Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising Review – Lots Of Chores, Little Reward
Eiyuden Chronicle : Rising can be summarized as a straightforward and simple action/RPG. It’s easy to get lost in its tranquil cycle of collecting stamps via fetch quests and combat. However, Rising doesn’t have much substance. It’s a bland experience that commits many RPG mistakes, which is disappointing. Especially as it’s a prequel introducing the Eiyuden world ahead of Eiyuden Chronicle: A Hundred Heroes – a spiritual successor to the Suikoden series. If this is a sign of what’s to come, I’m concerned.
Rising’s protagonist, CJ, is a young adventurer who wants to make a name for herself as a treasure hunter. In a small town known for its rich resources, she sets herself up. She teams up with Garoo, a friendly and stubborn kangaroo who is named Garoo, and Isha, a smart and skilled magic user. While the main story serves to move you to your destination, it also contains some revelations as to why strange, potentially dangerous threats have emerged. The narrative overall is predictable and very generic.
The story was dry and I found it disappointing that there were no bonding moments between the main characters. A few charming interactions play out in CJ and Garoo’s banter, and I took great delight in the appearance of a magical girl named Mallore, which is a clear homage to Sailor Moon. Still, there’s not much depth to these personalities, and they feel more like character outlines than fully developed individuals. This makes it difficult to have any kind of connection with them.
Rising’s town-building function is a major feature. This allows you to help various villages set up shops in order to increase the population and make it more profitable. You’re constantly leveling up various stores, such as a tavern, inn, apothecary, weapons shop, and more. At first glance, the town-building seems like a fun additional wrinkle, but its tedious fetch quests make it one of the game’s biggest letdowns. Each area is visited again and you return to the quest-giver. He will often ask for information or to locate the person.
Soon, the task of building a new town becomes an endless list of tasks. On the one hand, they aren’t all that difficult to complete. On the other hand, they’re mindless and don’t offer much satisfaction for the effort. The shops get some new stock, and the town gets a little more crowded, but it’s such a hollow sense of progression. You earn stamps for every effort, which show off your town’s level of completion. After doing a chunk of these, I lost interest in prioritizing the side content, but then realized I was under-leveled if I didn’t engage with it since the quests offer a great deal of experience. This is frustrating, as you’re forced into boring pursuits with no substance and very little in the way of storytelling. An optional side quest shouldn’t be required.
Dungeons are broken up into short romps, which I liked because they didn’t feel bloated and lent themselves well to short play sessions. This was until I found myself backtracking through the same dungeons and fighting the exact same minibosses over and over again. The game is linear overall, which isn’t an issue if the exploration is interesting. That’s not really the case here; dungeons have very minimal hidden paths, and their main appeal is picking up rare items that you can use in crafting, equipment upgrades, and cooking. They are also simple in design and tie to the different elements (e.g. fire, earth or ice). Each dungeon’s final bosses are attractive and offer a good challenge. I loved the furry ice brothers, which could transform the floor into pure ice. This forced you to jump twice and do combos to lift it.
Another area that’s just right is the action combat. The attacks of your party members are linked to the different buttons on the controller. You can also swap characters at any time during an attack to create strong combos. With each level you get new abilities like quick steps and air jumps, as well as upward and down attacks. These abilities did not give me a greater sense of power, satisfaction or speed. The link combinations were far more satisfying and dangerous. Still, everything controlled well, and I didn’t run into any glitches or serious technical issues during my time with the game on Switch.
The 2.5D art style is well-deserved. Rising offers a lively and welcoming adventure with beautifully hand-drawn visuals. Although the graphics are retro-inspired by Suikoden, they have enough modernization to make them feel exciting. It is easy to see the character portraits and how detailed they are.
Rising was created to reward fans for reaching a Kickstarter stretch goal, but it’s not just an add-on, it is a complete game, running around 20 hours. Natsume Atari took point as developer, with input from Rabbit & Bear Studios, the masterminds behind Hundred Heroes. The experience is mediocre at best. The art style of the game is bright and makes me hopeful that there will be a main game.
Pretty visuals can only get you far, however, and Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising doesn’t offer enough entertaining or unique content to keep it from being anything more than a passable RPG. At the very least, it introduces the Eiyuden world and some characters involved in Hundred Heroes, but that’s very little incentive for putting up with tedious gameplay and boilerplate characters.
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