Based purely on gameplay, overall narrative, and nostalgia I would love to give this game a 5 star review, but the english localization is so poorly done that I find myself not interacting with characters outside of recruiting them and the main plot. Pros: - Game *feels* like Suikoden. The first few hours of buildup were a little slow and felt somewhat generic, but as soon as you start recruiting in earnest and have your base it feels like the best parts of Suikoden I, II, and V. - Art style is beautiful, the sprites look amazing, and the animations really give each character personality - Game encourages me to actually use items through high damage battles and limited inventory space. I'd rather use the items instead of needing to drop them to pick up a piece of equipment or appraisal item - Battles are interesting and make me want to play them so as to minimize limited resource usage, and when I've outlevelled an area and am looking for drops, I can put it on auto-battle where mp isn't used for low stress farming - Quality of Life Mechanics are introduced early, but late enough that you appreciate them without feeling like they're late additions (teleporting to previous locations, resource generators, etc) Cons: - English Localization. I mentioned it above, but it's my biggest issue with the game at the moment. I was streaming it to a few friends and we all collectively groaned about the fisherman character at the beginning talking about how he loves his rod. There are a bunch more issues of bad characterizations, personality shifts, childish changes (fartface, buttface, etc as randomly added insults), and other cringeworthy localizations. Because I understand enough japanese to get by, I've been playing with JP VA and English Subs and it makes it really easy to tell when the translation adds or changes stuff and it's honestly disheartening with how great the storytelling is. - Encounter Rates are *LOW* until you get specific items in mid-game.
