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

My Hero Academia returns this Saturday with the highly anticipated premiere of its seventh season. The latest season of the mega-popular superhero action anime is set to adapt the “Star and Stripe” arc of Kōhei Horikoshi’s original manga. That means the arrival of America’s No. 1 Hero, Star and Stripe, in Japan to aid Izuku Midoriya and his classmates in their battle against Tomura Shigaraki and the Paranormal Liberation Front.

Carrie unlocks the fast travel system in , making returning to already-discovered towns and dungeons much easier. Some of the main quests require backtracking, and you may also want to shop at old locations.

The debate on whether sticking the word ‘space’ in front of something instantly makes it better rages eternal with the heat of a thousand space-air fryers, but the yaysayers are at least victorious in the case of retro-futuristic RPG Beyond Galaxyland, in which turn-based combat is aided by your pal Boom Boom, who is a space hamster with a gun and a little waistcoat. I like this creature , but honestly, you could replace them with a sentient bin bag, and I’d be happy. With pixel art this vibrant and detailed, I reckon even a bulging sack of coffee ground and banana peels would be worth adventuring with. Don’t do it, though. It’s a good guinea pig.

Plenty of modern games have tried to recapture the nostalgic retro vibes of early 1990s RPGs. And some are more successful than others.

A new rumor suggests that Fortnite players will soon see a new wave of My Hero Academia characters make their way into the game, which will include some of the series' most popular villains. Fortnite is no stranger to collaborations and partnerships, with Epic Games already bringing several iconic characters from the My Hero Academia anime series into its popular battle royale third-person shooter.

Rabbit and Bear Studios’ Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes has seen a long journey since its 2020 Kickstarter (including the passing of director Yoshitaka Murayama), but is now finally playable. Unfortunately, the Nintendo Switch version has some issues, including a bug preventing a major character’s recruitment.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is riddled with issues on Nintendo Switch but developer Rabbit & Bear has said it's aware of the problems and addressing them as a "maximum priority."

First days on the job are always hard to deal with, but Nowa is absolutely thrown in the deep end at the start of Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes. Our hero is drafted into a joint military operation between their nation and the Empire, but before too long they’re raising an army for the resistance against imperial invasion. Along the way you’ll meet and recruit more than one hundred heroes (hence the name) to bolster said army.

, developed by Rabbit & Bear Studios and published by 505 Games, is a game that knows what it wants to do. A love letter to the series with the promise of more modern technology to produce it (even while deliberately sticking to the same familiar aesthetics and systems) sounds good on paper — in execution, however, it's a lot more of a mixed bag, with some downright maddening or baffling decisions that hamper an otherwise decent game.

Rabbit and Bear Studios’ Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, a spiritual successor to the Suikoden series, is now available. It’s playable on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch and PC (along with Game Pass). Check out the launch trailer below, highlighting the different heroes and villains that players will encounter.

Every time you boot up Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, you're met with a dedication that reads: «With our appreciation to all JRPG fans», which we take as a declaration of intent. Hundred Heroes is a triumphant return to the golden age of esoteric PS1 JRPGs; equipped with a few modern conveniences but designed for an old-school mindset. Visually stunning, with an incredibly vast cast of voiced characters to collect, the game nails the tension of a political thriller and epic of war, but the pace of play, and — at times — lack of direction, can sometimes grate.

Stellar Blade for PlayStation 5; SAND LAND for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series, and PC; Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC; and SaGa Emerald Beyond for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, iOS, and Android are the highlights of this week’s Japanese video game releases.