Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a brand new title from Rabbit and Bear Studio, a studio fashioned by recreation builders and artists who labored on the unique Suikoden titles. Hundred Heroes itself is a religious successor to the gameplay types of Suikoden, however the query with all religious successors is “Does the imitation reside as much as the unique?”
In Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes you play as Nowa, a younger man who left his city to turn out to be an adventurer for a quest guild. After being chosen to affix a mission looking for a uncommon artifact dominoes shortly fall resulting in the Dux of a neighboring nation sowing discourse resulting in a struggle between nations.
Now the chief of an Alliance of countries Nowa should journey the nation recruiting allies to struggle off the invading Imperials. This journey takes him the world over visiting numerous cities, interacting with, and recruiting denizens of the world from state leaders to widespread folks.
An Journey to Nowa-where
The story begins off sturdy. Introducing you to key characters who will work in tandem together with your efforts and arrange Nowa as a reluctant hero. There may be additionally a strong backing solid together with a mentor-like determine, a spunky pal who treats you want a child, and a strong noblewoman orchestrating your entire effort from the background. These character archetypes could be a bit tropey however they do a very good job establishing the world shortly so you may hop into exploration.
Because the story continues nonetheless this plot of world touring and political subterfuge shortly begins to point out cracks. Now not are characters fleshed out, travels to totally different locations turn out to be shorter and shorter, and new factions start showing out of nowhere to gradual Nowa’s progress.
You may inform the precise second within the recreation when the scope of the story did not appear to be it was going to be managable and later plot factors started to get paired down. The ultimate act manages to cram extra story, characters, and dungeons than you’ve got confronted in the entire recreation up to now. It concurrently feels rushed in addition to so gradual as each time you are feeling you’ve got reached the tip of the sport some totally different villain wants to point out up for their very own epic second.
The Hundred+ Heroes
This sense of scope problem additionally involves the 100+ recruitable characters that you will encounter. A few of these recruitable characters have a quest related to them and unlock totally different features at your house base, others be part of you with a easy dialog.
Lots of the heroes do not feel like they’re including something to the expertise however are as a substitute giving the participant talents that different video games would have an merchandise for or perhaps a setting. Having an NPC to allow you to carry extra gadgets, or to even stroll sooner seems like issues are being taken away to then be gifted again as gameplay rewards.
Some Heroes open entry to mini-games. There is a card recreation that makes use of comparable factors and lanes to Marvel Snap, and even a Beyblade-style minigame. These mini-games too come throughout as half-baked, feeling like the concept was there however there’s not sufficient to maintain you taking part in.
It is due to this that the implementation of the ‘Hundred Heroes’ themselves felt like they did not add a lot to the general expertise.
Fight on Auto-Pilot
Flip-based fight features effectively on the floor however when you begin diving into it deeper, acquiring extra talents, and accumulating characters it begins to point out loads of its cracks.
At any time you may have six members of your preventing get together, with three to swap in. Characters have a normal assault and an Auto-Rune assault, for some characters, this might imply a particular assault that consumes SP or a magical capacity at the price of MP.
SP slowly refills all through the course of the battle permitting for get together members to maintain doling out particular assault, I grew particularly keen on a personality you obtain early on who at all times spends his total SP gauge for assaults that develop in energy as there’s extra to spend. MP nonetheless not solely would not refill, however it’s additionally not potential to buy MP restoring gadgets.
MP talents aren’t that rather more highly effective than SP alternate options, however the massive draw back is that MP is required for healers. This implies even when you have got a spellcaster in your get together there is no incentive to carry out a magical assault because the heal for a personality with a robust SP assault goes to be a much more environment friendly use of your magic.
Characters may be programmed to Auto-Battle, utilizing their talents and gadgets to maintain themselves dealing injury and staying protected. Whether or not it says one thing in regards to the problem of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, or how implausible the default character AI is I used to be capable of clear nearly all of the sport battling on auto-pilot.
There have been perhaps solely two handfuls of battles towards boss creatures that had extra gimmicks to the battle, akin to taking a personality’s flip to fireside a canon or drop an icicle, the place I wasn’t ready to make use of Auto mode all through the battle.
So long as I had upgraded my weapons and bought optimum gear at a city I at all times felt assured happening to the following stage within the story.
There are just a few moments in-game the place as a substitute of a small-scale battle you are preventing a struggle. Constructed on a grid system you will transfer your troops one house a flip, providing you with choices to activate talents alongside the way in which.
Whereas the occasion of large-scale battle is enjoyable there is no precise successful or dropping of those battles, at the least within the story-based ones. Every is pre-scripted for just a few turns. What would possibly look to have stakes as a substitute simply has you working head first into each other activating your talents till you are taken away from the battle.
Lagging In Unusual Locations
An odd facet that I skilled all through the complete recreation was additionally how a lot time was wanted to navigate menus. Between mentioning a menu, navigating to the magic display, tabbing over to a personality, choosing a spell, and choosing your get together every a part of the method was met with delay. After 45+ hours taking part in Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes the place utilizing talents and spells ought to have been muscle reminiscence I needed to at all times be watching as the sport could have misplaced any of my inputs.
Appears and Sounds Wonderful
Two areas the place Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes excelled had been in its artwork design and audio course.
The combination of 2D sprites in 3D worlds will at all times be an enthralling one to me. Every of the character’s fashions is superbly detailed, and so they have to be so you may select the primary characters as you stroll by means of a city.
All the totally different monsters featured within the recreation had been additionally extremely fascinating and distinctive. Certainly one of my favourite designs was that of a three-headed dragon monster, however the center head had already been eliminated leaving a stump as a substitute. Every new area introduced with it distinctive monsters to gawk and stare upon.
All main characters are totally voiced and you may actually inform that everybody is giving it their all. Moments of frustration and unhappiness may be heard all through the journey that the primary characters go on. That is equally true when characters discover their power and band collectively to attempt to save the world.
Even after strolling away from the sport whereas taking part in it this previous week the partaking battle theme and overworld themes caught with me. Within the late recreation, there are additionally emotional musical tracks with vocals that spur throughout moments of stress and celebration. These tracks are instantly going to be added to my playlists when out there.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Assessment | Ultimate Ideas
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a recreation that tries to mannequin all the things it does on the Suikoden video games of yesteryear. As with many “religious successors crowdfunded with massive names from the unique launch hooked up” this falls into the lure the place you see what they are going for, however undershoot the mark at virtually each likelihood.
Suikoden followers will seemingly take pleasure in themselves, however will not be overly excited. For others who did not have a lot publicity to these explicit traditional JRPG titles, this is not going to be the introduction you need. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is one other good instance of a Kickstarter recreation that hasn’t achieved its inspiration and has suffered from stretch objective bloat and scope mismanagement.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes was reviewed on PC with a code supplied by the writer over roughly 46 hours of gameplay. All screenshots on this assessment had been taken by the reviewer throughout gameplay.