I decided to play Eiyuden Chronicle Rising in advance of playing Hundred Heroes, which recently released at the time of writing. Rising is a prequel, shorter JRPG that is only above 12-16 hours on average according to Howlongtobeat. That seems about right, and I'll give it credit for being easy to slip into a gaming schedule, unlike most JRPGs that are a huge time sink. Eiyuden has huge Suikoden influence but I had never played Suikoden prior so I went in entirely blind.

Going in entirely blind, I had no idea Eiyuden Chronicle had action-oriented combat as opposed to turn-based so that took me off guard. The combat is fine, but not particularly interesting and gets dull very quickly due to a lack of interesting additions to the mechanics. The main thing that bugs me is that touching enemies hurts you, as if you were playing Castlevania or Mario. I don't really see the point of that in an RPG, and CJ's dodge ability sometimes dodges you right into enemies and damages you, which is pretty annoying. You get two other party members as well, Garoo and Isha, who you can swap to via hitting the face buttons. If you swap to them mid-combat you can execute Link Attacks. You can chain Link Attacks together for big damage, and eventually, you'll get bigger chains as the town grows. Unfortunately, Link Attacks are the only interesting thing about the combat and aren't worth using against anything that isn't a Boss or higher-leveled enemy. There's no incentive to use them beyond the damage you get. Link Attacks also mean you don't really get party combat like other JRPGs, and only see one character on-screen at a time in dungeons. It drains some potential personality and flavor from the game. And since Garoo is too slow and Isha's kit is poorly designed due to only having 3 orbs at a time and a reload delay, along with useless traversal abilities, CJ is the only character worth using.

The Boss are a joke by the way. They're all easy, even the final one, and can easily be cheesed by spamming Link Attacks so long as you're around the same level. Even the annoying bosses that will juggle you with their attack spam like the Mantor Wyrm and final boss are still easily defeated if you have potions on you.

Potions and other items are easy to farm, making it easy to snowball your characters and max your weapons. CJ easily plowed through everything sent her way once I got her axe maxed out. I do like the upgrade system, since it reminds of Dark Souls a bit with how it's handled.

Let's talk about writing. CJ is a plucky protagonist as you may expect, Garoo is the gruff "Eh, I guess I'll come along" guy, and Isha is the soft but sometimes cold mage. They're fine on a base level, and they at least have personality, but the plot doesn't do them much justice. Much of the plot is railroaded near the end in the form of a diary as a plot device to drop exposition on you at a time that feels like its out of the blue. Why are you mentioning an Empire all of a sudden? The League of Nations? Like WWI? Where is all of this coming from? Why is this being mentioned NOW, right before the final dungeon? I get this game is supposed to be a small prequel but you need to build a plot more naturally than this. You can't just shove a plate of plot in front of me and tell me to dine on it. Give me an appetizer and some wine first, preferably. The plot just ends up being a mess and they try really hard to get you to feel something but it doesn't work as much as you'd maybe want it to. The game also ends very abruptly, and when the credits started rolling, I was genuinely a bit surprised that they did. "Oh, that's it? Okay then."

Also, I have to say, the humor in this game just falls flat most of the time. I never laughed. Maybe it's not my type of humor, but the jokes range from just falling flat, being too cheesy, cliche, weird, or downright cringy.

And there are some WEIRD jokes in this game. There's one early about "toilet training" that was just weird. There were multiple jokes about Isha and CJ's dirty clothes being sniffed as well. There were jokes about CJ's outfit (the gal on the left in the cover image) and how revealing it is. I'm not sure if that's a mistranslation issue, a localization issue, or just simply the writers being... odd, but I do know that it made me uncomfortable. I usually have a high tolerance for that stuff, but need I mention that CJ and Isha are 16?

Don't believe me? Watch this to the end. Am I crazy for thinking that dialogue is really weird? https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=gTTpktA5xXRgqO5Q&t=110&v=DVA_7b4vO68&feature=youtu.be

There are some other mistranslations too. CJ after a rest says "One more time!" which doesn't quite make sense..? And I saw one character say "than more fool me" in dialogue.

