UPDATE 6: As of this time of writing, after two hours and ten minutes after the Kickstarter campaign launched, and despite technical issues with the website, the campaign is now fully funded.

UPDATE 5: The Kickstarter campaign is back up, and only a few thousand away from being fully funded.

UPDATE 4: We have added the Kickstarter’s campaign video to our YouTube channel. We have incorporated it into the main article.

UPDATE 3: As of this time of writing, Kickstarter is currently suffering a website-wide 404 error. This may be due to a sudden influx of backers due to the Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Kickstarter, or other technical issues. You can find an archive of the Kickstarter campaign here.

UPDATE 2: As of this time of writing, one hours and 15 minutes after the Kickstarter campaign launched, the campaign is over four-fifths funded at over $406,000 USD out of a goal of $500,000 USD.

UPDATE: As of this time of writing, around 45 minutes after the Kickstarter campaign launched, the campaign is two-thirds funded at over $310,000 USD out of a goal of $500,000 USD.

Original:

Rabbit & Bear Studios have launched the Kickstarter for the Suikoden veteran developer-made Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes.

Seeking $500,000 USD, the Kickstarter for the JRPG provides more details from its announcement. You can find an abridged rundown below.

Story

[…]

This is the story of a world in a cruel age of death and betrayal, torn asunder by the flames of war. Two men, once friends, both believing in a peaceful future, find each other on different paths, separated by ideology and battle standard.

Peace, however, is never so easily won.

About

• A brand new, high quality JRPG from Yoshitaka Murayama (Suikoden I&II) and Junko Kawano (Suikoden I&IV), in their first collaboration in 25 years.
• A traditional 6-character battle system utilizing painstakingly created 2D sprites and gorgeous 3D backgrounds.
• A deep story with 100 characters intricately intertwined.

Welcome to the Continent of Allraan

Our story begins in one corner of Allraan, a tapestry of nations with diverse cultures and values.

By dint of sword, and by way of magical objects known as “rune-lenses,” the land’s history has been shaped by the alliances and aggressions of the humans, beastmen, elves, and desert people who live there.

The Galdean Empire has edged out other nations and discovered a technology that amplifies the rune-lenses’ magic. Now, the Empire is scouring the continent for an artifact that will expand their power even further.

It is on one such expedition that Seign Kesling, a young and gifted imperial officer, and Nowa, a boy from a remote village, meet each other and become friends.

However, a twist of fate will soon drag them into the fires of war, and force them both to reexamine everything they believe to be right and true.

Eiyuden Chronicle’s deep story and dialogue is helmed by Yoshitaka Murayama, the master storyteller that wrote the scripts for both Suikoden I and II.

The kickstarter also details the main cast of characters; Seign, Nowa, Garr, Lian, Marisa, Melridge, and Mio. You can find the Kickstarter campaign video below.

Along with exploring a vast world “full of lush biomes, bustling towns, creepy caves, and quiet villages;” players can also find more remote areas and secret bosses among “gorgeous scenery.” Players will also find varied NPCs to add to their “army” and grow their town. Players will also find cats.

Combat features the player commanding six characters in traditional turn based RPG combat against groups of enemies or giant single targets. Using “full motion combat” attacks are unleashed with impressive effects and exciting camera angles.

Characters can also learn special AI abilities over time, allowing them to perform actions on their own in battle, and even learning to link commands together for extra effects. Players can then customize these AI commands that their characters can use.

The aforementioned town is Fortress Town (to be unlocked at the $750,000 USD stretch goal), a base of operations that combines home with a military base. As players recruit NPCs, the town will grow, and gain new features such as walls to repel invasions, gaining weapons, recruiting troops, farming, and businesses.

The game’s soundtrack will be composed of veteran composers, and some examples of their work (which we have provided links to in those composer’s names).

These include Motoi Sakuraba (Tales Of series, Shining Force 3, Golden Sun, Baten Kaitos) and Michiko Naruke (Wild Arms series 1 through 4). “Possible composers” include Procyon Studio (Mariam Abounnasr).

To combat the long wait between the Kickstarter and the game’s hopeful launch, Rabbit & Bear Studios aim to have “robust Discord functionality, where you will be able to connect with other players, participate in group contests and activities, and vote to win exclusive emoji and other prizes.”

This will include unique Discord roles, as well as the developers “constantly checking in for ideas, concepts, and encouragement.”

Stretch goals include the aforementioned Fortress Mode at $750,000 USD, and consoles at $1 million USD.

Backer rewards include a digital or physical version of the game (depending on the tier), Discord roles, a Sigil Button, a CD Soundtrack, a T-shirt, a vinyl soundtrack, artbook (with some tiers adding that backer’s name to the artbook), single or multiple “Job Reward Set” of the backer’s choice,12″ hand-painted resin-based figures of the main characters, a team-signed Eiyuden poster, your cat or other pet being added to the game, naming an in-game location, creating an enemy, a replica shield or weapon, acrylic diorama, visiting the development team, your name as an NPC (such as a soldier and more), and becoming “a Random Dead Character.”

There is also Beta Access for any reward tier with a physical version of the game, all backers getting any DLC unlocked via stretch goals for free, backer-specific DLC (“including the rare golden haired cat“), unique backer buildings, and two unrevealed stretch goals. Any DLC free to backers “may be available later as paid DLC.” All backers will have their names in the game’s credits.

To prevent the campaign not being fully funded, the team seek to avoid poorly planned stretch goals, “exclusive releases for a quick money grab,” the game being on too many platforms, ensuring backer copies arrive before retail release, and physical rewards deliver on time.

In relation to platforms, the game is aiming to be on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and “Nintendo’s next generation console.”

The latter is interesting, considering Nintendo themselves have not announced a next-generation console. However, it appears the developers are talking about a hypothetical console, as they explain their issues with porting the game to Nintendo Switch.

“The elephant in the room is that while nobody knows what Nintendo’s plays are for when this game releases, in just about every major Japanese game crowdfunding campaign, when a lower spec hardware has been listed on the campaign, it has invariably been too expensive, often times requiring downgrading textures, massive amounts of code rewrites, effectively meaning building two games.

For anyone that has backed one of these campaigns, you obliviously know the outcome. These platforms usually get cancelled  or dropped from the campaign. So, again, in keeping with 100% transparency for what is an incredibly difficult problem, if the consolle stretch goal is cleared, we will create a version of the game for Nintendo hardware.

Hopefully, that will be something akin to a Switch 2, allowing for similar quality and gameplay experience across all platforms. In the end, if no such console is announced by the time we need to create new console version branches, we will go through the major challenges of the aforementioned texture change sand code rewrites, or refund any backers who pledged to the platform, if there id absolutely no solution. “

In case you missed it, you can find our interview with the game’s writer and Suikoden veteran Yoshitaka Murayama here.

The Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Kickstarter is live now, and ends August 28th. Pending a successful Kickstarter campaign, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes will launch Fall 2022 for Windows PC, with other platforms as stretch goals.