After first hearing the announcement of not one, but two Eiyuden Chronicle titles being released about a year apart, my initial thought was that this would be a big two-part adventure — I was wrong.

It’s not often that we see a companion game (or smaller prequel game) released leading up to an upcoming larger title. Today, May 10, 2022, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, the companion game to Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is now available on PC and consoles.

The main goal of Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is to introduce players to this beautiful new universe. This first game is a side-scrolling action RPG featuring an original story, filled with colorful characters (some featured in the main game), a bit of action and some town-upgrading mechanics.

You begin your quest as CJ, a young girl trying to help bring New Nevaeh back to life after a massive earthquake. As you continue your journey, you will meet many new characters all over the town.

After spending the past weekend in Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising completing quests (and chores) in order to collect stamps, I’m now done with the first storyline (silver). In six hours of gameplay, I have earned over thirty stamps. That’s enough to pick up a silver stamp card. I plan to continue collecting stamps towards a gold card, but I may wait to revisit this world until we get a little closer to the release of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Houses.

I expected more of a traditional JRPG with turn-based combat and strategy. Instead this adventure uses real-time combat. The combat reminds me a bit like a side-scrolling Kingdom Hearts — I only mention Kingdom Hearts because I haven’t played many JRPGs and it’s the only one I can think of with this style of combat.

The combat starts off very simple. You can basically attack, jump or use a unique skill. Once you unlock a new character, you can swap between your roster (CJ and Garoo). It wasn’t until I unlocked a second character (Garoo) and learned about combos that the combat became a little more interesting. I’m hoping that the next games combat system will evolve.

I can see the town of New Nevaeh as a stopping point within the next game, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. A town full of merchants, supplies and good food. If so, it will be nice to come back and see some familiar faces. I have also heard that there may be some transferable items or achievements for completing Rising before Hundred Heroes.

I started my quest listening to what each character had to say. After a while I didn’t care so much. Many of these side quests didn’t give me any useful information, so I began to skip the dialogue. It would help if they had recorded some voice over for the character dialogue. I did learn later on that certain quests had little hints within character dialogue. However, most hints could be found in the quest menu afterward.

The town of New Nevaeh is actually pretty large. Fast Travel was a big time saver, since the quests had you going from area to area. In the beginning, I was working on one quest at a time. At some point I learned how to handle multiple quests at once, finding items for different quests in the same area made it easier to turn in many quests together.

I really enjoy this 2.5D character and world design. It sort of has both an older retro look and a fresh new game quality. The music is always relaxing in the town of New Nevaeh. It even works great as background music as I write out this post.

After playing through Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, it would be nice to see other bigger titles release a smaller companion game (or prequel). I do understand that this is a great deal of work for the developers. With all the hours and work that goes into a big AAA game, they would have to hire another studio to work on a separate prequel companion game.

Side Quest: I’m thinking now about how Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales was a smaller experience than the original Marvel’s Spider-Man game from Insomniac Games. This made me think that the Miles Morales
game was prequel to bringing the two heroes together in a Marvel’s Spider-Men game,
but it has since been announced that we are getting Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

If you’re excited about Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes coming next year, then I strongly suggest you play through Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising. I will say that we are still a long ways out from the release of the main game, so you can even hold off until we get closer or until we see more information if you’re still not sure about it.

This was a relatively short experience, and I still have some more if I want to continue. There’s a lot to do in this short game though, and lots of people to meet in New Nevaeh. You can even spend much of your time in the Quarry and Great Forest, fighting creature, or you can visit different areas in town and acquire new items and upgrades.

Overall, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising did do it’s job for me. It got me excited to learn more about Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Houses.

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Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is out now (May 10, 2022) on consoles and PC.
Be on the lookout for more news on Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. Coming in 2023.

*myVGBC.com was given a review code for Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising by the publisher.