Being a spiritual successor to a legendary title is a pretty damn tough act to follow. One that few have managed to live up to. Bloodstained, the spiritual successor to Symphony of the Night, has plenty of fans, but it is generally not considered to have matched the quality of its inspiration, and the less we say about Mighty Number 9 the better. But those games and their 2.5D graphical styles always felt like compromises. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, on the other hand, has many 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Suikoden 2 fans excited for the opposite reason: there isn&rs𝄹quo;t a compromise🌃 in sight.

Going into my preview of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, I was more than excited. I’ve frequently ra🍒ted it as being one of my most anticipated games and have 🔯followed its development since day one. But despite my abundant enthusiasm, I also have a number of concerns.

For those unfamiliar, Suikoden 2 is held in such high regard for a number of reasons. It features an excellent story that balances light-hearted adventure with real hardship and tragedy. The majority of the game’s antagonists are relatable and heroic in their own right, while the few truly nasty villains are among the most intimidating of their ilk. Beyond all that, it’s a looker, it features excellent mus🃏ic, and it is chock-full of fun minigames and distractions. It is just the complete package.

The most pressing of which was the ever-present sense of familiarity I felt when developer ♑Rabbit & Bear shared character sketches and profiles. While the designs all looked suitably sharp, the brief summaries provided alongside them were worryingly similar to characters we’ve met before.

Nowa, Seign, and Lian in particular were giving me some extremely strong Riou, Joey, and Nanami vibes. The whole Rabbit & Bear team is obviously abundantly aware of how revered Suikoden 2 is, but was that going to lead them to make somethinꦇg akin to The Force Awakens? Were we going to be given a thinly veiled rehash of Suikoden 2?

Thankfully, the answer is a resounding no. While these characters do have elements of their Suikoden 2 counterparts baked into them, their origins are nothing alike, their relationships with each other are fundamentally different, and the♚ path the story is traveling down appears to be wholly original. When it fully set in how distinct Eiyuden’s plot was from Suikoden 2’s, I let out a giant sigh of relief. Which leads into my second prima⛄ry concern.

The story and characters are different, cool, but is the script any good? I thought 2017’s The Alliance Alive was fine, but Yoshitaka Murayama’s script wasn’t nearly as strong as his work on the Suikoden games had been. While I was happy to see him back writing and directing what is ostensibly a new Suikoden game, I was worried that he’d maybe lost a step. But, once again, all my concerns have been allayed. The writing here is charming to a degree that few other JRPGs have ever managed. You will be assisting a self-proclaimed Magical Girl (think Sailor Moon) battle monsters in the name of justice at one mome🃏nt, then witnessing a tragedy born from the machinations of a power-hungry warmonger the next. Eiyuden knows how to leverage levity without abandoning the drama, and it doesn’t get bogged down in monologues or overwritten prose. This is peak Murayama.

While I was greatly saddened to hear about Murayama’s passing, seeing him in top form here does warm my heart. I just wish he had been given a chance to see how his latest game would be received. I🌱f what I’ve played is any indication of what the end product will be like, I think Murayama would have been given his roses.

All that’s left to discuss𝕴 is the gameplay. For those unfamiliar with Suikoden’s combat engine, it has always been remarkably fast-paced and features a heavy emphasis on team attacks (Hero Combos in Eiyuden), and the strategic use of special attacks and magic provided by Runes (Rune-Lenses in Eiyuden). It all works bril🍨liantly well, and feels better than ever in Hundred Heroes as it builds upon foundations laid decades ago.

One of the more surprising🃏 inclusions is difficulty settings. Not only is there a hard difficulty that manages to put up a genuine challenge, but you can also select a number of modifiers at the beginning of the game that can greatly increase the challenge that Eiyuden presents. This is a welcome addition, as the Suikoden games always felt a touch too ♚easy.

The difficಌulty modifiers are very reminiscent of𒁃 Dragon Quest 11’s Draconic Quests.

There are some other notable flourishes as well. You’re given a pretty impressive level of control over your auto-battle AI, allowing you to meticulously assign strategies to each character. It isn’t quite 168澳洲幸运5开🧔奖网:Final Fantasy 12’s gambit system, but it’s close. The defend command also changes dramatically depending on the party member. Some get the traditiꦐonal block, others get a dodge command (which increases evasion), mages get a magical barrier, which will absorb a set amount of damage, and one particular character doesn’t get a defensive ability at all and is instead able to charge up their next attack for increased damage.

Hundred Heroes is beautifully crafted all around. The soundtrack is evocative, the sprites are sublimely animated, and the combat is fast-paced and punchy. All your favorite Suikoden systems are back, and many of them have been expanded upon. There are recruitable characters around every corner, and each one of them brings their own🅠 charm to the fold. The version of the game I played was just a tiny slice of the full experience, but it was packed with things to do, and all of it was glorious. Make no mistake, Eiyuden isn’t a pretender to the throne, it is a challenger to it.