Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a basic rags to riches story, solely about a complete military. I didn’t know what my crew would find yourself trying like once I began recruiting dozens of distinctive characters – nevertheless, as extra fighters joined my trigger, from a two-faced healer with a brutish facet to a magical lady with a hero complicated, this unpredictable journey began to take form. The size of the story grew with each chapter, folding in additional international locations and other people that might finally flip my ragtag crew into a correct battalion. That sizable forged and a great deal of facet content material can add fluff to the marketing campaign, with half-baked components like encounters that depend on RNG to tug issues down a bit. However for anybody prepared to carry out lengthy sufficient, Hundred Heroes’ sluggish burn finally lights into a powerful fireplace.
Hundred Heroes follows Nowa, a brand new recruit in an area military who has been tasked with cooperating with the bigger empire’s particular forces crew. Whereas that might have put him at odds with Seign, a rising expertise that leads that crew, what ensues as a substitute is a bonding second that units the tone properly for the whole marketing campaign – that two opposing sides may discover compromise fairly than battle. The story may really feel like a typical hero’s journey at first, however as you peel again the layers, you’ll begin to perceive that there’s extra to the primary forged and why they struggle for what they do.
In contrast to its spin-off prequel, the hack-and-slash side-scroller Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, Hundred Heroes primarily operates as a turn-based RPG. You management a celebration of six characters which you can swap round earlier than or after battle, every with their very own stat distributions and skills that set them other than others. For instance, Lian is a hard-hitting fighter with weak defenses, whereas Garr is a sturdy tank with respectable offense however no magic. These are the sorts of execs and cons you want to take into consideration when constructing a crew, although Hundred Heroes offers you so many characters to select from which you can utterly ignore most of them. That’s enjoyable mechanically, but it surely does imply some really feel like they’re there simply to serve a brief objective within the plot.
Just like the title “Hundred Heroes” may counsel, there are over a whopping 100 characters that both fill a task in your city or struggle at your facet. It’s a bit like Pokemon with troopers, however there are completely different necessities for each if you wish to catch ‘em all. Some may be part of you instantly after you converse to them, whereas others may request that you simply come again after you get stronger. A few of these allies struggle at your facet, and others finally run shops on the fort city that acts as your own home base. Discovering elusive recruits entertained me between story chapters, each as a technique to collect helpful supplies and study extra in regards to the world.
Typically a chapter will put particular characters in your crew for story causes, which forces you to experiment with new allies. Some even have “Hero Combos” they’ll solely use with sure teammates, which vary from skills that deal extra injury than the 2 attackers would on their very own to ones that may hit all enemies directly whereas buffing allies on the similar time. The precise skill is determined by the heroes, however I discovered that almost all of my crew comps ended up being comparable ultimately. I usually used characters with excessive assault energy to defeat powerful enemies, sufficient survivability to withstand sturdy assaults, and therapeutic capabilities to maintain the crew alive, which made lots of the most original characters really feel extra like gimmicks than essential instruments.
You’ll doubtless discover a regular crew that serves your wants by the midway level of the roughly 50-hour marketing campaign, although you’re free to shake issues up with different characters as you want. There is no such thing as a “exp share” mechanic that lets you preserve your benched characters on the similar degree as your touring companions, however Hundred Heroes has a wierd leveling system that permits weaker characters to shortly catch as much as teammates when dealing with enemies at a a lot greater degree than them. Which means they’ll all of the sudden be on par with greater degree teammates after only a few fights, which is a barely complicated however appreciated contact that makes it simpler to experiment if you wish to.
Hundred Heroes additionally has a method RPG portion that seems after the central battle in its story begins, largely when dealing with enemy generals, the place you management armies of troopers on a grid-like map and command them to assault enemy legions. Main characters act as commanders with impactful particular skills like reducing enemy defenses or HP to safe a bonus earlier than an invasion. My go-to technique was ganging up on enemies to shortly decrease their HP, forcing them to retreat, after which reallocating my armies elsewhere afterward. Occasions may even pop up throughout these battles, like enemy generals becoming a member of the fray or break up second betrayals, which add spice to the combination however typically make your tactical selections extra easy. Whereas intimidating, I by no means had a difficulty working on the fly.
