Initial Impressions - Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (PS5)

Initial Impressions - Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes (PS5) - It's a hugely interesting time, not just on the market, but for me, personally, as well. As I have never been one to grok the JRPGs overly, & here we have 3 solid ones in the first-half of the year; as well as others I have not played. Going back and forth btn Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, and Unicorn Overlord (both also on PS5), the turn-based flavors are all better as a trio than as stand-alone drinks. They're kind of all Merlot's, but from different grapes. On the spectrum of tactical to strategic amongst just those 3 games, Eiyuden is to the far left for me, SMTV:V in the middle, Unicorn on the far right. Map traversal plays a much more game-impactful role in the latter two games. Whereas troop row placement is more impactful in Eiyuden and Unicorn Overlord.

The difficulty scale and the trudge of combat encounters starts scaling pretty quickly from the opening encounter quest to the follow-on. In a way that I feel is not a great ramp in terms of letting you get your teeth into the systems and the resource loop of using certain powers, abilities, & attack-types in combat. I also do not feel like there is a great slide-chute into the impacts of purchasing certain types of equipment, & upgrading weapons and how beneficial they may be or not in combat. Swapping out Runes is a whole 'nother thing that isn't really explained to you up-front. Big encounters like the one here can get lengthy, without you being explicitly clear on how well or poorly you're doing against a mini-boss, and how dire your circumstances may or may not be.

Still, I had a good time chewing my food in this one. Nerthus can get kicked. Hate this mofo. As if him being a bullet-sponge was not enough. 😭🤣

Like the Immaculate Reception, Lian's takedown is the perfect blend of totally casual here, but so clutch. Looking forward to digging into this title more.