Rabbit & Bear Studios have crowd-funded their Suikoden veteran developer-made Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes by over $2.2 million USD via Kickstarter. They have revealed new stretch goals, characters, and confirmed the game will be heading to Steam.
As stated in our prior coverage, the 2.5D JRPG’s development team includes Yoshitaka Murayama writing the story (Suikoden, Suikoden II), Junko Kawano handling character design (Suikoden, Suikoden IV), and Osamu Komuta handling “system design and direction” (Suikoden Tactics, Suikoden Tierkreis).
The Kickstarter campaign launched July 27th, and sought $500,000 USD. Despite issues with the entire Kickstarter website going down, the campaign soon blew past that in a matter of hours, achieving over $1 million USD later that day. As of this time of writing, the Kickstarter currently sits at over $2.2 million USD.
This means the previously announced stretch goals of a fishing minigame, and two new characters will be joining the game. The other two stretch goals include a top-battling minigame (“Beigoma“) at $2.35 million USD, and another new character at $2.45 million USD.
A recent update detailed the new characters, and more- dubbed Playwright’s Desk #1. You can find the rundown on the two new characters below.
Perrielle Grum
Age: 18 years old
HOME: A noble family in one of the League’s lesser nations
FAVORITE FOOD: Tomato and cheese sandwiches
A young woman descended from a collateral branch of one of the League of Nation’s royal families. She’s sharp as a tack, a go-getter, and full of fire. Where others mince words, Perrielle sharpens them for the kill—and people deride her for that lack of demureness. “She’d be a lovely girl,” they say, “if she wasn’t always braying.”
Perrielle’s father, whom she loved dearly, died when she was little. She came to realize that for all the presents he’d showered her with, he’d never offered her a word of praise. Now, she is driven by this one thing she can never have: her father’s approval.
QUOTE:
“Those prune-faced mules on the council can shove it. I work twice as hard as the boys, and get thrice as much done! Well, that’s fine. I’ll put in four or five times the hours, if that’s what it takes to shut their stupid, wrinkled old mouths!”
Perielle seems like a very capable young woman. If only others noticed how hard working and intelligent she is. We can’t wait to see what she can do!
Yuferius VII
Age: 27 years old
HOME: Impershi’arc
FAVORITE FOOD: Avocado sushi
A shi’arc guard captain originally from Impershi’arc, his people’s desert nation. His strategic eye and masterful ability to mount a defense have helped him secure mercenary work in many a town.
Yuferius may look scary, but he’s a capable, detail-oriented commander who makes sure to learn the name of every soldier who serves under him.
QUOTE:
“Wha—? Who gives a tooth if they try to flank us! We’re ready for ’em. It’s THEM’s not ready for US.”
How exciting! Yuferius looks like a walking shark attack! He’s definitely going to be an interesting addition to your army.
The update also reveals that all those who get access to the digital copies of the game as a backer reward will now have access to the game’s beta (“Kickstarter does not allow us to edit a tier once someone has backed it”). There are also new digital-only reward tiers, offering a digital artbook, soundtrack, or both with the digital game.
Backers of physical tiers above $60 will also be able to choose between digital and physical versions of the game. The post also revealed that the game would be coming to Steam on PC.
In case you missed it, you can find our interview with the game’s writer and Suikoden veteran Yoshitaka Murayama here; where Murayama confirmed that the team would forgo any exclusivity deal even if it meant funding. This put the bed any concerns about the game being exclusive to the Epic Games Store.
To compensate for Kickstarter crashing on the campaign’s first day, the campaign will run one extra day. The post states it was “heartening that it was the spirit and love of our fans that were the ultimate culprit of the crash. As Murayama-san tweeted after the outage, it was an ultimate combo attack that the Kickstarter servers could not withstand!”
Fan art from supporters of the game was also shown. The Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Kickstarter is live now, and ends August 29th.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes will launch Fall 2022 for Windows PC (via Steam), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and possibly Nintendo Switch.
