TL;DR Combat systems are confusing but the game is well worth your time and money, especially if you miss the Suikoden games.

For those looking for more of what Suikoden once offered, I recommend trying Eiyuden Chronicle but this comes with some pretty big caveats.

Firstly, if you were a fan of Suikoden, you'll feel immediately at home here. As it comes from several of the original creators, you likely won't be surprised that they nailed the feeling of building up a base, recruiting people from across the world, and getting to know all your many, many companions. The political storyline may be somewhat simple but it is still engrossing and the characters drive things forward, even when the overall plot may feel cliche to long-time fans.

Eiyuden Chronicle is also just a gorgeous game. The environments are varied and well detailed with the pixel art character sprites just bursting with characterization. Each recruitable character feels so distinct, an impressive accomplishment considering there are 120 of them and they ride on the back of a franchise with literally hundreds of characters in its time. The music is lively, although a bit more variety in the battle music would have been appreciated. What's there is solid but over the long runtime of the game, you may get sick of the one battle theme for all basic battles. I was already mindlessly humming it to myself after only a couple of hours.

The adherence to what came before is also Eiyuden Chronicle's biggest detriment too though. There are many quality of life improvements to the game, such as allowing plot-required characters to accompany you as non-combatants so you can use the fighting party you like rather than one required of you, but many things that were arguably problems have not been changed. Just like the Suikoden games, Eiyuden Chronicle comes with an extremely long prologue that leads up to the content most people came for. Looking forward to free recruitment and castle building? Expect it to take at least 10 hours to get there.

The primary problem though is the battle systems and how poorly explained (and possibly balanced) they all are. Your standard battles are similar to most JRPGs but you have 6 characters, more than in most games but standard in Suikoden. Battles are turn-based affairs where you choose all of your character's moves at the beginning of each turn and then the full turn plays out based on a visible turn order at the top of the screen. In the early game, characters don't really get any abilities beyond their basic attack, a defensive ability, and a special attack that doesn't feel very special early on. In the first 10 hours, I only had 1 party member that could reasonably use magic spells but the extremely small MP pool meant that after only about 8 heals, she was tapped out until I went back to stay at an inn. Remember you have 6 characters in battle so 8 heals means barely more than 1 healing spell per person and even at this point, 1 basic healing spell didn't even cover half of their HP.

Even later on, magic isn't a reliable option in the fairly long dungeons and boss battles the game throws at you. The 2nd dungeon of the game has 5 save locations spread out across its large maps and the boss battle took my average leveled party over half an hour to beat it. Needless to say, my mage was spent barely 3 rounds into the boss battle and I had to rely on items for the rest of it.

Perhaps the game simply requires more preparation or strategy than I was employing but that's where the obtuseness of the games' systems comes in. Despite having a dedicated Help section of the menu, Eiyuden Chronicle explains almost nothing about its many integrated systems. Each character comes with 8 stats and not once are these stats ever explained. Most are fairly obvious (Power = Physical damage, Magic = magic damage) but some, like Dexterity, could have many different possibilities, such as accuracy, dodge rate, damage with long range weapons, etc. In fact, some of the stats that seem obvious actually aren't as obvious as you may think. Above, I mentioned that Magic relates to your magic damage. You would reasonably assume this means that it impacts the damage caused by magic spells but that's actually wrong. From what the community has determined, spells don't scale with your level. Instead, this stat only has an effect on characters who have an elemental affinity as their basic attack. Things like this should be explained somewhere in the game but it just isn't and it's left to trial and error to figure out what the different systems mean.

On the other hand, some of the Help articles can make the system even more confusing. Early on, you're told that each character has magical affinities so give characters runes that fit their affinity. Not only are you given this information long before you're likely even able to change out anyone's runes, but you aren't ever actually told what any characters' affinity even is. In fact, affinities are hidden so you have to just experiment with different rune configurations for each character to figure these out. This feels so needlessly complicated when they could have just told you up front.

