‘Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes’ is ‘Suikoden’ in all but name

If you have ever played a Suicoden game, it’s hard not to cry at the opening sequence of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.

It is especially hard watching this after series creator and director of this spiritual successor Yoshitaka Murayama passed away at the age of 55. Montages of characters, a frenetic orchestra, sweeping shots across vast plains, mountains and deserts, and battles between friends and enemies – this one is a snapshot of Murayama and Suikoden’s legacy.

It’s impossible to separate Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes from its inspirations; Murayama, who founded Rabbit & Bear Studios to make this game, wrote and directed Suicoden and Suikoden II for PlayStation (and which was partially worked on Suikoden III before leaving the project halfway through); Junko Kawano was the lead artist on the original Suikoden and has returned to produce IV, Tacticsand V; and Osamu Komuta worked as a programmer on IV and directed Tactics and Tierkreis. Junichi Murakami, the last founder of Rabbit & Bear, is mentioned in the credits of V, and is known for directing Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. All four are notable names from Konami’s — and Suikoden’s — past.

Ahead of the game’s release on April 23, 2024, 505 Games offered us a chance to go hands-on with the Steam beta. And while it is a hugely successful Kickstarterannouncements and promotional material made it clear, finally getting a chance to play this turn-based RPG tribute made it clear: Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is Suikoden in all but name.

Eiyuden Chronicle, The Rise

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes beta is basically the beginning part of the game. It consists of the first five to eight hours of gameplay and gives you a really good sense of what to expect. Lots of characters, political tensions, friendships, stupidity and a lot of solid turn-based combat.

This makes it quite different from the tame and short Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, a prequel that was more of an action RPG and focused more on one community than an entire continent. A hundred heroes many on a larger scale, as you’d expect. In the beta, you have access to multiple cities, two full dungeons, several linear branching paths, and a full world map. JRPG World Map 2024? Beautiful.

Nowa is at the center of the opening hours of the game – a young man from a small border village, Nowa is selfless, kind and a self-proclaimed “mixer”. He differs from the protagonists of the Suikoden series who are almost always silent, and his personality is infectious. After joining the Watch, a group of mercenaries, Nowa finds himself working with the empire to investigate some ruins. On the mission, he befriends Seign Kesling, a lieutenant in the army. And the discoveries they make are at the heart of the rest of the game.

JRPG World Map 2024? Beautiful.

We’re already in love with the handful of characters we’ve gotten to spend some time with. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes didn’t sacrifice any of the old-school JRPG silliness for a more mature plot; we’re sure there’s one waiting for us after the first few hours, but we could watch the martial arts expert tease Nowa for hours. Every single person, from Seign’s perceived arrogance to the grumpy attitude of the werewolf Garr captivated us from the start.

Knitted net

The beta is split into two halves – the first few hours focus on the story and serve as a sort of tutorial for the game’s combat mechanics. The second part unleashes you as Noah and the Watch into the world, to recruit allies for the cause and get a feel for what awaits you in the main game.

If we can think for a moment, it’s a real pleasure to have a fully explorable world map in a turn-based JRPG for the first time in a long time. Roaming the plains of a shrunken world as a little spirit never grows old. It’s one of the defining features of any JRPG from our childhood, and here it’s another way Hundred Heroes wears its heart and inspiration on its sleeve.

Combat is probably the first place you’ll notice those Suikoden threads the most. You can have up to six characters in battle at once – three in the front, three in the back. At the start of a fight, you can direct your characters to use normal attacks, use skills via the Rune-Lens menu (equipment items that give your characters skills and magic), or use a unique defensive command that can range from dodging magic shields and even charging attacks, depending on the character.

Rune-Lens attacks cost SP, which you can get back by performing regular attacks. Some magic-based skills, such as healing spells and elemental attacks, consume MP and SP, which makes resource management crucial to combat. This really only becomes an issue with expensive healing spells as MP healing items have been a bit sparse during our time with the game, but there are more than enough HP healing items to balance things out.

You can see the rank order of each character and enemy at the top of the screen, so planning your character’s attacks to prevent the enemy from taking a step is crucial. It adds a small element of strategy to the battle, and you can even affect the order of moves depending on your actions. It’s simple but extremely effective, and watching the sequence unfold once you’ve made your choice is satisfying – especially with some of the stunning spritework and animation on offer.

