When Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes hit Kickstarter in 2020, it showed a lot of promise. Looking a lot like a Suikoden spiritual successor, helmed by the creator of Suikoden himself Yoshitaka Murayama, everything showed promise. Then it hit 4.5 million dollars on Kickstarter. It was clear that the world was ready for a Suikoden follow-up. Not only smashing its five hundred thousand dollar goal but hitting records within Kickstarter. Its enormous success meant we would get a prequel game, Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising. This would help hold us over as we waited for the real deal, and Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is ready for us now.
Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes follows Nowa, a young mercenary known for meddling in other people’s business if only wanting to help. After joining The Watch, he embarks on a journey with the Galdean Empire to find a “Primal Lense.” These artifacts bestow great power to their bearers; some are even born with them. But after finding the lens and some time passing, the empire turns out to be evil, starting wars based on false rumours. After being put in charge of a resistance, it’s up to Nowa and friends to gather allegiances, find the true enemy, and restore peace to the world.
Alongside Nowa, there are a few other main threads, including Seign Kesling, an officer in its imperial army who has a change of heart, and Marisa, one of the Guardians who watches over the forest to protect its Primal Lense. At the same time, they all share their separate goals; it’s a story about coming together in times of strife and realizing the common enemy. That is something that Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes nails in spades. Rabbit & Bear Studios really makes you buy into and believe in the resistance’s journey. This is partly due to incredible voice acting and well-functioning characters.
It’s during the midpoint of the game when we see Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes really push the multi-layered narrative before everyone comes together for their battle. But this gives a good glimpse at our main heroes’ home lives and what they are dealing with internally. This helps bolster them out as living, breathing people and makes it easy to believe that they are the face of the resistance. It’s clear that Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes took what Suikoden did, evolved it, and really set the new standard for having such a beefy party system.
“The base-building system is easily the best part of Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes.“
There is this base-building mechanic in Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes that makes it really feel like you and your team are making a difference in the world. The way your town builds out as you level it up through profit margins and recourse scouring makes the base feel like your home. You chose how it all upgrades from minute details like increased lumbar production to the more significant visible changes like adding a blacksmithy or trading post to your town.
Adding these more significant buildings also helps you recruit more members, as some will only want to join the cause if you can provide them with something the empire can not. Ultimately, every trip back to my town felt like a return trip home, spending time just talking to the locals and diving deep into my recruited characters’ home life. The base-building system is easily the best part of Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes.
Characters are a big thing in Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. It boasts over a hundred characters that will come to the aid of the resistance. Some of them only needed Nowa to simply talk to them, while others required a more side quest-like approach. Most of them will just require you to obtain a certain amount of items like iron ore or a particular armour set to give them before joining.
“It’s clear that Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes took what Suikoden did, evolved it, and really set the new standard for having such a beefy party system.”
But, once they do, each character plays differently in combat, has different specialties, and, more importantly, has a story. I really thought that having so many people in the game, much like previous Suikoden games, most of them would be nothing characters. But Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes manages to flesh each one out and make their plight meaningful.
It’s usually these characters that will also introduce you to the many—and I mean many—mini-games present in the world of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. There is fishing, racing, cooking, monster racing, card battling, trading, duelling, farming, and last but not least, Beigoma, which is like Beyblades. Granted, not all of them hit home for me, but there will surely be something here for everyone. Each one is surprisingly deep, and you can lose countless hours.
I was a sucker for the Iron Chef, like the cooking mini-game, the trading mini-game, which just involves buying stock of items and checking around the world for their prices, trying to buy low and sell high, and finally, the one that really sunk me was Beigoma. They took Beyblades and made it enjoyable, challenging as all get out, and incredibly addictive
When things get to combat, the idea of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes starts to falter. The majority of combat is your general JRPG turn-based combat, albeit with six party members instead of four. It’s wild that adding in those two more characters makes each round of combat feel way too long. Having to strategize six members takes just a fraction too long, so most of the time, outside of boss battles, I would end up just putting my characters to auto-battle.
Thankfully, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes houses a good auto battler that you can customize, which was nice when I noticed that starting the auto battle really favoured using up all my magic, leaving me defenceless in boss battle. The more significant issue is that the minute-to-minute battles are repetitive, and in a JRPG, that is the majority of the game, especially when it comes to grinding some gold and experience out later. But, to give Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes its dues, when you put a lower levelled character in your party, they do level up really fast to catch up to the rest of the party; this also makes playing around with party makeup an easy thing to do.
There is also a real-time strategy side to battle when it comes to larger-scale battles. They play out with everything on a grid, and each group of main characters has some form of skill that boosts one of their abilities or moves them to another square. It is an exciting idea, but just like the regular battles, it feels a little listless and goes on for too long. When selecting more than one unit to attack the enemy, it sometimes just lingers with them battling back and forth for a few minutes. If there was a fast-forward option, that would have made it much more enjoyable.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is an excellent first step for a new JRPG IP. With only a few minor gameplay tweaks, it could stand out amongst its peers. It features a riveting story, addictive mini-games, and character collection; it’s one big downfall of battling is the only thing really holding it back. But, in the turn-based genre, battling is everything. I am excited to see what Rabbit & Bear Studios brings to the sequel and subsequent DLCs for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. There is an evident passion for the genre, and I can’t wait to see it evolve even more.
- Fight thrilling & immersive turn-based battles that factor in the verticality & obstacles of dungeons when determining character and enemy placement. Take powerful bosses down a peg by caving in the ceiling or blasting them with devastating weapons.
- Assemble your party from a range of fighters with diverse personal skills. Use their unique defensive commands to protect allies in the same row, counter incoming attacks, provoke foes, or charge up for your next strike.
