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 ever said that to me since I graduated from uni 3 years ago. Sorry if this is a weird review and doesn't fit Captain America's character. But I wanted to get this off my chest, because I know it's the only place I can do it without being labeled a coward. I am going to continue reading all the books in the game over the weekend. I've never seen books like them in any game, ever. And I want to see the next chapter of the story. I am glad it's in early access. 8/10 Courage to all, Captain America

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 put a lot of effort and love into this project and I would love to see Aeternitas develop into the classic it has the potential to be. But it's not there yet.

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 doesn't listen, I delete my review. So far, all games which I've dearly loved have gone in wrong directions, hence why none of my old reviews survive. I sincerely hope I won't have to for this game, for I do love it very much. Let us begin. I am a fanatical enthusiast of the Last Airbender and Harry Potter franchises. To this date, I believed no person or studio has made a decent RPG for either of the two series, let alone one - until I happened upon this game by chance on Early Access when I played for a fair bit. Now I've played the full version. For 7.99 pounds, the assumption one has is that the creator may have copy pasted some generic looking 2D art in a disgusting violation of artistic tradition and called it a day like most new releases on Steam. And most new releases tend to be close to that mark. They are steaming piles of absolute garbage. Last week, I saw a planned update post that the game was releasing fully. Yesterday, I saw that they kept the promise. Playing through it for four hours today, I was thoroughly impressed by the depth of its premise, worldbuilding, well-thought out combat, and the choices it offers. More so, I was delighted to see such beautiful handcrafted visuals, from the maps to the grand halls to its animations. And more than anything else, I approve of the fact that the game takes itself seriously and with gravitas. Most games of the present day denigrate themselves with degenerate humor, poorly written or translated dialogue, as if made by someone without artistic merit, and without respect for the genre. And I am happy to say that the creator has avoided making those mistakes. That's the positive point number 1. Second, the game lives up to its store page description by introducing actually well-thought out worldbuilding, including characters, professors, and combat to match. Most games I've played, even my favorite ones, entertain you through the phantasma of awe-inspiring visuals. But the meaning behind them, why they exist, why the world of the game is the way they are usually ring hollow. But not this game. I am delighted to see such a depth of thought, such actual effort, put into a game that only costs 8 pounds. And the difference between what is given and what it costs is altogether paradoxical that I believe the creator is underselling themselves. Even from the very first ten lines of the story we get a measure of the scale of things that our character, our incarnation, lives in. The depth of worldbuilding is hence positive number 2. Now to my impression of the gameplay. The gameplay revolves around mastering the elemental arts, attending classes with which to earn knowledge to master those arts, challenging professors to duels, and generally getting stronger. The combat itself, in my opinion, having played through the many iterations of the FF series, doesn't reinvent the wheel. However, its unique mechanics fit the strengths and weaknesses of the 4 elements as advertised that I am happy it has no wasted potential when it comes to combat. The well-thought out status effect system, and the alternate strategy to convince the opponent to surrender by focusing on morale was, I think, an excellent addition that can fit a range of playstyles, both roleplay-wise and elemental-affinity wise. The depth of combat and the fact that is truly breathes life into the 4 elements - as it would do in ATLA - is hence positive number 3. Finally, to the overall experience. From the very first scene, I was grappled by the cinema of the story. Walking through the opening ceremony, and being introduced to the vast halls of the academy was, in fact, an experience that only a wide-eyed wonder of a child first watching Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone could match in awe. The first combat, which I shall not spoil, was a surprise and an excellent integration into the story, a benchmark of any proclaimed RPG. The global time system, watching the sun set over the great volcano, the joy of mastering each elemental art with each knowledge token you earn, has been a delightfully unique and exciting experience that I will continue the game after this review until I have mastered all the 4 elements. I have so far mastered only earth. I personally believe this game should be sold for 20 pounds instead of 8. Creators like these shouldn't undersell themselves, because it gives the false impression that the game is shallow. It is not. ======== This is where I arrive at SUGGESTIONS. All games have flaws. And from playing Aeternitas, I've come to the conclusion that there are no major problems with its fundamental gameplay, combat, or story. Rather, I think the flaws I point out here for a large part shall have to do with the potential that's been unfulfilled for a game of such a wonderful premise & promise. 1) Right now, when the semester starts, the game goes on indefinitely (with the time system). Creator, make it feel like a real semester. Add a calendar. 2) The campus is very vast that it is easy to get lost. And while there are visual on-screen notifications when you're standing in a portal, it's hard for the first timer to know how exactly they could go to class. A simple visual map would be great for quality-of-life. 3) As of now, apart from the classes, the hallways and the dining hall feel empty, unlike the vast numbers of characters we witness in Act One. Bring those characters in & give us more of their backstories. An RPG should allow the protagonist to empathize with everyone and champion their aspirations. 4) When you bring all your party members into combat and have mastered the full track of a single element, it's not too difficult to beat a professor at full strength. We need more challenges. An in-game tournament, ideally weaved into the story, may be a perfect opportunity to do this. 5) Unify the theme of each year (right now, the first-year) with a central end goal, a climax. For Harry Potter, it was fighting the Basilisk or defeating Voldemort. For ATLA, it was Firelord Ozai. Give us some massive antagonist or hint at a massive challenger to fight to keep things fresh. 6) Give us content updates. While I believe this demand is too early (since I am writing this one day into the release), please give us additional side quests and stories. If you do, I believe Aeternitas will have no other conceivable challenger, because elemental combat and worldbuilding is already excellent & solidly built.

