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Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes switch reviews seem biased against "old style" or turn based games

Looking at metacritic for switch reviews of this game ( a game I am looking forward to, being a huge suikoden fan and own every single game in the series), it seems weird that all these reviewers give the game a super low score and one of the main recurring themes is, and to paraphrase: "We don't like random encounters and old style turn based games"....

Here is a review up for Digital Trends: Score "60"
As a Suikoden successor, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is perhaps faithful to a fault. Its war story is better than those found in most Fire Emblem games, and its vibrant cast of characters are a highlight. The turn-based battle system is one of the best I’ve experienced of its kind in recent years, too. It’s just a shame that frustratingly retro RPG design and lacking quality-of-life features put a damper on the whole journey. With a few adjustments, Nowa’s story could’ve been a better tale to bring back home from the frontlines.
Does that sound like a 60, no.

Here is another: From Nintendo Life - "60:
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is the epitome of a flawed gem—the kind of game that does a lot of things right and we’re sure will command a dedicated legion of fans, but has legitimate problems that are tough to overlook. The expansive narrative, gorgeous spritework, and addictive combat all help make it an easy recommendation to any classic JRPG fan, but bear in mind that it can feel dated in its design philosophy and that the Switch version has a lot of performance problems, at least at launch. If you can get past those issues, this is an enjoyable and immersive RPG that mostly achieves what it set out to do.

Here is a damning one full of bias from Nintendo World Report: "50"
Playing Hundred Heroes feels like a burden, and even more so when you consider the high caliber of RPGs that have already released in 2024 that it might be taking your attention away from. Any moments of joy the experience offers are immediately dashed by baffling game design choices that would feel antiquated at the turn of the century, let alone decades after that. Were I not reviewing the game I would have put it aside after a few hours and never thought about it again. Eiyuden Chronicle comes after scores and scores of excellent and successful turn-based RPGs from which it could draw inspiration. Instead, it neglects so many of the lessons learned throughout the years in favor of outdated, tedious gameplay.

The only legit review I see up without badmouthing it for no "modern touches" is from Gaming age: "70" :
I can’t say that Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a bad game. It’s a solid attempt at recreating that Suikoden experience, and I can appreciate that someone out there is still trying to keep its spirit alive in some manner. I think, and hope, that a sequel will ideally work out some of these issues and make for a better showing, but if you absolutely want to capture the feel of playing through a Suikoden title again, then Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes will likely be right up your alley.


Granted I know the switch version has some issues (that they said will be patched), but from what I seen on youtube it doesn't seem that bad, I have seen much worse techncial blurry ass games get high scores.
What strikes me is the re-current "we don't like random encounters" crowd. Do they not know this is how jrpgs were for decades?
My gut tells me these are people who never played the classics, reviewing and comparing this to modern games when it is supposed to be a callback to suikoden.
I bet if this was made by Nintendo these would of been all high scores.

Its especially clear as these complaints about combat and quality of life aren't as prominent in other reviews for other platforms.

I still intend to get the game, I have a steam deck but I prefer the lightness of switch handheld, and use steam deck mainly for older pc games, I prefer gaming on switch, and will get it once i see more gameplay footage.

Does anyone have the switch version? If so what are your thoughts.
What do you think of down rating a game due to "not meeting what you thought it should be".
Personally I think, the game shouldn't be pinged for playing like a old school jrpg as that is what it set out to do. They made that clear since the beginning.

Performance issues could bring it down to a 70, sure, but the 50's and 60 scores, nah. if the game is great aside, and in the age of patches, it will probably be fixed, as it's not some crazy fancy graphics game.

Its just something that stuck out at me. I know there are some who hate "random encounters" , which i think is weird. I seen it on the official thread here, people complaining about random encounters not showing on the map. Guess what that is how it was, its a throw back to that classic design. Why do some hate random encounters so much?
 
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Lunarorbit

Member
Do you think some reviewers got tired of hearing about it for so long? I know I did and I was very excited when I heard about it at first.

Jason schier is suikodens #1 fan in the west and when he's poo pooing it then something is up.

We've seen several rpgs in the last few years put a spin on the traditional turn based combat system so I can understand the lower scores.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
It's kind of hard to comment on it until I play the game. Turn based can feel dated or modern depending on how they handle other QoL features. Something like Final Fantasy Tactics would feel utterly archaic compared to Triangle Strategy, but both are similar turn based SRPGs.

