Sometimes, Kickstarter projects will involve a “bounty game” as a stretch goal. Eg, Bloody: Ritual of the NightOur crowdfunding campaign resulted in Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. Eiyuden Chronicles: Rise that is to Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes. However, while Inti Creates rewards is a fascinating and rich title in its own right, Eiyuden Chronicles: Rise is “okay” and feels like a messy collection of fetch tasks.
CJ is a Garbage Picker. A tradition in her family is to travel when they reach adulthood. She is looking for her father’s larger Rune Lens to prove herself. This trip leads her to New Neveah, a town where Rune Barrows were discovered beneath. This has attracted treasure-seeking adventurers to the area, such as Garoo. However, something else is going on. The earthquake devastated the area after its discovery. Also, the mayor of the town disappears, with his daughter Isha serving as acting mayor and trying to rebuild the town and help the people. To complete her quest, CJ will also need to fulfill the townspeople’s requests, which in turn will rebuild the New Neveah, and head into the Rune Barrows to find her treasure and solve the secrets. hidden of the area.
This means players send trios into environments, defeating enemies with combos along the way. The point is that there are other games that handle this kind of system very well. Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is one of them. There is no such natural fluidity and progression to these continuous attacks. It ranges from decent to good, rather than consistently responsive. Part of this may, of course, be due to the way characters work and are added.
You start Eiyuden Chronicles: Rise with CJ. She is an agile character with a short ranged attack. She just hit directly in front of her. However, her special move allows her to quickly dash forward, and eventually fly mid-air. When Garoo joins your party after a significant amount of time, you’ll gain a slower character with a longer range, walk in an arch that can hit above him, and an equal special move. It also means you unlock a Link Attack that allows you to swap between the two for a combo with greater reach and more damage. Refilling the first Stamp Card increases the Link Attack combo by one.
But I didn’t feel like things really started to flash until Isha joined the party. This happens many, many hours in the game. (So many people that I’m starting to wonder if she’s the first Stamp Card bonus.) She’s the only ranged unit out of the three, with lockable offensive spells. opponents when you are close enough. Which means you can then start a strategy by casting her spells to hit enemies at a distance, then activate Link Attack to let CJ or Garoo lunge closer and deal extra damage.
Eiyuden Chronicles: Rise nor waste time being tedious. There is a city building here. But most of the game relies on taking on a quest that involves entering one of two dungeons to defeat certain enemies or collect certain items. Then you go back to the center to claim a stamp, continue the story and do it all over again. Due to the fast paced, you’ll spend hours in the same parts of the Great Forest and Quarry before finally being exposed to some new dimensions by the Rune Barrows. Since a lot of enemies are palette swappers and getting certain items for new missions means buying better versions of tools and re-reading the same gaps, it’s starting to feel feel bland.
Especially since there are some mild Metroidvania elements. You’ll find elemental turrets blocking your progress in areas like the Great Forest and Quarry. You can’t get past them unless you get an elemental Rune Lens, equip the element that matches it, and go back to attack it. Meaning if you want 100% of a map you will need to get all the elements and come back. While elements are required to progress the story, you’ll at least get things like earth runes in the end.
As for the appearance, Eiyuden Chronicles: Rise manages to look both interesting and cheap. The character and environment designs are both good! There are some novel ideas. I like the look of the 3D environment. Except the characters and enemies are all basically 2D puppets, rigged to look like they’ve been pulled from a mobile game. There are games that handle the interlacing of 2D and 3D well. That is not always the case here.
I have a feeling that unless someone is extremely invested in Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroesthey will have nothing but Eiyuden Chronicles: Rise. The background it provides for characters like CJ, Garoo and Isha and the world of the series is great! It’s quite valuable, in terms of lore and mood. But the actual experience is average and takes a while to become enjoyable. It never really connected me. Instead, it made me want to go back to other games that did better.
Eiyuden Chronicles: Rise available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC.
