later...etc.
-They tried to copy the bond/rivalry of Suikoden II between Riou and Jowy but failed with Nowa and Seign. This made their duel anticlimatic because they knew each other for a day before war split them which as a reader/gamer, you did not feel the emotions they were suppose to feel.
-Localization could have improved but I understood what was going on just fine. The dialogue from certain characters was questionable. I found a lot of very annoying characters, mostly hyperactive/loud/obnoxious female characters but I think that's a JRPG trying to make them cute thing which I personally don't like.
-They skip over a lot of important lore or things that could have expanded the world. I'm not sure if this is due to them wanting to expand it later, but they missed a big opportunity here and this is probably why a lot of negative reviews says it feels rushed. They focused on the storyline and that was it.
-There are parts in the game where they just tell you to literally go find characters to recruit which doesn't flow well and seems forced.
-They released the game with a bug that caused you to be unable to recruit a character but they fixed it within the week of its release.

Battle/Turn-based Gameplay
Pros: They improved on the rune system in my opinion. Adding rune slots beyond the 3 from Suikoden's head/left/right arm was such a great improvement. This provided an opportunity to make some characters fit what you want them to do while still giving characters some uniqueness with exclusive runes and restrictions.
-Most characters will have at least one level 3 magic rune and a few stat enhancement or skill runes. Some even have an anything you want rune slot. One special character even has all of their runes at level 4 as anything you want.
-Removing rune charges for MP was also the best thing they could have done and having MP restore items and rune shards. This allowed you to kinda tinker characters stats and in this case you can adjust their MP should you want.
-The auto battle system works well for lazy people if you know how to set it up properly and pay attention to your characters speed/sp/mana management.
-Characters will learn and open up new rune slots as they level up. Some exclusive runes are learned this way instead of being found which Suikoden didn't offer and locked behind rune charges.
Cons:
-The instructions on battles can be confusing but once you know the basic, its actually quite fun.
-A lot of people will struggle with how SP is generated and the game does a poor job of explaining it. Basically SP is randomly generated based on the luck stat. Not all character will use SP or have the ability to do so. If you have high luck, you have more chance of gaining 1 or multiple SP after each round.
-Stats of some characters can be very random and unappealing such as a mage that has higher strength than a warrior or a mage with less MP than a warrior. The consistency seems a bit random and I'm not sure who worked on these numbers. Personally, it didn't get in the way of the overall enjoyment.
-They removed the dojo's/skill enhancer/grades which I really loved in Suikoden III/V. This means that many characters can hit multiple attack counts, but it doesn't seem to make any difference in terms of hit counts/overall damage. In fact, multiple hit counts are pointless and does not offer any incentive.
-The hero combos cost too many SP from each character and the damage is not worth the turn or SP cost.
-There are no range physical skills that are good which makes rangers inferior. Its a mage/warrior kind of game. There's like 3 useful tanks, but tanking and covering is all rng and luck based.

Dueling
Pros: The cutscenes during the duels throughout the games are pretty cool and fun to watch.
Cons: The combat itself is not enjoyable because it forces you to select certain options to continue with the animation so you can't just attack them to the end or use your special whenever. In previous Suikoden games you could do whatever you want and it made a big difference.

Warfare/Strategic Battles
Pros: You see (what I believe to be) random backers and their names being killed in battle lol. Besides that there aren't really any pros.
Cons: I found the war battles so boring and useless. You can't really edit your team. You select and move them and have little to no control otherwise besides some 1 use skill that can't be improved upon. Your characters stats doesn't matter so you can't just obliterate everything and can still die from something stupid. I'm not sure how this is calculated but this is the worse part of the game. I wish they stuck to Suikoden III and how you can still influence the map yet still choose what you want to do.

So yes, I wrote a lot, but I also enjoyed the game for what it is. Did it exceed my expectations? No. Was I happy with my purchase? Yes. Because I supported a game and it delivered a game that brought joy and memories. Can it improve? Absolutely. I hope people give it the chance to because there is so much to this game and I hope the dev's will listen and improve on these things.