In the years that followed the explosion of crowdfunding of games, a stigma arose around these titles. Yes, there have been many games that have been very successful after their crowdfunding campaigns, but more and more people remember the high-profile Flops: games with big names and ambitious promises that, for various reasons, betrayed the high hopes of the Fans.for them. Many of them were awakenings – spiritual or otherwise – from beloved series of yesteryear. Now we have Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, a crowdfunding game designed to carry the torch of the popular Suikoden series from PS1 and PS2-and with such a high pedigree, there is an understandable panic: will it be a glorious return to form or another disappointment? Fortunately for us (and all the supporters), it went very well.
The Eiyuden chronicle begins when a young man named Nowa joins the Eltisweiss Guard, a small militia unit commanded by Countess Perielle of the League of Nations. During a joint mission with a military team from the Galdean Empire, the watch discovers a powerful ancient artifact, the primordial lens, which brings immediate notoriety to all those involved. However, it does not take long before the quarrels in the middle of the Empire and the league over the apparatus, as well as internal power struggles in the Empire, lead to an Invasion of Eltisweiss and a full-fledged war. As the scale of the conflict increases, the story also expands: Nowa rebuilds a resistance army in an rejected castle, the lordly imperial military prodigy struggles with his feelings of obligation, friendship and loyalty, and a young warrior named Marisa finds her Clan trapped in the middle.
The story does not shy away from its similarities with the games of the Suikoden series. In more ways than one, it encompasses them outright: a story that is divided into several points of view, loyalties in the middle of friends Tested during the war, internal political intrigues, powerful magic runes as a crucial plot device and, obviously, the vanity of building a great Band of warriors to face an even bigger enemy. Directed by the creator and writer of Suikoden Yoshitaka Murayama (unfortunately who died just before the game’s release), the story is full of heatth, wit and twists that made the first Suikoden titles so captivating and memorable.
Throughout the game, you will be on the lookout for more characters to strengthen the ranks of the guard and possibly help build a base for the resistance army. Some characters are easy to find and recruit, others require a little extra research or effort: you may have to return to a city or dungeon much earlier in the game, find a rare item, play a mini-game or fend off a vicious enemy in order for someone to join the crew. The search for heroes is a lot of fun (and much easier if you have the ability to travel quickly), and the honour of seeing your base grow and improve with the efforts of your new comrades is immensely satisfying.
But the characters themselves are often their own honour. Despite such a large cast, Eiyuden Chronicle manages to give each character its own voice and personality. They also don’t just take a back seat once their recruitment reality check is complete; they comment on current events in the story while they are in their group, chat while they explore the cities and interact with other characters from the base and elsewhere during their travels. Sometimes they appear to add an extra touch when you least expect it, as if you are being dragged into judging a cooking contest.
In addition to having a good freedom to search for friends when you feel like it, the story course of Eiyuden Chronicle is similar to the typical JRPG: mainly linear with key settings and actions to highlight the key points of the story. You will have to cross the usual dungeons, deserts, tundras, forests and mines and sometimes solve puzzles to progress. Although most of the puzzles are quite simple, sometimes they can be more repulsive than expected, as random experiences with enemies interrupt things at the worst times. Still, the dungeon design is solid and generally worth exploring.
The action is also heavily based on the Suikoden games: turn-based, with up to six active party members at a time, plus a seventh support member who can grant passive benefits such as Stat Boosts or cash winnings. Characters can have both SP-based abilities (which regenerate over time) and MP (which need items to restore themselves), and each can be modified according to the runes that the character has equipped. Placement is essential: some actions and abilitys do not extend far beyond the first row, while some less armored characters work superior in the back-and there are also abilitys that target entire rows. A special action element adopted by Suikoden is multi-character team actions, which require two or more characters with some kind of connection to be together in the group, who can then perform a special action in Tandem.
Not all the characters in your army are available to action, but you still have a very large selection of party members to choose from to action as you prefer. You probably won’t use all the characters you recruit in action, and that’s okay – seeing who you click with and building them usually works well. And if you have to put a neglected character to the test, a tiered XP system will quickly put him on a par with your high-ranking warriors. A little automatic action and you should be hired.
Boss actions are where things get interesting. Many boss actions in the game include some kind of interactive gadget that changes the way you approach the action. These can be objects that you need to hide behind to avoid damage, Background objects that deal damage to you or the opponent depending on who gets there first, or even a treasure that is right behind a certain number of enemies. Sometimes these shenanigans are really funny and clever, like an unbalanced boss when one of the lackeys you hoist on your back is strike, leaving him defenseless. Sometimes it’s miserable, like having to guess which side of the area the enemy appears from in order to hit a book and inflict additional damage. If the gadgets are good, they make very fun actions, but if they are not, you will want an easier action. And sometimes the boss in general is simply a big difficulty that puts you in a very bad Situation if you are unprepared.
However, the worst action experience by far is the large-scale actioning of the army. These take place as a turn-based strategy game where the members of your group command armies and move in a grid, but they lack the fun and excitement that you will find in a dedicated strategy RPG. They spend most of their time watching things happen and feel like they have very little control over what is happening as the armies they were moving around slowly action the enemy. You hope that they will do more damage than the opponents so that you can return to the fun parts of the game instead.
Overall, Eiyuden Chronicle hits the retro RPG sweet spot well. It focuses on providing the heat and soothing feeling of a classic JRPG, and even all the side distractions – the card mini-game, the strange Pokemon/Beyblade hybrid mini-game, the breeding/racing simulation, even the commodity trading-don’t distract too much from the main task of the game. Add beautifully painted and animated Spriteworks and a great soundtrack to the mix, and you have a delightful experience that sometimes falters, but not enough to make you want to put it down. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes may not be revolutionary, but it managed to keep its main promise-and that’s really all it had to do.