‘Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes’ Is ‘Suikoden’ In All However Identify

In case you’ve ever performed a Suikoden sport, it’s laborious to not tear up on the opening sequence of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.

It’s notably laborious watching this following the passing of collection creator and the director of this non secular successor Yoshitaka Murayama on the age of 55. Character montages, a swelling orchestra, sweeping photographs over huge plains, mountains, and deserts, and battles between mates and foes – this is a snapshot of Murayama, and Suikoden’s, legacy.

It’s unattainable to separate Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes from its inspirations; Murayama, who shaped Rabbit & Bear Studios to create this sport, wrote and directed Suikoden and Suikoden II for the PlayStation (and partially labored on Suikoden III earlier than leaving the venture mid-way); Junko Kawano was the lead artist on the unique Suikoden and returned to provide IV, Techniques, and V; and Osamu Komuta labored as a programmer on IV and directed Techniques and Tierkreis. Junichi Murakami, the final founding father of Rabbit & Bear, is talked about within the credit of V, and is thought for guiding Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. All 4 are distinguished names from Konami’s — and Suikoden’s — previous.

Forward of the sport’s launch on twenty third April 2024, 505 Video games provided us the possibility to go hands-on with a Steam beta construct. And whereas the vastly profitable Kickstarter, trailers, and promotional materials have made it clear, lastly getting an opportunity to play this turn-based RPG homage made it abundantly clear: Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is Suikoden in all however title.

Eiyuden Chronicle, Rising

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes’ beta is basically the opening part of the sport. Consisting of concerning the first 5 to eight hours of gameplay, it offers you a very good sense of what to anticipate. Plenty of characters, political tensions, friendships, silliness, and loads of stable turn-based fight.

That makes it fairly totally different to the tame, and transient, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, a prequel that was extra motion RPG and centered way more on a single neighborhood relatively than a whole continent. Hundred Heroes is a lot bigger in scope, as you’d anticipate. Within the beta, you might have entry to a number of cities, two full dungeons, a few linear branching paths, and a whole world map. A JRPG world map in 2024? Stunning.

Nowa is the main target of the opening hours of the sport – a younger boy from a small border village, Nowa is selfless, sort, and a self-proclaimed “meddler”. He differs from Suikoden collection protagonists who’re virtually all the time silent, and his persona is infectious. After becoming a member of the Watch, a gaggle of mercenaries, Nowa finds himself cooperating with the empire to analyze some ruins. On the mission, he befriends Seign Kesling, a lieutenant within the military. And the discoveries they make are the main target of the remainder of the sport.

A JRPG world map in 2024? Stunning.

We’re already in love with the handful of characters we’ve managed to spend a while with. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes hasn’t sacrificed any old-school JRPG silliness for a extra mature plot; we’re positive one is ready for us past the primary few hours, however we might watch martial arts specialist Lian tease Nowa for hours. Each single particular person, from Seign’s perceived haughtiness to the wolfman Garr’s grumpy “father of the group” perspective had us charmed from the get-go.

A Woven Net

The beta is cut up into two halves – the primary few hours deal with the story and act as a type of tutorial for the sport’s fight mechanics. The second half unleashes you as Noah and the Watch onto the world, to recruit allies to the trigger and get a way of simply what awaits in the principle sport.

If we are able to gush for a second, it’s an absolute pleasure to have a fully-explorable world map in a turn-based JRPG for the primary time shortly. Wandering the plains of a shrunk-down world as somewhat sprite by no means will get previous. It’s one of many defining options of any JRPG from our childhoods, and right here, it’s one more approach that Hundred Heroes wears its coronary heart, and inspirations, on its sleeve.

The fight might be the primary place you’ll spot these Suikoden threads essentially the most. You possibly can have as much as six characters in battle directly – three within the entrance, three within the again. Firstly of a struggle, you’ll be able to instruct your characters to make use of regular assaults, use expertise through the Rune-Lens menu (equipable gadgets that grant expertise and magic to your characters), or use a novel protection command that may vary from dodging magical shields, and even charging up assaults, relying on the character.

Rune-Lens assaults price SP, which you get well by performing common assaults. Some magic-based expertise reminiscent of therapeutic spells and elemental assaults eat MP and SP, making useful resource administration key to fights. This solely actually turns into a difficulty with high-cost therapeutic spells as MP-healing gadgets have been a bit scarce throughout our time with the sport, however there are greater than sufficient HP-healing gadgets to steadiness issues out.

You possibly can see the flip order of each character and enemy on the high of the display screen, so planning out your character’s assaults to forestall your foe from making a transfer is essential. It provides somewhat factor of technique to battle, and you may even have an effect on the flip order relying in your actions. It’s easy however extraordinarily efficient, and watching the flip order play out after you’ve made your decisions is satisfying – notably with a few of the gorgeous spritework and animations on provide.

