Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is an action-adventure game modeled after classic JRPGs. It is a prequel to Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes and was unlocked as the final stretch goal during a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. The game is played from a 2.5D perspective and features town-building elements along with a focus on exploration and treasure hunting.
It was developed by Natsume-Atari in conjunction with Rabbit & Bear Studios. The latter was comprised of developers like Yoshitaka Murayama, who had worked on the early games in the Suikoden series. As such, the Eiyuden Chronicle games are considered spiritual successors. With that in mind, here are a few other games that should appeal to fans of similarly-styled RPGs.
6 Salt And Sanctuary
Salt and Sanctuary is an action RPG developed by Ska Studios. Released in 2016 for the PS4, Xbox One, Vita, and PC, the game sports a hand-drawn art style that is not unlike the one used in Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising.
The game is reminiscent of the ones in the Dark Souls series, with a focus on challenging enemy encounters and the acquisition of increasingly better weapons and gear. But its gameplay is played from a 2D perspective like the ones in the early Castlevania games. And much like those games, it also has a focus on exploration with occasional backtracking. The sequel, called Salt and Sacrifice, is also a good fit.
5 Child Of Light
Child of Light is another RPG with striking hand-drawn visuals. Unlike Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising, though, the combat in this one is turn-based, harkening back to the active-time battle system used by games in the Final Fantasy and Grandia series.
The game also deals with much darker themes involving death but is presented in a lighthearted manner that should still appeal to younger players. This is exemplified by its story and dialogue, which is told through a rhyming scheme that reads like a bedtime story. Players take control of Aurora, a young girl trying to find her way back home after she wakes up in a magical land called Lemuria.
4 Astria Ascending
Keeping with the current theme of RPGs with hand-drawn visuals, Astria Ascending is another one that immediately stands out with its gorgeous 2D graphics. It was developed by Artisan Studios, which is comprised of developers who'd worked on game series like Bravely Default, Final Fantasy, and Nier Automata.
Set in a vast world called Orcanon, the game has players choosing from a pool of eight customizable characters as you assemble a party of Demi-Gods to face off against evil beings known as Noise. The story was written by Kazushige Nojima, who had famously worked on Final Fantasy 7. Like that game, this one also revolves around a dying world.
3 Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night
The Metroidvania genre owes much of its DNA to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a 2D action RPG released on the PlayStation in 1997. This was a time when most game developers had already moved towards making 3D games, and the initial sales for Symphony had suffered as a result.
But the Konami game would eventually receive the kind of recognition it deserves in the years that followed, as its design and framework continue to inspire other games developed till today. The game itself is a direct sequel to Castlevania: Rondo of Blood while also building upon design elements first introduced in Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest to create the ultimate Castlevania game.
2 Hollow Knight
Speaking of Metroidvanias, Hollow Knight is one of the more recent ones to really strike a chord with players. This was mainly due to its tight combat, remarkable worldbuilding, and high production values.
The game can also be classified as Soulslike, with its challenging difficulty and use of environmental storytelling. Like Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising, the visuals are done in a hand-drawn art style that is both beautiful and effective at showing off the wonders of the world players get to explore. That world is known as Hallownest, and your adventure would have you journeying through it in a bid to stop the Infection that has left the kingdom in ruin.
1 Suikoden 2
Since both Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising and Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes are considered spiritual successors to the early games in the Suikoden series, new players might feel inclined to check them out if only to see how well they built off of the foundation laid by those games. But of the two entries released on the original PlayStation, Suikoden 2 is perhaps the one that receives the most acclaim.
Konami developed the JRPG, and much like Hundred Heroes, it features a huge pool of characters for players to recruit from while building their ideal party. Its battles come in three variations: regular battles have your party going against up to six enemies at once; duels have one of your party members going against a single enemy in a one-on-one showdown; and massive battles have you guiding an entire army against an opposing force, similar to the games in the Fire Emblem series. All three battle types had been refined since their introduction in the first game, making Suikoden 2 the superior way of experiencing the unique system.