Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code

Very good story driven rpg. So far a very good surprise Very recommended

There hasn't been a recent review for this game, so I thought I'd add my own after just now beating it, clocking in at a smidge over 11 hours of playtime. Do note that I am an incredibly fast reader and a JRPG veteran so the playtime of around 15 hours or so documented by other users is very accurate as well depending on your reading speed and how much time you take exploring and tinkering with the game's systems. So speaking of the game's systems, we'll start there. Battles I feel ARE the weakest link of this game, with them being fairly rote turn-based fare that ultimately found me spamming the same skills and using generally the same setup and strategy throughout. The extra timed button press after hitting an enemy weakness was interesting but undercooked; the press never varies or changes in any way, not even with status effects affecting the timing or anything like that. The inspiration is clearly something like Legend of Dragoon for this, but LoD had increasingly complex button chains with almost rhythmic timing and this fails to deliver on meaningfully enhancing the combat experience. Divine mageia (sort of like limit breaks but a bit different) had some interesting concepts but so long as you basically kept the heal on all three characters and the purple shield destroyer on at least one you could make it through the game with minimal difficulty. This isn't inherently a bad thing, as I don't believe games need to be hard to be fun, but for an entry with a lot of promise in every other area I did find myself wishing the actual combat had been given as much attention. I essentially spent most of my time using the big nuke divine skill and healing up afterward with another character. Despite that, I did find that there was a lot of flexibility with how you wanted to set up your characters (I had one as the standard magic user, one as the big divine skill nuker, and another with insane speed on permanent support duty), so I'm hopeful that future entries give the combat a bit more thorough tweaking. It was fun to PLAY with, but I felt like hardly any of it MATTERED, if that makes sense. Now, onto the parts where I think the game really excelled: music and story. The music is surprisingly well-crafted and really sets the atmosphere well. There's a solid amount of tracks for a 10-15 hour game and none of them I felt were recycled ad nauseum. The only one that got a bit stale was the basic battle theme, but I find that true for almost any JRPG if they use the same track for battles for the entire time (Battle for Survival from Digital Devil Saga 2 is about the only exception I've ever heard in my 20+ years of JRPG play). Boss battles did actually have their own separate tracks, 2-3 of them I want to say, and they were wonderfully done too. Character and monster art were solid for an indie title, and I liked that none of the monster designs were reused - every dungeon had completely brand new monster art and that was rad as hell. The main character also goes through a few changes throughout the story and that is actually reflected in his character portrait too. Now, onto the big meat of why you should play this game - the story. I know all of the other reviews mentioned this as well, but it's clear the dev has a very ambitious tale he wants to tell, and I think he did a fantastic job of setting it up with this first entry. Some parts are rough - the plot moves almost TOO briskly in spots and I think some of the more shocking moments don't really have time to sink in - but there's a very engaging mystery set up with a separate dimension where gods seemingly dwell and the factions in the game trying to either reach it or not reach it (there's a reason the game's subtitle references the Tower of Babel, ha). The Christianity influence is present here, but it was also present in Xenogears and in other JRPGs, so I don't think it's anything fans of the genre will find preachy or oppressive. We're used to having to kick God's butt in some way or another, after all. Of the three main characters, I will say that the only one who felt truly compelling to me was Beyoz, but the other two are perfectly fine in their own right and don't actively detract from the story. The main character, Joshwa, does start out fairly unlikable but this is undoubtedly by design, as he undergoes quite a bit of progression throughout the story as his worldviews are constantly challenged. Ruthia starts out as a strong character but I felt by the end of the journey she was a bit too plagued by self-doubt and worry - this isn't an impossible or out-of-nowhere change, given the circumstances, but it felt like a backslide to what was a strong female entry in a fairly male-dominated game. Again, none of the characters outwardly spoiled the story experience, these are just my personal thoughts. Probably my biggest complaint about the story is that...it's a cliffhanger ending. I try not to say things like this in reviews, but I only think it's fair for those coming in to be aware - this seems like a very ambitious project, and the way the first game ends is clearly intended to set up things for a sequel. This can make a lot of questions feel unanswered and frankly, some of the character arcs to feel unfinished, especially since we know the second game doesn't take place in the same realm. I can only hope a lot of these questions are solved in the sequel, since my initial reaction upon beating the first game was "...that's it? I feel like I barely know ANYTHING still". That's not a bad thing, since it means the game successfully piqued my interest, but dangling threads tend to unravel things if there are too many of them, if you know what I mean. Overall, I'd recommend this game, especially if you can get it on a solid sale, maybe bundled with the sequel like I did (I think I paid $12 for both games, not bad at all). There's definitely rough spots, but if you want to play something that really attempts to create the feeling of a huge story with a heavy religious and futuristic scope like Xenogears, this game is definitely worth a playthrough.

