LifeisXbox’s Edge of Eternity review | After two years of Early Access development, JRPG Edge of Eternity is finally launching in full on Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG today. Edge of Eternity was brought to life by French developer Midgard Studio and published by Dear Villagers. Making a JRPG is definitely a challenge for a small indie studio, so taking a closer look at Edge of Eternity was very exciting.
Wage epic turn-based battles as you follow Daryon and Selene on their quest to find a cure to the all-consuming Corrosion in this grand tale of hope and sacrifice.
We played Edge of Eternity for 7 hours on PC. This game is currently only available on PC, console versions are releasing at the end of the year.
What we liked!
- Graphics | I found myself enjoying how the entire world came to life in Edge of Eternity. The characters all had their unique look and feel, and the environments you travel through are all diverse and beautiful. The cities were filled with NPCs with interesting stories, and side quests, while the forests crawled with monsters and items for you to find. Or what about a snowy mountain that you climb, or a cave? There was a lot of diversity in surroundings, so things never got boring. Sun, rain, mist, everything is present here too! Oh, and the cutscenes were quite stunning as well, I never once wanted to skip one, so good job Midgard Studio! Fair warning though; these graphics are not perfect, but for a small indie studio, it was a lot more than I initially expected!
- Soundtrack | Besides the art style, one of the first things that caught my attention is the soundtrack. I was immediately sold when I first launched the game and within minutes I was so very ready to start my adventure. I especially loved walking through environments and hearing some kind of mystical, magical music playing
- Combat and skills | Combat is turn-based in Edge of Eternity. You can use standard attacks or magic, but this second option will take a while to load before you can cast it and will require MP, which is not unlimited. What is also not unlimited, is the number of moves that you have. And it can still be interrupted, so that adds a tad of challenge to combat. You can also defend yourself or someone else, or you can move around the field (which is made up out of hexagons). I also liked that you can use the environment to your advantage every now and then. When you are in battle, you can sometimes earn extra incentives, if, and only if, you achieve certain objectives, like only using magic attacks for Selene during the whole battle. At the end of every battle, your HP and MP are fully restored, ready for the next enemy that crosses your path Now, for the skills. These are unlocked by colored crystals. There are several paths with different crystals, so unlocking new skills is quite difficult, actually. You’ll need the right color, and crystals are not that easy to come by. I found myself stuck on a path for quite a while, and you simply cannot start a new path before finishing up the one you’re working on first. I liked the idea behind this concept, and it’s definitely an extra way to add some challenge.
- Story | Our story takes place in Heryon. Years ago, a race of alien invaders called the Archelites came to Heryon with only one purpose: destroying everything and starting a war so they could take over the planet. The Archelites have now released their strongest weapon: the Corrosion, a fatal disease turning living forms into misshapen abominations. In Edge of Eternity, we follow the story of Daryon, a soldier with a mission: finding a cure for the Corrosion. He sets out on this journey together with his sister, the priestess Selene. The Corrosion has hit close to home for these characters: their mother was infected and has already given up. But not Daryon and Selene, they are determined to save her and everyone else in Heryon. I’m going to be totally honest: the story didn’t really catch my attention when I initially started playing. A lot happens in the first hour or so of Edge of Eternity, and I felt like it was all a bit forced. However, moving further into the game, I found myself starting to enjoy the story.
- Very good guidance | Everything is explained very thoroughly. The gameplay in itself isn’t that difficult, but a decent tutorial is always a big plus for me. Every aspect is explained along the way. First the basics, then the combat, everything in its time. The map was very clear as well, and objectives, new quests, and resting places were always quite easy to find thanks to both the map and the bar on top of the screen.
- Nekaroo| A what, now? A NEKAROO! You can use a Nekaroo as a mount! Okay, let me explain. These are adorable-looking creatures that resemble cats, but a lot bigger. And they have beautiful blue split tails and are just the best thing ever, really. When I first stumbled upon the Nekaroo farm, I was super excited. And the Nekaroo aren’t the only adorable-looking creatures in Edge of Eternity. Even the chickens looked cute, being all fluffy and poofy.
- Achievements Good news for you achievement hunters, there are a lot of them in Edge of Eternity. A total of 58 achievements are ready for you to be… well, achieved. Ranging from basic ones like finishing the prologue, to being a treasure hunter and opening x amount of chests, and getting a Nekaroo.
Somewhere between
- Camera | The camera work in Edge of Eternity definitely needs some updates, that’s for sure. Overall, it was fine when running around, but during combat it was simply horrible. Battles are ‘zoomed in’ on the fighters, but you can use the CRTL key to get an overview. Honestly, this overview should just be the standard option because this is what you’ll be going for every single time. And still, it’s not what it should be, but it’s the best there is at the moment. It was also very clear that the camera was not optimized in battles. For example, I was sometimes battling an enemy that stood behind a rock or some other obstacle, so I couldn’t even see them during the battle. Or the enemies would barely be visible because they blended in with the background too much.
- Sound effects | Compared to the amazing soundtrack that was provided in Edge of Eternity, the sound effects in themselves fell a bit behind. I feel like sometimes they were just not implemented, which was a shame, really. Let me give you an example: in battle, there were very fine sound effects when my character(s) attacked the enemies, but when they attacked my party, sometimes no sounds whatsoever were played. A shame, of course, since the lack of sound really made the attack ‘lose effect’ on screen, you know. It looked cool, but sound can make everything look 10 times better, and that didn’t happen here. Also, the main characters are fully voiced in conversations and all cutscenes are too, or so I thought. I did encounter several conversations between Daryon and Selene where there was no voice acting at all. I understand that it would be a lot to voice everything since there is a lot of dialogue between these two, but just because it was a matter of ‘sometimes’, it got to me a little. I found myself enjoying the voiced dialogues way more!
What we disliked
- Bugs | I still encountered several bugs in the final build of Edge of Eternity. For example, the camera work that I mentioned earlier in this review. Enemies that are behind an object during fights (and this was clearly not intentionally or how it should be) is just a big bug that should be adjusted as soon as possible. I also saw enemies floating above the grass, and these were not creatures with wings, so not sure what that was about. Or my teammates, who are usually following me, would just disappear and then all of the sudden reappear.
CONCLUSION
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Head of PC team. PC, Switch, and Xbox game reviewer. Also a marketeer, concert and animal lover, and photographer in training 🙂
Steam: Mauitje
Xbox: Mauitjexo
