Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is the first in the series, being a spiritual successor to Suikoden. Rising is more like a bite sized prologue, and it is an action role playing game. You play as CJ, who had just arrived at a town in search of treasure. The town is small but is filled with adventurers hoping to strike their fortunes. CJ ends up helping around town and the game has a town-building aspect.
The combat is simple since it is basically button mashing. There is one button to attack but once you get more characters in your party, the other buttons will be mapped to the other characters’ attacks. Using their attacks will automatically swap them in and trigger a link attack that you can eventually chain multiple together for devastating damage. This means you’ll only ever have one character fighting at a time. The character can also jump, while the trigger button will activate that character’s unique ability. For example, CJ can do a quick dodge forwards or backwards.
The game is quite easy overall since enemies telegraph their attacks in an obvious manner and usually gives you plenty of time to react. It’s the same with bosses. Defeating an enemy will give you experience points for leveling up. They can drop items, while there are environmental objects that you break for even more items. Everything flows together well since it is quite streamlined. Perhaps the most striking thing that hits you first is the visuals. The game is a 2D side-scrolling game with 3D backgrounds, and it gives it a unique look.
Progression through the game is linear, even if the dungeons are not. CJ will get one story quest at a time and it is easy to find where you need to go as it will be marked on your map if it is at a place you’ve been to before. Dungeons are separated into smaller areas and even when there are multiple paths, those are usually closed until you get a new ability. It’s like a simple Metroidvania in this aspect. There is a great quality-of-life element with the fast travel system, so you don’t have to waste time traversing and backtracking much more than you need to. It’s easy to zip around the different areas.
Sidequests are soon unlocked in the story and they’re the same structure as the story missions. They’re very quick to finish, which is great due to the sheer number of them. They add to the town building aspect as some of the sidequests relate to new shops in town, allowing you to improve an ability or unlock new enhancements. Both the story quests and sidequests constantly require you to enter the same few dungeons and backtrack. However, it doesn’t take as long as you might expect given you’ll most likely be overleveled by that point. That’s not even mentioning that you get to unlock new areas or collects new types of loot, which helps keep it fun and addictive purely due to how quickly you can check off the sidequests. It helps that the rewards are decent too.
Given all the town building, there are constantly new upgrades, items and equipment to purchase. You’ll end up being low on money throughout the whole game, as you regularly must decide on what you want first. Should you create new weapons or armors first, or upgrade them? Should you expand your bag space or unlock passive abilities? It’s tough at times.
The story is probably the weakest aspect of the game. It is low stakes and focused purely on the town building aspect as CJ is building up her reputation by helping the townsfolk, while trying to find treasure at the same time. The fact that there are only five or so dungeons to explore means that there’s not a lot of environmental or monster variety either. The game takes around 10 hours to complete, and that’s with finishing most of the sidequests. Upon finishing the game, a few more sidequests, of the same nature, appear, and there is a harder difficulty to select from.
Overall, Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising is a good game. It’s simple, but its simplicity is what makes it really fun. The combat is quick and easy to learn, and although the story and sidequests require a lot of backtracking to explore new areas and grind for items, the quality-of-life elements such as the good fast travel system, means it is not a huge chore. The graphical style looks great and suits the game for what it is going for, and as a small taste and teaser into the Eiyuden Chronicle series, this does a great job.
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