Blasphemy! This is a pretty solid game with a great story that will keep you going to find out what happens next. The turn based combat is a little different since its all magic based and no physical attacks. It does get fairly repetitive but most turn based games do. The story makes up for it and i cant wait for the next game to see where the story goes next.

An RPG which takes various mythologies of the real world(mostly hebrew and mesopotamian) and then twists them into sci-fi. So you have Jews and Greeks fighting satanic mesopotamian cyborgs descended from Cain... which sounds ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid and it can be offputting at first. But the game and setting are extremely well made and the author had clear love for myths and religion. Hell, he went as far as naming HP Lev and MP Nephesh - which mean 'Heart' and 'Living Soul' in hebrew. The combat system is kinda turn based - when a character's gauge fills, he picks an action. Then the gauge fills up again before the action can be taken. Sometimes, between those two an enemy might get their action first and paralyze you or something, so some planning is needed. Also, your characters don't use physical attacks - only magic. So everyone has to watch their Nephesh. Magic all has various elements to which each enemy has a weakness against. Sometimes you can guess it from their design - a tree monster will hate fire. If you can't, there's an item to discover their weaknesses. If you use an attack that an enemy is weak to, you then get a chance for bonus damage - a circle moves to the center of a wheel and you have to press a button when it's the closest. Sometimes the engine can be a bit choppy though and i feel like due to a few skipped frames i miss. It could also use some kind of slow mode or something for people who have trouble with perceiving moving objects. The story of this game is part one. There will be more games. And i for sure plan to play the next ones. May Elohim be with the creator of this game. Ave!

Great game! Can't wait for the sequel since it ends on a cliffhanger with a bunch of questions unanswered. I was a bit skeptical at the beginning since it was kinda of info dump-y with a lot of strange words that are hard to pronounce. But glad I kept going! By midpoint, when everything starts making sense, I couldn't stop rooting for the characters and see where the story would go next. Combat was fine although on the easy side since you can cheese all fights by stunlocking enemies with freeze loop.

Now this game, it's already been said that you get experience for lore. And what lore there is! In-universe, there's a lot of little hints and nuances that tie things together. Arguments, discussions, things that happen when cultures clash, how history and what is written changes, and how religion fits into all of that. You play this game for the story (and the RPG combat of course). But mostly the story. I am enjoying myself playing this game.

This game proves that a compelling story doesn’t require many characters—quality triumphs over quantity. The narrative is captivating, with an inspiration from Christianity that some might find “disrespectful” due to its mythological parallels with earlier religions like Greek and Roman. However, it’s handled tastefully and sincerely. The characters are very relatable, though it took me a while to warm up to Joshwa. He initially comes across as somewhat whiny. This was likely intentional, showcasing his growth throughout the game. The dialogue is well-crafted, and the story kept me engaged. I actually looked forward to playing again between breaks. I highly recommend this game. It offers the perfect-sized adventure—not too long, not too short.