I don't think they're criticizing it merely for being turn based, but I have to check it out for myself. The top review even explicitly says the turn-based battles are among the best he's seen.
 

Shifty1897

Member
Looking at metacritic for switch reviews of this game ( a game I am looking forward to, being a huge suikoden fan and own every single game in the series), it seems weird that all these reviewers give the game a super low score and one of the main recurring themes is, and to paraphrase: "We don't like random encounters and old style turn based games"....

Here is a review up for Digital Trends: Score "60"
As a Suikoden successor, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is perhaps faithful to a fault. Its war story is better than those found in most Fire Emblem games, and its vibrant cast of characters are a highlight. The turn-based battle system is one of the best I’ve experienced of its kind in recent years, too. It’s just a shame that frustratingly retro RPG design and lacking quality-of-life features put a damper on the whole journey. With a few adjustments, Nowa’s story could’ve been a better tale to bring back home from the frontlines.
Does that sound like a 60, no.

Here is another: From Nintendo Life - "60:
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is the epitome of a flawed gem—the kind of game that does a lot of things right and we’re sure will command a dedicated legion of fans, but has legitimate problems that are tough to overlook. The expansive narrative, gorgeous spritework, and addictive combat all help make it an easy recommendation to any classic JRPG fan, but bear in mind that it can feel dated in its design philosophy and that the Switch version has a lot of performance problems, at least at launch. If you can get past those issues, this is an enjoyable and immersive RPG that mostly achieves what it set out to do.

Here is a damning one full of bias from Nintendo World Report: "50"
Playing Hundred Heroes feels like a burden, and even more so when you consider the high caliber of RPGs that have already released in 2024 that it might be taking your attention away from. Any moments of joy the experience offers are immediately dashed by baffling game design choices that would feel antiquated at the turn of the century, let alone decades after that. Were I not reviewing the game I would have put it aside after a few hours and never thought about it again. Eiyuden Chronicle comes after scores and scores of excellent and successful turn-based RPGs from which it could draw inspiration. Instead, it neglects so many of the lessons learned throughout the years in favor of outdated, tedious gameplay.

The only legit review I see up is from Gaming age: "70" :
I can’t say that Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a bad game. It’s a solid attempt at recreating that Suikoden experience, and I can appreciate that someone out there is still trying to keep its spirit alive in some manner. I think, and hope, that a sequel will ideally work out some of these issues and make for a better showing, but if you absolutely want to capture the feel of playing through a Suikoden title again, then Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes will likely be right up your alley.


Granted I know the switch version has some issues (that they said will be patched), but from what I seen on youtube it doesn't seem that bad, I have seen much worse techncial blurry ass games get high scores.
What strikes me is the re-current "we don't like random encounters" crowd. Do they not know this is how jrpgs were for decades?
My gut tells me these are people who never played the classics, reviewing and comparing this to modern games when it is supposed to be a callback to suikoden.
I bet if this was made by Nintendo these would of been all high scores.

Its especially clear as these complaints about combat and quality of life aren't as prominent in other reviews for other platforms.

I still intend to get the game, I have a steam deck but I prefer the lightness of switch handheld, and use steam deck mainly for older pc games, I prefer gaming on switch, and will get it once i see more gameplay footage.

Does anyone have the switch version? If so what are your thoughts.
What do you think of down rating a game due to "not meeting what you thought it should be".
Personally I think, the game shouldnt be pinged for playing like a old school jrpg as that is what it set out to do. They made that clear since the beginning.
So random encounters are not really random in this game, they occur every 20 seconds of moving, every time. That may be the problem that a lot of reviewers haven't pinpointed. Additionally, the game rarely hits 30 fps, has frame pacing and dynamic resolution issues, and long load times into every menu and random encounters battle. Also, it crashes a lot, especially an hour into a major dungeon with no other save points. IMO, the arguments are valid, there's too many HD-2D RPGs out there these days that are filling this niche with modern accomodations (some also have random encounters and didn't get dinged for it in reviews) and doing it well enough that stuff like this can't slide.
 
