Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Review Summary

Excellent JRPG experience overall: The game delivers a compelling JRPG experience with a well-crafted story, engaging gameplay, and impressive art style. Many reviewers highlight its nostalgic feel, comparing it favorably to classics like Suikoden, praising its blend of modern and retro elements.

Large, diverse cast of characters: The game features a large and diverse cast of characters, each with unique personalities and voice acting. Reviewers appreciate the depth this adds to the gameplay and story, making character recruitment a major highlight.

Fun base-building, recruitment mechanics: The game features enjoyable base-building and character recruitment mechanics. These systems provide a rewarding gameplay loop, allowing players to develop their base and create diverse teams.

Great graphics and music: The game boasts high-quality graphics and a superb soundtrack that enhances the overall atmosphere. Reviewers consistently praise the visuals and music for their contribution to an immersive experience.

Enjoyable and engaging story: The game features an enjoyable story, even if somewhat predictable. The characters are likable, and the writing is well-executed, making it easy to become emotionally invested in the narrative.

Pacing slow, travel tedious: The game suffers from pacing issues due to slow movement speed, unskippable cutscenes and animations, and frequent interruptions. Fast travel is often unlocked late, leading to tedious backtracking. The save system is also inconvenient, with limited save points and inconsistent autosaving, which can result in lost progress.

Combat unbalanced and lacks depth: Combat balance is flawed, with enemies dealing excessive damage while player damage output is low. Magic is often weak and inefficient due to high MP costs, making physical attacks more effective. The row-based combat system is undermined by enemies targeting back-row characters, and the game lacks strategic depth, often devolving into basic attack spam.

Character roster unbalanced and generic: The game features a large roster of over 100 recruitable characters, but many are underpowered, generic, or useless due to poor stat scaling, limited skillsets, or lack of unique abilities. This imbalance diminishes the value of weaker characters and restricts strategic party composition, leading players to rely on a small subset of viable units. Some reviewers express strong dislike for certain characters.

Story generic and uninspired: The story is often described as generic, predictable, and lacking emotional depth or originality. Villains lack compelling motivations, and the plot relies on clichés. Many reviewers compare the game unfavorably to Suikoden, noting its less mature themes and weaker narrative.

Frequent, disruptive random encounters: The game features random encounters that are frequent and disruptive, making exploration tedious. Dungeons are often linear and lack engaging puzzles or meaningful rewards. The high encounter rate and maze-like dungeons contribute to a frustrating experience.

Classic, strategic turn-based combat: The game features classic turn-based combat with a 6-person party, reminiscent of older JRPGs like Suikoden and Final Fantasy. Strategic team composition and character synergies are encouraged, though some find the combat uninteresting and rely on auto-battle. The game balances difficulty, but lacks depth.

Abundance of varying mini-games: The game is filled with mini-games, including fishing, cooking, card battles, and Beyblade-like activities, many of which are tied to character recruitment. While abundant, some reviewers find the mini-game designs lacking and unengaging, with some relying on button mashing.

City and base-building mechanics: The game incorporates city and base-building mechanics, allowing players to gather resources, choose upgrades, and unlock quality-of-life features. This provides a sense of progression and activities between main objectives, though some find it restricted by character recruitment.

Limited character customization, imbalance: Character customization is possible with gear and runes, but rune configuration can be inflexible, limiting build diversity. Some characters are significantly stronger than others, leading to imbalance.

Theater mini-game, character interactions: The game includes a theater mini-game where players can cast characters in plays, earning rewards based on acting quality. Friendship events and character interactions highlight individual personalities, but the narrative flow can be disrupted by the triple protagonist setup.

Numerous crashes and progression bugs: The game suffers from a multitude of technical issues, including game crashes, freezes during cutscenes and battles, and progression-halting bugs. Some issues are platform-specific, while others affect multiple platforms. Frequent saving is recommended to mitigate potential progress loss.

Poor optimization causes lag: Many reviewers report poor optimization, leading to lag and stuttering even on high-end hardware. This suggests that the game's engine may be inefficient, causing performance issues regardless of the player's system specifications.

Audio glitches and desynchronization: Some reviewers have experienced audio glitches, including missing sound effects, inconsistent volume levels, and desynchronized audio during key moments. These issues detract from the overall immersion and can ruin climactic scenes.

Control input and gamepad issues: Some reviewers have reported control issues, including unresponsive inputs and specific gamepad compatibility problems. These issues can affect player movement and menu navigation, leading to frustration.

Generally stable performance on PC: Many reviewers report that the game runs well, especially on PC and Steam Deck, with stable performance and fast loading times. Some reviewers experienced no technical issues at all.

Compared to Suikoden series: Many reviews compare the game to the Suikoden series, with some recommending it to fans of those games while others suggest sticking with the originals or waiting for remasters. Some reviewers feel it captures the spirit of Suikoden, while others find it falls short or is too derivative. Some suggest playing Suikoden first to appreciate this game more.

Recommend purchasing on sale: Many reviewers suggest purchasing the game on sale or through a bundle due to perceived flaws or a lack of content. Some find it worth the full price, but a significant number recommend waiting for a discount. This suggests that the game's value proposition is a point of contention among players.

Mixed overall reception: Reviewers have mixed opinions on the game, with some considering it a masterpiece or one of their favorites, while others rate it lower due to flaws. The game receives a wide range of scores, from perfect marks to mediocre ratings, indicating a divided reception among players.

Needs improvements and fixes: Many reviewers mention the game's flaws and express hope for improvements through patches, updates, or mods. This suggests that while the game has potential, it needs further refinement to reach its full potential and address player concerns.

Relies heavily on nostalgia: The game relies heavily on nostalgia, appealing to fans of classic JRPGs. Without this nostalgic connection, the game may be less enjoyable or difficult to appreciate for modern players.

Extensive playtime, mixed ratings: Reviewers have spent significant time playing the game, with some exceeding 200 hours. They provide ratings for various aspects like story, combat, art, and music, and some express anticipation for future games from the developer.

Tribute to Yoshitaka Murayama: Yoshitaka Murayama, the creator of Suikoden and a key figure in Eiyuden Chronicle's development, passed away before the game's release. This has led to reflections on his contributions and the game's significance as one of his final works. Some express sadness that he didn't see the game's success.

Unpolished, lacks personality: Some reviewers found the game to be unpolished and lacking in personality, comparing it unfavorably to amateur RPG Maker games. They criticize the game's quality, suggesting it doesn't live up to the standards expected of a JRPG and feels like a lifeless copy of past works.

Kickstarter, backer content: Eiyuden Chronicle was crowdfunded through Kickstarter, and the game includes acknowledgements to backers, such as their names appearing as NPCs or locations. However, some backers report unfulfilled promises and are still awaiting rewards from the campaign.

DLC delays, questionable content: The game's DLC roadmap has faced significant delays, with release dates pushed back indefinitely. Some reviewers feel that the Seign DLC feels like cut content from the main story, while the Marisa DLC feels like a sidequest.