[h1]Sum-Up[/h1]
[h3]In-depth analysis further down.[/h3]
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[th]🟩 [b]Pros[/b][/th]
[th]🟥 [b]Cons[/b][/th]
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[td]
- Decent replay value thanks to three different characters and several possible build types, such as spellcasters, heavy melee tanks, rogues and even hybrid ones.
- Quests are worth completing and, unlike in most other Souls games, aren’t obscure on how to progress them or what to do.
- Great amounts of lore scattered throughout the world and in item descriptions. If you’re into reading, they’ll be a good diversion - just don’t expect ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’.
- Rewarding exploration, with many secrets and puzzles that have solid rewards for the attentive explorer.
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[td]
- Combat is extremely clunky and slow-paced at all times. All weapons have comically-huge wind up / wind down times, and there’s no animation canceling of any sort.
- Genre-essential features are missing or badly-implemented: unreliable roll that doesn’t i-frame correctly, no fast travel, no parrying / backstabbing / pushing, no detailed scaling stats. Can only recover souls when a special enemy decides to randomly spawn.
- Limited equipment variety; only weapons, spells and consumables. Different weapons may actually have the same movesets, and there aren’t unique ones but just reskins with different elements. Weapon upgrades feel underwhelming and of marginal effectiveness.
- Certain areas will be way over-leveled when you get there at first. You will need to grind several levels to stand a chance in these cases, as your damage output will be severely impaired due to the level difference.
- Bosses don’t feel very challenging in most cases, as they always have one or two moves that can be ‘baited’ for extremely easy ‘free hits’, and don’t evolve their attack patterns as the fight goes on. A few exceptions apply.
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[th]🟨 [b]Bugs & Issues[/b][/th]
[th]🔧 [b]Specs[/b][/th]
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- Using consumables sometimes doesn’t work if there’s another animation in progress.
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- 3900X
- 2080Ti
- 32GB RAM
- SSD
- 1440p
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[td][b]Content & Replay Value:[/b][/td]
[td]It took me around 9 hours to complete a single run of Curse of Eternity (CoE) on Classic (Hard) difficulty, taking extra time to explore everything and complete all quests I could find. The replay value is decent, as there are several builds, equipment and perks to experiment with in different runs.[/td]
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[td][b]Is it worth buying?[/b][/td]
[td]No. Even if the price of 16,79€ is fair for this amount of content, the overall quality doesn't justify a purchase. It’s just not good enough, and there are many other souls-like in the same price range that are better.[/td]
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[td][h3]Verdict: Mediocre.[/h3]
[url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2548409603]Rating Chart Here[/url][/td]
[td]Even as a souls-like enthusiast, I can’t recommend CoE because it’s bland, poorly-executed and anonymous, with its few original ideas not being enough to carry it out of mediocrity.[/td]
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[quote]Follow our Curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41449676/]Summit Reviews[/url], to see more high-quality reviews regularly.[/quote]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899122986
[h1]In-Depth[/h1]
[h3]Setting & Writing[/h3]
CoE is set in the Viridian empire, more specifically in its capital, where a powerful curse has turned almost everyone into mindless, aggressive beings; consequently, the once-mighty reign found its downfall. Playing as one of three heroes (respectively mage, warrior and rogue), your immunity to the curse makes you the only one able to challenge and perhaps slay Midrhada, the mad goddess that caused all of this.
The setting is primarily dark fantasy, and it can be seen there’s an inspiration to some of Dark Souls’ famouls locations, like Undead Burg, Anor Londo or Blighttown, in the making of several areas. But don’t get me wrong, CoE retains its originality and doesn’t try to ‘copy’ DS at any point in its world-building. Even if the levels’ verticality and complexity are not as deep as some other titles, it’s definitely on passable levels. Unlike most souls, CoE prefers to use direct narration in the form of lore volumes to speak of characters and events, which isn’t a bad choice if done properly.
[h3]Exploration & Puzzles[/h3]
The world is made of interconnected areas, each having a ‘main path’ to traverse, that will inevitably lead to that zone’s boss, and also secondary ones that, of course, lead to secrets, optional quest-giving NPCs, treasure chests and so on. Despite this fact, not all of them are well-interconnected with shortcuts, so if you need to backtrack at any point for whatever reason, prepare for the long haul as there’s no fast travel, either - a disappointing decision that really has no point other than making you waste time.
While you explore, you’ll come across several puzzles that usually are about finding the correct combination of symbols by deducing it from the environmental hints in the area, or locked chests that will engage you in a shape-matching sequence, where you’ll have to arrange symbols in various slots to unlock the chest. As customary for the genre, there’s no map, but that’s fine because the various levels aren’t overly-complicated and you most likely won’t get lost.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899123020
[h3]Combat, Bosses & Death Mechanics[/h3]
Combat plays out in third person, with, as expected, an emphasis on learning enemy attack patterns to strike and dodge at the right times, while also managing your stamina, without which you won’t be able to roll, block or attack. Each weapon category (daggers, swords, etc.) has its own attack pattern between light and heavy blows, as well as sprint and leaping strikes that are slower but inflict more damage. The main issues with melee combat is how tremendously slow and stiff every one of your attacks is, while enemies may not follow this same pacing. There aren’t detailed stats about weapon scaling or status effect buildups; generally you won’t be able to have a detailed stat breakdown.
Boss fights are average at best, and save for the final boss and a couple of exceptions, there won’t be any particular challenge to overcome even without grinding or over-leveling. Those exceptions I mentioned are instead huge spikes of difficulty that will turn you to grinding before all of a sudden your weapons and eventual spells will feel like toys. Speaking of spells, they use stamina to be cast as there’s no mana, and for the better ones you’ll also need Magic Crystals, obtained only from specific consumables. For the rest you have your regular Estus equivalent in combat, that will be refilled at one of the blue-hued bonfires or when you die.
Instead of leaving your Shards (souls) on the ground, they’ll be absorbed by the Shard Keeper, an enemy that randomly spawns only when you have enough souls to level up, so you can’t just get them back immediately after dying. It’s an innovative mechanic on one side, but the Keeper is weak, slow, and frustrating to trigger as an event, so it’s just the regular soul recovery with extra, pointless steps in the end.
[h3]Character Progression & Equipment[/h3]
You’ll gain equipment from looting, boss drops and trading, other than a few quests. It may be in the form of spells, consumables or weapons, which can be sold to a trader if you need souls to buy other stuff or level up. Leveling will give you one point to spend in the four main attributes, and a perk point to spend on perks related to that attribute, like for example magical mastery for INT, that enables using spells of the selected element. These passive abilities are useful and make the difference in the long run, especially at higher ranks.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899620716
