Eternal Return

I have very mixed feelings on this one, but I'm afraid to say it's mostly negative and thus I cannot recommend it. I've been following this game for a while now, since the inspirations of Castlevania and Dark Souls, two of my favorite game series of all time, appealed to me quite a lot. Unfortunately, this game doesn't really marry the two concepts very well. I'll go down a list of point-by-point details as I go on. Please note that I'm going to be comparing the game to Castlevania or Dark Souls quite a lot, which I feel is fair given the gameplay style and its theft of assets (more on that later). First, the positive: +COMBAT: The combat style is a mixed bag, but it is quite interesting. Before each swing, you can hold down a direction button to dash in that direction upon the completion of the swing, allowing you to dance away or towards enemies while still attacking them. There are, however, notable flaws as well, which I'll address in the next section. +ATMOSPHERE: While the art...

EDIT: Have now finished. Difficult! This game is hard as hell. I haven't experienced any glitches or bugs in my time playing. At the start I also was like 'bad movement, die too quick, enemies take a million hits to die' = poor game. All of that was wrong. I'm still not some legendary gymnast fencer, but getting experienced with hard and quick weapon swing timing plus the backstep, high jump AND LOW JUMP ('hop' in the controls) is game changing. A very cool part of this game is how it enforces being spoiler free. There is virtually nothing out there on how win / find stuff / what the various choices you make do - the discussion forums on Steam are the best resource right now and they're not very spoilery at all. Honestly it's just really good. I'm writing this with 11.3 hours in - I don't know if I'll put more in as I am gated by just really difficult bosses now, but the journey here, now paved with many dead npcs, was very enjoyable.

Now, what you have to understand about this game is that it takes a generally accepted gaming genre and scenario and flips it on its head in a way you dont expect. The early level layout is something that someone like Alucard would probably be able to moonwalk his way through in its entirety in around five minutes with his only concern is having to convince the maid to work late that evening to help clean the blood of his victims off of his fancy shirt. But instead of a glorious example of stunning manhood, you get to control Dave from the mailroom. You know, Dave, that guy who probably worked out a few times a week in his thirties but now is spending his days eating reheated KFC from yesterdays dinner, head down trying to keep out of the way of HR for the last few months before his retirement? Now imagine that guy, thrown into a strange dark labrynth (that doesnt have any filing cabinets), and then hand him a three foot long pointy metal bit, and see how long he goes before he en...

I am LOVING this game! It's punishing, challenging and confusing, but it fills me with the same wonder and determination felt when playing challenging games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Castlevania 1 (all those years ago before the advent of save files). I recognise that I've done alot of name-dropping right off the bat, but this game has a personality and atmosphere all its own. The subtle terror of what islurking at the bottom of this pit, or beyond that gate, forces me to give pause, and feel a little more unsettled than I'd like to be. The creators have done at excellent job at teasing the horrors that players may face if they persevere through the game, by making use of clever dialogue and notes sparsely dotted through the areas. The obscure nature of everything adds to the mystery of what is really at play in this game, and just how far down the rabbit hole players will go is half the reason I keep coming back for more. It truly feels like the first accessible areas are j...

I'll not prolong myself. Sometimes we gamers and developers are not open to new experiences, we often avoid anything that isn't "player-friendly", but doing this we close ourselves to experience other kinds of emotions. Eternal return is one of those games that try to achieve something different, something that defies the norm. The lack of polishing works in its favor, creating a world that is hard even to move around. If it was the intention of the creator to create this feeling or he just accidentally did this, we may never know for sure. In my opinion, Eternal Return ask a question to us " Do we really love video games as a media for any kind of experience, or we just love to be spoon fed and gain instant gratification?" If your answer is the first one, then you should play this game.

An interesting idea for a "metroidvania" with decent art, stale animations and flimsy controls. Lacked basic functions using a DS4 joypad, might be because of Unity. Would recommend to wait for updates.

A very fine minimalistic game with gradual progression and unforgiving combat. At first it may seem impossible, the controls are a bit much to handle at first, but once you get into the game you will not be disappointed.

Very slow and clunky game (I assume intentionally), art is okay though a little lacking, "Metroidvania" aspects are a little poor, very glitchy and unbalanced, the tutorial missed some things that I still don't know, controller support that doesn't work for movement, bad keyboard controls (in my opinion), some enemy animations make fighting them stupidly slow or "difficult", the jumping is a lot like the retro Castlvania games because you don't have control in the air, it seems like the environment is designed to need at least a little air contol due to platform spacing, ect. It's a unique concept that was executed very poorly, it may be fixed later but for now save some money and skip this one.

I was expecting a Souls-inspired platformer but this game feels like it still needs a lot of work. The controls are really floaty/slippery and this makes it really unpleasant to play. Deaths don't feel fair when you can't control your character. Physics and hitboxes seem bizarre also. The game has a retro/pixel art style, like an old NES game; but the thing with most NES games is the controls are least feel predictable and responsive. It's disappointing because the concept of the game is great and the art and sound, voice work are also fantastic. It's reminiscent of Grimstorm, but without a polish. I hope the dev can patch the game and improve the physics/controls, then I think this would be a really good game.

This game plays like an old school NES game-- it also has the controls of one. If you've not gone and played an old platformer NES game recently, I would encourage you to play one to get an idea of how difficult the controls can really be on those old games. I would liken this game to the original Castlevania gameplay-wise with Dark Souls-esque theming. This game has a very steep learning curve (cliff) and it is more (brutally) unforgiving at the beginning of the game than it is towards the end. Once you're able to locate a few heart and stamina containers (and get a solid grasp on the controls) the game is more forgiving of minor mistakes you make. Unlocking the other primary weapon and the throwing ones also help turn the tide in your favor once you find them. Pros +Challenging gameplay +Good atmosphere and background/sky art +Varied and unique environments +Non-linear progression +Fun and interesting bosses/mini-bosses +Giant Snail (My favorite) +Killable NPCs Neutral *Weird ver...