Going to review this as someone who has never played the Suikoden series. I saw their Kickstarter campaign and waited years to play this.

It is most definitely a love letter to JRPG fans. The tropes, the characters, the grind. If you're an avid fan of classic JRPGs, you'll feel right at home and the typical pain points for most people such as a one dimensional story of good versus evil won't really bother you.

Things I liked:

- Coming from Octopath Traveler, I really loved how they combined the 2D sprites with 3D elements. I'm not saying it's out of this world, but what I am saying I found myself admiring the scenery and combat sequences a lot, especially during the duels.

- Classic JRPG music and motifs. I found myself dozing off in Hishahn (Eiyuden's Japanese themed city) because of the visuals and music.

- There are so many side activities and easter eggs. The card game was surprisingly fun with its own booster packs for you to collect cards. Anyone who has listened to Yu-Gi-Oh! in Japanese will love the voice acting. The beigona (their version of Beyblade) was interesting, but outside of the obvious anime references, it fell a little short for me. Of course there's a racing mini-game here and while the gimmick is fun, I can't really say I enjoyed it because I lagged badly. I love games that allow you build a base camp or town that grows over time as the story develops and you can do that here, too! There's even a little shokugeki action.

- Combat is ENJOYABLE and there is a lot of depth. With 120 recruitable characters and different battle mechanics, you can really customize your dream team. With the attendant feature, you don't even have to keep the main character in the main party. There's also army combat, which is basically a chessboard auto-battler. It was enjoyable, but I think it'll turn off a lot of players.

Things I disliked:

- With so many recruitable characters, gear management is atrocious. No way to sort through them easily. Leveling their weapons to max is painful, but I guess I shoulda been doing it as I played.

- The lens and runes system really felt lackluster, imho. Some characters are limited by how many runes they can use and I would've the ability to expand that with an expensive or hard-to-get item. Also again with so many recruitable characters, the rune management system is ATROCIOUS, too.

- Maybe I missed it, maybe it's not there, but I expected there to be secret bosses or hidden items because it's a love letter to JRPG fans. There were a couple, but not enough to warrant exploration.

- You have 120 recruitable characters. You have 6 in the main party, 1 for support, and 3 for attendants. After you upgrade everything, you can send a max of 3 teams of 5 to go gather materials. Why are there not more options for idle characters to participate? Surely, they can go fish? Do guard duty? Maybe station them at certain stations for bonuses or discounts? Just seems like a giant waste.

I don't know if it's a $50 tag to be honest, but it offers enough of a novelty experience that I enjoyed it and don't regret it buying it. I feel like with how many things this game can do, the modding scene could have a payday with it.

Your defense stats for the rear characters does not mater in boss fights.

The game of 2024 Year!

After playing Unicorn Overlord, Triangle Strategy and multiple Fire Emblems, I was looking for something similar with Eiyuden.

The game has a few turn offs:
- The vibes/characters feel very quirky/goofy, like something from Toriyama (Dragon Ball). Might be up your alley if you like that, but I'd rather have a dramatic story front and center.
- Locations feel empty, just kinda big gamey Persona style corridors and big rectangles. I got almost nothing from exploring the overworld map or the first towns
- Random encounters. They are such an outdated concept. They make me feel punished for exploring
- In the first dungeon they give you 5 people who basically spam attack and a healer who's out of mana after one group heal with no items to restore MP
- 6 unit party combat right from the start got old fast. Like I said, you basically spam attack with all of them and input commands give a slight delay on the UI, so it feels muddy. I was already looking for an option to skip animations, but there is none.

Starting up the game feels like I'm in for a chore right now. I'd honestly give it back if I could, maybe I'll give it another chance after trying out Metaphor.

El inicio de una posible saga que llegue a la altura de Suikoden?.
La primera piedra esta puesta, si liman los errores lo tienen.

Historia típica con semejanzas a suikoden 2, pero que si entramos en detalle hace un poco agua y se desinfla en el ultimo cuarto de historia. Aun así tiene algún detalle disfrutable en la trama.

El castillo es muy divertido ver como va mejorando con el sistema de creación de edificios(reclutando y con materiales), el 1 vs 1 mejor que en la saga suikoden (con animaciones muy interesantes), muchos minijuegos (se excedieron con el de los yoyos y el culinario...) y un largo etc.

Gran BSO, y muy bello con ese rollo 2D que se echa de menos.

Confío que si siguen la saga mejoraran todo lo que chirría tanto a mecánicas (como dije minijuegos aburridos, mejor equilibrio de personajes, y las "runas" o "lentes" mejor utilidad) y hagan un juego de sobresaliente.

Compra obligada si eres fan de Suikoden y los jrpg

Great fun game worth every hour i played.