‘Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes’ is a turn-based roleplaying game developed by Rabbit & Bear Studios and published by 505 Games. A spiritual successor to KONAMI’s ‘Suikoden’ series of games, Eiyuden Chronicle Hundred Heroes takes players through the eyes of Nowa and his efforts with his crew of heroes as he recruits and builds an army to take back a stolen kingdom.
You’ll fight, recruit unique individuals, build up your headquarters, and do all sorts of side minigames on your quest—and it’s a lot of fun to play.
I’m not familiar with the Suikoden games at all and honestly, I wasn’t all too keen on this game’s prequel, ‘Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising’, which dragged on for way too long.
While I do take issue with Hundred Heroes’ cutscene pacing, the rest of the game more than makes up for it. The developer’s late Yoshitaka Murayama should know that he and his team have made a wonderful game.
Recruit this review for a playthrough—or jump in via Game Pass this week instead.
Runes of History
Our story of Hundred Heroes begins with a very chipper and naive Nowa, who joins in on an expedition to find an ancient artifact within a forest of mist. After its discovery, political shenanigans happens between ruling kingdoms of Allraan and before you know it—Nowa and company are dragged through the fires of war.
Things also escalate fairly quickly, just trust me on that. But even though things get down, our heroes are always ready to lift each others spirits and fight for what they believe in. You can even make a few of those dialogue choices yourself, and sometimes watch the aftermath carry over.
Sometimes heroes will join Nowa’s cause without a hitch, but sometimes they’ll ask favours of you. Be it gathering items or helping them out with something, you’ll learn quite a bit about the playable characters you meet over the course of the game and how they impact (and are impacted by) the world of Allraan.
I don’t think I felt skimped out on character stories during my playthrough of the game and I think that’s a great job well done, considering the number of wacky looking weirdos you can make friends with. Fun characters are balanced by the serious and have great voice acting behind them. And the accompanying spritework is icing on the cake, as units give exaggerated expressions that are fun to see.
But yes, Eiyuden Chronicle Hundred Heroes’ story is always at the forefront, with plenty of cutscenes that will stop player’s in their tracks over and over again. A fault that’s more obvious during sequences where the game paces you through multiple battles. Sometimes they drag and these cutscenes also can’t be skipped nor are there auto read or log options. I’ll admit, occasionally I would go on autopilot and miss out on a conversation beat that suddenly catches my attention—and with no way to read back, I’m left a bit miffed.
Battle Hardened
Thankfully, Hundred Heroes’ combat system is a lot of fun. Players set up a total of six heroes on the battlefield to fight off monsters and soldiers and whathaveyou, alternating between main attacks, specials (SP bar), and magic attacks slash buffs. Specials can be earned over the course of the battle and can carry over to other battles—and these SP attacks can also be chained in Hero Combos, which are powerful attacks that particular units will have when placed in the same party.
Battles can also be auto’d, which lets the team do what they need to do to win. They’ll fire off skills, use items to revive and heal, and so on and so forth. Plans of action can also be modified for you to build the perfect auto team.
I ended up using this option a lot, not because encounter rates were high but because at least on normal mode, you can take out most groups of baddies single-handedly with a good team. Make sure everyone is properly leveled, add in the right Rune-lenses to amplify stats and skills, and you’re as good as gold. Bosses require a more delicate touch and they quite literally have their own gimmicks, which make them a lot more engaging than your typical fight against monster cronies.
Outside of that there will be battles in War Mode, which has you lead units to battle in a tactical grid-based combat zone and headquarter management along with other minigames (like the one-on-one duels) that you’ll run into over the course of the game.
I felt that these really helped break up the pacing of the game so that you’re not just running around the overworld like a headless chicken, looking for heroes to recruit that could potentially be missed.
Speaking of which, there’s also fishing. It’s pretty basic, but you’ll need to do that and other forms of harvesting if you want to get your headquarters up and running fast. Storage does get to be an issue down the line, so watch how much you pick up lest you need to start throwing stuff away.
A Beautiful World
Allraan is a big place and you’ll see that as you explore different lands and biomes in search for new troops. Eiyuden Chronicle Hundred Heroes’ visuals and music compliment Rabbit & Bear’s new world really well, its 2.5D visuals looking bright and colourful across all backdrops without smearing Vaseline over the screen. I had no issues playing this game on PC nor my Xbox Series X, but the latter did exhibit some wonky visuals and artifacting as well as frame drops in some scenes. Not the end of the world, and the developer has said they plan on releasing a day one patch to resolve these issues.
With the Kickstarter long behind, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes was easily worth the backing fee, my copy coming in just last Friday. I was skeptical, as stories with enormous casts don’t always fare well in pacing—but great combat, excellent visuals, and an entertaining story about rising from the ruins of warmongering makes for a fantastic turn-based time.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes
Played on
Xbox Series X|S / Windows 11 PC
PROS
- 2D sprites against 3D backgrounds looks great, particularly the lighting.
- Fun turn-based combat with many heroes to change up your gameplay style.
- Great bosses with unique gimmicks.
- Gameplay shake ups are frequent as they are fun.
CONS
- Cutscenes lack skipping, log, and auto functions.
- Poor balance of cutscenes and encounters.
