Rabbit & Bear Studios have crowd-funded their Suikoden veteran developer-made Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes by over $2.6 million USD via Kickstarter.
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 $2.6 million with 25 days remaining.
Since our prior coverage, a top-battling minigame, the character Maxim, Korean localization, and full orchestra stretch goals have been achieved. More stretch goals have been revealed, including Party Conversations ($2.7 million), the addition of character “The Pretty Soldier” Mellore ($2.75 million), and an unrevealed goal called “Economy of Scale” ($2.85 million).
You can find the rundown on Party Conversations and Mellore below.
- “Party Conversations – At this stretch goal, your party members will have reason to talk to each other once in a while. Whether it’s to hash out a disagreement or ask a burning question, your team will have the chance to learn more about each other.
- Mellore – This young girl is determined to become a mage, but for some reason, she think that means becoming a ‘Magical Girl’, like the ones in her father’s books. At this stretch goal, Mellore will join the cast, raising the count to 105.”
A recent update also discussed several details about the game, along with several backer rewards. Firstly, gameplay was discussed. As Suikoden veteran Yoshitaka Murayama explained in an interview with us here, characters standing in different locations and elevations does play into the battle mechanics.
Characters are automatically placed in formations based on the battlefield’s elevations, obstacles, and other features. Snipers and mages will attack from afar from vantage points, and characters can use cover to protect themselves.
Mages seem to have the greatest affect on the battlefield. “Mages can use magic to burn away the grass, or sunder the land and affect topography with earthquakes. Terrain matters in this game and can be used to gain the upper hand.”
New Game Plus was also discussed in more detail. Along with a significant increase in difficulty, players can bring over from their previos game, and bosses will have different attack patterns. Players can also set handicaps should they want even more challenge.
New premium rewards for various tiers have also been announced. Wanting to ensure there was a good balance of backer rewards that define the core gameplay while also celebrating backers (“interesting as it can be to have a game with 250 backer-sourced cats”).
Four new tiers have added new Premium backer rewards, including one dubbed “one of the strangest rewards to ever appear in a Kickstarter campaign (although the development team have no intention of making a potato salad).”
The new premium ingredients including naming a food ingredient, and designing an item so players can “decorate their in-game towns with.” We assume the plural on “towns” is a typo, as oppose to there being multiple Fortresses the player can set up. However, players can franchise their restaurants (as previously reported).
Players can also become a statue in the world, and (what is clearly the aforementioned weird backer reward) “appear in the game as an incredible rare in-game fish with YOUR face on it.” More premium tiers may be added as the campaign continues, but they will continue to be limited.
Thanks to feedback, a new non-premium tiers have also been created, and backers of certain tiers above $38 USD are being asked if they would like a digital copy of the game (as tiers cannot be edited once someone backs it).
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.
