Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is an RPG game with focus on story and characters. It's a spiritual successor to the Suikoden series, featuring a similar party system, focus on war themes, and over a hundred playable characters. I followed this game since they announced its Kickstarter Campaign, and I'm happy to have finally played it many years later.
I had never played a Suikoden game, but I was interested in them. Eiyuden Chronicle is the first game I play of this style, and it blows my mind, both visually and gameplay-wise. I love the detailed 2D sprites and how they look on the game's 3D backgrounds, and lighting effects!
The story, while basic, perfectly suits this type of setting, and it was paced amazingly well.
The story follows Nowa, a young man who joins The Watch. A group that works for Lady Perrielle, fulfilling odd jobs and missions to help the people in the League of Nations. (They remind me of the Bracer Guild from the Trials series.)
During one mission, Nowa and his friends, collaborate with the Empire to explore the Rune Barrows. Through that mission, he encounters Seign, a noble imperial soldier. Nowa and Seign inspire each other to work harder for their goals.
A while later, the relationship between the Empire and the League worsens due to the Dux's Aldric's ambitions to advance Runes technology at the expense of innocent lives.
Lady Perrielle asks a favor of Nowa to raise a resistance group. As the leader of the newly established Alliance, Nowa must stop the Dux's plans, even if he has to fight Seign, his friend from the Empire to fulfill that promise.
The progression of Eiyuden Chronicle is centered around exploring the world and gathering support for the alliance. The main story follows the Alliance's protection of nations in the league, while optional characters' recruitment is delegated to side quests.
The world is vibrant and full of unique settings, for example, there's a race of Land-dwelling Sharks living in the desert, riding on sand-traversing ships. There's a Magical Girl who won't feel out of place in a modern anime, yet the world-building manages to let her make sense in the setting. Not to mention,Eiyuden Chronicle has its own Zombie-lore. Many of the game's characters would sound crazy if described outloud, yet, they all co-exist in this world nicely.
After unlocking the Alliance's HQ, you'll be able to have conversations with all the recruited characters, (which I felt was a nice touch,) as well as upgrade the HQ's facilities. The city building part of this game was simple and deep enough to be enjoyable part itself!
Despite the excessive amount of characters and their outlandish backgrounds, most of them fit right there in the Alliance's HQ. Everyone who joins the alliance has a motive against the antagonist, which gives a cohesive feel to all content in the game, even the optional ones.
...I guess it makes sense, as to get the True Ending of the game, all 120 characters must be recruited before the final battle. I didn't do that, so I only got the Normal Ending in my playthrough.
Recruting that many characters is bound to get tiresome at one point. Since unlocking parts of the City Upgrades required certain characters, I had to spend more than an hour trying to catch a specific rare fish to recruit such a character. Halfway through the game, I started focusing on finishing the story, disregarding most of the optional content.
The game featured Full-voice acting, (at least during the story.) I couldn't believe how much dialogue the optional characters said during story moments. I wouldn't be so mindblown if it were a text-only thing, but these lines were voiced too!
Now, I heard the localization was controversial, and I noticed some "cringe" lines here and there. Over all however, I loved the English Dub. Especially Dux Aldric, Seign and Lian's voice lines. I did play the English voice and text combination though... Maybe if I played with Japanese voices and English text, my opinion will be different about this matter.
The Turn-based battles of Eiyuden Chronicle follow the traditional RPG formula, except that the party is composed of 6 characters split on the Front and Back rows. The Magic System is based on the Rune Lenses, which is basically the Magic Technology of the setting. Some Skills require SP which recharges once per turn, while other skills require MP which can only be recovered with INNs and Items.
EXP earned at the end of the battle favors lower-leveled characters, so the need for grinding is minimal.
I love how varied the battles in this game are. There are the usual fights against monsters, but some fights, the Bosses usually, have Gimmicks to them. They remind me of Final Fantasy X's context-dependent battle actions, but there are more of them in this game.
In one Boss Battle, you have to predict where the enemy would jump, and you get a massive damage bonus if you predict correctly. Another boss uses a machine to attack the players, and you can use the same machine to attack him, too. It's always a joy to see those!
While Nowa is the main protagonist of Eiyuden Chronicle, some parts of the story are told from others' perspectives. Mainly Seign, and Marissa. While Seign serves as a reminder that not all of the Empire agrees with the Dux's Ambitions, Marissa's story is about protecting the traditions and the Runes' secrets. I like her dedication to her role as a guardian.
One of my Top 3 favorite parts of the game is played from Marissa's perspective. The words "No Home Is Worth Dying For" is a quote I hope to never forget! ...Near the end of the game, she was given an important role to stop one of the enemy's battalions' advances, and it just so happens that their leader is the one who destroyed her hometown.
The main villain of Eiyuden Chronicle is really interesting. The Dux Aldric is a noble monster! An extremist who believes he's in the right, no matter the sacrifices of innocent lives he makes.
For a moment, he made me ask "What if he was right?" only for my answer to be, "His ambition isn't worth all of this." Nowa, Seign and Marissa are all steadfast against him, though.
Dux Aldric is a human who strayed from the path, not some demonic entity out to destroy the world. Such an antagonist felt refreshing to fight. Especially with the genre's tendency to make the final boss some sort of Deity.
While I beat the game, there are things I haven't done yet. I didn't get the True Ending, nor did I recruit Nowa's sister Leene. I'm not sure if I'm going to do another playthrough or a New Game+ but more likely, I'll watch the parts I didn't get on Youtube instead. Still, even with my sub-optimal playthrough, I'm left completely satisfied with my experience with Eiyuden Chronicle.
Hope you enjoyed my Review, and see you in another article.
Salam (Peace.) Have a nice day.
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- The first image is taken from the game's Nintendo Switch's eShop page. All screenshots are taken by me.