Lastly regarding the main battle system, the balance seems to pendulum wildly in a number of ways. With your 6-person party, you can put 3 characters in the front row and 3 in the back. Each character has a stated range so make sure your close range party members are up front and the long range characters are in the back. Seems simple, right? Unfortunately, the vast majority of characters are mid-range characters and can go anywhere. This may seem freeing but it means that new players who are still learning those hidden stats won't have any training wheels to learn where different characters ought to go.

Still, most will likely assume that your tankiest characters should go up front while the squishy ranged fighters and mages should go in the back so they don't get hit. This is how most games handle things but Eiyuden Chronicle has nearly every enemy able to hit the front or back row as often as they'd like. In every dungeon I've played, my front line fighters are typically fine while my back row rangers die frequently. It would be one thing if the game threw curveballs like this occasionally but this seems to happen everywhere. In fact, one of the most common enemy attacks has the enemy charge through your column, hitting your front and back fighter equally.

The TL;DR with all of this is that the standard combat system seems to assume you have extensive knowledge of JRPGs but also it assumes that you just know about the various nuances unique to its system that it never wants to tell you.

The War and One-On-One systems aren't much better. The only War tutorial you get is how to move units and that stronger units will beat weaker units. How can you tell who's stronger or weaker? I suppose you just guess? One-On-One seems to be a rock-paper-scissors match similar to the Suikoden games except I would find myself taking damage even when I was correctly guessing the opponent's moves. I'd counter his attack and only my health would drop so I'm not confident I understand that system either.

I realize this has been something of a deep dive in the nuance of these systems and it may sound like I'm bashing on the game but I really do recommend it. While my lack of understanding of the systems was frustrating, I was still able to regularly progress through the game and building up your base/recruiting characters is just as much fun as it has ever been. It's unlikely that Suikoden is ever coming back but Eiyuden Chronicle is picking up the mantle and running with it. I simply hope that in a possible sequel, a little more care is shown to these various systems and players are given the information they actually need in order to not feel like they're simply progressing based on luck.

