I'm Good, Actually

One part of beginning to review games, especially since I only do it for myself as a hobby, is realizing if I don’t love something, I’m not going to force myself to play it just to review it. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes and SaGa: Emerald Beyond, two games that are very much up my alley, released in April, but over a month later, I still haven’t spent very much time with either of them. And that’s okay. 

Over the years I’ve tried my best to let go of video game guilt, either caused by my endless backlog, or buyers remorse. Games are such a personal experience that aside from a good demo, it’s hard to know how it’ll click for you. Even with a demo, it’s easy for your feelings to change across dozens of hours with a single title. Some games I love, but lose momentum with, and they eventually fall by the wayside. Others I buy thinking I’ll love, and just never find myself drawn to. 

That seems to be the case for these latest new releases, one somewhat expected, and the other a bit of a disappointment. The first couple months this year had some really strong releases, some that I haven’t even gotten around to yet. So as things seemingly slow down a bit (at least in terms of my interests) maybe I’ll return to this pair of games, or maybe not. Let’s explore why, shall we? 

SaGa: Emerald Beyond

You’d be forgiven for thinking this is a new title from a small indie developer, it’s certainly remained a niche series. However, this is actually the most recent entry in the saga series, which has been around for almost 35 years. Developed and published by Square(Enix), this series first started in 1989 as The Final Fantasy Legend. After 2 more games under the Final Fantasy banner, it finally adopted the SaGa name with Romancing Saga in 1992, though it had already begun creating its own identity. 

I’ll be frank, this is a weird little series. I played a few of the titles when I was younger, but found the games to be quite inscrutable. There often isn’t a level system, and stats will randomly improve after a battle. New abilities and skills are similarly unlocked somewhat randomly during combat while performing various actions. There's a lot of moving parts in these games, and it’s often moving in a less straightforward way than other RPGs. 

It gives these games a unique identity, both in terms of their combat and systems, but also their story telling. At the beginning of most games, you choose a protagonist, are given a short narrative introduction, then allowed to explore the world in a nonlinear fashion. There’s minimal direction, and the player can often be left wondering what to do. I didn’t “get” these games when I was younger, and I’m not sure I do even now. 

While I’ve played quite a few entries in the series, I’ve only really liked two of them: SaGa Frontier and Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song. While I spent maybe 20 or so hours with it, I just couldn’t bring myself to like the last entry in 2017, SaGa: Scarlet Grace. This initially made me wary, but after a decent demo, I hoped this latest title would remedy my gripes with the last game. 

Sadly, SaGa: Emerald Beyond is an improvement, but many of my gripes remain, and maybe I’ve got a few new ones. My main issue with Emerald Beyond is that there just isn’t enough to break up its rather excellent combat. Most RPGs have longer story sequences, exploration, or puzzles to break up its gameplay. Emerald Beyond has very minimal story sequences, no dungeons or areas to explore, and only one type of puzzle it rarely uses, and when it does I’d rather it didn’t. 

This is a game that lives and dies by its combat, which thankfully, is even better than the last game. It tweaks the flow of battle in some smart ways, though combat is still far too complicated to try and explain. I’d probably need to spend much more time with the game, and then write out pages of guides to try and cover everything that’s going on in combat. There’s combos, status effects, different races, different conditions for actions, damage types and resistances, it’s a lot. 

I’d also argue that it’s pretty poorly explained. I’ve tried to seek refuge in the tutorial section of the menu, to try and gain understanding of its systems, but found little relief. Like many of the SaGa games before it, it seems almost deliberately obtuse, relying on the community and guide writers to try and decipher exactly what’s going on. 

The rest of the game is fine, the characters are thin, but likable enough. The art style doesn’t do much for me, but looks better than the last game. The story is alright, but it never sticks around long enough to really get a sense for either the characters or the larger world. It just misses on a lot of the things that hook me in a game, things that would help propel me through combat. No matter how strong, albeit convoluted, the combat is, I don’t feel compelled to engage with it. 

I’m glad these games exist, they’re specific, weird, and doing their own thing. I like a lot of the systems at play, and like that they refuse to conform. They could be more transparent, or endeavor to be a more traditional game, but they don’t. These are games made for RPG freaks, and sometimes that really works for me, and other times it doesn’t. I hope that I continue to pick away at this game, I think it’s best played in small bursts. I was just looking for something to sink my teeth into, and this game just isn’t it. 

