Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising makes an amazing first impression. The bright and beautiful anime backgrounds mixed with glorious 2D sprites in the foreground are a match made in heaven. However, as you begin to play the game, disappointment grows upon your weary head.
The demo of Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising at PAX treated me to a gorgeous fantasy RPG world set in the woodlands. The art design flourishes with a bright color palette and a wonderful lighting system that compliments the fantasy atmosphere. As you continue to play the game, you’ll gradually upgrade the central village, making it more splendorous after a chaotic earthquake almost wiped out the area.
However, as you continually upgrade the village closer to its former self, you’ll likely find yourself progressively bored. From the demo 505 Games showed, the combat was not the star of the game. You’re in a sidescrolling format as you go through the dangerous forest outside the village. Through a series of complications, you’ll be saving a cat and then a villager from the deep and dark woodland area.
The combat will tire you out quickly as there is one basic combo and that is pretty much it. From the start, it feels basic. A member of the 505 Games crew at the event told me that you’ll be able to combo attacks together with other party members you acquaint yourself with later in the game. However, the majority of the demo was downright dull as you simply moved around and tapped the attack button to propel yourself forward. It would have been better to show a sample of gameplay further into the game, with all the characters in the party available to switch in and out.
Despite the bad first impression with the combat, the writing seems charming and well-fit for a JRPG like this. It laid out the character types and lore fairly well and already got me intrigued by the broader narrative. However, an event like this is not the time to show so many cutscenes. There were minutes upon minutes of dialogue. Those who want to get into the action straight away would bounce off. I actually directed the person next to me on how to skip the cutscenes. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising looks like a real stunner but if you can’t hook someone in right away, that’s a problem.
As this demo was early on in the game, there was little flair to the enemy design. None particularly stood out as I mindlessly took them out one at a time with a basic attack. They were any kind of weak foe in the JRPG genre: easy to take out and forgettable by the end of the battle. That’s until you come across a boss. A menacing tree creature with unsightly red eyes lingers over the protagonist and throttles vines upon you from underneath the ground. Dodging its attacks was an actual challenge and surviving until a worm-like tongue slinging out of its mouth made it vulnerable was exciting. If future bosses are similar to this fight, they could be a highlight of Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising.
After playing Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, it’s best to be cautiously optimistic about the title. The storyline seems to have promise as you revive the village around you, but the combat seems too basic to carry a full-on JRPG. Hopefully, tagging in and tagging out your party members will help out the experience greatly. All I know is that Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is an exceptionally pretty game, and I can’t wait to play it in its full context.
Even if I’m on the fence about the game, you’ll be able to try it yourself with Xbox Game Pass as Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising will be on the service from day one for PC and Xbox systems. It will also be available for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, the Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG on May 10.
