I'm getting pretty far into the game, I think, but I just got through a situation that really kind of feels like it should have been happening in the first quarter of the game. (I'm sort of making a guess that I'm around 60-70% of the way through the main story, based on secret achievements I have left.) I haven't really ruled out the possibility that I'm actually headed into the final stretch, and almost through the game, though.
I keep vacillating on this in terms of my feelings while playing it, though. I generally like the game, but there's kind of an obscene amount of side content that really varies from sort-of-fun to kind-of-not-worth-the-time. There have been times where I felt like the main story was getting closer to the first three Suikoden games (and the two gaidens), but in a lot of ways I feel like I just don't want to admit that it leans more toward the stories in IV, V and (shudder) Tierkreis which were all very meh (and not even Murayama, which is vexing). I kind of want to be able to blame Komuta for this (who also directed Suikoden Tierkreis), but I'm not really sure what the breakdown of responsibilities were. It just has a number of aspects that tend to remind me too much of Tierkreis (and V).
I play in Japanese, so while I know there's the group of people up in arms about the English translation, and I've seen a couple of the examples, I'm quite certain it's not about the translation. I also find it incredibly disrespectful that some of those people have the gaul to utter Murayama's name in their biggoted social agendas when Eiyuden and Murayama's Suikoden games have always emphasized inclusiveness.
Anyway, point is Eiyuden is much more goofy/campy and significantly less serious in story presentation than Suikoden 1, 2 or especially 3, and most of the plot points don't carry the same weight. Not that there weren't moments of silliness in those Suikoden games; Just that they're more frequent in Eiyuden, and when the story in Eiyuden does take on some serous tones, it doesn't feel
as serious or dramatic. I wouldn't really call the story poor like I would Suikoden V or Tierkreis, though--I
really do not enjoy those two games--and in a lot of ways I think it makes sense that the tone of Eiyuden's story might have been buoyed by the happy feelings Murayama experienced coming out of the successful Kickstarter campaign.
I have been spending a fair amount of time thinking about what might be different aside from just tone. I kind of wish I had actually replayed Suikoden 1,2,3 and the two Gaidens before Eiyuden's release just to have them a little more fresh for comparison. (I did, in the last year, watch a Japanese youtuber play through the first three, at least.) One thing that I've come up with is that a lot of the relationships between characters in Eiyuden feel significantly less-- deep? Important? I struggle to really describe it, but Murayama's Suikodens had a core casts that had a lot of history together, and that played out in the dramatic elements of the story. Eiyuden doesn't really have that. I think that coupled with the lighter tone is what leaves me less enthusiastic about the story.
One other thing I will say about the story is that in Murayama's Suikodens the antagonists are always somewhat sympathetic. In Eiyuden, I absolutely hate them like I've probably never hated antagonists in a game before. They are some sleezy, coniving, assholes, and I wish for them to burn in the furthest pits of hell. I'm a little surprised to have those feelings elicited by some video game characters. Eiyuden is almost more about the antagonists than the heroes, in that sense.
I realized the other day that Murayama also wrote the story for The Alliance Alive (one of the handful of projects he worked on between Suikoden III and Eiyuden), so I feel like checking that out after finishing Eiyuden to see if maybe his writing style just changed over ~20 years.
I'm curious,
@hyo_razuki , how you would evaluate Eiyuden in comparison to the Trails games? Would you say you prefer Eiyuden to the trails games in any way?
