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This week sees the arrival of spiritual Suikoden successor Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes for the Nintendo Switch and multiple other platforms.
If you happen to be interested in this one and haven't already read our review here on Nintendo Life, be sure to take a look. We gave the game 6 out of 10 stars and said it was "a flawed gem". While it does a lot of things right, some problems are tough to overlook in terms of dated design, and the game's performance on Switch.
So, what did other critics think? Here's a round up covering the Switch version as well as the Xbox and PlayStation releases:
Nintendo World Report gave Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes a 5 out of 10 score and shared the following thoughts about the performance of the Switch release:
"In short, the Switch version runs like a dumpster fire and looks like the trash inside said dumpster. I’ve lost multiple hours of progress to screen freezes and a crash to the Switch home menu, and it’s entirely possible that I’ve spent even more time than that just watching loading screens or waiting for the menus to stop hitching. The frame rate jumps all over the place, and slows significantly during the strategic war battles that are as unattractive as they are unnecessary. There’s enough of a mess here that I’m not sure a hundred patches would be enough to clean it up."
Digital Trends was a little more forgiving - awarding it 3 out of 5 stars:
"Hundred Heroes doesn’t perform well on Switch either. Thankfully, there were a few patches that were pushed out during the review period that alleviated some early issues...As a Suikoden successor, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is perhaps faithful to a fault. Its war story is better than those found in most Fire Emblem games, and its vibrant cast of characters are a highlight. The turn-based battle system is one of the best I’ve experienced of its kind in recent years, too. It’s just a shame that frustratingly retro RPG design and lacking quality-of-life features put a damper on the whole journey."
Siliconera also took a look at the Switch version - calling it a "mess" and giving it a score of 5 out of 10:
"Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes is designed to bring players a modern take on a classic JRPG experience. Get ready to lead 100+ playable characters through a war-torn world only you can save... On a PC, I imagine Eiyuden Chronicle might generally be fine, but on the Switch it is a mess."
The reviews seemed to be more favourable on other platforms, with our sibling site Push Square handing out 8 out of 10 stars and praising it for channelling classic JRPG adventures:
"Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is the true spiritual successor to the Suikoden series, capturing what made those games magical and expanding on the premise a hundred-fold. It tells a well-written and verbose tale of courage and endurance, but adherence to some fairly brutal old-school design precepts means it won't appeal to everyone."
And our team at Pure Xbox also gave it 8 out of 10 - calling it the perfect fit for Microsoft's Game Pass service:
"Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a slick and satisfying spiritual successor that gives Suikoden fans a great big dreamy treat whilst updating, modernising and streamlining its most retro aspects into a brand-new and exciting adventure for newcomers. With a timely tale to tell, excellent battle systems, an amazing cast of characters and plenty of experimentation and puzzling in its dungeons, this is a big win for Game Pass, and a fine farewell for one of the industry's true greats. Now, isn't that a lovely thing."
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is out today on the eShop. Will you be checking out this game on the Switch or another platform? Let us know in the comments.
Comments 24
So excited for this! Just a shame that the physical release got delayed, otherwise I would have played immediately.
I'm sure this is more of a poor optimization thing but I just find it funny that the switch can barely handle the PS1 equivalent to Octopath Traveler
Saw a lot of examples of translations by people compared to the localization and I have to say it's the worst localized dialogue to be seen. They've inserted out of place words and names from deep internet spaces like 'chud' of all things; yeah, it's that bad. It’s like if you wrote “based” or “poggers” into a script. What's worse is that all other languages save for Chinese use the English script as a foundation for their translation, so yes, I'm avoiding this. Sad that once again, a game's script is butchered by localization.
might have to buy it if the switch's successor is backward compatible and hope more powerful hardware will fix it.
for right now I'll just wait for them to update the game (i don't have other consoles or PC)
One look at the Metacritic spread between platforms and you can clearly see the Switch version is the weakest link. The game is fine on pretty much all other platforms. Such a shame. Maybe some patches (or Super Switch/Switch 2) can help.