Additionally, you will take part in “duels” throughout main plot factors, normally with one essential character dealing with a rival or antagonist. In these duels, you possibly can select to both assault to deal injury and lift a Stress gauge just a little, or counter to take much less injury from an assault and construct a bigger quantity of Stress. The thought is to whittle down the enemy’s well being sufficient to achieve the Break marker on their HP bar, which helps you to use a stronger Break assault to complete them off. Alternatively, maxing out the Stress gauge lets you deal a equally devastating blow.
Nevertheless, whether or not the enemy assaults or counters is fully as much as probability, which may really feel unfairly random. I’ve solely received half of those duels consequently, and the others discovered methods to excuse my loss as a part of the plot. By the top, I leaned towards continuously attacking to get a head begin in injury, however even that could be a simplistic technique. Fortunately, it’s not an enormous deal that these are left as much as probability as a result of there aren’t important losses that might drive you to restart a duel, but it surely’s nonetheless irritating to lose based mostly on a nasty guess. That makes duels appear extra like a narrative software fairly than an precise problem.
Gimmicks can seem within the common turn-based boss fights, too. Most of them labored as obstacles that I wanted to plan round throughout battle, like setting apart one character to flip a swap for a secret weapon between turns. Nevertheless, gimmicks based mostly on random probability may improve a battle’s problem with out including any attention-grabbing technique. One early struggle inspired me to select between two hammers that might probably deal thrice the injury of one in every of my models to the boss. The boss popped up on both the left or proper facet, and solely the hammer closest to it could be capable to hit it. In the event you picked the incorrect hammer, then you definately would waste one character’s flip and should survive the struggle for an extended period of time. However much like the duels, there doesn’t appear to be any technique to inform which one is the appropriate decide, which leaves the issue as much as probability fairly than any explicit technique.
Hundred Heroes’ marketing campaign takes someplace round 40-60 hours to finish, relying on how a lot time you spend recruiting characters, upgrading your fort, and taking part in minigames – together with a top-spinning one known as Beigoma that’s very harking back to Beyblades. A number of the facet quests are straightforward to finish, like defeating particular enemies for drops that potential allies request earlier than becoming a member of your celebration. Others really feel like a unending thriller, like my quest to discover a fortunate fish for my fisherman buddy. That stated, the marketing campaign doesn’t drive you to finish any particular facet quest – although it would encourage you to recruit a sure variety of allies earlier than advancing to the following chapter.
Regardless of finally having fun with it, Hundred Heroes suffers from a sluggish begin that originally holds it again. In the beginning, I used to be unimpressed with the quantity of backtracking it took to get between locations, particularly with the random encounters that interrupted my journey. Hundred Heroes doesn’t clearly spell out the answer to each puzzle, both, so that you typically must tempo by means of cities again and again earlier than stumbling upon an answer. It took me 15 hours simply to unlock quick journey, which I solely discovered by probability whereas wandering the streets of 1 main metropolis. At that time, issues actually began to open up, letting me satisfyingly teleport between cities to recruit new allies, however that period of time is so much to get by means of earlier than a payout.
Nonetheless, it was worthwhile to see this thrilling story of a number of international locations combating again in opposition to a tyrant, with a blended bag of twists alongside the way in which. Some left me scratching my head questioning “why,” whereas others had me cheering from the sidelines. The large villain is one-dimensional in his lust for energy and doesn’t go away a lot to play with by way of motive, however the actions of the individuals round him are extra compelling. Some characters wrestle in attention-grabbing methods between obligations to their residence nation and a want for justice, whereas others are bystanders solely emboldened into motion after watching the efforts of your passionate crew.
Whereas following an endearing troop of misfits and their quest to overthrow a corrupt ruler may sound like each different kingdom-based RPG, the steadiness between the private struggles of its characters and the story of the overarching battle was fairly entertaining. Some elements of that story really feel weaker than others and undergo from a number of pacing points, like one main faction solely coming to mild as a part of the overarching plot midway by means of the marketing campaign, however there’s sufficient build-up and loss that the victories at all times felt price it. At first, I felt like I used to be combating in a stranger’s battle – by the top, I used to be invested sufficient that I used to be desirous to see them win.