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, right now I don't see the option outside of cutscenes. All in all solid 8/10 indie title, feels very polished and would recommend all fans of Harry Potter and ATLA to pick it up.

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 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 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 hand and droned on for minutes. It got to the point where eventually I determined that none of this lore was either interesting or important and began skipping large sections of this. In spite of this, my run through ONLY THE INTRO of this game still took me almost 2 hours. I felt like maybe the writers had been told by the lead developer that they would only be allowed to express the lore in the first section of the game so they had to cram as much as they could in there or they'd lose it all. Maybe that sort of "visual novel style" crap is your thing but it's absolutely not mine. I thought I was buying a GAME for Chrissakes. - Speaking of the actual game, how are the spells the least important part of the development? They must be, because the screenshots on the store page show detailed descriptions for new wands you can buy and food that you can eat, but that screenshot of your guidebook open showing the page with your "Battle Arts" and your "Path of Study"? That is literally the most information you get about your spells. There is no "click on the spell and a window pops up with information". Just that page, with the names under the cool little spell icons, and that's it. Even in battle, where it would be MOST IMPORTANT to have that information, you don't get that information. You don't even get the names! How whacky is that!? I didn't know what ANY of my spells did until I spent the MP to try them out in a training battle with that water professor guy. Oh, and one of them wiped out my whole party so that was neat. Even though I was supposed to be invincible or something? Gee if only I could hover the mouse over the spell icons and get a little popup window that explains what the spell DOES so that I don't waste my MP wiping out my whole party! I'm conflicted on whether to recommend this game or not. On the one hand, I can't really say I have a full grasp of what the game is like having only played a little past the intro section. On the other hand, my reviews are primarily seen by just my friends who have similar tastes to me, so I can definitely say at the very least that I wouldn't recommend this game to any of them, so that's what I'll go with. Aeternitas to me feels like a game that is too proud of it's potential and somehow fails to realize the kind of work necessary to deliver that potential. I just don't like it.

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, in the characters, and in the plot and premise. It also comes through in what the game's development life has looked like to this point -- enough time has passed since its original (less fleshed out) release that some curators have it labeled as abandonware, but the developer proved to have been hard at work the whole time and it has just gotten a comprehensive update and overhaul. More content and improvements are clearly in the pipeline. Recommend.

