AETERNITAS

Okay, allow me to preface this review by stating that I've been suffering from depression lately. There isn't a lot of things in my current life right now that I feel enthused about, and worth fighting for. I know it isn't very Cap'n of me to say this but life gets to us sometimes, and sadly this has been for a while. Games and movies have been the only source of 'fun' I've held onto for a past couple of months (Endgame was good, obviously). This lunch, I had the luck of stumbling by this game on a reddit post (on worldbuilding I think). "Harry Potter & The Last Airbender rolled into one"? Sounded dubious, but I checked it out because it looked good and the idea was fresh. Best decision I've made this month. My depression is cured. Okay, yeah, that's a hyperbole. But what I've seen in the past 2 hrs gives me something to look forward to - I felt like I belonged somewhere. I wasn't alone. There were friends and professors in the game who trusted me - who believed in me. No one had ev...

So you get a massive lore dump in the first hour, which got me excited to explore the world. And then...nothing. After getting through the first hour, the game becomes little more than a grind. Wake up, spend a minute holding right, with the occasional space bar press to transition a level, to walk your character to class, click through some menus to attend class, then spend a minute holding left to go back to bed. That's it. That's the entire game. The promises of adventure made in the introduction are completely non-existent. I think this game is an excellent work-in-progress, and I really hope to see the plot and the world develop, but this is not a full release. I'm going to give the developer the benefit of the doubt. I don't think this is a case of "just enough content to carry you past the refund window". What I suspect is they were understandably excited about hitting several big development milestones, and pulled the trigger on "full" release a bit early. They've clearly p...

Vote me to the top so that the creator can see my review & recommendations. Summary: I give my confident word of recommendation in this review. It's a beautiful, fun and entertaining game with great replay value and satisfaction that the four hours I’ve played yesterday went in the blink of an eye. More so, I've been thoroughly impressed and immersed in what this enigmatic creator has made that I can easily see this game become my next beloved franchise, should he / she show us additional story and content. The body of my review is entirely spoiler free, so first-timers read without worry if you wish to know why I think this way. First, let's launch this review from a personal perspective. I don't write reviews. If I buy a game and do not love it, I refund it immediately. If I like a game, then I keep it in my library. Only when I believe a game deserves a heartfelt review do I feel the need to voice one. If I believe a game updates itself in the wrong direction and the creator doe...

Found this game on the ATLA sub, thought I'd offer my 2 cents. Pros: -Excellent story, characters, and dialogue. Feels like part VN in the first 30 minutes -Combat is fun, and the variety of spells/spell design makes the magic system very engaging and addicting. It reminds me of the DOS2 system a bit, but without some of the environmental effects. -Time management school game! Brings back my memories of playing the old YuGiOh GBA titles. I do feel a little time pressure at the end of the day but the beautiful environmental changes help a lot with that. -Hyperdetailed food! Cons: -Some inconsistencies in the art detail. Mostly minor and only noticeable if you are zoomed in on a huge monitor, But some in game items are at a slightly higher resolution than the characters. -I'd love to see more customization for your character. Wands/armor is a good start, so more in that direction would be fun. -More interactions with my party members! I want to be able to talk to them more, righ...

I'll try to keep this short. I didn't personally like this game, but take my opinion with a grain of salt because I barely played past the intro, but holy crap did that intro take forever and give me just about the worst impression. - Artwork is beautiful but character sprites have very basic animations, and that's only for the IMPORTANT characters. The background extras are literal statues or cardboard stand-ups. They do nothing and make no sound. The scene where you first step off of the train to enter your school is fucking EERIE with a "crowd" of students peppered all over the place to make the place look crowded, but they literally stand there with no animation whatsoever and all look like slightly altered DeviantArt copies of each other. - The lore is obnoxiously wordy and shoved down your throat at literally every given opportunity. Deep and rich lore is good but it needs to be delivered in a smart and practical way. Many snippets were completely irrelevant to the situation at...

This is a very comfy action RPG with a heavy visual novel feel. It's a beautiful game with beautiful art and animations. The lore is interesting and is spoonfed to you in a natural way that is integrated with the gameplay, and is clearly thought through and deeper than what you're immediately told. The core gameplay loop is built around going to classes, learning magic, testing your abilities, and rest and down time; the magic school setting is what the game cares about and not a cheap cash-in or a cover for something more generic. Correspondingly, you spend a lot of time getting to know your classmates and teachers. It's polished (except for a few typos) and it works, and there's a good amount of play time for an indie game at this price. What made this game for me is that it's obviously a passion project. Maybe the hardest thing for a game to do is feel personal, and it manages it. It has a clear personality that comes through in the art, in the particular and flowery writing style...

UPDATED REVIEW It's been a fair while since I last played this game back in early access (I gushed over the abundance of lore and charm in that version), so I played through the first story block before having a go at the long awaited combat sections. And I'm glad I went through from the beginning again, because the game's gotten just that bit better. Story: Like with last time the story focuses on your character, Elwin Eramir, studying at Aeternitas Academy (think a hogwarts-style school for elemental bending). The early access version had us merely arrive, make friends, meet our teachers at the open day and explore the lore and backstory for this world and how it and everything works. While I haven't hit the lore parts again just yet, this is made up for by the introduction of a more focused story mode. It gives our boy Elwin a backstory rather than being just your stand-in. Others benefit from more fleshing out of their characters, most notably Mirai; she went from just one of yo...

This game FEELS early access After the long intro filled with overly expositional characters who would within 5 seconds of meeting me tell me their tragic backstory and go all JOJO on my ass telling me my DNA sequence because of how I carry myself you are thrown into the game. All of the characters are crammed down your throat but none of them are interesting or unique. They just feel like carbon copy tublr cutouts of people. Look at the screenshots provided on the store page. 10 of them are the same menu, the rest are mostly just you standing in front of a statue or wall. That's the game. I spent like 30 minutes just holding the right or left arrow key, every day you go to a "class" and get knowledge tokens to learn skills. I say "class" because the professor just stands there. The talk button is broken, so you can just tell him "train me all day dd" and he'll spit 3 tokens on you while you go home to wipe off and shamefully return the next day to get the 500 tokens needed to get ...

Based on what I've played in the Open Day Edition, I can only review the lore of the setting. Because that's what happens during the Open Day, exposition, A LOT OF IT. I can see that the game takes inspiration from real life human history and scientific theory to construct its lore, and I really like that. I quickly recognized the similarities between the early history of the Republic of Mythras (i think that's the name) with the founding of the early Roman Republic. I also recognized the theory of general relativity explained in one of the books. So if you have an interest or are familiar in those fields, you'd definitely appreciate how the humans in the game's setting change how civilization develops with the ability to control the four elements. Which brings us to the fictional aspect of the lore. I can see that it's inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender (the human ability to control the four elements) and Harry Potter (with the game taking place in an academy). I'm fascinated w...

After months of no update no news. Abandonware it seems.