Building the town is one of the things you're probably curious about, as a JRPG inspired by Suikoden. All of the quests that help build the town amount to fetch quests. They somehow manage to be boring and satisfying at the same time. Boring because, well, they're all fetch quests with barely any variation. Satisfying because it is nice to see the town advance and change over time, along with the shop stocks. The game's excellent fast travel mechanic makes it bearable, allowing you to teleport to specific points in dungeons and even the town itself. I will say that the first time I leveled up a shop I was confused, since it said "Level Up" on the screen. I didn't see my characters Level Up, so I then realized the game meant the shop leveled up. I wish there was a better distinction there. Because each time it happened I had to flick my eyes over to the top left to see if it meant my characters or the shop itself.

Is Eiyuden Chronicle Rising good? No.
Is Eiyuden Chronicle Rising bad? No.
Would I play it again? No.
Do I regret playing it? No.

It's an okay game. I wouldn't recommend playing it unless you really end up liking Hundred Heroes and want a little bit more of that world fleshed out, I guess, from the little lore it has. Otherwise, it's hard to recommend.

The music slaps though and honestly I didn't mind running through the Quarry or Forest just to hear it!

Score: 74

Holy sidequests Batman! What should have been a fun short 5-8 hour romp was stretched to more than double that with seemingly endless fetch quests. And these aren't entirely optional either, they are how upgrades to your equipment are unlocked, so whether you want to or not, you will be running around doing menial tasks for people.

Now for the good. I liked the characters. CJ, Garoo and Isha have a fun dynamic both as characters, and in combat as classic rogue, tank, mage archetypes, though the tank role felt weak compared to the other two.

This game feels like a good intro to the world of Eiyuden Chronicles and makes me excited to see these characters again in the full game. I wish I could say I liked the game more, but what is there was adequate.

Esse jogo foi uma experiência interessante, porque enquanto eu jogava, ele melhorava em alguns pontos, em outros piorava. Por exemplo o combate, que no inicio me deixou um pouco incomodado, por ser meio cru demais, foi aos poucos adicionando camadas e nuances que achei até interessante, enquanto a história que no inicio parecia promissora, foi se perdendo num jogo que é LOTADO de "fetch quests" e um loop de gameplay que vai aos poucos ficando repetitivo. Mas uma coisa me conquistou do inicio ao fim, que são os lindos visuais do jogo, que ganham e se complementam na sua simplicidade de ser. É meio estranho essas comparações, mas em alguns momento da jogatina eu me lembrava da sensação de jogar Ys ou Grand Chase. E isso por si só, já é bem interessante sobre esse jogo.

I don't like bashing on games but when the crux of your gameplay is literally the paradigm x of y, then there is a problem. The sidequests are all the same, sequentially. No variety amongst them.

The only real positives I can give this game is the strength of its writing and the character designs. The experience was very bare bones, the narrative only got interesting half way through, the combat did get fleshed out somewhat but really wasn't much depth to it.

I played Rising in anticipation of Hundred Heroes and I hope that game has some substance to it. Only play this game if you're wanting to learn about the lore and the world building of Eiyuden Chronicles.

This game was not what I expected, but in a good way! Right off the bat the visuals are breathtaking, with gorgeous 2D sprites blending in seamlessly with a 3D environment. And the gameplay loop is surprisingly addicting. It was very easy to just keep completing side missions instead of putting the game down and going to bed.

I think the highlight of the gameplay is the combat, which is surprisingly open-ended and fluid, especially as you unlock more and more upgrades. The developers did the best job with CJ, who allows for some really cool combos, and when fully upgraded, can just lock enemies down in infinite strings, which feels amazing. She's also the most agile of the three party members, making her the obvious pick for best character to play as. I like Garoo and Isha as well, but it definitely feels like CJ got the most attention, she is the main character after all.

