I’ll have to admit, I approached my preview ofEiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroesat a bit of a disadvantage having never played the first game, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising or any of the games inthe Suikoden serieswhich the Eiyuden games are spiritual successors of. Despite that, I still had a nice time with Hundred Heroes even though it was clear that there’s still work to be done on it.
The hour I spent with Hundred Heroes followed a party of six characters, four local monster-fighting mercenaries and two more uptight military members. While I was worried that juggling six characters might be a little cumbersome in combat, the game starts out by keeping the movelist of each character relatively small. When combat begins, the attack order is shown at the top of the screen and the player chooses the moves for all of their characters at once before the first turn begins. It’s a clever approach to turn-based combat because it means that you can get out of an encounter unscathed if you study the move order before choosing your attacks and focus on taking out the enemies in the order they attack.
RELATED:Could Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Be The Suikoden 3 I’ve Been Waiting For?
For the most part, I wasn’t challenged very much in my time with the game since normal enemy mobs are able to be taken out by mashing basic attacks and not using the more flashy special attacks that each character is given. Luckily, Hundred Heroes has an “Auto Battle” feature that takes control of the party to quickly mop up the more basic mobs. I was feeling a little underwhelmed by the combat system before I got to the boss at the end of my preview. It was not an enemy that would be taken down by simply using the “Auto Battle” option and it pushed me to really engage with the mechanics of each special move and stay aware of my character’s positioning.
I hope that the boss fight is indicative of what’s to come in the later hours of Hundred Heroes since I wasn’t completely blown away by taking out the random encounter monster mobs. That said, even if the combat wasn’t particularly grabbing me in those moments, the presentation is top notch. Hundred Heroes uses highly detailed pixel-based sprite work for its character models and throws them in well-realized 3D environments and it looks spectacular.
While I know that theOctopath Traveler 2D/3D art styleis extraordinarily popular among modern JRPGs (for good reason, it looks excellent,) the style on display in Hundred Heroes looks just as good but gives it a unique look of its own, distinct from the stylings of the other RPGs being released. The battles themselves have a nice cinematic quality to them since the characters and enemies stand on different pieces of the environment, spread out as if they were all caught off guard while exploring.
In combat, the animations for the special moves and Hero Combos that are unlocked at key moments in the story are flashy and exciting, though they do begin to lose their magic a little after watching them over and over again. Hopefully, players will be given the option to skip animations when the full game releases so as to keep the pace of combat moving briskly.
Despite whatever gripes I have with it, Hundred Heroes does seem to be shaping up to be a solid JRPG. The cast is likable and fun without being grating or annoying, the presentation is excellent, and the combat shows promise. Hopefully, the combat is able to really find its footing because I think it will make or break the entire experience for a lot of people. As good as many JRPG stories are, I’d wager that even a good story with solid characters can be left unfinished by players if the combat is boring. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes’ combat certainly wasn’t boring when I played it and teased the promise of more interesting encounters later down the line with the boss I fought, however, that was just a single hour out of something that will take tens of hours to complete.
For now, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a game to keep my eye on that’s certainly piqued my interest. I’m hoping it’s able to clean things up a bit and deliver something excellent for its final release on August 16, 2025.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes
WHERE TO PLAY
