Thought this was a really good game until I had spent hours trying to figure out a puzzle only to finally give up and look online for a hint and discover that there is literally no way to solve it in the game. They're all "optional" but it turns out that there's more than one puzzle requiring external resources, including one EXTREMELY visible one where the solution is meant to be obtained IN THE DISCORD as an "ARG" no one who buys the game will even know happened. And once you know this, it's simply not possible to enjoy the game because ANYTHING you haven't solved yet might actually be impossible, and the only way to know is to look it up. To be clear, I got ~90% of the hidden items before I looked anything up, but by that point i had also spent like 6 hours of my life banging my head against non-puzzles out of a total 20. If you don't want people to engage with your game as you released it, why did you bother releasing it to the public? Also another half star off because playing the flute is a nightmare user experience. This is a real unforced fuckup that could be turned into an ACTUALLY good game by just NOT including this shit.

I REALLY liked Suikoden I, much more than I expected. When I started Suikoden II and saw it had helpful features like An Inventory and the ability to remove items from inactive party members, I thought this game was gonna be GREAT. I was sorely mistaken. The plot, writing, gameplay, dungeon design, pacing, characters, interface, and even the actual code are all so incredibly disappointingly bad by comparison. The whole experience was like pulling teeth. I played S1+2 because I was advised I should before playing Eiyuden Chronicles, and I have now decided I'm not gonna be playing that actually