Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes

I'm nowhere near as down on this as some have been. I fear people have compared this to Suikoden 2 only, as its a really damn decent worldbuilding JRPG. It is a game carried by its cast, its music, its spritework, and its worldbuilding. Hearing Naruke again after an absence was a delight. The cast, as seen above, has that comedy timing and clashing personalities down pat. Huge personalities are a surprisingly rare thing in alot of games dominated by archetypes, so this was very welcome. Its also one of the best pixel art going now, a much rarer thing than those termed that now. Its got issues, hence the #9. Unite attacks and most mages are pretty useless, some Duels are flat busted (its random for spectacackle's sake that can screw you), and there's bizarre graphical bugs. Overall, its good. Murayama can rest peacefully.

(+) - Yes this is THE spiritual successor to Suikoden - Has all the mechanic on Suikoden games, including the side features such as theater, cook-offs, and bath house, and even more. You can even collect and have Beyblade (Beigoma in this game) duel with NPCs. - Tons of interesting characters you can recruit. (not the sacred number of 108, mind you lol) - The graphic and animation is beautiful - Soundtracks are good. - Deep world building with deep political intrigue - Lots of comedic moments, which makes it refreshing, helps keep us focused again to the boring storyline (we'll get on that later) (-) - As I have said before, plot is boring. The world is at war, but the stakes don't feel that high. - Main villain isn't that memorable. - The introductions for the 3 main characters takes too long. I know the writers want to build up the relationships among them, but it doesn't feel like they hit it off that much. This is a solid, good turn-based JRPG. I recommend the fans of the genre to play this, especially Suikoden fans. But I won't classify it as one of the best JRPGs of all time. It has potential tho. I hope the developers will make more, better games from the same world setting, and make Eiyuden Chronicles the new, beloved, long lasting game series.

My Childhood, from Suikoden creator, RIP Yoshitaka Murayama, I love all your game not only it has rich story but also beautiful songs and awesome characters too

Wow. This game is gorgeous. It scratches the itch of nostalgic JRPG gameplay combined with modern conveniences and outstanding voice acting. I'm incredibly impressed. Do not sleep on this!

Really just not a very fun game. It has some cool ideas, and the combat is fine as it is, but it gets boring quick and it's SO slow. Yeah this one is just not one I can fully recommend.

[h1] A perfect seven is a solid, well-crafted JRPG that delivers on the genre's core strengths without being a flawless masterpiece.[/h1] I picked this up on sale and deliberately skipped the deluxe edition, DLCs, prologue and starter items, assuming they were the usual cash-grab trap. "Quick, pre-order before digital copies run out!" I fell for that with the Suikoden remasters and felt like an idiot. Not here. After seeing mixed "mid" reviews, I expected a half-assed fanmade Suikoden clone. Then I discovered it was Yoshitaka Murayama's final work — and what a work it is. It's essentially Suikoden 2 on steroids: the classic 2D isometric JRPG formula I’ve loved since the PS1 era, complete with 2D sprites over 3D backgrounds that are trendy again. In a time when Atlus and Sandfall are delivering the turn-based JRPGs with modern graphics and technology that fans have been craving, this game still easily outperforms anything Square-Enix has released since FF12. Every one of the 120 recruitable characters has full voice acting. Every interaction, card game, battle and war scene includes lines from your party members. Build a theater in your HQ and the casting options are so wild you can hear Seign’s stoic voice actor playing a high-pitched donkey that sounds like Goofy, breaking character like a method actor stuck in the military. The sheer care put into this slaps you in the face. The HQ feels like a true character. Fans of Suikoden and Skies of Arcadia will appreciate how far they went: customizing trees, lamps, paint, statues, flags, and even your bedroom. Exploring after upgrades is genuinely rewarding. Those free-roam moments make it feel like home. It’s the best castle in the series. That said, the dialogue often falls into cliché hero speak — “YEAH! We have to stop the EMPIRE!” — which can feel dull or cringeworthy. Some portraits look great, others like constipated indie dating sim characters. You learn to overlook both. The combat deviates from the original formula by adding SP for special moves and hero combos alongside MP for spells. This changes the resource management that made classic Suikoden unique, while the limited inventory stays the same. The system never really evolves beyond the first hour — brute force works for everything, which feels like a missed opportunity with such a large roster. For example, Iugo is strong, but his counter mechanic is frustrating and inconsistent. He doesn't tanks most attacks, since it only activates if the enemy misses their attack. War battles are mostly scripted with limited choices, and duels are rare and heavily scripted. Still, the game triumphs. The minigames are surprisingly addictive — the card game is fun, the Beyblade-style monster collecting grows on you, and the egg-racing tamagotchi stuff ate up far too many hours. I even ended up with the eggshell-headed weird woman as Nowa’s final romance. You can do that scene with any of the 119 others, all voiced. After hundreds of hours in JRPGs, getting me to happily complete side content at 35 is sorcery. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel — it’s Suikoden under a new name — but it’s consistent and heartfelt. I’m already planning NG+ and bought the extra content. I was a drooling idiot for not getting the deluxe edition from the start. I just wish Murayama-san could see how he both beat and didn’t quite beat his own creation with this one. It deserved every backer coin, and it deserves yours if you’re willing to invest the time.

A controller is basically mandatory to play. There is MKB, technically, but the keybindings are not done in a way that makes sense (uses RTY, IJKL, UO, and backspace) and cannot be configured. Refunded immediately.

A really genuine callback to 90s jrpgs complete with really gorgeous character sprites and rendered backgrounds, great music, varied and quircky enemy design and some fun dungeons. all the dialogue apart from random npcs in towns is voiced and while the game won't win any awards for voice acting, I certainly found it to be charming in an old school way. It's a spiritual successor to suikoden and so the game servers up a ton of characters to find and add to your party, not just for battles, but also to perform functions for your town and army. This premise gives the developers free reign to come up with some truly memorable character interactions as so many npcs to recruit means many of them can be given markedly eccentric personalities and visual designs. I enjoy exploring dungeons even though the battle system is quite simple in it's design. The town building feature is also simple in design but i don't mind that at all, i always find it fun to just see numbers go up. The story is solid but nothing new at all, filled with many of the tropes you expect from the genre, but i feel that the comedic writing keeps me invested enough. Cons: - I don't really care for any of the minigames - i think the war battle scenarios suck - menu management could be much improved

This game wants to be a modern take at a classic jrpg, and it delivers on that. There are so many characters with unique mechanics. There are also so many side activities and stuff to keep you busy. Great game.

Can't recommend it. Played a little over 5 hours and it felt like a complete slog the entire time. For a game that released relatively recently, it feels like a game that didn't learn from the old games in terms of what NOT to do. Slow movement, intentionally slow menu navigations, horrible camera angles and controls, frustrating boss gimmicks based that are based on randomness. The only thing that it has going for it is the pretty art. I just can't keep playing it. Not recommended.