Stars of destiny

We got to play with ten characters and they all felt a little different. Nowa is a fast attacker who perfectly balances attack and defense. Garr, the werewolf, is mostly a physical attacker and much slower than Nowa, but his Rune-Lens skill allows him to boost his attack for three moves. There’s also Mellore who specializes in light-based ranged attacks and can hit the front or back row of enemies no matter where she is.

Some characters will eventually gain access to Hero Combos, deadly attacks that combine the skills of two or more characters at the cost of both of their SP bars. Nowa and Seign team up for a powerful party-wide attack, while Nowa and Marriage Artist Lian team up for a potentially critical hit combo. These are fun additions and are a nod to Suikoden’s Unite Attacks, but as with its spiritual predecessor, many of them are more for their stylish animations and additional effects than damage.

Hundred Heroes wears its heart and inspiration on its sleeve.

Having played a few Suikoden games before, we know how crucial team composition can be – especially as your group grows. We didn’t play much here because of the way the beta divides up characters – we had seven in the second part after recruiting additional characters, so choosing between two mages or a mage and a ranger was the only real choice we had to make here.

The ways in which you recruit these additional characters can be quite different. Short cleric Francesca power be our favorite just because of how her personality can do a quick 180 at the click of a finger, but her recruitment quest simply requires you to trigger cutscenes. In contrast, for Mellore, you have to follow her and go through the dungeon to defeat the boss to get her to join the Watch. That’s exactly the kind of side quests and exploration we love here.

reminiscence

The towns and dungeons of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes also borrow from the classics in the best possible way. The base city where you spend most of your time in the second half of the beta is huge but it’s also filled with people to talk to, shops to visit, and lots of beautiful pictures. To be honest, the combination of pixel art and 3D backgrounds works incredibly well and creates a cozy, nostalgic and modern look that we love.

Suikoden staple shops such as Rune-Lens shops, appraisers, trading stations and blacksmiths are present – ​​we were pretty excited when we first saw the appraiser shop, but were quickly disappointed to find that we had nothing to appraise! And the towns vary from small farming hamlets to bustling cobbled streets.

Dungeons are similarly simple and reminiscent of the golden era of JRPGs – branching paths with simple puzzles, hidden treasure chests and random encounters (with a reasonable chance encounter rate, to boot). One dungeon sees you push a minecart around, while another forced us to memorize short passwords. None of this will be designed to break your brain; they are fun and airy.

The past few days

There’s a lot we like about Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes so far, but there are a few things we’re missing. While the combat here is interesting, Suikoden games are known for their fast-paced menu-based combat, and while Eiyuden Chronicle certainly tries to follow that tradition, at least in beta, things are a little slower than we’d like. Going through six characters’ attack options feels a bit slow. Auto-battle is at least an option – and it’s highly customizable, meaning you can prioritize characters and actions – but getting through a round takes longer than expected.

However, from what we’ve seen so far, this is Murayama-san’s legacy, and the Rabbit & Bear team can be proud of it.

This is perhaps most noticeable with the bosses, who add gimmicks to change up the fights a bit more. For the first boss, you have to pay attention to which column the boss will attack and hide behind the stones. For the optional boss, you have to choose whether to call the magic hammer from the left or right book to hit the boss as it comes out of the ground. The latter of these tricks was completely down to luck and there was no indication of where the boss would pop up. While we applaud diversity, it hasn’t always worked out.

There are also a few other elements that, while not common in ’90s RPGs, certainly feel a bit missed here. As far as we can tell, you can only save your game at save points or inns, which means no saves on the world map. Rune-Lens can only be equipped in Rune-Lens shops. And you have limited, if shared, inventory space. It’s more generous than it was in the original Suikoden, and we imagine you’ll be able to expand it later in Hundred Heroes, but we ran out of space once or twice during our seven hours with the game.

However, the seven hours we spent with the Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes beta offered us only a fraction of what the full game has to offer. We’re promised base building, minigames, and over 100 characters to recruit, from party members to merchants and more. And with Carrot having some serious plot moments from the end of the beta, we can’t wait to see what the rest of the game has in store for us — and how it plays on the Switch.

However, from what we’ve seen so far, this is Murayama-san’s legacy, and the Rabbit & Bear team can be proud of it.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes will launch on the Switch eShop on April 23rd, 2024. Will you be recruiting those 100 next month? Let us know in the comments.