Posted on: August 7, 2024

michitalem

Games: 22 Reviews: 1

Hit and miss

Ah, another French indie game with large ambitions, that seems to just not reach half of what they wanted to do or promised during the kickstarter. Rather than being hit OR miss, this game is both hit AND miss, hence, 3/5 stars. For me, the most important points of contention are the story and the gameplay. Other people like to focus on the graphical and audio side of the game, but I have little problems with that. In any case, the story: heavily inspired by JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Xenoblade Chronicles, and othhers, but without many of the typical tropes that usually come with JRPGs when developed by actual Japanese companies. Overall, not necessarily bad, but the pacing is all over the place, and many of the plot points are not finished at the end of the game. I really liked the story; but it took a long while to get into it. In between story beats, you will either be roaming the overworld (which is a combination of extremely flat and boring grass-fields, and massive structures surrounding said grassy fields that you never look at or interact with), or stuck in one of the many tedious battles, which, unfortunately, are slow as hell... Which brings me to the gameplay: for a large part of the game, you can never make full use of the battle system, because you lack party members. The additional members come farrr too late. Only then is when I actually started enjoying the battles (although the enemies still are massive HP-sponges). Many of the other mechanics outside of battles are overly complicated, and/or unneccesary (looking at you, crafting... that is SUCH a slog) Of course, there are other things, but most of these can be chalked up to it being the product of a small indie studio, so I feel I cannot be too strict in that regard. So: keep your expectations in check, buy at sale, and see for yourself.

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Posted on: May 8, 2022

nachbarnebenan

Verified owner

Games: 662 Reviews: 25

Underachieving

Hmm, this is not easy to describe. Normally, I'll spend some time with a game to get into it, get a feel for it and make up my mind, before writing about it (or even considering a let's play). For longer games like this, the usuall limit is at least 20 to 25 hours, to get a grip. However, with this one I really had to push myself beyond 5 hours and I've now given up after about 14 hours. And I'm not happy about it. The game was developed by a smaller studio and clearly shows. Indie games have the advantage of more liberal topics, storylines and trying out something new. In this case it means less playtesting, looks over function and - most importantly - deficiant quality control. I've literally gotten stuck on seemingly small edges, stones and sometimes in the middle of an open area with no other way to continue than to reload an earlier savegame. Also, the game regularly loses its track on the mouse and you can no longer turn in one or the other direction. This can be fixed by opening the map and moving the mouse horizontally to both edges. During combat, however, the map is not available and since you rotate the battlefield view with the mouse this leaves without sight of the enemies. This is a consequence of the looks-over-function aspect, with prioritizes cool looking effect and fast battle animations over actual working combat. Sorry, but that's a failure in my book. The small studio has clearly overstrechted themselves and as a result came up with little more than a barely working product. Actual gameplay is also at a disadvantage - almost all your time will be spend grinding instead of travelling around, questing, speaking with people and experiencing the world. During combat characters (and enemies, too) can get into a pathfinding loop, forcing you to kill the game, as during an action you can't open the menu and quite the game normally. And if you want to change the keybindings and think about using xmodmap, forget it - it will crash the game, hard :(

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Posted on: September 29, 2022

V_Weeb

Verified owner

Games: 33 Reviews: 1

Ambitious but enjoyable for what it is

I really like this game for what it is (hence my review) but it's one that's tough to recommend. Likes: • World design (aesthetically) is very pleasing with it's bioluminescence and colorfulness which makes exploration fun along with the chests and resources you pick up! • On a basic scale the gameplay system is enjoyable and there is enough variation between quests, puzzles and main story. It's also easy to customize to your desire (if you want a casual or hardcore experience or something more neutral) • THE NEKAROO (genuinely the best creature, top tier, absolutely adorable.) The reason I actually bought this game on sale Dislikes: • Dull story and world building/lore, there is heart but it reads like a forgettable YA from the early 2010s. The COROSION is very hard to take seriously and elements like the church, who is a big background player in the main story, isn't conveyed in a good sense. PS I spoiled myself on the ending and it ends on a cliffhanger so it's not complete. • Characters, they try to riff on JRPG tropes but being meta doesn't help your players endear themselves to the sibling pair. Daryon is edgy-anime-boy-tsundere with Big Sword who knows the Big Sword is dumb and Selene is a very secretive and sassy know it all related to the church. I didn't get a good sense of their personhood beyond these beginning threads. Also doesn't help that the other characters are more interesting (whether in personality; Ysoris, or superficially; Fallon <-- space pirate). The siblings being in focus also doesn't help PARTY CHEMISTRY which is a lot more endearing than individual characters in jrpgs. • Repetitive Gameplay cycle in regards to length, too few new or interesting elements are introduced later in the game whether that's battle-challenges, new puzzle gimmicks/dungeon design, or mini games (this is usually where story/characters would carry a game for me but I don't like them here so...). def had FUN but it left me with a mixed impression!

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Posted on: June 12, 2022

Woodwine22

Verified owner

Games: 999 Reviews: 20

Feels fresh

I can say that I played a number of jrpgs over the course of the last years. While i loved many of them, i felt a bit bored recently about them. That counts especially for the Tales of series that i really loved, but i lost a bit of interest. Edge of Eternity changed that. While breathing jrpg with every fiber, it felt fresh, be it the artistic look or the world design. Voice acting is top level, story complex but not confusing and the characters are fun. Difficulty can be set quite flexibly, though the final boss still was - at least for me - a tough one. Took me around 50 hours to complete the main story and many (but not all) side quests. If you are into crafting your own gear and finding more blueprints - what i didn't do - you can easily spend much more time in this world. I highly recommend it for jrpg fans and those who want to try their first one!

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Posted on: May 25, 2022

Spojaz

Verified owner

Games: 119 Reviews: 1

Like a Skyrim mod crossed with FF12

This game is obviously a labor of love, rather than an enormous budget or awe-inspiring genius. It has solid characters, who sometimes even show development or uniqueness, and a story that tells its chosen story well, but breaks little new ground for the genre. It has dialogue that ranges from serviceable Buffy-speak to actually insightful. It has gorgeous world design and animation, and the inevitable unity visual glitches are mostly just funny (like the 20-meter-tall intangible cedar that lives halfway inside the gates of the largest city, or Selene’s mostly invisible mentor). The battle system and puzzles are kinda frustrating because they both use the same real-time turn-based system (I wish I had found the fast forward button sooner) where you wait until the bar fills up to do things, but can't cancel spells or control the bar much at all. I think it might be possible to fail puzzles because the character’s speed stat is too low (or perhaps their haste stat, I still don’t know the difference). Good music, only becomes annoying when you are spending more time in an area than you should. (don’t do every side quest. If they seem interesting, go for it, but the rewards are generally not worth the extra grind on the lower difficulties) All-in-all I enjoyed my time in this world.

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