This needs a 50% sale or optimization patches
Ah, I was really looking forward to it and was going to go for the Switch (handheld mode) version. Now, I'm not sure. I might play it through GamePass instead. It does save me some money.
@AlexanderDaniels Horrible localization is part of the charm here. Many PS1 RPGs, including the Suikoden games, at least in Europe, seemed to have been translated by early iterations of Google Translate.
Oof, it seems that the final years of Switch are ridden with games that run terribly on the outdated hardware and it's becoming more and more evident. I really hope Nintendo will announce the successor to the Switch soon. In the meantime, I'll just have to steer clear of games like these. I just wonder how developers can release games in this state when it's definitely not all the Switch's fault, when games like Monster Hunter Rise and Breath of the Wild run quite smoothly on the system.
I watched the SwitchUp review last night and this one definately needs patching - they said they completed a 2 hour dungeon for the game to crash and lost all progress. I cant afford to waste that sort of time having to replay, once its patch up maybe I'll reconsider. It seems like this isnt just an isolated crash either, but it crashes quite often based on their review
What a pity. I was looking forward to this one for years and years. I wonder why it released in this state?
Will wait for patches - one is already confirmed according to some comments under the review here on Nintendo Life - other than a discount on the physical release and hope Switch 2 can also help at least to an extent games that suffer on Switch if it has backward compatibility as it should!
The dev’s should have prioritized the Switch version since this type of games are best suited on that platform.
Missed opportunity
While I don't doubt Mitch's review score for Hundred Heroes, this article feels more like a justification for the NL review. There are plenty of higher scores for this game out there than those chosen for this article.
I had it on preorder, but because the Switch version being a mess I cancelled it (the delay did a favour), and I’ll get it on the PS5 instead. I would of liked to play it on the go, but if it has problems running it seems a bit pointless.
@Jack_Goetz well, the switch version has a 57 on metacritic so Nintendolife scored in the same ballpark.
@Friendly My point still stands; the article feels like a justification that doesn't need justifying. Likely due to the comments Mitch was receiving on his review from people who've yet to play the game.
@Jack_Goetz i see what you mean, could be the case indeed. But Nintendolife does these round ups for most ‘bigger’ releases, though.
Or maybe indeed the more controversial scores.
Hmm. To me, If a game crashes at all without doing something to intentionally break the game then it deserves a lower score. I review games too so I know I would dock it’s score just for that. Hearing about the game now, I won’t be getting it. Not just for the reviews even though they contributed to it but the crashes itself ruins the game for me a lot. Also have a backlog so I probably wouldn’t get it anytime soon anyway lol. No one seems to remember but this game was originally billed for the switch successor and the developers didn’t think the switch could handle it. Maybe now we know why even though this game doesn’t look too demanding at all. 🤷♂️
@ozwally it autosaves at certain points, so I not sure how they lost 2 actual hours. I haven't hit any areas that didn't autosave within a broad window like that, so call me skeptical of that claim. However, the game really shouldn't crash at all.
As a Kickstarter backer, I'm definitely let down about some things, but I'm still able to put my Good Time Hat on and mostly enjoy it. There's a lot to like. Maybe performance patches will come.
@Pillowpants it's also a very slow machine. I don't buy anything on it anymore. Waiting for switch 2.
@BeefSanta Ah ok thats fair enough then, whenever I hear amounts of lost progress like that it sets off alarm bells for me as I dont have much time to game so dont like losing progress. I just put down Metal Gear Solid 3 for this reason, as it seems to save from start of each scene and not at that specific moment you save
Kinda feels like Tales of Symphonia. I was looking forward to it on Switch, but it was unplayable at release and I haven't heard a lot of people talking about it anymore if it actually did get fixed. Disappointing, but my backlog is big enough without a broken afterimage of Suikoden.
Blaming the hardware might be more plausible if it didnt look like a game that could have come out more than ten years ago.
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