I do have a couple of gripes that keep this game from being rated higher in my mind concerning gameplay. For one, I don't really like the decision of having enemies damage you on contact. It interrupts the flow of combat in ways that feel unintended, like weird trades with enemies or accidentally halting your attacks. I also think that the way status effects are implemented is poor. They last for way too long, and locking you out of switching characters when affected for that entire duration is really frustrating, and slows the game down significantly. I didn't really mind these things at first, but the final boss of the game really exacerbated these two issues for me, as I didn't really struggle with the other fights as much as this one because of these two pain points.

But overall, the game was a blast, and has a really nice gameplay loop that feels rewarding, even if it starts to get a bit repetitive towards the end. The presentation is top-notch, with stunning visuals, pretty good music and environments, and a simple but-fun-story. The gameplay was what made this game for me, definitely the highlight, but there's always room for improvement. Looking forward to playing the sequel!

FILLER EPISODE
AKA SKIP THIS ONE
Do you love fetch quests? You should if you want to enjoy the blood pumping, semen boiling action of walking around the same locations over and over again, telling kids to go back home for dinner and collecting junk to later give it away for experience and some money.
The gameplay loop never really changes or meaningfully evolves, you are experiencing the same fetch quest "how else can we make this game longer?" type of design philosophy for 10 hours and then the game ends. The story, what little of it is there, can be summarized in a single sentence, and the character writing never really becomes engaging or goes beyond your average fantasy archetypes. If the goal of the game was to hype up the main event, Curse of the Moon-style minimalist adventure would have done fine, and delivered a way more fun burst of experience than this slog.
From what I've heard about the main gamae, Rising is ultimately irrelevent as the main cast plays only a minor role there. Find a better way to spend these 10 hours: play Rance 01.

Fun and quick action rpg that has enough elements to keep you engaged. The main story is kind of nonsense given that the character that joins your party within the first hour doesn't reveal their motivations until the very last story quest. The combat is cool with chains and combos that get more powerful as you upgrade your town via the numerous sidequests. Most of the enemies can feel baby mode at times - so I could of used the Hard difficulty that only unlocks when you beat the game, being available as an option from the start. Evidently the game that follows is a traditional turn based RPG that is getting mixed reviews. Hopefully this gets revisited with a harder difficulty and better story.

This game got me into achievement collecting!

I really enjoyed this simple precursor to the largely anticipated Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. With fun combat, a gorgeous art style and some quirky characters. This adds up to a really enjoyable experience. The game does reach a halt when more grinding comes into play with the new game+ post credits but the simple yet replayable level areas and bosses helped me breeze through this. Dialogue sometimes did go on for a little longer than needed and sometimes the quirkiness did overstep the boundaries of entertaining.

The only reason this took so long to finish was because I wasn't much of a completionist in games, I usually hit the credits and call it a day. The difference with this one was that I didn't stop thinking about it, so I just had to go back and play some more.

Would recommend if you're into metroidvania/hack n slash type games.

Many reviews I read went into detail about this game being forgettable and unremarkable, claiming it was basically some sort of errand simulator. That bit I do agree on.

And it's undeniable. It always feels like you're just getting started in the game because of how mundane every mission is. There are 31 main quests, but many more optional ones. However, in the context of the story, everything fits. In terms of your character, it makes sense. In regards to the gameplay, it was very satisfying for me.

The loop is: receive a main objective, then go talk to everyone else to get some side missions that could get completed on your way there, then come back to report, level up, find new faces and learn that your efforts are expanding the settlement, unlock some fancy new movements, gear up then do it all over again. I got addicted to it. The writing isn't stellar though it is very charismatic. It isn't deep, but still manages to be interesting.

I was suprised by how much I ended up liking the story and connecting with the characters. I was blown away by how much the gameplay evolved by the end of it, in terms of movements available for each of the characters, as in the beginning it felt kind of clunky.

It isn't a difficult experience, only experienced some spikes here and there but the game is (generally) generous, except in the final stretch. I ended up playing very little of the post-game content and didn't finish all of the missions available before finishing it, as it was about to leave Game Pass. I may end up buying it later.

