Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes – Quick Expectations And Mismanaged Scope

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a brand new title from Rabbit and Bear Studio, a studio shaped by sport builders and artists who labored on the unique Suikoden titles. Hundred Heroes itself is a non secular successor to the gameplay kinds of Suikoden, however the query with all non secular successors is “Does the imitation stay as much as the unique?”

In Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes you play as Nowa, a younger man who left his city to grow to be an adventurer for a quest guild. After being chosen to affix a mission in the hunt for a uncommon artifact dominoes shortly fall resulting in the Dux of a neighboring nation sowing discourse resulting in a warfare between nations.

Now the chief of an Alliance of countries Nowa should journey the nation recruiting allies to combat off the invading Imperials. This journey takes him the world over visiting varied cities, interacting with, and recruiting denizens of the world from state leaders to widespread folks.

An Journey to Nowa-where

The story begins off robust. Introducing you to key characters who will work in tandem together with your efforts and arrange Nowa as a reluctant hero. There’s additionally a strong backing forged together with a mentor-like determine, a spunky buddy who treats you want a child, and a strong noblewoman orchestrating your complete effort from the background. These character archetypes may be a bit tropey however they do a superb job establishing the world shortly so you possibly can hop into exploration.

Because the story continues nevertheless this plot of world touring and political subterfuge shortly begins to point out cracks. Not are characters fleshed out, travels to completely different locations grow to be shorter and shorter, and new factions start showing out of nowhere to sluggish Nowa’s progress.

You’ll be able to inform the precise second within the sport 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 sport up to now. It concurrently feels rushed in addition to so sluggish as each time you are feeling you’ve got reached the tip of the sport some completely 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’re going to encounter. A few of these recruitable characters have a quest related to them and unlock completely different features at your own home base, others be part of you with a easy dialog.

Plenty of the heroes do not feel like they’re including something to the expertise however are as an alternative 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 objects, or to even stroll quicker appears 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 sport that makes use of related factors and lanes to Marvel Snap, and even a Beyblade-style minigame. These mini-games too come throughout as half-baked, feeling like the thought 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 properly on the floor however when you begin diving into it deeper, acquiring extra talents, and gathering characters it begins to point out a number of its cracks.

At any time you possibly can have six members of your preventing get together, with three to swap in. Characters have a typical assault and an Auto-Rune assault, for some characters, this might imply a particular assault that consumes SP or a magical means 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 whole SP gauge for assaults that develop in energy as there’s extra to spend. MP nevertheless not solely does not refill, however it’s additionally not potential to buy MP restoring objects.

MP talents aren’t that rather more highly effective than SP alternate options, however the huge draw back is that MP is required for healers. This implies even when you have got a spellcaster in your get together there is not any 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 objects to maintain themselves dealing harm and staying protected. Whether or not it says one thing concerning the problem of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, or how unbelievable the default character AI is I used to be capable of clear the vast majority of the sport battling on auto-pilot.

There have been possibly solely two handfuls of battles towards boss creatures that had further gimmicks to the battle, resembling taking a personality’s flip to fireplace a canon or drop an icicle, the place I wasn’t in a position 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 occurring to the subsequent stage within the story.

There are just a few moments in-game the place as an alternative of a small-scale battle you are preventing a warfare. Constructed on a grid system you will transfer your troops one house a flip, supplying you with choices to activate talents alongside the way in which.

Whereas the occasion of large-scale battle is enjoyable there is not any precise successful or dropping of those battles, no less than within the story-based ones. Every is pre-scripted for just a few turns. What would possibly look to have stakes as an alternative 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 side that I skilled all through your entire sport was additionally how a lot time was wanted to navigate menus. Between citing a menu, navigating to the magic display screen, 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.

Seems to be and Sounds Superb

Two areas the place Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes excelled had been in its artwork design and audio path.

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 must be so you possibly can pick the principle characters as you stroll via a city.

All the completely different monsters featured within the sport had been additionally extremely fascinating and distinctive. One in every of my favourite designs was that of a three-headed dragon monster, however the center head had already been eliminated leaving a stump as an alternative. Every new area introduced with it distinctive monsters to gawk and stare upon.

All main characters are absolutely voiced and you may actually inform that everybody is giving it their all. Moments of frustration and disappointment may be heard all through the journey that the principle 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 participating battle theme and overworld themes caught with me. Within the late sport, 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 obtainable.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Overview | Closing Ideas

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a sport that tries to mannequin every part it does on the Suikoden video games of yesteryear. As with many “non secular successors crowdfunded with huge names from the unique launch hooked up” this falls into the entice the place you see what they are going for, however undershoot the mark at virtually each probability.

Suikoden followers will probably take pleasure in themselves, however will not be overly excited. For others who did not have a lot publicity to these specific 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 sport 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 offered by the writer over roughly 46 hours of gameplay. All screenshots on this evaluate had been taken by the reviewer throughout gameplay.