Update: Rabbit & Bear Studios have issued a correction. They clarified “Natsume Atari is known for great pixel based games like Ninja Warriors and Wild Guns,” and is not involved in the Harvest Moon series.
Original Story:
Rabbit & Bear Studios have announced the Kickstater for Suikoden veteran developer-made Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes has finished, raising over $4.5 million USD.
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.
While at $4.3 million USD less than two hours before it concluded, the campaign finished with over ¥481.6 million raised (est. over $4.5 million USD). It has become the 3rd most funded video game on Kickstarter. This places it behind Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, which raised $5.5 million USD.
On the campaign’s launch, it even crashed the entire Kickstarter website.
We also stated in our prior coverage that the game has become the most funded video game on Kickstarter in the last 5 years, and the most funded video game in Japan of all time. A recent update also revealed that the highest backers came from Japan, and that four other Kickstarter games had been funded through their weekly Kickstarter Spotlights.
While stretch goals had been announced as late as the final 48 hours, all 45 stretch goals have been achieved. This includes a Town Creation RPG companion game in partnership with Natsume-Atari (Harvest Moon, Ninja Warriors, Wild Guns).
Designed to be released during the main game’s two and a half year development, players will be able to gather materials that will pass over into the full game. Players will also meet some of the characters in the main game.
Other stretch goals include 4 pieces of DLC (including two side stories), a Battle Defense mode to defend your Fortress Town, an Asynchronous mode, a Hero Mode with randomized dungeons, a Theater system, a Ranking Mode, a Card Battling Mode, a Duel System, a Farm System, and a Flag Design Mode.
There are also voiced cutscenes, a Monster Raising Minigame, Hot Springs, a Racing Minigame, a Trading Minigame, a Psychic Detective Agency, Party Conversations, a fully orchestrated soundtrack, a Top Battling minigame, fishing minigame, a Guild System, and a New Sound Effects mode to add sound effects to whatever action you like.
Finally, there is New Game Plus, a Cooking mini-game, console ports, and a Fortess Town. 10 characters also joined the titular one hundred heroes, as well as the game supporting Chinese, Korean Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian.
There has been no official statement from the team at this time, but we will keep you informed as we learn more.
In case you missed it, you can find our interview with the game’s writer Yoshitaka Murayama (Suikoden, Suikoden II) here. It was conducted during the campaign’s infancy.
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.
Image: Kickstarter