The developer of Elohim Eternal had reached out to me to provide me with a key so that I may feature his game on my streams. Overall, I think it's a pretty good game, but the writing is really alienating to new players. The game has a somewhat slow start, which is probably fine for most players, though somewhat unfortunate for the format of my stream. A small nuisance with this start is how after watching a cutscene play out, you get to walk forward, only to have another cutscene play out, then you get to walk forward, and have another cutscene play out. I think pacing things out better would go a long way in improving the new player experience. Howevever, speaking on new player experience, the game's writing doesn't give a toss about helping you become familiar with the world. Effectively right out of the gate, the game will begin throwing terms at you that you have never heard of, it will start referencing factions and political parties that we have no understanding of, it will start talking about races and famous people that we have no understanding of and this all within the span of the first 30 minutes of the game. I understand that when writing, if you can't figure out how to comfortably introduce readers into your world, you are left with 2 unfavorable options: either A) Have dialogue that may seem natural and feel like a part of the world, but at the cost of totally alienating your reader, or B) Have ham-fisted and stilted dialogue that is awkward within the story but at least informs the reader. Personally, if I had to choose between these 2, I would opt for the latter as, even though its awkward, at least I can better understand the story and not feel left out of the game/book/movie I just purchased. Ideally, I think spacing out all the new terms and allowing plenty of context to surround the terms would help introduce players much better to the world. (To get ahead of potential responses such as "read the codex", I don't think extracurricular reading should be necessary in order to enjoy the story. That should help fill out the world for those who enjoy the world enough to read more about it, but it shouldn't act as a substitute for informing players about important information of the world) I would also avoid unnecessary terms when describing things that have established norms. I think a prime example of this is the cutesy renaming of established stats in RPGs. I've seen other games do this before and I am not a fan because it only serves to add a new layer of interpretation on already trying to understand how the stats function, making things unnecessarily more muddy and confusing. I personally didn't really enjoy the game due to pacing problems and feeling unwelcomed to the world of Elohim, but I can see there is a quality game underneath it that other players besides myself would enjoy. If you'd like to watch my experience with your game, I've linked the archive below. You can click the timestamps to jump to when I start playing your game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzR-y1PEemo

Absolutely loved this game and can't wait for the sequel. I even enjoyed the many scriptures and lore. Such a detailed environment and character development. Well done to all involved.

[h3]Tl;dr[/h3] A completely linear JRPG Bible-esque fanfic, borderline disrespectful to source religious material. [h3]CONs[/h3] [list] [*] My first and foremost issue with this game is that I find some of usage of Christian and Judeo-Christian symbolism in it disrespectful while having no good reason to be present at all, e.g.: [*] usage of Chi-Ro monogram on a combo screen: it is there for no reason, really any other image could and IMO should be used there; [*] the in-game 'shop' device, which is called 'The Oak of Moreh' for no reason – this name isn't even referenced anywhere else in game materials beside the tutorial; etc. [*] The plot is absolutely linear with no variation whatsoever. [*] The combat is butt-clenchingly tedious rather than anything else. While there's a decent variety of enemies, the variety of combat is virtually non-existent. Of course there's an in-game item to turn off the combat in it's entirety, but throwing out good two thirds of a game instead of making it more engaging is a rather poor solution. [*] Optional side activities are few in number, are not very engaging or rewarding, and also are given to player in a very blunt way, which would make sense for a mission-style gameplay division, but not for a linear plot driven game. [*] Character quests, if you can call them that, are nearly perfectly identical. [*] The plot finale is 'yo dawg we heard you love cliffhanging so we put a cliff on your cliff so you can hang while you hang'. [/list] [h3]PROs[/h3] [list] [*] The enemy sprites are nice-looking, even if not always making sense combined with the zone they appear in. [*] Very nice tile graphics. [*] Good visual variety between game zones. [/list] [h3]Other[/h3] Worldbuilding is nice if you like Sanderson, not so much otherwise.