Eiyuden Chronicle – Rising Test

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The spin-off aims to get you in the mood for the classic JRPG Eiyuden – Hundred Heroes. Despite its charming sides, the action RPG is not suitable as an appetizer.

All screenshots and video scenes are from GamersGlobal

Eiyuden Chronicle – Hundred Heroes was the most successful Kickstarter project in the games sector in 2020 and is being developed by former Konami employees who are involved in the Suikoden– and Castlevania-series have contributed. Hundred Heroes will be a classic JRPG that, unsurprisingly, shows clear Suikoden borrowings. Anyone who wants to get a taste of the world of the game before the release of Hundred Heroes, which is planned for 2023, can now do so with the action spin-off Eiyuden Chronicle – Rising to do.

Funded as a stretch goal on the Kickstarter campaign, Rising is not from the same developers as Hundred Heroes, but from the Natsume Atari studio. The action is located before the main game, but it brings you closer to some of the heroes who can be recruited later – certain items should also be able to be transferred to the main game later.

You play as the young adventuress CJ, who wants to recover a huge artifact in Runehills to prove herself in the eyes of her treasure hunter clan. However, the residents of the village at the foot of the hills are getting fed up with all the adventurers. In order for CJ to get an official treasure hunt permit, she must help local residents at the behest of the mayor, and in doing so, she is helping to restore the town that was devastated by an earthquake. That sounded to me like the basic ingredients for a motivating gameplay loop where I make a side impact in the central hub of the game world with my adventures. In the implementation, however, the concept stumbles.

The boss fights are especially fun later, when your party has grown and you can chain special attacks. The big baddies also respawn and are your target again in later quests – but some of them then learned new tricks.

go stamping

If you help residents, you get stamps. A filled stamp card makes the city livelier and unlocks advanced combos. You can exchange stamps for items. More important than regular quest givers are the shopkeepers who build and expand their shops if you get them materials in the surrounding forests, snowy mountains and rune hills. However, you have no control over where the buildings are built and how they are designed. You hit the resources you are looking for in passing with the weapon from trees and rocks as soon as you have acquired the appropriate tool such as a pickaxe. In addition, monsters lose usable parts of their bodies, which they part with thanks to your powerful arguments. At first the fights are very dull, but that gets better later on. First, when you invest materials to unlock new maneuvers for CJ and her fellow combatants.

On the other hand, the party members gained in the course of the story bring more attack options. The special thing about it is that you can switch between the characters using the attack buttons. Light attacks come from CJ, when triggering heavy attacks, she jumps away and kangaroo warrior Garoo appears with his great sword and ranged attacks call (after about five to six hours) magician Isha on the scene. By well-timed changes in attack types, you unleash particularly effective attacks. You can also only break through magical barriers with spells, while Garoo shatters enemy shields.

Your heroes not only level up and improve the values ​​of their (non-interchangeable) equipment at the blacksmith’s, you equip them with accessories for bonuses and create runes that charge their attacks with elements or grant elemental protection. If you occasionally stock up on healing potions and improve weapons and armor, the enemies in Eiyuden Chronicle – Rising will hardly make you sweat. Other levels of difficulty are not available.

A nice detail: If you increase the star rating of your weapon, you have the opportunity to cobble together a name from ready-made terms.

Many menus, few highlights

From time to time you only have to talk to other NPCs for an order and experience small everyday stories (nevertheless, they sometimes bring more money and experience than a boss fight). In general, some quest givers have nice quirks and the arguments between the kind-hearted but childish CJ, the nagging mercenary Garoo and the greedy mayor Isha are quite charming. Nevertheless, Eiyuden Chronicle – Rising takes hours until the manageable number of areas opens up more and the mandatory construction of the basic shops in the first five hours ensures pacing with the handbrake on.

In addition, the progression is associated with a few walking paths due to the numerous shops in various streets, especially since in the Switch version the loading times when changing screens are a bit too long, despite the rather muddy textures. But the thing is: Even just walking through the streets doesn’t make the place any more believable. The quest routine is too mechanical for that. I’m constantly completing the simplest fetch quests while the overarching story stalls. And for that it goes again and again to well-known areas. Okay, I can progress with new powers on recurrence, but it’s not very atmospheric when the same higher-level boss spawns in the same place again, or the same returning rock now loses better ore just because I upgraded my pickaxe.

In many menus, I spend the hard-earned resources to become stronger and knock opponents out of their shoes even more easily. But since I don’t need all the systems due to the simplicity, strengthening the party (apart from unlocking new moves) is almost as much blunt working through lists as fulfilling the quest goals à la “collect 10 stones”. The action flows along, thanks to many fast travel points, the search for resources never gets too tedious, the levels grow with every visit and the place changes its face. But what is missing are highlights or surprises when exploring apart from the boss fights that do not take place too often.

Author: Hagen Gehritz (GamersGlobal)

Opinion: Hagen Gehritz

I found the concept of Eiyuden Chronicle to rebuild the central hub with the loot from your own adventures exciting. I liked how the village and other locations fill with life again over time with my help. But the action RPG leaves some potential.

The pacing is tough, especially in the first four to five hours: It’s always said that the adventure is really starting, but a few steps into the new area there is a new obstacle and part of the solution is again the procurement of materials to build another one stores. In the story sequences, I liked the funny dialogues between the charming party members. But otherwise the cycle of looting monsters and beating the environment and then using it to fudge my stats seems too soulless. This is also because I almost only fulfill fetch quests. Instead of experiencing adventures as a hero and boosting the economy with rare loot, I’m more of a supplier who keeps grazing the same areas with various shopping lists in my pocket (even if these expand step by step).

The branching areas reward exploration with chests, but what I didn’t find are real highlights and due to the choppy controls and lack of flow, the action doesn’t hit as hard as it could. Even if Eiyuden Chroncile – Rising was a lot of fun for me due to its charming sides and the action is entertaining, in the end it doesn’t leave a big impression.

Eiyuden Chronicle – Rising switches