The second game I tried for the Hangames challenge I mentioned in my last post. Eiyuu Chronicle is an online SRPG that has you join one of five factions fighting a holy war on a certain continent. The aim is presumably to defeat the other countries and take over the world (I’m guessing. I skipped most of the story) so you regularly attack and try to take over the bases of other countries. The results are updated in real time so you can see the negligible effect you’re having on the war effort as you go.

Eiyuu Chronicle has been around for 4 years and is probably Success’s oldest browser game, which should explain why the interface and graphics lack the shine and polish of more recent games. Here, take a look at the battlefield:

Not a game you play for the graphics, that’s for sure. But that goes for SRPGs in general. And it looks better than a certain SRPG I played three times in a row that will not be named, so the look of the game isn’t a deterrent. It’s all about how it plays. Sadly, however, Eiyuu Chronicle was just too slow for me. It’s probably my fault for having a slow internet connection. First it takes 3-4 minutes for one battle to load up, then there’s a lag of several seconds every time I want to execute even the simplest attack. There’s just too much sitting around staring at the screen for me to enjoy this.

I’m not upset though, ‘cos I was only in it for the event rewards anyway. To get the reward for Eiyuu Chronicle, I had to get through the game prologue and then do the tutorial quests, all seventeen (17!) of them. It took me like 3 days to get through them all because they were just so boring and there was just so much text! Blah blah, thank for you joining, blah blah blah… then 6 pages later “Now I’m going to teach you how to hire a mercenary” blah blah.

Then they show you how to do something basic in the game and you do it to clear the quest. 17 times in a row you have to do stuff like changing your profile picture and buying a potion in a shop just to prove you know how to do it. If it wasn’t for the event I would have quit 5 minutes into the game. That said, those quests do serve a purpose in helping you make your way around the game, because the main screen is just so cluttered.

I had to take three screenshots and join them together to give you the full picture. I can barely see anything written there, and that’s at full size. It’s probably meant for people with really big screens and really good eyes, neither of which apply to me. The busyness and clutteredness extends to other parts of the game like the character status screen:

I don’t even know where to start looking at that. It’s a micromanager’s dream but a nightmare for those of us who play SRPGs because we just want to kill stuff with our friends. Now the tutorial is finally over and I’ve qualified for the reward, I don’t think I’ll be playing this game again. On to the next game, Ring * Dream!