Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes

[Niahak]

This game is out next week on Switch/PS/XBox/PC.

A classic-styled JRPG headed-up by some of the original Suikoden staff including the recently-passed Murayama, it's been receiving generally good impressions from the Kickstarter backers who received and are already playing physical copies (mostly in NA, some in Europe and Asia). Digital copies are now being sent out and, for at least some it appears to be an unlocked copy.

This isn't to be mistaken for Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, a prequel-game that is an action RPG (sorta Ys3-ish) involving several characters that are set to appear in EC: Hundred Heroes.

Anyone else excited to dive in? I personally backed for physical/digital Switch, and although I might regret my platform choice for performance reasons, it's probably still the easiest way for me to enjoy the game.

[Kong Wen]

Anyone else excited to dive in? I personally backed for physical/digital Switch, and although I might regret my platform choice for performance reasons, it's probably still the easiest way for me to enjoy the game.

I'm planning on picking it up on PS5 (and probably playing it on the Portal a lot of the time), but knowing me, I'll just let it sit on the wishlist for a while till it goes on sale or I slow down my momentum on FF14.

Definitely keen to play it, though, and have been looking forward to it for a long time.

100% guarantee Kiwi will be playing it as well.

[Niahak]

I'm about 20 hours into EC Hundred Heroes, and I'd say so far it's been good but not overwhelming enjoyment.
Throwing my impressions into a spoiler list just in case people would rather go in totally fresh, but these are just impressions and contain no spoilers about anything but general tone so far (and I guess some suikoden staples)

Spoiler

• Graphics, especially characters, are pretty good
• Voicework has generally been really good (Lian is supposed to be annoying)
• Characters have been fun and colorful
• Base building is really fun but poorly explained (e.g. I'm getting resources from buildings... but how many and how often?)
• Loading / framerate is not great on the Switch, but it could be worse. Recent patch decreased encounter rate on Switch which makes things much better than they were.
• Combat is kind of boring and slow, and things are much better balanced* than in Suiko1&2
• Story has been good if cliche, but a fair bit more upbeat / traditional JRPG than Suikodens

*I'd argue that this decreases enjoyment; there are virtually no interesting runes/combos for the first 15 hours of the game, which is... about as long as all of Suikoden 1 where IIRC you can buy a fire rune in Gregminster and throw it on any of 3 people to drastically change your strategy. Magic is pretty underwhelming too, so there's little reason to mess with most runes.

I've seen the general tone of reviews/feedback turn sour on the game, but I'm trying to stay positive. So far it's better than Tierkreis (although Tierkreis has some great bits of tragedy), and honestly Tierkreis is a perfectly serviceable Suikoden game.

I'm not even sure what percentage of the game I'm at. Still kind of feels like it's early on.

[Niahak]

A week later, I'm at 30 hours.

Again, these are just general thoughts, nothing actually spoilery outside of standard Suikoden ideas/mechanics.

Spoiler

• Dungeon specific to an optional recruit was probably the most fun (and rewarding) dungeon so far. Wish I'd done it earlier.
• The card minigame is really fun, but is not at all integrated into the core gameflow. Feels kind of half-baked that way. That said I literally haven't played one of the minigames at all, so maybe that's the worst. One of the minigames has its own storyline and it's... not that great.
• Base building is probably the best it's been. Recruiting new characters, getting new materials, and then being able to build something that makes a core-gameplay difference or unlocks new fun stuff is just great. Unfortunately, building new base features has also led to the most crashes on the Switch.
• Detective (in-base) is probably the best it's been? It's like having a vague, integrated recruiting guide. I just wish the animation / dialogue for it was faster.
• That said some recruitment quests / requirements just feel like busy work.
• Combat is finally getting more variation / unlocking more, better options for characters. Auto battle still is really confusing to configure - theoretically there are action priorities, but there is literally no "just attack" option for an individual character. I want to have one of my front-liners defend (as it has built in taunt / potential counter), but while I can get that set up, it puts my other characters in a mode where they waste MP on offensive magic no matter what I do.

[Niahak]

Those wanting to try this on the Switch should really wait for a crash/hang patch, if not a performance one. Especially in the late game, there are frequent hangs on the loading screen and patches. While it's still probably less than one per hour of playing, it's still pretty unfortunate, especially when they seem most tied to places you go frequently.

Last night I had a load screen hang immediately after a boss fight. At least there's a cutscene skip feature, so you can get back through things fairly quickly. Autosave is totally useless - it only saves on transitions to/from the world map, which are infrequent for much of the game.

Current frustration: Some recruits are heavily tied into minigame progression. Unfortunately, at least right now, the worst minigames require the most progression to get their recruit.

PS5 version has reportedly been fixed to actually run in 4K, though, so that's a good option.

Story is still the best part of the game. I think I'm nearing the finale.

[Kong Wen]

Never like to hear the words "the worst minigames" in any context. Glad the story is holding up!

[Niahak]

Never like to hear the words "the worst minigames" in any context. Glad the story is holding up!

It actually reached the point where I am foregoing getting all recruits this playthrough. It's pretty bad.

It's especially annoying because one minigame seems designed to be streamlined (you get items for it in regular battles, so you're always "making progress") but then gates its story/recruit progress at beating a certain number of people at various points. So it's a ping-pong of "I just need to beat these specific people" and then you get to the next and then "you need to beat 3 more randos before you can take me on"... so then you need to remember which towns you beat people in, because beating people you've already beaten doesn't count and you can only find out who you've beaten already by winning the minigame against them again.

Even just patching the minigame so that winning your first two rounds skips the third (because it's best 2 out of 3, but all 3 rounds are always played) would be an improvement.