“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” A small child dressed as legally distinct Sailor Moon chirped this trite little phrase at me about an hour into Rabbit and Bear’s Suikoden successor Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes. I’m not sure when I realized the adage applies to Hundred Heroes itself as much as it did to whatever the child was talking about. It might’ve been after I met a cleric whose vices included violence and foul language; but whenever it was, it encouraged me to overlook the misgivings Hundred Heroes’ poor first impressions raised in me, and there were plenty. Hundred Heroes adheres a bit too closely to outdated design conventions, but the strength of its writing and characters makes up for its short-sightedness.
Rabbit and Bear were serious when they promised a modern Suikoden-like. You play as Nowa, a member of the Eltisweiss Watch mercenary corps devoted to keeping the peace. What starts as a piddling series of errands for nearby villages soon turns into something more serious as Nowa and the Watch get drawn into conflicts that threaten their beliefs and the entire world. Also, like Suikoden, Hundred Heroes divides its time between world exploration, where you pick up quests and new characters, battles, and dungeon crawling, the latter of which is basically an excuse for more battles.