Played for 21 hours and 29 minutes through Xbox Game Pass.

I tried it because the sequel was coming out. It convinced me that it wasn't my kind of game.

Very nice graphics, but it's basically side quests and more side quests. Even the story itself has more side quests, it's an endless loop.

I quit because I got tired of it.

Lo probé porque iba a salir la secuela. Me convenció que no era mi tipo de juego.

Gráficos muy bonitos, pero es básicamente misiones secundarias y más misiones secundarias. Hasta la propia historia tiene más misiones secundarias, es un bucle sin fin.

Lo deje por cansino.

I would probably never have played this if the sequel hadn’t received so many positive reviews. I admit, I got curious, but first I wanted to give this shorter prequel a try, to get a feel for the series, especially the combat system, as I’m not very good at this active/metroidvania style of gameplay.

Well, now that I’m done, I have mixed feelings, but mostly negative ones, I’m afraid. The graphics and soundtrack are nice, in my opinion. I really like this “2.5D” approach with 3D environments and the 2D, pixel-art characters, I think it looks gorgeous, and the music is OK, too (don’t expect any voiced texts, though). Also, the story is… hm, fine, I guess? There wasn’t really anything memorable in it, no huge twists, but it served its purpose, more or less. The characters, however, including the protagonists, are quite bland, if you ask me (except for Garoo – I mean, come on, he’s a cool, one-eyed kangaroo mercenary with a giant sword as his weapon, you simply can’t get more badass than that!).

Focusing only on the main questline, it’s surprisingly short for a JRPG. That said, if you’re a completionist like me, and want to get the max level weapons and armours, well, then get ready for an insane amount of side-quests. I’m not kidding, you can finish the game in about 10-15 hours, and you’ll have to spend half, or probably even more of this time doing extremely boring, repetitive side-quests. “Go there and talk to this person”, “go there and get x amount of this”, stuff like that. And I swear, the quest-givers kept asking for the same two or three resources all the time! Always that stupid hardwood lumber and high-purity ore, God… I must admit, after a few hours I just simply skipped all the dialogues involving side-quests, I lost all my patience for them.

I don’t think I’ll start Hundred Heroes anytime soon, even if it’s much better. I’ve had enough of this world for a while.

Análise da Campanha de Eiyuden Chronicle Rising

Pontos Positivos:

História envolvente: A campanha de Eiyuden Chronicle Rising é elogiada por sua história cativante, que serve como um prelúdio para o mundo de Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.
Mecânicas de construção de cidades: O jogo apresenta mecânicas interessantes de construção e melhoria de cidades, o que adiciona uma camada extra de profundidade ao gameplay.
Combate rápido: O sistema de combate é rápido e considerado emocionante, proporcionando uma experiência de ação gratificante.

Pontos Negativos:

Repetitividade: Alguns jogadores acham o jogo repetitivo, especialmente no início da campanha, onde a história demora a se desenvolver.
Slog inicial: A primeira metade do jogo pode ser um pouco arrastada até que a história realmente comece a se desenrolar.

Jogos Semelhantes:

Jogos como CrossCode, Secrets of Grindea, e Salt and Sanctuary são frequentemente comparados a Eiyuden Chronicle Rising por suas mecânicas de RPG de ação e elementos visuais marcantes.

Duração do Jogo:

A duração média da campanha principal é de cerca de 12 horas. Para jogadores que buscam completar todos os aspectos do jogo, é provável que gastem em torno de 19½ horas para obter 100% de conclusão.

Campanha:

A campanha segue os heróis em uma aventura por ruínas antigas enquanto ajudam na reconstrução de uma cidade afetada por terremotos. O conflito entre aqueles que desejam explorar as ruínas e os residentes que são contra essa exploração impulsiona a narrativa.

Vale a Pena?

