Experiencing Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes: Suikoden it is not.
Rather than a traditional review, I'll target specifics like I did elsewhere. Because this is a fairly easy game to review.
It's NOT Suikoden.
eople seem to have confused the intent of the game. It's inspired by Suikoden. It's not Suikoden. Don't go into it expecting Suikoden. In fact, I would argue that it's nowhere close to even Suikoden 1. It takes aspects of 2, 3, and 5 and tries to do the best it can to present a spiritual successor. In this regard, I don't think it did a "great" job. Things like the Rune Lens just don't "click" to me like Runes did in Suikoden and I frankly can't explain it. Maybe it's the naming.
It's a decent game - but it's NOT Suikoden, so don't judge it as.
There's a rather deep story, but it's told extremely poorly.
By which I mean, it didn't feel like the game did a good job convincing me that what I was doing mattered in the grand scheme. Things happen and you see them, but you don't really feel their impact. Part of this is presentation - a town set on fire, you come back an hour later and there's not a hint of the fire. Cities taken over that you never directly revisit in storyline (but you can warp to them and see the invaders, even walk near them without incident). Betrayal at levels that doesn't seem to matter much. Zombies (which should have an unlimited supply, by the way) toppled in regular battle. And don't get me started on that ending. Not the worst in gaming history (Arc Rise Fantasia, I'm looking at you) but it's up there.
Only a few characters are developed.
They're obvious, too. They have the most talking lines. Everyone else is a supporting cast character. One main character actually dies (depending on what you don't do) and everyone just goes on with stuff, never mentioning them or their contributions again. Searching for certain characters is also annoying - you get a hint shop, but it'll tell you they're at "the entrance" of a place that has 5 entrances. Or a character that's in some cave where you'd have no idea that it's a recruitable. Dungeons where the soldiers "haven't finished" and won't let you explore (where there might be another character to recruit). And some characters are gated behind building up the castle, which is annoying since building up the castle itself is annoying.
The world is dull, uninspiring and not memorable.
I don't know what it is, frankly. I struggled to recall each place you visit even though I went to each place multiple times. Places didn't stand out, like Zanarkand (Final Fantasy X), or Zenithia (Dragon Warrior IV), or Fourside (Earthbound). No memorable music, and there just wasn't much special about any of the places. I had a similar recollection of Trails of Mana; and maybe it's age, but I have a really hard time caring about the world or anyone in it like I used to. But then I think of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 where even now I can remember every nook, every cranny, every town and the vast majority of characters and quests and I come to the conclusion that some games simply aren't good at making the gamer care about the world.
It became tedious looking for people.
I remember it being quite fun seeking out all 108 Stars in Sukoden 1 when i first played it, and I didn't use a guide to do it, it was actually fun to explore the world and look for them. I remember the ominous trip back to the first castle; Eiyuden basically does this same exact segment. But the spirit of what Suikoden did simply isn't here. The "baddie" never convinced me that he was a threat other than his attacks. Then at the end he starts rambling off nonsense about his motives, which felt like it was slapped on at the last minute and not well thought through, because they didn't build up to it.
Without spoiling: if you ever played Valkyria Revolution (decent game, great story, got unfairly trashed), one of the themes of that game was the advancement of technology over time. But there it was told throughout the course of the game, through cutscenes, newspapers, etc. Even a shop that you went to where things were being developed. Something similar happens here, but there's no build - it's just thrown at you in the final 2 hours of the game (by the way, my playtime was around 60 hours-ish and that's after rushing near the end because I got tired of tedious searching). In fact, one character - arguably one of the most important ones - never joins your team unless you find ALL of the other characters. Suikoden 1 had a similar gimmick with Gremio, but they made it make sense by tying it into events that specifically happened, not just a random progress gate that essentially forces you to suffer through the remaining ~20 character searches.
Speaking of tedious...
Almost all of the sidequests are tedious.
One in particular involves an army (might as well do) of chefs you have to do cooking battles against. One after another. And seemingly don't stop. Wouldn't mind it, except it's broken and basically forces you to cheese it to get past the nonsense. Another has a girl telling you they lost something in "the forest up north" - and there's no such item nor is there a hint as to where to find it. Another involves a card game that's completely unfun, where the guy happily cheats. Another has a trading requirement, asking you to make $50k in profit trading various items; but trust me, this is NO Uncharted Waters (where trading was actually FUN). Another is a racing game that looks like it should have been fun were it not for terrible controls and a "floaty" feel.
Others that I won't waste time listing. They're not as bad as Dragon Quest IX, but they're bad.
Graphics are decently good, but there's microstuttering and a bit of blurring, as well as a lack of VSync.
There are mods that can help with a bit of this, but it's still there. Apparently the Switch is even worse than PC (which is surprising, because there really isn't much to this game, and if Octopath Traveler 1 and 2 can do it, there's no excuse here.)
They might as well have not even bothered with the army battles.
There's no comparison. The army battles here are a pale shadow of what Suikoden brought to the table. There are segments that allegedly let you customize your troops, but they're extremely limited. Also the battles don't have the same rock-paper-scissors type of strategy that the first game did so well; even though the troop types are largely the same, each battle is basically you bum rushing the enemy over and over again mindlessly. Only one battle had me even close to losing and that's only because of said limitation above.
There's a lot of game here. Almost too much game. I wish they hadn't done so many stretch goals, as it feels like too much time was spent on pointless sidequests and padding and the underlying story suffered as a result.