First off, RIP Yoshitaka Murayama. A true legend of the genre and I would not be the RPG fan I am today without having enjoyed his works.
EC: Hundred Heroes is, for those that don't know, a spiritual successor to Murayama's Suikoden Series, funded via Kickstarter. Like Suikoden, it presents a geopolitical war story while the main character seeks to recruit a plethora of unique heroes to their cause, as they lead an army that eventually finds itself at the center of the war going on around them.
Despite any warranted apprehension over the crowdfunded model, Eiyuden absolutely delivers as a full game without any major corners cut; I logged about 200 hours (admittedly doing a lot of side stuff, but a standard playthrough on the true ending probably nets you 40-50h playtime. Overall it's an enjoyable game and at it's core it is a capital G "Game" in the truest sense. Eiyuden offers a host of mini-games and revives the classic "Explorable World Map" style of RPGs in contrast to the world of menu-based travel between maps that they have today. While Eiyuden absolutely modernizes a lot of relics from Suikoden, or other classic RPGs (you can now instruct your party on which specific actions to prioritize during Auto-Battle, for example), it is still very old-school at its core, for better or worse. It still very much holds onto the idea that you can spend countless hours in the game if you want to, an idea that many modern JRPGs have seemingly eschewed for linearity and having the player shown as much content as possible, rather than having to discover it.
The main cast is also likable on a fundamental level; they have good chemistry, varied backgrounds and their own, unique motivations that ultimately coincide with the goals of the Alliance, led by Nowa, the main character. The key turn of phrase here, however, is on a "fundamental" level. Eiyuden is a very easy game to enjoy and sink time into, and as an RPG it is "good enough", but it also tends to come across as very railroaded and barebones toward the latter part of the game. You get a basic gestalt of what drives most of the main characters, but you only ever get small tidbits of a backstory, often far too late in the story, and character development is really scant, or chained to the events of the plot itself rather than these characters' arcs playing out organically and in harmony with the plot of Eiyuden Chronicle.
It may seem like I am asking a lot of a game with over 100 heroes in it, but there is a clear "core cast" of them that's made obvious to the player fairly early on. Of course, the various novelty heroes that make up the 100+ in your roster don't need an elaborate backstory but the main crew could have absolutely used more love. This goes not only for the protagonist and his allies, but the antagonists as well; the main villain is yet another character who should tick a lot of boxes for me with regards to what I want out of an RPG villain, and yet fails to deliver even with the game hyping him up at every turn. This villain is often presented as a Machiavellian warlord who has the entire continent on the ropes; and yet you never really see it for yourself - most of his evil acts are done off-screen and his motivations are either vaguely alluded to or stated far too late in the game. It's disappointing because in a more developed version of Eiyuden Chronicle, I think I would have absolutely loved what the guy brings to the table.
Ultimately where Eiyuden succeeds as a game, I can't help but feel it falls short in terms of telling a story; not into the depths of outright 'bad' but to the still-dangerous 'mediocre'. Too many plot points seem to want to play out like set pieces rather than waypoints on a long journey and you very often feel like you're simply going to point A to point B, without the game ever really hammering in the feeling that this supposedly destructive war is going on around you. It could have used more cutscenes, more monologues, more campfire scenes, more political squabbling within the Empire - more of what makes an RPG, an RPG.
Eiyuden is absolutely enjoyable, worthwhile and at least serviceable with regard to its weaker points, but it's nonetheless a game that is merely a skeleton of a hypothetical greater one. The characters, world-building and scenario are there, but they haven't been properly fleshed out to the degree that would have made this game a truly memorable experience.
EC: Hundred Heroes is, for those that don't know, a spiritual successor to Murayama's Suikoden Series, funded via Kickstarter. Like Suikoden, it presents a geopolitical war story while the main character seeks to recruit a plethora of unique heroes to their cause, as they lead an army that eventually finds itself at the center of the war going on around them.
Despite any warranted apprehension over the crowdfunded model, Eiyuden absolutely delivers as a full game without any major corners cut; I logged about 200 hours (admittedly doing a lot of side stuff, but a standard playthrough on the true ending probably nets you 40-50h playtime. Overall it's an enjoyable game and at it's core it is a capital G "Game" in the truest sense. Eiyuden offers a host of mini-games and revives the classic "Explorable World Map" style of RPGs in contrast to the world of menu-based travel between maps that they have today. While Eiyuden absolutely modernizes a lot of relics from Suikoden, or other classic RPGs (you can now instruct your party on which specific actions to prioritize during Auto-Battle, for example), it is still very old-school at its core, for better or worse. It still very much holds onto the idea that you can spend countless hours in the game if you want to, an idea that many modern JRPGs have seemingly eschewed for linearity and having the player shown as much content as possible, rather than having to discover it.
The main cast is also likable on a fundamental level; they have good chemistry, varied backgrounds and their own, unique motivations that ultimately coincide with the goals of the Alliance, led by Nowa, the main character. The key turn of phrase here, however, is on a "fundamental" level. Eiyuden is a very easy game to enjoy and sink time into, and as an RPG it is "good enough", but it also tends to come across as very railroaded and barebones toward the latter part of the game. You get a basic gestalt of what drives most of the main characters, but you only ever get small tidbits of a backstory, often far too late in the story, and character development is really scant, or chained to the events of the plot itself rather than these characters' arcs playing out organically and in harmony with the plot of Eiyuden Chronicle.
It may seem like I am asking a lot of a game with over 100 heroes in it, but there is a clear "core cast" of them that's made obvious to the player fairly early on. Of course, the various novelty heroes that make up the 100+ in your roster don't need an elaborate backstory but the main crew could have absolutely used more love. This goes not only for the protagonist and his allies, but the antagonists as well; the main villain is yet another character who should tick a lot of boxes for me with regards to what I want out of an RPG villain, and yet fails to deliver even with the game hyping him up at every turn. This villain is often presented as a Machiavellian warlord who has the entire continent on the ropes; and yet you never really see it for yourself - most of his evil acts are done off-screen and his motivations are either vaguely alluded to or stated far too late in the game. It's disappointing because in a more developed version of Eiyuden Chronicle, I think I would have absolutely loved what the guy brings to the table.
Ultimately where Eiyuden succeeds as a game, I can't help but feel it falls short in terms of telling a story; not into the depths of outright 'bad' but to the still-dangerous 'mediocre'. Too many plot points seem to want to play out like set pieces rather than waypoints on a long journey and you very often feel like you're simply going to point A to point B, without the game ever really hammering in the feeling that this supposedly destructive war is going on around you. It could have used more cutscenes, more monologues, more campfire scenes, more political squabbling within the Empire - more of what makes an RPG, an RPG.
Eiyuden is absolutely enjoyable, worthwhile and at least serviceable with regard to its weaker points, but it's nonetheless a game that is merely a skeleton of a hypothetical greater one. The characters, world-building and scenario are there, but they haven't been properly fleshed out to the degree that would have made this game a truly memorable experience.