Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes review: promising retro RPG falls short

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes MSRP $49.99 Score Details Pros

Politically engaging story
Colorful cast of characters
Great turn-based battle system
Beautiful art direction

Cons

Minigames are hit-or-miss
Woeful lack of quality of life
Poor performance on Switch

It was only near the end of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes that I began to grow accustomed to its retro design. Throughout the RPG, I learned that I should pack as many healing and revival items as I could before a boss fight, but it still didn’t prepare me for what I was about to experience.

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I sighed in relief as I finally beat a late-game boss I was struggling with, only to see it pull out a second phase. That was normal for an RPG, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to be stuck in a pseudo time loop. The boss fired off a huge cinematic attack that my wounded and battered party had no chance of withstanding, which led me to a game over screen with the option of a rematch. Attempting to reverse my fate, I faced off the boss again, only for it to start with the same devastating attack once more. No matter how many times I repeated this cycle, the outcome was the same, until I just gave up and decided to load my game from the previous save point.

That small moment exemplifies every little frustration that drags down Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, a retro RPG that acts as a spiritual successor to the Suikoden series. Despite an engaging story, colorful characters, and solid turn-based battles, its lack of quality-of-life consideration and poor performance on Nintendo Switch drag this promising throwback down.

1 vs. 100

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes follows Nowa, the resistance leader of the Alliance, as he gathers heroes from around the continent of Allraan to fight back against the tyrannical Dux Aldric and his Empire. What makes that