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes

A long-awaited kickstarter project, this game is the spiritual successor to the long dormant Suikoden series, led by Yoshitaka Murayama, the creator of the Suikoden series and first two entries. It certainly feels like both a retro game, and a Suikoden game in ways I like and ways that I wish we left behind. 

Suikoden games were often defined by sprawling political stories, and recruiting over a 100 characters to your cause. Many of these characters were playable in combat, and the other’s provided various functions around your base, like acting as merchants or unlocking different systems. 

As the name suggests, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is very much the same. It’s also one of the most fun parts of the game. Searching the world, looking for characters who stand out and trying to decipher how to recruit them to your cause is a ton of fun. Some of them are a bit annoying to recruit, or involve returning to areas you probably never would have thought to go back to. Without indication of this in game, it’s almost inevitable that people would turn to a guide, myself included. 

I try to avoid guides for the most part, as sometimes it can take away from my experience or enjoyment with a game. With the Suikoden series, I always played with a guide so I didn’t miss out on any characters, and many of them I never would have run into without said guide, and that’s still the case here. I don’t know if this is good game design or bad, but it’s certainly retro. While playing with a guide makes character recruitment feel a bit checklisty at times, it’s still my favorite part of the game. 

The story seems pretty solid, though it feels like well worn ground. There are two major countries, one an empire and the other made up of smaller nations forming a coalition. An officer in the empire gets greedy and invades the coalition, sparking a war. At times it seems like the game is trying to make it grander than it is, and while it’s been well done, it feels familiar. 

This is arguably one of the downfalls about this game, it’s too familiar. It’s a fine line to walk when you’re trying to capture the essence of a retro game. In a similar vein, you have Sea Of Stars, which sought to capture the feeling of games like Chrono Trigger. While I think that game did a good job of recreating those nostalgic feelings, it felt like it repackaged that essence in a new way. I don’t think Eiyuden Chronicle quite succeeded in that regard. 

For me, this comes across so clearly in its combat. The last Suikoden game came out in 2006, and this feels like it could have come out just a few years later. Combat feels pretty plain to me, unlike SaGa: Emerald Beyond, which has so many moving parts and things to consider, Eiyuden Chroncle doesn’t have enough. Unless I’m facing down a boss, I just press the auto battle button and check my phone. That’s fine for a mobile game I play while doing something else, or is a nice feature to have while grinding, but if I’m using that option for 90% of battles? Something is wrong. 

These problems existed in the previous Suikoden games too, so it’s weird to see them almost perfectly recreated almost 20 years later. Rather than take what made those games special, and improve on what didn’t work, it feels like they just took everything, for better and worse. Even those good parts of the original series don’t work quite as well here as they did then. It’s overall just a bit disappointing, it’s not a bad game, but it barely reaches the same mark as those it takes inspiration from. If I could easily play those games on modern systems, I would struggle to provide a reason why someone should play Eiyuden Chronicle over the other games in the Suikoden series. 

Actually…

While on some level I hope to put more time into these games, I paid a pretty penny for them after all, I’ve been content just to play Animal Crossing instead. I might give them another shot, or pick at them from time to time, but with other games on the horizon, and other interesting releases earlier this year, I think these two are just a miss for me. I don’t think they’re bad games, but maybe the timing, or the mood I’m in these days, they just didn’t hit the way I wanted them to. 

I didn’t play them enough to feel like I could really give a review, but I had plenty of thoughts, and I wanted to share them. I don’t envy reviewers who would be in a position where they would have to play these games more, or even to completion, when they didn’t click for them. I don’t like bagging on games, as I rarely think games are objectively good or bad, but just have things that appeal to different kinds of people. 

SaGa: Emerald Beyond might be a good fit for people who love trying to piece together a weird game with limited information, or don’t need much other than combat to stay engaged with a game. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes might be great for someone who has a retro game itch that needs to be scratched, or someone who wants a modern glimpse of what retro games used to be like. 

As I’ve learned over the years though, if something isn’t working for you, trying to force yourself to like it rarely works. Maybe I’ll return to these games, and maybe I’ll just stick to Animal Crossing. Sometimes you just need to take an honest look at a game and say, you know what? I’m good, actually.