Does more wrong than it does right. Subpar storytelling, bad minigames, and one of the shallowest combat systems I've seen in a modern RPG. Rare sparks of creativity and character design can't shine through because the writing won't allow for it.

I think the game is targeted at a younger audience (10-14) and may well appeal to that category.

Decent game. If you're like me and enjoy a good story with multiple characters, you'll have a good time.

Combat definitely needs more balance but it's not going to stop you from enjoying the game.

Note -- most recruitable characters don't have a lot of depth given that there's 100 of them to recruit.

I'd return this a 7 or 8 our or 10

Translation/localization is fine. It's not Persona 4 quality -- few games are -- but its better than a lot of other JRPGs. I was expecting a trainwreck, but I've come to the conclusion that the people yelling about it in the comments are weird chud gamers angry about political stuff in a game that unavoidably has to be about politics. The Suikoden series is about wars, refugees, various cultures and ideologies mixing -- like an entire subplot in Suikoden 2 revolves around Twin River's racist reaction to Winger refugees and how they're not inherently bad, but driven to criminality and ♥♥♥♥ due to living in poverty. I'm sure they would have called that "woke" twenty years ago.

The actual writing is better than the old Suikoden games, but the tone is definitely the same. There's occasional zany ♥♥♥♥ happening, but that also happened in the old games, just occasional adies into hijinks and goofball characters.

Some of the complaints feel disingenuous, almost like they're arguing for a more literal translation, but very literal translations are awful. Like the reason Persona 5's translation is noticeably worse than Persona 4's is because 5's is frequently way too literal instead of a proper localization, which often robs the characters of a voice or makes everything feel very dry. Or think of Legend of Dragoon: cool game, technically a good story, but the writing is stilted and lifeless because its a slavishly literal, snore inducing translation.

If you like the Suikoden series, especially 1 and 2, or just classic RPGs, then the game is worth a buy. Voice acting so far is a little hit or miss, but with such a large cast that's to be expected -- though nothing has been outright terrible, a couple characters are a bit meh.