So random encounters are not really random in this game, they occur every 20 seconds of moving, every time. That may be the problem that a lot of reviewers haven't pinpointed. Additionally, the game rarely hits 30 fps, has frame pacing and dynamic resolution issues, and long load times into every menu and random encounters battle. Also, it crashes a lot, especially an hour into a major dungeon with no other save points. IMO, the arguments are valid, there's too many HD-2D RPGs out there these days that are filling this niche with modern accomodations (some also have random encounters and didn't get dinged for it in reviews) and doing it well enough that stuff like this can't slide.
If that is the case, I sure hope it gets patched. Maybe that is why the physical switch version was delayed to next month.
As for other jrpgs, there may be many 2d jrpgs, but this is a mix with a proper overworld ps1 style, and it has 6 character parties, and recruit-able characters. Its not like the mass of other jrpgs. We haven't had a proper suikoden game in decades, and a 2d one not since the ps1.

It doesn't help that Konami is sitting on a working remake of suikoden 1 and 2 but won't release it to the west....grrr.
 

Werewolf Jones

Gold Member
Did they just want smash X to win brainlet action? This game literally has an auto battle feature. I was blown away the first time I saw that in Suikoden. Only bosses 100% require manual input.
 

bumpkin

Member
Basically every review dunking on the game is bitching about the mechanics that were intentionally mimicked from the game’s inspiration. Essentially moot points that hold no merit for anyone who backed or has been following this game.

The performance and load time criticisms are valid though. Noticeable loading on cartridge based games always baffle me, especially if you’re just navigating menus.
 
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Deerock71

Member
The performance and load time criticisms are valid though. Noticeable loading on cartridge based games always baffle me, especially if you’re just navigating menus.
Hopefully they can squeeze the needed patches into the delayed Switch release.
 
Basically every review dunking on the game is bitching about the mechanics that were intentionally mimicked from the game’s inspiration. Essentially moot points that hold no merit for anyone who backed or has been following this game.

The performance and load time criticisms are valid though. Noticeable loading on cartridge based games always baffle me, especially if you’re just navigating menus.
If the reviews were just for performance issues then that would be one thing, but it seems more focus, at least in review summaries is all about "dated mechanics" for a game that set out to do just that. Hopefully more people that actually own the game can pipe in on how bad the pefromance issues are. From the few youtube videos I seen, it looks fine, its not a blurry mess (some switch games cut down resolution to sd and look horrible).. Crashs though are a big deal, especially if it has checkpoints and no saving anywhere system.
 
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Skeptical

Member
What strikes me is the re-current "we don't like random encounters" crowd. Do they not know this is how jrpgs were for decades?
My gut tells me these are people who never played the classics, reviewing and comparing this to modern games when it is supposed to be a callback to suikoden.
I bet if this was made by Nintendo these would of been all high scores.
Octopath Traveler has random encounters and received high scores. I doubt that this is a case of "I don't like random encounters" given that. In fact, I had read the NIntendolife review earlier and was confused by your recollection and therefore went back to it. There is no indication that the review is complaining about random encounters at all (other than to note loading times each time an encounter occurred, but that's a technical issue rather than an issue with random encounters themselves)! The thing that stuck out to me was mention of an old MMORPG style quest of "go into a random cave and walk around in circles until enemies drop the random loot you need". That was a complaint, and that was one that resonated with me when I read it. Are you sure the "dated design" complaints of that review aren't referring to stuff like this rather than just random encounters?

Since the Nintendolife review seemed to provide valid complaints rather than just complaining about random encounters, I checked the other two reviews. The NWR review does seem to complain about random encounters itself, fair enough. The Digital Trends one is a mixed bag, not really complaining about random encounters themselves but instead various other issues that the encounters exacerbate. So I think trying to claim that this is a Nintendo biased situation is far fetched. If anything, the technical limitations are souring people and resulting in emphasizing the negatives more. It's unfortunate that people write like that, but it is often the case that when you are annoyed, you notice the negatives even more.

I suppose there is a larger question of if faithfulness to old games is automatically better. Sometimes quality of life improvements make sense. Originally, Castlevania would automatically switch your subweapon if you picked a new one, meaning you better hope you don't grab that dagger by accident. Eventually, they had the old subweapon fall out, allowing you to switch back if you made a mistake. Should a spiritual successor that ignores this obvious quality of life improvement be praised for being faithful to the original?

Super Metroid is one of the best games I've ever played. So is Metroid Dread. And that's despite the fact that Dread is a polar opposite of Super in many ways. By choosing to take its own path, it ended up being more than just a pale imitation. Final Fantasy 9 was designed to be a throwback to classic FF. But nobody wanted to go back to the old NES style of battles, so that was jettisoned. Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is a faithful reimagining of what is easily my favorite Metroidvania of all time, and I enjoyed it for what it was, but I admit the experience felt a bit hollow because it was so much of a retread.

