Suikoden

Pros

• Finished Suikoden. Really fun JRPG that feels ahead of its time in a lot of ways.
• I played it for the first time last year with the remaster and thought it was pretty fun, though in general the trope of JRPGs either forcing a character into your party or removing a character from your party temporarily has always anno...
• It’s one of my favorite games specifically because it’s so breezy. ... It’s brisk without feeling rushed. The overarching narrative I can’t help but feel immersed in and how you navigate the world just makes it feel huge. ... It’s a comf...

Cons

• The first Suikoden is a 3 out of 5. It has a novel premise in that you can recruit over a hundred characters, but it's curtailed by a lack of confidence. ... At fifteen hours the pacing is tight, but the story told feels lightweight and...
• It's elevated by the superior sequel. Still, as much as I love these game and bemoan the fact that the series is defunct, I never recommend them simply because it's pointless to play them without a guide.
• Suikoden reaches the level where it feels like it was designed to sell strategy guides in the 90s.
• The main fault of the first Suikoden will always be the fact that it's too linear. There are seventy plus playable characters, but the game frequently forces select characters into your party.
• Suikoden is a 3/5 game. It trips over many annoyances, and the game-master has too heavy a hand on the player's agency, but it is still worth a try. Every creator needs to make an awkward start somewhere, and we wouldn't have gotten the...