I don't expect my thoughts on this game are widely shared, but this is a special game to me and I want to at least put them into writing somewhere, for myself.

It makes me sad with some of the hate this game receives. "Where's the sprites" or "lol PS2 graphics". To me, the graphics capture the spirit of the original art and the vibe of Suikoden games. The work done on animating body language and facial expressions is wonderful. It has a lot of expressive depth and is just utterly charming. I honestly think it holds up even compared to recent games that use motion capture. I still think about this animation work constantly and I wish I could tell the people who worked on it how important and recognized their work is, even 20 years later. Simple moments like Lucia hugging Hugo, the Saint Loa Knights kids, or any of the Duck Clan animations are still completely amazing to me. I do think some of the animations in the game can be stiff and stilted, but a love and craft went into 3 that you can tell was missing from Suikoden 4. The vibrancy of colors and art style had such an impact on me that it feels like one of those things I have been trying to find again, to find another game to recapture some of the feelings of playing Suikoden 3 for the first time. Suikoden 3 feels like a rich, lively world.

The story of Suikoden 3 does not and could never stand up against the story of 2. Suikoden 2 is a masterpiece, it will stand the test of time. So I think people do Suikoden as a series a disservice for having those same lofty expectations of any other game in the series. Suikoden 3 uses its story to solve one of the biggest issues from 1 and 2. To recruit 108 characters but only have one main party feels frustrating. So Suikoden 3's Trinity system having three parties and using a Rashomon story telling style is a welcomed addition and what 3 does the best. It's fun and over the top but also emotional and serious. It does the story beats well.

The world building of Suikoden as a whole is why I think people love these games. There's weight to the story in one game that could tie into another. I think the Murayama trilogy of games are all must plays to really see this magic work. It fell apart when he left and 4 and 5 only loosely tie into the whole. Seeing characters age and have lives you do not see in between games really gives a weight to this being a living world and you are only seeing it through the lens of specific regional conflicts. I think within that truly lies the tragedy of these games. There's so many great characters and concepts and building to something even bigger that was abandoned after the 3rd game. We'll never know the names of all of the True Runes, we'll never get a game that really explores Harmonia, we'll never see minor characters we love return in a sequel. We'll never know the true size of this world and in a lot of ways, RPG story telling is worse off for it. Imagine a world where a Suikoden XVI just released instead of a Final Fantasy.

Is this game perfect? No. Though, it does seem troubling to me that when people discuss a theoretical remake that none of them understand this game. And if you don't understand a game, then you risk destroying what made it special. In the last two or three years, I've had remaster after remaster just be mind boggling with what they 'fix'. I see people say the art of Suikoden 3 sucks or the battle system is terrible and they would throw it all away.

The battle system is unique, it is difficult to adjust to coming from games that let you assign commands to all 6 characters. Instead you assign commands to 3 pairs of characters and that makes you think about team combinations and I think this works well with matching someone who is always attacking with a spell caster, or one of the few beast riding combinations. Just because something is different than what you want, does not mean it is bad. It would have been nice to see what another revamp of this system could have been. They tried something new and it's neat in a way that's just not a standard battle system.

To me, Suikoden 3 is special. It holds a special place in my heart. If FF7 was the game that really introduced me to RPGs as a genre, Suikoden 3 introduced me to the full potential of what RPGs could be. It has character and it has heart and as I grow older and I understand more of the behind the scenes of how my favorite games were made, it is heartbreaking too. I think Eiyuden Chronicles in a lot of ways feels like the team wants to take all of the lessons from Suikoden 3 and remake them, make something new from it all, free from the ills of working under Konami.

Thank you for indulging me if you made it this far, I don't typically write reviews this long, more quick hits of what I feel after finishing a game, but this one is different. I don't think I can ever fully encapsulate all of my thoughts or emotions on this game, but hopefully I got most of them out here. Not many games are this special to me in the same way as Suikoden 3. A game like this is why I play games, why I play RPGs. From the first day that I rented it and it blew my mind to playing it every year through college and the few years after, it feels like a comfort. It feels like home. I don't expect that most people will understand it, but in the very least, I could finally say this all for myself.

Breath of the Wild was about the vastness of a world and the solitary self reliance to survive.

Tears of the Kingdom is about supporting and calling upon your friends and banding together. But it is also about letting go. For the characters and for players. The vastness of this world feels overwhelming at times and there comes a point when it is time to put the game down, to decide that your own personal journey in the world has reached an end point. 

I did have my reservations about whether TOTK would be enough of a change that going back to the world would not feel stale and they blew away all doubts with those final few trailers that revealed the new powers. They truly made the best open world game to date. I just wish the game design did not feel more punishing to exploring at times. There's many points to forcing a linear path that can be jarring, but with one of the main critiques of BOTW being players felt lost and listless, it is an understandable change. My feelings on TOTK are complicated and it will always have this comparison to whether it is better than BOTW. I don't know if that is a conclusion I could ever come to. In the years since BOTW it feels like only a few games truly understood the depth of what made it special, and none did it better. It should be no surprise to anyone that Nintendo was the only one that could come along and do it better then. 

Despite what may sound like having negative opinions of this game, I think it is fair to say that the best parts of this game have left me speechless and only a future me will find those words. This is a game I will come back to many times, to once again wander around in its verdant playground.

An interesting SRPG that has a surprisingly in depth battle system. The interplay between the magic system (and the oil item) and the abilities to move enemy units around leads to some really cool moments. Lighting oil on fire and then trapping an enemy on that tile to take repeated fire damage. Or putting a trap on top of a ladder to send a boss falling all the way back to the bottom. I really like that wind can spread fire, ice can put out fire, fire can make ice into puddles, and lighting can spread across water/iron. However, there did seem to be systems that were tacked on that, to me, never felt like they made sense what they really added.

The story was alright, honestly impressed that it was a tale of intrigue without some supervillian character wanting to end the world which is so often the case. There's a pretty okay love story in there too. However, it is just way too damn chatty and the game really feels like it wants you to play it multiple times and I am just not going to do that.

Overall, a fun game that does some things pretty well, but I don't foresee it having any long term staying power.

Definitely a game that the whole is better than the sum of its parts. The story is not the strongest, a slightly weaker fusion system than the previous game, and visual hiccups (I only noticed it in the Compendium honestly) might make it feel worse, but those things wrapped in an absolutely perfect exploration system make for a stellar game. I just finished it and plan on starting a NG+ run soon, something I rarely, if ever, do.

Definitely a game I could see putting in my top favorite games list.

This is one of those games where I find putting a star rating on it feels... inaccurate? Incomplete. Much like my time with the game I suppose.

I've taught myself not to just power through and finish a game as maybe I would have a decade or more ago. So when my interest started to wane and I looked up how many chapters were left, it didn't help to learn I was only half way through. I pushed ahead a little more but hitting a brick wall of a boss fight, I decided to cut my losses. The gameplay is good, the story is good, and the music is great. Honestly, it's a good game and the people who are good at it will love it. It just is long without justifying that length and odd difficulty spikes on the "intended" settings.