I've never played Suikoden and have little interest in either it or Eiyuden, so I can't judge in this case. But I won't immediately declare that key elements can't evolve.
 

Fbh

Member
I don't really see the issue.
While I love a lot of older games and there's certainly some stuff I miss from them, I also think gaming has continuously evolved and improved over the years (at least in some ways). What I personally want from these retro inspired games is for them to take the elements that worked back then while modernizing the areas where they don't hold up. If you are going to make a game that in many ways feels like it came out 25 years ago then I think it's a valid to criticize it for it.

FFIX is one of my favourites in the franchise but it's nearly unplayable to me now without the speed boost from the remasters, battles are just too frequent and too fucking slow without it. If a remake were to come out with random encounters, the same slow battles and no speed up option I think that would be a valid criticism.

Also random encounters are shit mechanic that should have died in the mid 90's when games like Chrono Trigger moved past them. It's a mechanic that felt dated in 1996.
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
That probably just means average nowadays players don't like random encounters, I for sure can't stand them anymore, but they should give the game to a reviewer that don't have a problem with an essential feature of the game imo
 

Fbh

Member
man you turn-based purists need to lose the persecution complex.

Plenty of turn based JRPGs get very generous reviews. Look at Octopath 2, Like a Dragon, Persona 5 for a few recent examples. The “western reviewers are unfairly biased against turn based JRPGs” meme is a load of bullshit.

Yup.
Also, like all combat systems there are good and bad takes on turn based combat.
Haven't played Eiyuden Chronicle but maybe the combat in it isn't that good? I played Suikoden 2 for the first time a couple of years ago and while I enjoyed the game I didn't think the combat was particularly great in that one either, not compared to other turn based games from that time nor compared to modern ones either.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
man you turn-based purists need to lose the persecution complex.

Plenty of turn based JRPGs get very generous reviews. Look at Octopath 2, Like a Dragon, Persona 5 for a few recent examples. The “western reviewers are unfairly biased against turn based JRPGs” meme is a load of bullshit.
I think its the random encounters. O2 and LAD don't have those..
 
Younger journalists weren't engaged in turn based RPGs growing up like most of the fan base was. One reason not to take their opinions or preferences seriously.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
And? It’s a personal opinion.

The only useful reviews are ones where the reviewer states their preferences clearly. I’ve had negative reviews be what convinces me to try a game because what they cleared described as what they don’t like sounded like something I would like.

As a consumer that’s the end of what reviews should mean to you: a guide to see if you will like a game. If you are buying a game no matter what why does it matter?

People are way too emotionally attached to review scores for the things they like (that goes in both directions, just because what you like has high scores doesn’t make you special either lol)
 
Do you think some reviewers got tired of hearing about it for so long? I know I did and I was very excited when I heard about it at first.

Jason schier is suikodens #1 fan in the west and when he's poo pooing it then something is up.

We've seen several rpgs in the last few years put a spin on the traditional turn based combat system so I can understand the lower scores.
Fuck Jason. I own all 5 and I'm enjoying the shit out of it. I am 30+ hours in and building my castle. I give it a 9 at the moment because the graphics are nice, the music is good and the story, while predictable Empire/War shit, it's still enjoyable and the experience has been relaxing, overall.
I'm sick of hearing about reviewers, if anything, lol.
 

IAmRei

Member
i can stand to turn based RPG, but it would be better if we can see the enemies, maybe evade it or something, ala chrono trigger. and most recent games i remember is bravely default.
i can stand to random encounters if it older game though.

i don't know, my preference is evolved these days... and i'm 40
nowadays, i want to speed up the process if it's not too interesting for me
 

Belthazar

Member
I am a big suikoden fan and a lot of those points the review brought up aren't wrong. The game is quite a bit outdated in a lot of aspects, including how the random encounters are handled and how slow the battles are.

I'm loving the game, but a lot of it could've been better fine tuned... I would prefer to spend a lot of time on a boss battle because it's tough, not because it just takes too long to navigate through the menus and watch the skill animations.
 
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DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
I am a big suikoden fan and a lot of those points the review brought up aren't wrong. The game is quite a bit outdated in a lot of aspects, including how the random encounters are handled and how slow the battles are.

