Today's look is at the functional yet unexciting Action RPG Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising. You're probably wondering why I'd drop the one sentence summary at the beginning of the review instead of the end of it. The reason for that is I'm feeling generous. Not everyone should have to suffer the mundanity of an underemployed writer trying in vain to make "press A to jump and X to attack" sound clever... unless they want to. Maybe readers will "get lucky" and I'll veer into random topics or paragraph-stretching diatribes about a hitbox that wronged me. Sorry to say, but don't expect too much of either. I pressed my face so close to the TV that my eyelashes were brushing dust off the screen, and I still couldn't find anything to "justify" a spittle-encrusted rant. This is a Natsume - excuse me, Natsume Atari - video game, and they don't make faulty products. It would've been nice, however, if this 10+ hour adventure about a teenage girl and her stamp collection had some mechanical density.
What is "mechanical density" you ask? It's two random words pressed together. You've probably known this for longer than even myself but carrying the self-important air of authority is what gets me out of bed in the afternoon. I heap lavish praise on the miniscule details of games that I've played for only two or three hours; then I'll turn around and spend literally half a day on something that turns my brain into literal grey goo. Either my standards are a mask too cheap for Spirit Halloween to carry, or I've convinced myself that buried between the two extremes is the "Eureka!" that allows me to crush reality and finally get paid to write about video games.
Hold a moment, please. I'm getting a phone call. Let me just reach across my desk without knocking over the ten half-empty bottles of sertraline and-
"Hello?"
"It's never fucking happening." *CLICK*.
That was reality, unimpressed as ever by my attempts to do anything besides fail. Since it'll be another couple of days before I hear from them again, let's get on with why I stuck with a game I seem extremely disinterested in actually reviewing.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is repetitive, filled with mind-numbing tasks, and its bestiary is a pitiable sight. Where this Action RPG succeeds is in all the things that I'm not 100% sure if I should be praising. First and foremost, I couldn't shake the compulsion to rebuild New Nevaeh. Long before CJ's arrival, the once prosperous town was laid to ruin by a series of catastrophes. Turning something that wouldn't have been fit for ghosts into a thriving city is accomplished through the completion of a hundred or so tasks. They're all some variation of "find x" or "farm x" and would be the epitome of tedium if not for one simple thing. I sincerely believe that if you must give the player tons of meaningless chores to get through your game, then you must also do everything in your power to ensure that they are never inconvenienced for even a second. Basically, there's no limit on how many ongoing quests CJ can have. Fast-travel points and the ability to teleport to any street in town saves a ton of time. The means to solve highlighted quests are pointed out with big cyan exclamation points. At no point do the 100+ mindless errands stop feeling like 100+ mindless errands, but I was in a constant state of not caring. Putting in miniscule effort and being appropriately rewarded for it massaged my think-box into complacency.
It helps that CJ and her eventual friends Garoo and Isha have interesting personalities and quirks, which are repeatedly bounced off of each other as well as the multitude of stamp-givers they interact with. Somehow, it isn't tiring to read all of the possible ways in which CJ can greet someone and ask for a stamp. Further driving my effort to accomplish all these tasks is New Nevaeh itself. Natsume Atari did a great job designing this town. It's practically desolated at the start but gets livelier as the hours (and stamps) accumulate. Seeing everyone enjoying their new home brings a sense of comfort to this cold and shriveled heart.
The nearby dungeons can best be described as forest, mines, ruins, snow, and fire. Its occupants tend to have some sort of elemental affinity, which isn't hard to exploit once you've acquired some rune gems. Combat in general is mostly just a stat check. Someone who takes time to upgrade the heroic trio's equipment and keep them appropriate leveled will fly through Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising without a care. Most enemies are crushed by attack links, which are simple to perform and keep battles from devolving to mere button presses. It's nothing astounding, but I have to admit that watching CJ perform a flip kick that sends the hapless opposition barreling into their unlucky allies feels nice. Garoo knocking out tougher foes by batting their projectiles back at them is also... something. Isha's spells are strangely annoying to aim, but most of the time her duty was to throw frozen spears from the sky, treating everything below to a horrible day.
Honestly, the combat in this game isn't terrible. Effortless, predictable, bland are just a few of the many criticisms I could throw its way, but all of them added together still wouldn't be enough for me to say, "I can't deal with this shit any longer." The typical enemy encounter takes, what? A few seconds? The final boss was a total joke. Funny, I'm starting to sense a pattern. Completing over 150 menial tasks and slaying over 15,000 monsters never caused my expression to drop below "bored yet compelled". The smartest decision this game ever made was to avoid giving it any friction. I might've snapped out of my comfortable stupor if one incident where I had to reevaluate my strategy had ever occurred.
There's hardly any reason to comment on the hard difficulty setting. It raises the enemy's levels, as if that'd mean anything when one of the post-game accessories gifts its owner with a 100% critical-hit rate. 2009 me probably would've said that players should impose their own challenges to keep battles interesting, but he always spoke that kind-of nonsense. This is not the game for low-level no-damage fanatics. If sweat is what you're after, then look towards the thousands of other, better choices.
Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is an elegant time waster. The quests are short, battles end quickly, and getting from point A to B to Z requires so little from the player that it has to be intentional. I might've been wrong from the start, creating high expectations for what is ultimately a supplementary game. It did exactly what it needed to do, and at no point was I ever disgusted with what it was putting me through. HOWEVER, I still have to dock points for the lack of mechanical density.
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