Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (2022)

Dates played: October 5th-13th

Time: ~30 hours (100% complete; about 24 hours for main story)

I found myself checking out EC Hundred Heroes numerous times this year, so I finally caved and bought this bundle on Steam last weekend to play on my Deck. While there are some issues with this game, it's pretty great considering it was a stretch goal for the HH Kickstarter.

I earned all achievements, and also got the three main characters to max level (50), though you only have to reach it with one character for an achievement. Honestly, most of the achievements pop pretty organically as you play through the game, but I did have to spend time resource-gathering for max gear upgrades and grinding up the last couple of levels, and then fighting all of the bosses on hard. A pretty easy 100% for someone who generally does not bother, and I figured I should just do it when there were only like 8/50 achievements left to snag once I'd beaten the story.

Gameplay:

The side-scrolling, action platformer gameplay isn't usually one of my favorites, but I enjoyed it well enough in this particular case. CJ's jump and her running speed are by far the best to get around, but Isha's magic was such a blast to use. I definitely used Garoo the least because he was so slow and clunky, but he pulled his weight in shield-breaking capabilities. Combat was a little frustrating sometimes, with only Garoo having a block, some of Isha's magic just shooting into space because that specific element's angle is fucky, or whatever other little nitpicky thing. Mostly, though, it felt pretty smooth, and switching between characters was seamless.

There are five major areas to explore other than the town, and it got old pretty fast. You have access to the Great Forest to start, unlock the Quarry after a few main story quests, and eventually gain access to the Runebarrows, which is split into three large different areas. Between story events, many of the townsfolk will give you quests to complete, which will upgrade shops, unlock new ones, and develop the town a bit further. I liked this aspect a lot as a concept and many of the townsfolk were at least mildly interesting characters, but basically everything was a fetch quest. Some were your standard "get 12 of X item" which you would often already have, but many were more along the lines of "I lost this item/this item was stolen/I need this one specific boss-drop" which requires you to go to a specific room of whichever dungeon to fight something or open a chest. There are a variety of fast travel options, but this still got really tedious.

You are given a stamp card to earn your explorer's license as part of the story early on, and every quest earns you a single stamp. Between the 4 stamp cards, there were 160 quests by the end of the game. Once you hit post-game, a bunch of the same quests from the same characters pop, and I'm not super sure what the purpose is. There are no more stamps to collect, the quests give garbage exp, and the money is basically moot at that point of the game when resources sell for so much more. I did a handful before I checked over the last few achievements and determined there was no reason to complete any more of them. I had also completed all quests as they became available in town, so I hadn't missed any.

Each of your characters has a single weapon and set of armor, which you upgrade at the appropriate shops. At the smithy, you enhance said weapons/armor (THIRTY TIMES EACH), so all of that had to be maxed for an achievement. This is what I spent most of my post-game time doing, as there were some rare materials needed every few enhancement levels. Nothing difficult, but again, just a lot of backtracking into the areas that I was already sick of seeing by this point.

There were some general gameplay elements that I liked a lot, such as food/bathing benefits staying on your characters until you rested again. Oftentimes I got through a dozen quests and several story events before I needed to rest at the base, but it was also really inexpensive to bathe at the inn or craft food at the tavern when I wanted to refresh my stat boosts.

Other than the weapon/armor shops, pretty much everything else was "bought" by crafting it first. Then, you can purchase that item if you need another. (So, like, you craft something at the accessory shop, and then it becomes available to either craft again, OR purchase.)

While not nearly as impactful, the fact that all of the quests helped to build up the town and the community within it reminded me a bit of the Xenoblade games. So many quests in those games help you to foster relationships with and between NPCs, build communities, and make the impact of the main characters feel real. It's not nearly to the same level here, but the vibes are similar and I like that feeling.

Other stuff:

The music is really beautiful, as are the environments. I was sick of the dungeons themselves by the end, but they're gorgeous and well-designed.

The story is pretty generic most of the time, and the late-game mentions of an Empire and some random people are obviously intended to lead into HH rather than actually give much lore there. It's still a complete adventure for our trio, even though it's mostly about their journey to find what's important to each of them. I liked their rapport a lot, too, with Garoo being so exasperated by CJ at first, before they really bond, and Isha's stern demeanor melting as she gains friends. It's all quite wholesome.

Considering I'm only about two hours into Hundred Heroes now, I can't definitively say whether someone could skip this before playing HH or not. I'm assuming those who have played this will just be rewarded with some Easter eggs or fun references rather than any major plot relevance (plus the few save-file carry-overs), but I'm still glad that I played through it.

