Eiyuden

The creator of Suikoden and Eiyuden Chronicles, Yoshitaka Murayama, died on February 6 due to “complications with an ongoing illness,” as announced by his company, Rabbit and Bear Studios. Murayama joined Konami back in 1992 and worked his way up to direct and write his own game, Suikoden, which was released at the end of 1995 in Japan before reaching North America in 1996. He continued working on the series through to 2002, when he left Konami a month before the release of Suikoden III. He formed Blue Moon Studios,…

Spiritual successors have been quite popular during the last several years. Bloodstained launched as a spiritual successor to Castlevania, Yooka-Laylee tried to be the same for Banjo Kazooie, and Mighty Number 9 tried to capture the spirit of classic Mega Man games with mixed results. Not all of them have been successful, but nostalgic players still look for those types of games to recreate the magical experiences they had as kids. In 2020, Yoshitaka Murayama of Rabbit & Bear Studios announced a Kickstarter for…

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is a bit of an odd release. It’s a prewar prequel to developer Rabbit & Bear’s other upcoming game, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, which had an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign. It was so successful, in fact, that the developer created Rising with some of the money raised. It might not be the Suikoden spiritual successor fans were waiting for, but it’s not a throwaway bonus crowdfunding reward either. Seamless, satisfying combat and steady story pacing easily usher…