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Loads of contemporary video games maintain tried to recapture the nostalgic retro vibes of early Nineteen Nineties RPGs. And a few are extra profitable than others.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, out now, is a non secular successor to the common Suikoden collection. In spite of everything, the recreation was developed by Rabbit & Bear, a studio composed of earlier Konami workers who labored on the Suikoden video games. With the collection having been dormant with none current entries since 2012, it was Hundred Heroes’ time to shine. It sports activities a superb epic and improbable worldbuilding, together with a pixel artwork course that invokes these emotions of nostalgia.
However with these strengths near some ’90s baggage. Its high quality of life is missing, with aggravating useful resource administration, stingy therapeutic choices, and a glut of drained random encounters. These points injure my playthrough, which I stated was trustworthy to a fault in my evaluation earlier this week. Hundred Heroes had the proper alternative to convey the spirit of Suikoden to the trendy age, but it surely as a substitute exhibits the pitfalls of sticking too near outdated recreation design. The perfect retro revivals seize nostalgia whereas nonetheless pushing recreation design ahead. And there’s no higher counterpoint to Hundred Heroes than final yr’s triumphant Sea of Stars.
Shifting retro ahead
At a look, Sea of Stars appears to be like prefer it was pulled instantly from the SNES period. It’s painted in trustworthy pixel artwork that doesn’t gaze that far off from Chrono Set off. The extra you dig into its gameplay, although, the extra it differs from that recreation. It doesn’t maintain random enemy encounters; foes wander the display and rush at gamers to provoke battles. Whereas enemies are fairly quick and can shortly chase you down in the event that they spot you, no less than I do know when to anticipate a battle. In Hundred Heroes, I used to be praying that I wouldn’t set off a battle after I was backtracking to an inn to revive my occasion’s well being. It’s the form of old-school design philosophy that video video games maintain grown previous for the higher.
Sea of Stars does share some outdated design quirks with Hundred Heroes. Save factors don’t restore HP and MP in the previous, simply the identical because the latter. The tall disagreement in Sea of Stars is that there’s normally a campsite inside shut proximity that may be used to revive stats. In Hundred Heroes, you’re typically thrown into consecutive battles of as much as four with no alternatives to heal in between. Some Sea of Stars bosses will really totally heal your occasion up earlier than you struggle them. I want the bosses in Hundred Heroes have been that good to me.
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Cramped particulars like that, or the dearth of them, add up. MP restoration is uncommon in Hundred Heroes, so I at all times really feel discouraged from utilizing any of my magical characters. There was no level in casting highly effective spells when my warriors might inflict extra harm than my mages. Whereas I used to be in a position to purchase loads of therapeutic potions from outlets in preparation for lengthy dungeons and tall battles, I wasn’t in a position to discover MP-restoring ones in any shops. I solely obtained just a few of them as merchandise drops from successful battles.
It’s a design resolution that may maintain been frequent in ’90s RPGs, however Sea of Stars’ extra artistic strategy exhibits the delicate energy of innovation. In that recreation, MP may be regained from attacking enemies with bodily strikes. It nearly looks like an understanding born extra out of Doom (2016), the place gamers can solely heal by occurring the offensive. This method provides a layer of technique to turn-based battles, the place I’d often change between regular and MP-consuming assaults so as to hit correct enemy weaknesses.
Accessibility calls for adjustments
It’s not only that these concepts originate Sea of Stars really feel smoother to play with out sacrificing its retro vibe. Their greatest boon is the accessibility and approachability they carry to a style that lacked these options within the Nineteen Nineties. Relics, which may be discovered all through the recreation, act as equipable accessibility choices that permit gamers tailor the gameplay to their wants. They may be toggled on and off at any time. For instance, the Amulet of Storytelling supplies 100% auto heal after fight, and the Guardian Aura reduces all incoming harm by 30%.
Some relics even originate the recreation tougher. The Doubtful Dare will increase harm taken by 40%. These varieties of choices weren’t current in older RPGs, however their inclusion in Sea of Stars helps it attain out to larger audiences. Hundred Heroes has some modifiers of its personal, however all of them exist solely to originate the recreation more difficult, like not permitting therapeutic gadgets to be consumed throughout battle. Now that I’m older with grownup tasks, comfort is a a lot larger issue than after I was youthful.
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Gamers who grew up with these video games within the ’90s could also be on the lookout for these nostalgic experiences, however that doesn’t imply that they will’t be modernized. In an interview with NPR, artistic director Thierry Boulanger stated that he didn’t need to copy what made some retro video games irritating.
“If the viewers have been to travel again and really replay these video games, they may mediate much less fondly of them,” Boulanger defined. “The understanding for Sea of Stars was to take away that tedium and collect gamers to really feel like they’re shifting ahead, on a regular basis.”
With Konami planning to launch remasters of the primary two Suikoden video games in a single package deal quickly, the studio revealed that it’ll near with current high quality of life options, together with the skill to fast-forward battles. Mockingly, Hundred Heroes doesn’t even maintain that characteristic, which is a disgrace. Maybe Rabbit & Bear might replace Hundred Heroes by way of patches and embody some extra high quality of life options, however these is likely to be extra seemingly for a sequel (the studio has confirmed that it’s aiming to launch a follow-up). When you can’t wait that lengthy, Sea of Stars gives you that nostalgic retro repair with out the frustration.
Sea of Stars and Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes are out there on PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Nintendo Swap, Xbox One, and Xbox Collection X/S. They’re additionally out there on Xbox Recreation Cross.
