End's Reach. A flawed but honest game reminiscent of days gone by. It's a difficult game to place in today's gaming culture and difficult to recommend at times. But it is filled with passion and heart, a true example of an indie game. This is the definition of game where I wish I could give it a sideways thumb. It is riddled with bugs, unpolish, unnecessary systems, and questionable design, but faulting it for all that makes me feel guilty at times considering what it is. Comparing it to A, AA, or even AAA games is extremely unfair, but it would be irresponsible to ignore blatant issues. I still recommend this game because it is not a bad game, but using the word good is inaccurate too.
End's Reach is an interesting game with interesting origins. Originally an exclusive launch title for the Atari VCS, it debuted on July 28, 2023. Since then, the exclusivity has passed and it is now available on PC via Steam. Made for a system that doesn't have a GPU, perhaps in that light it's an impressive feat, especially with an almost entirely solo team. That being said, perhaps the transition to the personal computer could have been smoother.
At it's heart, it is through and through a "Metroidvania", and it relies on that heavily. Many of environments, lore, and even equipment are very familiar to the likes of Samus Aran and her adventures on Tallon IV. From snowy mountains to lava filled depths, filled with relics and structures of ancient but now extinct civilizations, the Chozo feel like not so distant cousins. Requiring you to backtrack through regions to collect powerups and items, some necessary and others optional, And while this is standard fair for a game of this genre, this game fails to make it enjoyable for the majority of the time for a couple reasons.
Some of the most glaring issues I have with End's Reach is pacing. It sports a decently sized world to explore, but a lot of it feels wasted. From rooms that ultimately serve no purpose, to giant empty fields, it's hard to keep focus and have fun when the majority of my time is holding forward when traveling from place to place. This coupled with a frustrating walking speed, and an even more so unnecessary stamina system makes the game a slog to get through, and feels as if it does not respect your time. The last thing I want in a large open area I need to get through is having to stop and wait for my stamina to recharge so I can run again. And the worst of it is, the stamina system doesn't even serve a purpose outside of basic movement. Fighting, using abilities, getting hit; none of it effects your stamina, it's simply there to hinder your movement throughout the entire game in an effort to do God knows what. You are able to find a stamina upgrades which increase your overall amount, as well as ones that make it so you use less stamina when using it, as well as having it regenerate faster, but to what end?
When not being bogged down by holding the W and Shift key, it's easy to miss the surrounding design of the game, which sadly to say isn't much to speak of. The game's aesthetic reminds me heavily of late 2000's and early 2010's indie games. If you had told me this game from from then, I would not question it at all. But it's not all bad.
The art and environments represent themselves accurately and you immediately know what kind of area you're in. That being said, it feels almost entirely void of style. Most all areas and rooms you explore are blocky and primitive, with a small amount of props scattered around here and there to spruce up the visuals, but that's not really the issue. Something like Minecraft, even it it's early days can take a very basic scene and make it feel original because of the art style being unique and consistent. End's Reach could have absolutely benefitted from some sort of stylization. Retro-looking graphics among games these days is very popular. It would have done so much had it adopted a low-fi PS1/N64 aesthetic, or even a simple stylistic color pallete.
One last note about the visuals is that they seem to still be taking the Atari in mind. The draw distance and pop-in with models is pretty atrocious. Seeing a giant z-clip wall in the distance, or watching things suddenly appear 50 feet in front of you probably worked well on the console, but on a more than capable device like a standard computer, it's weird and distracting.
The gameplay itself is simple and inoffensive. The controls are basic, and after a few minutes you'll never have to look at them again. A combination of hack and slash combat, mixed with platforming, and some puzzles solving, End's Reach doesn't do anything new or exciting, but that's okay. It stays in its lane when it comes to what it is, and doesn't try to be something it isn't. If anything, having a simple gameplay loop benefits this game. With that said, the most major criticism is clunkiness. The combat itself is synonymous with clunky. With weird unblended animations, awkward attacks, times where I should get hit and don't, and absolutely times where I shouldn't get hit and do. The enemy and boss fights are all over the place and can range from entirely broken, overly easy, or actually okay.
Beyond hitting your main attack button, which will be what you do about 99% of the time, there are some other combat mechanics that exist. Weapons do have combos if you keep attacking, and there seem to be heavy attacks, but I never really found an advantage to them. Each weapon has a few abilities as well. During combat you can attack enemies with your weapons to gain orbs, which fill up a meter per weapon, allowing you to choose from a variety of offensive or defensive spells if you will. Honestly I found all of them entirely useless except for a health regeneration one. Some of the abilities have such a low DPS they aren't even worth wasting the click to cast them. The health regeneration one is by far the best, and can be used in a few boss battles to just tank them the entire time, eliminating any challenge at all.
Despite the jank, I never felt frustrated by the combat outside of clearly broken encounters. I never had any issues killing enemies, and your ability to stunlock them is very gratuitous which overall makes up for any shortfalls you may encounter. The last gripe is that enemies never drop anything when they're killed. No health, no items, nada. So most of the time it's more efficient to just run by and ignore them.
As far as the story goes, I don't have much to say. It's fairly basic, with what seems to be the ants from Jet Force Gemini taking over areas with new found robot legs, and doing no good Space Pirate stuff. The start of the game and the end of the game are awkward exposition dumps with hand drawn storyboards, but it's not badly written, just very standard. Besides, the story in the game isn't the focus. I can't add or minus any points because of it, it's mostly just in the background. The data entries you find around the game are more interesting anyways, if only to understand what you're doing.
I could go on nit picking the issues and bugs I ran into along the way, but ultimately it doesn't change what End's Reach is: a respectable effort, and accomplishment for a solo indie developer. While I probably would have never discovered this game organically, nor bought, nor played it, it's still overall competently made and I don't regret my time with it. And while I'm sure it served its purpose on the Atari where selections were slim, and options varied in quality, in the PC market where options are aplenty, it's easy to see a game like this be buried.
In the end, End's Reach is a bit hard to actually reach the end, but I give kudos to the developer Christian for seeing his vision through, and I look forward to see what he comes up with next. Perhaps this is a stable, but rough stepping stone for things to come. Thanks for giving me an entertaining Saturday.
