Ahh, fan-funded projects. Shenmue 3 anyone? I know that sounds pretty sardonic, but there's some caution thrown in everytime you see a project such as this. Especially considering it's one of the most backed up by Kickstarter. So did Eiyuden Chronicle Hundred Heroes stick the landing?
I played the prequel game, Rising 2 years ago. That was just a nice appetizer for what was to come. Sense of wonderment, adventure, teeming with quirky, unique characters, and fun gameplay mechanics. I mean, this is all coming from the guy who made Suikoden decades ago. Fans of those series have been waiting for this one, despite how promising it looks.
I have to say, it's a bit of a mixed bag for now. There are some hiccups that could be fixed, but some too big, they need to redone entire. And for that, I mean the localization. It's very annoying to see the culture appropriation, inserted western jokes, and other things poorly contextualizing.
After enlisting in a company with members like a Lycan, Samurai swordswoman, and a Yuffie rip-off, they head off to an ancient alongside their opposites, the imperial for their excavations. Finding in these ruins is a relic so powerful, a kingdom and neighbor empire wants it badly.
That's where the setting comes in, a land that has grown in the mountains, with our protagonist Nowa now leading the charge. After proving that he has the capacity to lead, Nowa can now look around for new crew members to recruit, joining his ranks. Hence the title too.
The first girl I tried to recruit turns out to be a magic girl mage from the prequel game, she's amazing to be around with. Like bubbling with energy and naivete, plus the voice acting; long as you're playing it in JP. There's this spellbinding magic that somehow made me continue to play despite the outdated design of the League of Nation world map and how you explore in it.
Combat from the get-go is difficult to win through, waves after waves of enemies, and my team's HP and mana keeps going down. Items to replenish aren't plenty or expensive to buy even. So I had to be frugal about what I did. There wasn't much option in picking runes and skills first few hours.
It was at this point when I started looking online that I've realized this not only has a game breaking bug, but if it ran past 60FPS, for some reason that lowers enemy encounters. No wonder I was missing out on XP. That's just the tip of the iceberg here. The bigger issue is entirely different.
There's a character called Lian, who just won't shut up. The even bigger offence, her JP dub did not match with the subtitles, like at all. The dialogue trees have weird inserted references, cringy dialogue, and worse, it doesn't fully transcribe the situation. And also, did I forget to mention she's one of the main characters, not someone you hire from the start? The worst part is the Eng dub, when all those awful dialogues gets spoken out, my immersion just goes away.
Thankfully, the garden variety of heroes that I have found, made me remove Lian in my team roster, allowing me to experiment with their various skills and attacks. Runes, and new skills are unlocked as they level up. Which again, means I have to deal with more encounters in order to do so.
So yeah, it has a rough start, but I played 12hrs for a day's time, I don't know how I even got there. I guess there's plenty of the good stuff to talk about. Starting off, is the soul searching to expand my alliance group. There's a reason it's called 100 heroes you know.
So my first recruit was the magic girl, unfortunately I had to take care of a giant monster fight in order to convince her. Don't worry, she's worth it. The next was this ex-biker gang looking guy called Yusuke. He gets discriminated upon and I saved his butt. Next one is a real doozy.
This lady first presented her gentle, and sweet nature towards us, that all however changed soon as a gang of hoodlums started messing around. Remember, that biker dude was a pretext probably for this, because she changed her personality on the spot and beat them to snots before running away. Oh she has a spicy side alright, that's why she's called ill-tempered xD.
I like that each characters have their own thing going. Some will easily just join, others ask you for favors and then some join, but will ask you to help out in the middle of the journey. I found an archer, and a samurai swordsman too. And there's more that keeps coming.
The critiques I've made about the gameplay were mostly present around the first few hours, but right around this point, soon as I started earning more, I bought more runes, wearable gears can be changed too, and weapons are only upgraded. It's pretty simple, and fun to get into.
But the runes is where it's important to notice, since character specific ones provided new skills to use too after they level up. Skill based and mana based actions have their own meters. Certain skill actions take 2-3 bars, while manas count in numbers. Skills are replenished per turn, while mana is something you need to drink potion for, for now that is. But wait, there's much, much more.
As each character levels up, their rune slots get unlocked. I've hit one or two at level 16 so far, most of my characters already have 2 slots. Various runes provide attack or defense stat bonuses or allow each character to have elemental based magic skills. There might be different ranks to each type.
The turn based combat also provides what you might call combo attacks. Basically, if Lian and Nowa attacked together, spending both of their skill points together for the turn, they will do an ultimate attack. This applies for majority of other character pairs too.
Now the game hasn't fully allowed me to explore every bit of its world yet, 12hrs in and the story's first act is still ongoing. I also had to spend one extra hour fighting these three numbskulls, because my characters kept dying easily. Like, hit sponge is one way of putting it, I was running out potions and healing spells to use. The gimmick attacks are similar to QTEs, applying differently each boss fight. Like hitting the level for the rock or knocking the book playing prediction wack-a-mole.
Now, technically speaking, there's three main characters. Outside Nowa, and Seign, I never got around to meeting the other one. So far what happened is a conspiracy uncovered. One that has to do with the empire, who has annexed this territory from the League of Nation.
Creating a war, with the pretext of the League attacking them first, despite that being the ruse. My alliance has no choice, but to choose who to trust, especially Nowa, now that his friend Seign is his enemy. Temporarily am assuming. The story does really goes to places.
Lastly, the party formation. There's a front and rear line. 6 total members each, and each character's attack range covers from short>medium>long. Putting the short ones on rear means they can't attack anyone. Had to learn that the hard way. With 3 more for attendance and one for support.
I'll add a couple of few things, the visual presentations works like this, the environment is 3D, but more limited in access compared to other games, and the characters are sort of this 2.5D sprites integrated. There are times it looks drop-dead gorgeous. And that mostly has to do with it being a Unity rendered title. The other thing is the BGM, which is interesting, least I can say.
I think Suikoden fans are in for quite a ride. Mind you, it does have a couple of hiccups. This game falls short no thanks to those aforementioned issues, and also it's weird autosave system. It makes me paranoid, especially living in a country with periods of blackouts.
I don't know what 505 Games were thinking, when they've decided to do the localization. They did a lukewarm job over it. And it doesn't deserve it, especially since it is a really fun game.
There's a mod fix probably coming, fan-made translations or the studio decided they'll fix it as well. It's just insulting to the late Yoshitaka Murayama after years of getting this title out, but not after passing away and missing it out, 2 months time shy.
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