Stars of Future

We acquired to mess around with ten characters, and all of them felt somewhat bit totally different. Nowa is a quick attacker who balances offence and defence completely. Garr, a wolfman, is a principally pure bodily attacker and far slower than Nowa, however his Rune-Lens ability permits him to spice up his assault for 3 turns. Then there’s Mellore who specialises in light-based long-range assaults and may hit the entrance or again row of enemies no matter the place she is.

Some characters will finally get entry to Hero Combos, lethal assaults that mix two or extra characters’ expertise at the price of each their SP bars. Nowa and Seign crew up for a robust group-wide assault, whereas Nowa and the marital artist Lian pair up for a combo with a possible important hit. These are enjoyable additions and are a nod to Suikoden’s Unite Assaults, however as with its non secular predecessor, many of those are extra for his or her trendy animations and added results than their injury.

Hundred Heroes wears its coronary heart, and inspirations, on its sleeve.

Having performed a couple of Suikoden video games earlier than, we all know how essential crew composition might be – notably as your get together grows. We didn’t get to mess around a lot right here due to the way in which the beta splits the characters – we had seven within the second half after recruiting some additional characters, so selecting between having two mages or having a mage and a ranger was the one actual selection we needed to make right here.

The methods you recruit these extra characters might be fairly assorted. The short-tempered cleric Francesca would possibly be our favorite simply due to how her persona can do a fast 180 on the click on of a finger, however her recruitment quest merely requires you to set off a cutscene. In distinction, for Mellore, it’s essential comply with her and undergo a dungeon to defeat a boss to get her to affix the Watch. It’s precisely the sort of aspect questing and exploration that we love right here.

Memory

The cities and dungeons of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes additionally borrow from the classics in the absolute best methods. The bottom city, the place you spend nearly all of time within the second half of the beta, is large however it’s additionally stuffed with folks to speak to, outlets to go to, and many stunning visuals. Truthfully, the mix of pixel artwork and 3D backgrounds works extremely properly and creates a comfy, nostalgic, and fashionable look that we love.

Suikoden staple shops reminiscent of Rune-Lens outlets, Appraisers, buying and selling posts, and blacksmiths are current – we acquired relatively excited once we noticed the appraisers store for the primary time, however we have been rapidly upset once we discovered we had nothing to appraise! And the cities differ from small farming hamlets to bustling cobbled streets.

The dungeons are equally easy and evocative of the golden period of JRPGs – branching paths with easy puzzles, hidden treasure chests, and random encounters (with an inexpensive random encounter charge, in addition). One dungeon sees you pushing minecarts round, whereas one other had us memorising brief passwords. None of those will likely be designed to interrupt your mind; they’re enjoyable and breezy.

Days Previous

There’s loads we love about Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes up to now, however a couple of issues are lacking for us. Whereas the fight right here is partaking, Suikoden video games are recognized for his or her snappy menu-based fight, and whereas Eiyuden Chronicle actually makes an attempt to comply with that custom, no less than within the beta, issues are a bit slower than we’d like. Going by way of six characters’ assault choices feels somewhat sluggish. Auto-battle is no less than an choice – and it’s extremely customisable, that means you’ll be able to set character priorities and actions – however going by way of one spherical takes an extended than anticipated.

From what we’ve seen up to now, nonetheless, it is a legacy Murayama-san, and the crew at Rabbit & Bear might be pleased with.

That is maybe most noticeable with bosses, which add gimmicks to differ up the fights a bit extra. For the primary boss, it’s essential take note of which column the boss goes to assault and conceal behind rocks. For an optionally available boss, you could select whether or not to summon a magical hammer from a left or proper e book to hit the boss because it emerges from the bottom. The latter of those gimmicks got here fully right down to luck, and there have been no indicators as to the place the boss would pop up. So whereas we applaud the range, it didn’t all the time work.

There are additionally a couple of different components that, whereas not commonplace in RPGs again within the ‘90s, actually really feel a bit missed right here. So far as we are able to inform, you’ll be able to solely save your sport at save factors or in Inns, that means there’s no saving on the world map. Rune-Lenses can solely be geared up in Rune-Lens shops. And you’ve got restricted, if shared, stock house. It’s extra beneficiant than it was within the authentic Suikoden, and we think about you’ll be capable to broaden it in a while in Hundred Heroes, however we ran out of house a couple of times throughout our seven hours with the sport.

Nonetheless, these seven hours we spent with Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes’ beta solely provided us a slice of what the complete sport has to supply us. We’re promised base constructing, minigames, and over 100 characters to recruit, starting from get together members to shopkeepers and extra. And with the carrot dangling some extra severe plot moments from the tip of the beta, we’re wanting to see what the remainder of the sport has in retailer for us — and the way it performs on Swap.

From what we’ve seen up to now, nonetheless, it is a legacy Murayama-san, and the crew at Rabbit & Bear might be pleased with.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes launches on the Swap eShop on twenty third April 2024. Will you be recruiting these 100 subsequent month? Tell us within the feedback.