izigame.me

There are some great and interesting aspects to Suzerain, but many of the flaws run too deep for those strengths to fully overcome them.
The fundamental issue with Suzerain is the lack of proactive decision making on the part of the player. While I understand there are constraints on the developer's end, I feel the inability of the player to take action except when specifically offered the option by the game undermines much of the choice-driven storytelling that Suzerain does so well.
Do you have a deficit in your budget that needs to be dealt with? Well, you cant actually raise any new revenue until the game gives you the option to do so. When will the game give you that option? Who knows! Unless you're replaying the game, you get little to no advance notice of what policies you'll have the chance to enact later on. I ran into such an issue in my first playthrough. Having just gotten two of my signature policies enacted in a row, I had a budget deficit that I needed to deal with. "What's the harm?" I thought at the time. "The economy is doing great so I'll be able to raise some more revenue without any issue." But, alas, that opportunity never came. Stuck with a deficit, the game didn't give me a chance to raise enough money to fix it and the economy spiraled further and further into crisis as I was unable to repay the debt I had undertaken. All because I made the mistake of anticipating that the game would give me the sensible option of raising a little bit more revenue.
In addition, the lack of variety in how the story progresses makes replay value a lot more limited that what I believe the developers intended. No matter what you do as President, the vast majority of the crises and events that take place will remain mostly the same. The initial conditions never change either. Whether I set my character's background to be a corrupt authoritarian or a democratic reformer, I will always start with the exact same cabinet ministers with little to no chance of replacing them with somebody aligned with my character's views. From one playthrough to another, not enough about the game actually changes to make multiple runs an engaging experience.
Suzerain has some great elements. I enjoyed my first playthrough quite a bit and was excited to see how things would change. But the more I played, the more apparent the flaws became. After 4 runs, each one going for a significantly different approach, it seemed to me that Suzerain wasn't able to live up to its ambitions. As disappointing as it is, I hope the developers are able to continue their work and make something better. They've shown promise here and, while this game may be flawed, it is redeemable enough that I would have high hopes for future projects.