u/8888ball

Mild spoilers

I played both Suikoden and Suikoden 2 close to release as a teenager. One of my favorite games and stories of all time still. I tried the subsequent games later on too, but I felt the stories never came quite close. I live in Japan now and speak fluent Japanese so no issues following the story etc. I had wishlisted this game on Steam, but then suddenly one day I see a random ad (featuring Viktor) on Xitter and realized the game has been released as a mobile gacha - download it anyways.

My first impression of StarLeap was pretty great at least after the wordy initial scenes once the gameplay starts picking up. Been playing it pretty much every day which is quite rare for me recently for JRPG's at least.

Pros

• Great craft and love has been invested in making great graphics and art. This was the biggest surprise for me. It's a truly great 2D HD suikoden athmosphere.
• First chapter is a great nostalgia trip for Suikoden I fans
• I didnt feel the gatcha features were too intrusive in the beginning and it didn't feel pay to win
• battle system was the big surprise - it's seriously one of the better battle systems in an RPG I've ever experienced. Good challenge, seems well balanced although starts to get grindy towards chapter 1 end (this is way better than suikoden 1 or 2 which was pretty simple/easy)
• battle system encourages use of multiple characters (but the downside is that this makes it more grindy to level up more than a core party)
• Chapter 1 story is pretty good - but nowhere near Suikoden 1 and 2 levels (more on chapter two in the cons section). For me the good parts are mostly the nostalgia related episodes too so it's not really from the original story beats.
• The reason the story kinda sucks is that it avoids the more mature and shocking concepts we would see in 1 and 2. Avoiding any deaths, anything irreversible, things like the craziness and executions of Luca Blight in 2. Things like the fact that characters can even die.
• The remixes of old suikoden songs are pretty good, but the new songs are so far kinda mid, maybe some of them will grow on me.
• Not much to say about the gachas, I didnt feel pressure to spend any money and played around with it a little. There was plenty enough of free gems and stamina drinks or whatnot so far. In general I hate the idea of gachas but it felt pretty easy to ignore.

Cons

• playing towards the end of chapter 1 the game starts to introduce way too many grindy sub systems, some of them feel semi mandatory to keep your characters strong enough for the tougher bosses
• Already mentioned the story is afraid to make any any controversial twists or touch tougher subjects. very politically correct compared to suikoden 1 & 2
• Way too long/boring dialog (common issue with modern JRPGs)
• Way too many waifus to be taken seriously, I mean I like looking at the boobs, but cmon...
• And finally starting to get sore on the game little by little because chapter 2 from story perspective I feel is taking a big dive in quality.
• From chapter 2 I realized the game introduces an episodic style (time travel mechanic). I guess each episode is supposed to be set in a d​ifferent suikoden game. I dislike the mechanic because it takes any stakes and continuity away from the story. Of course its great for an episodic gacha game. Feels like the chapter was done by a different team (not the A team...)
• Chapter 2 is also set in a school (Japanese high school trope) environment which I feel is a total disconnect with Suikoden feel. It's a really bad harry potter, japanese high school hybrid which is starting to make me sore on the game. I'm around mid way thru this high school slog at the time and little by little contemplating if I want to continue with. The care put in the graphics and athmosphere still continues to be superb though. Pacing not so much, I feel the battles are not as interesting either as they introduce some hard to explain twists around the mechanics that take away instead of adding.
• Recruiting the 108 stars so far has been pretty much automatic with story and by introducing multiple grindy mechanics, so at least so far it has not been satisfying outside few random finds.

feel free to ask any questions if you want.