I'm loving the game, but a lot of it could've been better fine tuned... I would prefer to spend a lot of time on a boss battle because it's tough, not because it just takes too long to navigate through the menus and watch the skill animations.
Maybe it’s nostalgia goggles but I remembered Suikoden 1 having surprisingly fast battles compared to other turn based JRPGs of that era. Your characters would all leap in to attack at the same time instead of one at a time + the basic attack animations were fairly snappy.

Sad to hear they’re slower paced in Eiyuden Chronicle
 

BryceNobody

Member
I don’t think the criticisms are totally out of place. I love turn-based JRPGs and old-school gameplay, but I’m also not opposed to some modern QoL upgrades if it improves the final product.

Eiyuden’s first few hours have been fun but compared to other recent JRPG throwbacks like Octopath or Sea of Stars, I’m not really sure how long I can stomach random encounters and slow combat.
 
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Yep, turn based in not the issue, it's the awful, dreaded random encounters. They only used to have that in place because of not enough memory to have visual representations of enemies on the field. There's no excuses these days not to have that.
 

Pejo

Member
I was under the impression that the Switch versions scored lower because of poor performance across the board.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
I’ve been into JRPGs and involved in various JRPG communities since Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy VI and man, people have ALWAYS bitched about random battles. Games like Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, and Super Mario RPG got praised in every single review for eliminating them.

If you like them then fine, that’s your opinion, but don’t pretend like it’s only ignorant gaijin dudebros and Gen Z ADHD kids who “don’t get it”. JRPGamers have been grudgingly tolerating random battles since forever, that’s about as old school and hardcore as you can get.
 

Mr Hyde

Member
Played for a good hour now. Random encounters are not that frequent and the fights themselves are very quick and snappy with zero load times in and out of transitioning. Even got auto-battle for us lazy ones. Reviewers are talking shit yet again. I knew it.
 
Octopath Traveler has random encounters and received high scores. I doubt that this is a case of "I don't like random encounters" given that. In fact, I had read the NIntendolife review earlier and was confused by your recollection and therefore went back to it. There is no indication that the review is complaining about random encounters at all (other than to note loading times each time an encounter occurred, but that's a technical issue rather than an issue with random encounters themselves)! The thing that stuck out to me was mention of an old MMORPG style quest of "go into a random cave and walk around in circles until enemies drop the random loot you need". That was a complaint, and that was one that resonated with me when I read it. Are you sure the "dated design" complaints of that review aren't referring to stuff like this rather than just random encounters?

Since the Nintendolife review seemed to provide valid complaints rather than just complaining about random encounters, I checked the other two reviews. The NWR review does seem to complain about random encounters itself, fair enough. The Digital Trends one is a mixed bag, not really complaining about random encounters themselves but instead various other issues that the encounters exacerbate. So I think trying to claim that this is a Nintendo biased situation is far fetched. If anything, the technical limitations are souring people and resulting in emphasizing the negatives more. It's unfortunate that people write like that, but it is often the case that when you are annoyed, you notice the negatives even more.

I suppose there is a larger question of if faithfulness to old games is automatically better. Sometimes quality of life improvements make sense. Originally, Castlevania would automatically switch your subweapon if you picked a new one, meaning you better hope you don't grab that dagger by accident. Eventually, they had the old subweapon fall out, allowing you to switch back if you made a mistake. Should a spiritual successor that ignores this obvious quality of life improvement be praised for being faithful to the original?

Super Metroid is one of the best games I've ever played. So is Metroid Dread. And that's despite the fact that Dread is a polar opposite of Super in many ways. By choosing to take its own path, it ended up being more than just a pale imitation. Final Fantasy 9 was designed to be a throwback to classic FF. But nobody wanted to go back to the old NES style of battles, so that was jettisoned. Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is a faithful reimagining of what is easily my favorite Metroidvania of all time, and I enjoyed it for what it was, but I admit the experience felt a bit hollow because it was so much of a retread.

I've never played Suikoden and have little interest in either it or Eiyuden, so I can't judge in this case. But I won't immediately declare that key elements can't evolve.
You give some interesting questions and food for thought, thanks. I'll admit, i didn't read all the reviews, and watched the nintendolife one later after work on youtube. I was at work when I posted this and was just going off the metacritic average and the review summaries at the time. Which really sucks as i want this game to be good on switch, as its not something i want to play on ps5/pc, I have dragons dogma 2 and manor lords respectively for that.

