A Kick for Kickstarters: Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes

Fans of the late Suikoden series, one among many dead Konami franchises, have been asking for franchise creator Yoshitaka Murayama to try and create some kind of spiritual successor for years given the low chance that Konami will green light a new installment. And even if Konami did pursue one, there’s no guarantee of them asking for Murayama’s assistance.  Now, he’s actually doing the damn spiritual successor thing… though crowdfunding.

Veterans of the Suikoden team in Tokyo have established Rabbit & Bear Studios, and have launched a Kickstarter campaign for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. It’s perhaps the closest they could have gotten to referencing how this is a successor to the Japanese RPG franchise about the 108 heroes of destiny they previously worked on without getting corny with a name like “Pseuikoden.”

The story of Eiyuden Chronicle will focus on two characters: Seign Kesling, a young and gifted imperial officer with an extremely JRPG name, and Nowa, a boy from a remote village. Both reside in the land of Allraan, where they became friends despite being on different sides of the conflict between the peaceful League of Nations and the centrifugal Galdean Empire. The story won’t win awards for originality, but this was an expected tale for a crowdfunded spiritual successor. The Suikoden series’ overarching plots appeared cliché ostensibly, but most contained inherent twists that made them stand out compared to other titles in the genre. This title will ideally continue that trend.

Other characters will include Marisa, a guardian who watches over the forest whose design I adore, young scholar Melridge, wolfman Garr, young martial artist Lian, and a samurai from the Far East known as Mio. There will also be cats, which is very important information. (Not a joke.) That they’re already detailing so many characters of varying ages is further proof of this being a true Suikoden successor.

The game itself will use a 2.5D-style presentation, to resemble the first two Suikoden games more than their 3D progeny. It wouldn’t have been easy for a smaller team to make a game with a presentation on par with Suikoden III, IV, and V, so it’s a reasonable approach. It’s also a good idea for a presentation because it somewhat resembles Square Enix’s Octopath Traveler, a very successful game worldwide. The market won’t mind another title like it, beyond the dedicated Suikoden audience ready to go into debt to get this project funded.

As alluded to above, the staff is made up mostly of Suikoden veterans. Murayama, who served as veteran scenario writer for Suikoden I and II and most of Suikoden III (a game in which the story’s eventual dunk in quality makes it clear when he departed the project), is spearheading Eiyuden Chronicle. Junko Kawano, who provided character designs to Suikoden I and IV, is providing the same for this game. Osamu Komuta, who worked on Suikoden Tierkreis and Suikoden Tactics (aka Rhapsodia), is providing the system design and direction. Junichi Murakami, who is not a Suikoden veteran but worked on Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and the Japan-only OZ, is providing the art direction and contributing to the overall production.

The music will be provided by Michiko Naruke (of Wild Arms — another dead Japanese RPG franchise), Motoi Sakuraba (who provided a sample track), and more. The “more” indicates that they’re still in negotiation with some composers, including Yasunori Mitsuda, whose name was attached to the project when it was first announced on Friday before being (temporarily?) removed. Mariam Abounnasr from the Mitsuda-owned Procyon Studio might also join, and provided a sample of the overworld theme.

At least a couple of notable Suikoden staffers are missing. Suikoden II and III character designer Fumi Ishikawa is one, but it’s not as if Kawano isn’t also a series veteran. Ishikawa doesn’t appear to have done anything in years, from what I’ve researched. More notable is the absence of the most popular Suikoden composer: Miki Higashino. But she reportedly retired from video game composing. The current composers are well known in the JRPG world, especially Sakuraba, so it will sound fine.

Rabbit & Bear Studios is asking for $509,713 to fund Eiyuden Chronicle, an odd amount due to being converted from Japanese yen, the highest-profile video game crowdfunding campaign in a while. There are pledging tiers for digital and physical copies along with limited editions, all of which will come with exclusive classes. The pledging page is full of screenshots, animated GIFs, and gameplay videos, all of which show backers exactly what they’ll get with the final product. This is a good part of why the campaign is moving fast; it’s already sailed past the initial goal.

There aren’t many stretch goals to start with, which are currently for the Fortress Mode and, most importantly, console versions at $750,000 and $1 million. It’s imperative that the campaign make the latter goal given where the Suikoden games released. At the rate it’s moving as of this writing, there’s a great chance it will hit that within less than 24 hours, assuming the Kickstarter website can keep it together. It’s already gone down a handful of times, perhaps due to this very project.

Eiyuden Chronicle is primarily planned for a release on PC, but will hit PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and “Nintendo’s next generation console” when it’s finished. The last one there depends on which console Nintendo will primarily be supporting in that timeframe, which could be a new kind of Switch system. They don’t want to make a port promise they can’t keep, like the Mighty No. 9 campaign did for 3DS and Vita (which were never formally cancelled) or the Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night campaign for Wii U and Vita. The game is due for release in late 2022, which could easily become “TBA 2023” given how few crowdfunded games release at the originally-planned timeframes.

Since the project has already reached the initial goal and will hit most of the stretch goals soon, the team should keep everyone updated on how the project is progressing from here — during and after the campaign’s completion.

Update: This post previously stated that Suikoden Tactics was a Japan-only title when it was, in fact, localized. I regret the error, and confusing it for PSP title Suikoden: Centennial Tapestry.