TL;DR Combat systems are confusing but the game is well worth your time and money, especially if you miss the Suikoden games. For those looking for more of what Suikoden once offered, I recommend trying Eiyuden Chronicle but this comes with some pretty big caveats. Firstly, if you were a fan of Suikoden, you'll feel immediately at home here. As it comes from several of the original creators, you likely won't be surprised that they nailed the feeling of building up a base, recruiting people from across the world, and getting to know all your many, many companions. The political storyline may be somewhat simple but it is still engrossing and the characters drive things forward, even when the overall plot may feel cliche to long-time fans. Eiyuden Chronicle is also just a gorgeous game. The environments are varied and well detailed with the pixel art character sprites just bursting with characterization. Each recruitable character feels so distinct, an impressive accomplishment considering there are 120 of them and they ride on the back of a franchise with literally hundreds of characters in its time. The music is lively, although a bit more variety in the battle music would have been appreciated. What's there is solid but over the long runtime of the game, you may get sick of the one battle theme for all basic battles. I was already mindlessly humming it to myself after only a couple of hours. The adherence to what came before is also Eiyuden Chronicle's biggest detriment too though. There are many quality of life improvements to the game, such as allowing plot-required characters to accompany you as non-combatants so you can use the fighting party you like rather than one required of you, but many things that were arguably problems have not been changed. Just like the Suikoden games, Eiyuden Chronicle comes with an extremely long prologue that leads up to the content most people came for. Looking forward to free recruitment and castle building? Expect it to take at least 10 hours to get there. The primary problem though is the battle systems and how poorly explained (and possibly balanced) they all are. Your standard battles are similar to most JRPGs but you have 6 characters, more than in most games but standard in Suikoden. Battles are turn-based affairs where you choose all of your character's moves at the beginning of each turn and then the full turn plays out based on a visible turn order at the top of the screen. In the early game, characters don't really get any abilities beyond their basic attack, a defensive ability, and a special attack that doesn't feel very special early on. In the first 10 hours, I only had 1 party member that could reasonably use magic spells but the extremely small MP pool meant that after only about 8 heals, she was tapped out until I went back to stay at an inn. Remember you have 6 characters in battle so 8 heals means barely more than 1 healing spell per person and even at this point, 1 basic healing spell didn't even cover half of their HP. Even later on, magic isn't a reliable option in the fairly long dungeons and boss battles the game throws at you. The 2nd dungeon of the game has 5 save locations spread out across its large maps and the boss battle took my average leveled party over half an hour to beat it. Needless to say, my mage was spent barely 3 rounds into the boss battle and I had to rely on items for the rest of it. Perhaps the game simply requires more preparation or strategy than I was employing but that's where the obtuseness of the games' systems comes in. Despite having a dedicated Help section of the menu, Eiyuden Chronicle explains almost nothing about its many integrated systems. Each character comes with 8 stats and not once are these stats ever explained. Most are fairly obvious (Power = Physical damage, Magic = magic damage) but some, like Dexterity, could have many different possibilities, such as accuracy, dodge rate, damage with long range weapons, etc. In fact, some of the stats that seem obvious actually aren't as obvious as you may think. Above, I mentioned that Magic relates to your magic damage. You would reasonably assume this means that it impacts the damage caused by magic spells but that's actually wrong. From what the community has determined, spells don't scale with your level. Instead, this stat only has an effect on characters who have an elemental affinity as their basic attack. Things like this should be explained somewhere in the game but it just isn't and it's left to trial and error to figure out what the different systems mean. On the other hand, some of the Help articles can make the system even more confusing. Early on, you're told that each character has magical affinities so give characters runes that fit their affinity. Not only are you given this information long before you're likely even able to change out anyone's runes, but you aren't ever actually told what any characters' affinity even is. In fact, affinities are hidden so you have to just experiment with different rune configurations for each character to figure these out. This feels so needlessly complicated when they could have just told you up front. Lastly regarding the main battle system, the balance seems to pendulum wildly in a number of ways. With your 6-person party, you can put 3 characters in the front row and 3 in the back. Each character has a stated range so make sure your close range party members are up front and the long range characters are in the back. Seems simple, right? Unfortunately, the vast majority of characters are mid-range characters and can go anywhere. This may seem freeing but it means that new players who are still learning those hidden stats won't have any training wheels to learn where different characters ought to go. Still, most will likely assume that your tankiest characters should go up front while the squishy ranged fighters and mages should go in the back so they don't get hit. This is how most games handle things but Eiyuden Chronicle has nearly every enemy able to hit the front or back row as often as they'd like. In every dungeon I've played, my front line fighters are typically fine while my back row rangers die frequently. It would be one thing if the game threw curveballs like this occasionally but this seems to happen everywhere. In fact, one of the most common enemy attacks has the enemy charge through your column, hitting your front and back fighter equally. The TL;DR with all of this is that the standard combat system seems to assume you have extensive knowledge of JRPGs but also it assumes that you just know about the various nuances unique to its system that it never wants to tell you. The War and One-On-One systems aren't much better. The only War tutorial you get is how to move units and that stronger units will beat weaker units. How can you tell who's stronger or weaker? I suppose you just guess? One-On-One seems to be a rock-paper-scissors match similar to the Suikoden games except I would find myself taking damage even when I was correctly guessing the opponent's moves. I'd counter his attack and only my health would drop so I'm not confident I understand that system either. I realize this has been something of a deep dive in the nuance of these systems and it may sound like I'm bashing on the game but I really do recommend it. While my lack of understanding of the systems was frustrating, I was still able to regularly progress through the game and building up your base/recruiting characters is just as much fun as it has ever been. It's unlikely that Suikoden is ever coming back but Eiyuden Chronicle is picking up the mantle and running with it. I simply hope that in a possible sequel, a little more care is shown to these various systems and players are given the information they actually need in order to not feel like they're simply progressing based on luck.