Se você é fã de RPGs de ação e gosta de histórias ricas e mecânicas de construção de cidades, Eiyuden Chronicle Rising pode ser uma boa escolha. Apesar de alguns pontos negativos, como a repetitividade, a experiência geral é positiva, especialmente para aqueles interessados na história e no mundo de Eiyuden Chronicle. A decisão final, no entanto, depende das preferências pessoais de cada jogador.

Só vim ter ciência desse jogo após ter terminando o Hundred Heroes, é uma prequel muito interessante que foge um pouco do gênero do jogo base e expande a história de vários personagens. O jogo principal tem muito o que aprender no quesito desenvolvimento de grupo com esse aqui, inclusive a evolução do trio (Garoo, Isha e CJ) é bem melhor do que de qualquer grupo do HH. Você cria um apego pelo time e as interações são muito boas e bem mais genuínas.

É um RPG de ação com elementos de desenvolvimento de cidade que funciona por meio de carimbos recebidos por tarefa concluída, a cada x carimbos Nova Novaeh fica mais e mais bonita. Gostei bastante das fases e dos chefes, o level design cria um tom de exploração muito interessante.

O lado negativo é a repetição, são mais de 160 side quests para conseguir os carimbos e quase todas seguem a fórmula "pegue isso, leve isso até canto y, me traga z" e na reta final da jogatina enjoei dessa dinâmica e deixei de lado. São questões intimamente ligadas ao fato de esse ser um jogo "brinde" lançado pela desenvolvedora, bem mais cru e menos trabalhado, mas, para quem gostou de HH, é indispensável.

The spiritual successor to the Suikoden series, I love it. brings back so many memories from days long ago, playing the Suikoden series.

-Nice castle build system
- Amazing visuals
- Good soundtrack
- Good combat ofc


- Bad English translation
- too easy
- army battle animations are too long and boring

An ARPG that is unfortunately bogged down by odd menu design and repetitive filler side quests (which have to be done to grind your levels up). However, despite all of this, I found myself really getting into the gameplay loop and wanted to see the story to the end, even if it was a bit disappointing.

The core gameplay in this one is a lot of fun. A 2d platformer mixed with an ARPG, how can you go wrong? Well, I'll tell you.

Despite the fact that there are aspects of this game that are addictive and very enjoyable, the menu, map and quest system are very clunky and don't work well together. Like the maps only show marks for the main quest and only one selected side quest at a time. Once you finish that selected side quest, you have to then select another in the quest menu, then back out to the main game and then to map again to see where it is. and back and forth, back and forth and it sucks.

This also applies to the fast traveling. You use sign posts in the dungeons to fast travel around however, there is a map screen and the location selection screen. However the map doesn't list the names of the locations, so you're taking a guess as to which sign post location will take you where. Why didn't they put it all on the map just to make it easier!? It makes no sense at all and it becomes a nightmare in a couple areas because there are entrances and exits all over the place on the map!

There are also a million shops to upgrade your characters at (okay, it's more like 20, but it's still a lot!). One person does armor, one person does blades, one person upgrades your armor and blades, one person upgrades your runes, one person upgrades your tools, one person upgrades your bags... was it really necessary to have so many different vendors for upgrades!? It's really overkill...

This could've earned a much higher rating if they would've fixed some of these quality of life issues, but here we are.

Oh and the side quests. Good god the side quests. There has to be over a hundred side quests and while there are a few inventive and/or adventurous ones, a lot are repeat quests and others are literally filler.

Some quests will have you fetch a material only later to have you get the exact same quest again from the same or another person and you're collecting the exact same material! Then there are the filler quests which are like, go talk to this person who is a screen over. DONE. Turn In. Why bother with this!?

On another note, the visual design is also strange where the environments are 3d and gorgeously done but the characters are in 2d and have this very jaunty animation to them. It doesn't meld for me as the characters don't feel like they're in the same world.

And I have to also mention that I did have it happen about 3 times where I went to save and the game just hung. I had to restart the game each of those times and lost a bit of progress each time. VERY annoying.

Not a terrible game in the slightest but there are just too many bad design decisions that it's really hard to ignore them here.