izigame.me

Opening
It is incredibly rare for me to pick up a game these days, and basically shut out any and every non-required distraction in my life until I see the game through to the end. Granted, 16 hours isn't a long time for a single run by today's game standards, but believe you me when I say that I lost a number of hours of sleep over this game--and if I had to choose, I'd go back and do it all over again.
Let me start by saying that if you are even half as politically and/or geo-politically interested/curious as I am, you will love this game and likely will receive the same impact that was rendered onto me during my first playthrough. I cried, not once, not twice, but three times. I suppose I am a little more emotional than most and I do find myself growing attached to certain characters or sometimes, settings, from time to time, but Suzerain managed to hit, hard, on so many of the buttons that sound off the bells and buzzers in my brain that keep me hooked. That being said, let's look at the good, the bad, and the ugly with Suzerain!
The Good
I normally don't talk about music in games, and especially not so quickly into a review, but I will say that the OST for this game perfectly suits the tense, uneasy, and solemn feel of the game. I found myself buying the OST half way through my first playthrough, I also found myself listening to many of the tracks during long work days. The OST is now part of my permanent music collection.
The setting is almost everything I could ask for in a geo-political game. If it was a 4X game (what I normally think of with games like this), I would be in my element. Sordland (your nation) isn't the most powerful, is undergoing great political turbulence, there are many factions and characters with their own ambitions, beliefs, etc., and not just in your nation, but in the many nations surrounding you. Everyone's eyes are on you, everyone is looking for an opportunity to exploit you, ally with you, or chastise you at every turn--it makes you feel like you're living a more modern Game of Thrones type experience, and I love it. So few games these days can mold an excellent story around a very believable but entirely fictional world, and I appreciate what the developers have come up with in Suzerain. It's a world I would like to experience and explore with my own eyes.
Though a little on the short side, the game doesn't overstay its welcome or feel to short. I think the developers did a pretty good job in this capacity, though I certainly wouldn't argue with a few more areas of the game being stretched out a little bit more and filled in with a few more scenarios to explore.
I think a game like this has great replayability value. Normally, I do not jump into a game after completing it. Not right away, at least. If it's a game I like, in 5 or so years I'll pick it up again. With Suzerain, I could see myself starting another playthrough next week, maybe a month at the most. There are so many options to explore, so many other paths and strategies to take. Without spoiling anything, I definitely want a shot at trying to better convince a few characters to my point of view, maybe not be so nice to certain factions, etc. I love it when a game makes me think about endless what if scenarios.
The story is probably the best part of the game, however. For a game that exists largely on a static map (literally, a map, I love that detail of the game) with static images representing every character, it pulled me in--let me feel like I was a Sordish man living in the 50s, trying his best to bring peace and prosperity to his people and even to the region his nation existed in. I felt as though I was married to my wife, Monica, that my son Franc was actually my son, that I was also raising a wonderful daughter named Deana, and that I had a close friend named Petr. I lived through the ups and downs of being a president trying to manage his family life while also trying to keep food in the mouths of his poorest citizens, keep aggressive foreign countries at bay, all the while trying hard not to piss off this game's versions of NATO and the Soviet Bloc. The best part about all of it was, despite my failures in some areas, Suzerain is a video game, so none of my mistakes actually were able to manifest into the real world and affect people in my reality, for better or for worse. I got to experience such a unique and fulfilling piece of Anton Rayne's life as if it were real enough, all while being able to return back to my world after a few tears, some contemplation, and a stiff drink.
I love that you get a summary of your ideology and the results of your term at the end of the game, in actually pretty good detail. Learning that the changes I made caused some 400K girls to enroll in secondary education for the first time, or that I had 81% fewer maternal deaths on my watch, really made me feel like I made a difference, even if I failed to achieve my ultimate goals.
The Bad
I only have minor nitpicks about Suzerain. I like to think that I took the time to read and understand as much about what was going on within the game that I could, but at times, some changes in the environment would baffle me.
My economy would rise and fall seemingly without much reason. The news papers and various hints and popups might give a tiny indication as to why, but sometimes that wasn't the case, or sometimes it felt like the swing (in one direction or the other) was way more drastic than it feasibly could have been.
There were a few times where I would make a deal with another politician, be 100% on the same page as him or her, only for them to turn around and disagree with me the next day (on the same topic), or otherwise appear entirely bi-polar. I found this baffling at times, but it left me wondering if it was a sincere bug, or if this character had just played me really well. In either case, without much feedback on the hows and the whys, sometimes, things felt a little lopsided or strange. Surely, the game is just doing a great job at making virtual politics feel like real politics, but it still felt off without that feedback, or explanations as to why something happened the way it did.
The Ugly
Honestly, I got nothing. But in the interest of being fair (or funny), the ugly truth of this game is that politics are messy, frustrating, and can royally kick you in the butt if you're not careful/watching your back/playing some serious 4D chess. The amount of minds you have to try to read and figure out as you navigate the world of politics, even a virtual one, is enough to make one's head spin. It isn't for the faint of heart...
The Conclusion
Growing up, I was always intrigued by politics, especially on the geo-political scale. I never really figured I had what it takes to actually run for any sort of significant office, though the dream still remained. Suzerain allowed me to experience this small dream without any ramifications or danger to the real world, which is probably a good thing! If anything, Suzerain taught me to be more or less content with what I have and who I am, while allowing me the opportunity to dip my toes into another life.
Suzerain also reaffirmed for me that, I don't want to be president. Not in my country. Not in any country. But, I sure as heck will keep coming back to Suzerain to get a taste of it every so often, probably from this day until the day that I am no longer able to play video games. Suzerain is an experience I will never forget, and the least I can do to show my appreciation for those who worked so hard on this amazing title is to leave a lengthy review showing my feelings toward something they dedicated a not insignificant amount of their lives toward creating.
A Morgna wes core, vectern sis da!