I made it all the way through the main story of the JRPG / semi-metroidvania game and finishing games is something I rarely accomplish in the past few years. So I guess that says something about this game that I would even bother to do that.
It took me just over 10 hours of gameplay and for the most part it is an enjoyable experience. For those out there that are considering playing this game note that it is "free" if you subscribe to PS-Plus Extra, so there isn't any real reason to not give it a try.
Pro: Really easy to pick up and play
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While there is no "tutorial" per se, they do ease you into how to play the game at a slow enough pace that it all sticks, and it is fast enough that you don't feel like it is a real slog to get through all the the commands. One of the main reasons why the commands are so easy to pick up is because there aren't very many of them. Everyone has a main attack and a special move. They also have a "power attack" which consists of just holding down the main button. The combat is so quick in the game that any enemy where a power attack would be useful the time it takes to charge up this attack would almost certainly result in you taking a hit, so I never used it.
So the commands are really easy to remember and therefore, I like them
Pro: Nicely done retro art style with a modern touch
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The game is 2D with some simulated 3D elements such as foreground and background set pieces moving by at slower or faster pace depending on the perspective. This lack of a massive focus on graphics keeps the game size small and the load times between various areas very low - which definitely appeals to me since I am constantly annoyed whenever a game has to load at all.
I am an old school gamer so I appreciated this throwback to when almost all RPG or adventure games looked like this because they had to look like this. Then again though, I am one of those gamers that doesn't care all that much about graphics and instead look for playability.
Con: Faaaaar too much dialogue
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It seems like every time you do almost anything another chat window is opening up for some conversation that you have to have with an NPC. Most of this dialogue doesn't really have any bearing on the overall story and are just involving rather insignificant material about the townspeople, none of which are memorable enough for me to really care what their backstory is since they play no role in the main story. 90% of the semi-optional quests that you can do involve several lines of useless dialogue that thankfully can be skipped by pressing the options button. I watched the dialogue for maybe the first hour or so and then just skipped everything from this point forward. I missed out on a lot of cutesy talking I am sure but by skipping things I got to get moving and there was always a summary in your "quests" section after the fact that told you where you needed to go anyway. This bring me to my next point
Pro: You can skip all of the dialogue and cutscenes if you want to
Con: Lots of rather senseless running around involved
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The accessible areas of the map grow and grow and grow as the game goes on and most of these areas are part of the town that you are helping to build back up. I suppose you could say that I would prefer that they divided these up into sub-areas because in your quest to complete your "stamp missions" you are going to be running from one to the next only to retrieve an item and then return to exactly where you got the quest from in the first place. Now that I think about it, if this was all just one big city where your only choice was to spawn at the entrance, these quests would take dramatically longer since none of the NPC's are memorable enough to actually remember their names. I found myself fast-traveling constantly because the journey to deliver a lost cat or something trivial like that started to grind at me after the 100th time that I had to do it.
Keep in mine that nearly all of these fetch quests are totally optional and you can skip almost all of them. However, by doing so some of the stores will not update their gear offerings and therefore you will not get access to better weapon upgrades.
Con: Very limited number of dungeons
While the dungeons that they DO have are nicely done, there are only really a handful of them and 3 of them are actually lumped into one single location that you just fast-travel through once you have unlocked the signposts that serve as fast-travel locations and save points. Prior to figuring this out you will likely just be running through the same dungeon where the enemies are respawned in exactly the same places and you are now 1-hitting them yet you are kind of forced to go through these areas again anyway. Maybe the studio was on a tight budget and simply couldn't make very many areas but this lack of variety as far as combat areas are concerned made that game a lot more one-dimensional than it could have been.
For example: They make a big deal about certain attributes you can assign to your weapons such as fire, water, electric, and earth but there is very little incentive to ever use these because the bonus you get from using the "correct" rune is only a factor in certain incredibly obvious situations such as fire doing more damage in the obligatory "ice cold" level. I think that someone could quite easily make it all the way through this game without ever even bothering with this part of the game as well as many other aspects of the game.
Con: You aren't going to use most of the unlocked features of the game because you don't have to
If you are like me you are going to tire of the endless dialogue very quickly and because of that, you don't even bother with many of the buildings that are meant to offer you some sort of perk as you progress through the game. There is an apothecary, an inn, and a restaurant that offer some benefits to your team's attributes that are temporary or even permanent. But getting to them all is a pain in the butt since they are all located in different parts of the town. Also, certain necessary ingredients can only be acquired by going to the trading post and exchanging common items for rare ones. It's just too much running around and you have to have a sharp memory to even recall what said items are. I think it was like the 3rd trip I took from the trading post to the restaurant where I realized I got one too few strawberries or something when I decided I was just done with all of that. You only really need the weapon and armor store to keep your gear up to scratch anyway.
Neutral (neither pro nor con): There are a lot of NPC's
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Perhaps this is a mainstay of this franchise or something but I feel no reason to get a large backstory on every damn NPC that I meet. When someone gets thrust onto the screen like this I start to think that oh, maybe they are going to be a major player in the story or perhaps even a playable character with different abilities! Nope. I think the devs were simply filling up space so that the game would be a 10-hour game while using minimal resources to accomplish that. Other than 3 characters, which are evident based on the box art, you cannot play as any of them. Having only 3 playable characters isn't a big deal or anything, but I just found the backstory to all the store clerks and old people in the town to be a time-waste. That being said all of it can be skipped (which I did) and other people out there might really enjoy this sort of thing because it's not like it took a bunch of time to read it all.
Con: The game is entirely too easy
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I'm a casual player at best and I only died twice in the entire playthrough of the main story. In both of those instances it was because of my tendency to "mad button mash" when I get stuck in a corner rather than the boss itself being "too difficult." In a 10-hour game I died twice and I am not a good gamer. I played the game on "normal" settings but for most people I think you should probably step that up to a higher setting because there was very little reason for me to even bother with most of the special features of 2 of the 3 playable characters. It simply wasn't necessary. When I got to the final boss and defeated it with very little difficulty I figured that it had to be that boss' first form and there was a second one on the way but nope, that was it! Then the game abruptly ends. ha!
Overall opinion
For people that enjoy throwback games to a time when everything was 2D this could be a good way to spend 10 casual hours playing something that is simple and fun. I really enjoyed the combat and exploration because it was simple and easy to understand. For hardcore gamers this game is going to be way too simplistic and you will tire of it quickly. For me, it was exactly what I was looking for at the time because I wanted an easier game that wasn't going to take weeks of my life. That is exactly what Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising delivers. It's not an epic game by any means and I wouldn't recommend anyone pay more than a couple dollars for it. Like I mentioned earlier on in this writeup the game is "free" with your membership to PS-Plus anyway and it is a very small download. Therefore I think it is worth a look unless you are not a fan of the overall genre.