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 your newer friends with the unique element of lightning, to a character who you can relate to given Elwin's own backstory, and is now possibly the front-runner for leading lady to ship Elwin with (IMO of course). If there's one downside to this, it's that some of the writing feels wonky in places. Don't get me wrong, the range of the vocabulary on some of these characters is cool to see, but sometimes the way the sentences are structured stuck out a bit. I'm not saying all of the writing is bad, but there is a noticable amount of sentences that could be fixed. Graphics: The same pixelated style is back and still as welcoming as before. The graphics have an endearing charm about them that I can't help but like, and it helps make the settings (both the foreground buildings and distant landscapes in the background) look that much more interesting. The only other thing of note on this front is that a few of the characters have had themselves a makeover. Most notably Elwin; now sporting a sling over his left eye and a small ponytail. Definitely makes him look more interesting than the stock background characters you pass by. Music: I said this before but, if given the chance, I would happily pay to have this games' soundtrack. The orchestral melodies, whether they're soft and soothing or grand and motivating, are beautiful and make for a delightful contrast to the pixel art style. What's more, it sounds like the number of songs has only increased, meaning I'm going to enjoy just occasionally stopping what I'm doing in the game and listening to the music. Only one other game on Steam (Highway Blossoms) has made me do that. Gameplay: At long last, combat is finally here! I will admit it's a little jarring to be thrown into the deep end for your first battle with no real tutorial, but anyone who's played a turn-based strategy game should be able to pick it up quickly. I'm still not sold on a few things in the battle system, but they're just nitpicks at this point. Outside of combat, though I haven't reached the point where I can do so, the library's a good place to look up all that lore I mentioned (where you read through the books and click on the page corner to turn it like a real book). The academy's also expanded a little bit, as there's now a training ground to better help learn the ins and outs of the battle system. Add in the classes to learn new techniques, the different pathways each element provides, and the ability to customise your equipment and your battle party and I'd definitely say the combat update was worth the wait. Overall: I saw the promise this game had before the combat update and now it's here, I've fallen in love with this game all over again. There are a few nitpicks like with the writing in places, but the rest of the game definitely overshadows those easily-fixable flaws. Do yourself a favour and pick up this unique little gem. TL,DR; This is a nice indie game. Buy it.

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 with how they currently treat their ability not simply as magic but rather as a scientific discipline to be researched and experimented with. You can tell by how the books in the Grand Library of the Academy scientifically theorizes on the control of the four elements and its properties. I like the pixel art style, it looks lovely. The character portraits look great, but the 2D sprite looks a bit too similar to each other and it's harder to tell the characters apart there. As for combat mechanics, I’m getting the impression that it's going to be a turn-based RPG like some of the Final Fantasy games. I wish that the lore of the game and understanding it would be an important part of playing the game. It’d be a shame for the books to just be there to fill the player on the lore or just being opened once to get a skill point and then immediately put back down. I want to have an edge over my opponent who didn’t read, studied, and practiced properly before going into combat and be punished with a humiliating defeat for being poorly prepared if I did so myself. I’m also hoping that academic work would also be present in the game. Researching, experimenting, thesis-writing, and the opportunity to set your legacy as a great academic like the other professors of the academy. Though I have a feeling that it won’t be the focus and might make the game too broad. Other small things that I’d like to comment on: [list] [*]I only noticed a few typos, so that's great [*]Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I accidentally reselected the same dialogue option after the other character was done talking because I habitually press space twice to make the dialogue appear faster. Maybe there should be an option for it to appear instantly or have a slight delay after they finish talking so I don’t accidentally pick a dialogue option. [*]Would love to have the ability to sprint, the Academy is quite big and takes some time to get around [/list] Yeah, that’s about it. All in all, I really like what I’ve seen so far and I’m excited to follow its development and I look forward to more :)

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 a new skill. Speaking of, None of these skills have tooltips. When you look up these skills in the menu there's no telling what they do. You just have to figure it out. Honestly I could be cool with that if it was like, part of the experience but it just feels lazy. Good luck getting to the professors within 30 minutes though, after the long winded exposition your just thrown into a room. No guidance. No clear indication of where to go. and the place is MASSIVE for how slow you walk. This could totally be a fun feature if it was filled with anything. It ain't. Its a giant empty mansion that you have to walk through hunting for some meaning in this god forsaken place. If the devs could add a map perfect. If there was a teleport system fantastic. But no, not yet. You're left to wander the halls in slow motion walk for far too long. I want to like this game. I want a Avatar harry potter cross over in my mouth, but this aint it. Not yet.

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