**A note in the event that anyone else plays this on Deck and then tries to move onto Hundred Heroes: HH doesn't pick up on the save file on the Deck. I started the game and was given all of the DLC notifications, but nothing about my save data from Rising. You can't get the bonuses after starting the game, so I had to quit and look up a fix. It ended up being pretty easy, but I was still frustrated by having to do it. (Basically had to copy the compat data folder from Rising into HH's, and it worked perfectly after that.)

Edit to add Achievements screenshot because I thought the screen was pretty. c:

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is a substantial title, both in terms of its content and its inspirations. The developers have skilfully “popularized” the RPG mechanics while associating an efficient and accessible action aspect. A pinch of Metroidvania for the exploration and voilà a recipe worthy of appearing on the menu of a Michelin-starred restaurant. This is mainly due to the experience gained by the developers who contributed to the Suikoden saga.

Although it was conceived as a prologue to Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, the title has a long lifespan and it takes around 20–25 hours to complete the main storyline. The side quests and the hunt for achievements obviously add to what the players are offered. It would therefore be a shame to miss out on this great introduction that is also featured in the Game Pass.

It's an okay game. And yet I'm surprisingly hyped for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes after playing this. I know it may seem contradictory to some. I'll explain myself.

It feels like there's a lot of stuff here that if replicated and polished and applied to an actual long game could make ECHH have the same feel as Suikoden II. The vibe, the music, the graphics, the slow nurturing pace, the archetypal political players.

The main fear is in regards to the writing, but for now it's not as big of a concern to me as it seems to be for others. I saw a review here and another on Twitter saying that it overuses common fantasy archetypes/tropes. In my opinion, Suikoden II (possibly my favorite game) also used common archetypes and tropes a good amount of the time, it just executed them competently and at points excellently. Even the one storytelling aspect that seemed exotic at the time (recruiting the 108 stars of destiny) is not even that original once you are familiar with the medieval novel Water Margin that inspired Suikoden. Speaking as a Literature professor, not all texts (and games) must have the masterful prose of a Virginia Woolf or the gorgeous verbose dialogues of a Final Fantasy Tactics to be good. Simple dialogues can also be used to be told an incredible story.

Due to the particular nature and genre of Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, dialogue does not get much of a chance to shine. Most of the characters are pragmatic mercenaries/treasure hunters or from a very small town where the action is set. Story is also quite simple because 1. this is not that long of a game, 2. with a short gameplay loop that requires repetitive dialogue because it's a town-building RPG. You just go out to dungeons to gather resources and see the settlement grow little by little, and repeat that like 30 times so there's not much room of the narrative twists of a Suikoden II.

As an aside, I enjoyed the basic action gameplay more than I thought I would, but turn-based play is where it's at for me.

I don't have that much of an issue with the personalities of the few characters we saw that will eventually become the 108 stars of destiny (Hogan, Mellore, Iugo, Squash, Frida, Garoo, Isha, CJ) with the exception of the armor vendor (she felt bland). Most characters in Suikoden are also basically an archetype template. Some are not explored much further beyond that, some are. I do feel that the town-building repetition aspect did hurt the personality aspect a bit too. I generally like the classic dynamic between characters like CJ and Isha, and I'm fine with the one between characters like CJ and Garoo. These are the two main interactions you'll see in ECR. Over and over again. And it got a bit old. That's what worries me about the main game. I hope that the dynamics between the main cast do not get repetitive. I assume they probably won't, since the main recurring cast in that game will surely be over 3 characters and will feature multiple locales, story turns and hopefully a good amount of character development.

In the last minutes of the game before the credits rolled is when I started to think: "Huh, so this is how these particular character's stories end up on for now, it's actually cool that in the main game we are probably going to recruit REDACTED while he's desperately searching for his REDACTED, and as for the other two they'll probably still be in REDACTED but they'll also be looking for a way to get rid of the REDACTED in her body, oh but also the town is near the Empire so I wonder if ECHH will do the usual Suikoden thing of devastating..." and so on.

Maybe the idea of what ECHH can be is more beautiful in my mind than it'll ever be in reality. We'll have to wait until then. But I am hyped for it for now.

The action is below average - floaty and unbalanced. The writing and world building is below-average - mostly soulless permutations of juvenile fantasy archetypes. Its only successes are Pavlovian, something you’d normally see in an ad-supported mobile game.

Just my opinion, but it’s a shame this associated with Suikoden and I really REALLY hope the real Eiyuden game is absolutely nothing like this one. Especially the world-building.

I am being harsh, the truth is I finished the game and most of the side quests, it was a relaxing and predictable gameplay loop and I enjoyed it for a good 8 hours before the fatigue set in. Just really salty that this is the supposed Suikoden dream team.