It sucks being a fan of something that isn't made anymore (silent hill, mega man legends, castlevania sotn style, parasite eve, legacy of kain, medieval, good historical total war games, sim city, single player fps games, might and magic, wizardry, homm, etc... all come to mind as well), that when a new one similar comes out you want it to be good, and not have problems.

I think as far as quality of life advancments those can change on a new game in the series or related genre, but they need to not change the main thing about it. Random encounters are normal for this series, changing that would be a big deal. Something that would be a bad decision would be not including remembering your last battle buttons, so you had to re-enter commands every battle.

Changing up can go either way too. I avoided metroid dread, which sucks as I loved metroid , super metroid, and prime ,and especially Samus returns, The art style and everything spoke to me. I even got the oled switch on launch, trading my old model and planned to get dread but I couldn't. I knew the change up mechanic would drive me crazy. Nothing I can't stand more is just timed running escapes or escorts in games. This game was mostly that, from what I seen and I like to explore. If I can't explore and a metroid game, why bother.

Castlevania weapon switch, thats a good point. If the game was supposed to recreate the feal of 1 and 3 then yeah, that would be needed. If it was just a new game in the series, then don't do subweapon auto switch. Come to think of it, I still need to finish cicle of the moon and Bloodstained.

Yeah games can evolve, but I think this game (as far as I know) was going for suikoden 1/2 type feel.
 
Played for a good hour now. Random encounters are not that frequent and the fights themselves are very quick and snappy with zero load times in and out of transitioning. Even got auto-battle for us lazy ones. Reviewers are talking shit yet again. I knew it.
So is it worth getting for switch? You playing that version? Its on sale now so I am thinking about it, although 24gb is a bit much, and I doubt the cart is going to have the full game on it. Only one that did that for a large game was the witcher 3.
 

Deerock71

Member
So is it worth getting for switch? You playing that version? Its on sale now so I am thinking about it, although 24gb is a bit much, and I doubt the cart is going to have the full game on it. Only one that did that for a large game was the witcher 3.
I'm playing the Switch version. It takes between 3 and 4 seconds to get into and out of a battle. It's noticeable, but I'm hoping a patch can do some magic on this one.
 

OuterLimits

Member
Not really seeing the problem. If it weren't for performance issues, I imagine the average would be in the 72-77 range instead of mid 50s. Which would be fairly close to Xbox/PC
 

Mr Hyde

Member
So is it worth getting for switch? You playing that version? Its on sale now so I am thinking about it, although 24gb is a bit much, and I doubt the cart is going to have the full game on it. Only one that did that for a large game was the witcher 3.

Playing it on PS5. No performance issues at all so far. Runs and looks great. Don't know how the Switch version is but read it's pretty busted. Maybe the game has a day 1 patch. On PS5 it was a 10 gb update patch.
 

Arsic

Loves his juicy stink trail scent
tldr.gif


Stop giving a shit about reviews.
 
The worst kind of random happens when you finish a battle, take one digital step *BAM* another battle.
It's exactly the reason why I both love and hate these two games:


any-collector-need-boxes-v0-4kcf23aev3wc1.jpeg


I played Golden Sun 1 and 2 years after childhood, so I don't have the same nostalgia for them that others here have. In both games I had reached a point where I wanted to get the game over with. It's why I waited on impressions for Eiyuden Chronicle, because there are aspects of it that remind me of Golden Sun, especially the very long battle animations and moving camera:

golden-sun-gba.gif

7Ti8DU.gif


While this was once cool at the beginning of a game, seeing this animation 1000 times during a playthrough just ends up becoming a grating experience. It doesn't help when a game offers you 3-4 abilities that essentially solve all fights. At that point you're spamming A and watching things on repeat as your brain goes into autopilot. I don't know why turn-based fans defend aspects like this so much, but I'm not going to bother questioning it. They like what they like I guess.

It's why I have to ask in JRPG reveal threads if they have a fast forward feature for gameplay or battles. Just having it as an option would be a nice time-saver. However, even from saying all of this, from what S Skeptical is saying above, Eiyuden Chronicles sounds a bit grindy. Like old school 'annoying but I put up with it because the game was fun' grindy. I'm leaning towards buying this game eventually on a sale/discount.
 
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