*This review represents the first impression i got of the game,after playing till i reached lvl 10.*
At first,i felt really comfortable playing the game.
The graphics are great,even though its 2D.
The combat system,aswell as crafting,spending skillpoints,exploring dungeons and other game mechanics,have been really easy to get into.
You have multiple options of shaping your character just as advertised,be it appearance or skills,aswell as lots of items to choose from.
To top it off,i couldnt spot any kind of p2w,whitch is nice.
So far so good.
After a few lvl,s i started to notice more and more things that bothered me,and that outweighted the positive experience i had so far.
-The combat system
As i wrote before,its really easy to learn.
Unfortunately,its also really easy to master.
You are provided with 5 skills of your choice,to use in combat.
One of them has to be a ranged skill that you mostly use only at the start of a fight,so you end up using just 4 skills(generally with cooldowns)most of the time aswell as no items.
Before a fight,you get to see the skills of your opponent,so all you have to do is pick the right counter-skills and use them at the right time.
With just 4 skills,no combat timer that forces you to act fast,and the game always telling you what skill your opponent will use,this really shouldnt be too hard to do.
Furthermore,the fights are always 1vs1,so you dont need to worry about any tactical target switching or formations.
If you DO end up taking some damage when exploring a dungeon,you can just wait for a while and your hp will fill up again...if you want to speed it up,you can also use consumables like healing potions.
As if this wouldnt be enough already,you can also hire mercenaries to help you in a fight,but i will get to this later.
To sum it up:the game simply doesnt want you to lose,there is almost no tactical depth in combat.
I imagine that the difficulty later will not come from complex decision making,but simply having to grind for better stats.
-Music
This might just be me now,but i personally didnt like it that much.
I guess i expected something a little more,,epic'',especially in boss fights,something you remember after taking a break from the game.
Unfortunately,this wasnt the case for me.
-Graphics
The graphics are generally really good,with the exception of the map,whitch seemed a bit too bright and colorful.
Though something that really sucks,is that none of my skills had any animations.
Picture this:
Your character has a idle animation aswell as a flinching animation when getting hit.
But once you use a melee skill,you only see some special effects,without your character actually PERFORMING a attack.
Since the rest IS animated,i found this to be very anticlimatic.
-Story
Gotta be honest....i quickly lost track of why im doing something.
I always read the story of every game i play and try to remember it,but i felt like eterna sends you from one place to another,way too fast,while introducing characters,enemies and locations that get swapped too fast for you to care about and remember them.
Instead of having to travel so much and getting sent out against wild animals,bandits,ghosts and whatnot,i would have been completely fine with just slaying bandits till lvl 8 and having the story be simply about that,before you get introduced to more.
To be fair,the game DOES provide you with highlighted words that you can click on for more informations,but it only helps so much,you know...
-Multiplayer
The game was not marketed as a mmo,so i will not treat it as such.
Still,there barely are any multiplayer features right now.
You can chat with other players and see them walk around on the map,aswell as hire them as mercenaries to help you in battles.
Now,hiring them as mercenaries would be really cool actually, IF those mercenaries actually showed up on your screen and would be controlled by real people in realtime....in fights that would actually be difficult and not be solo-able.
I know there are still things like raids or duels planned so maybe this will change,but i still feel like you will end up playing by yourself most of the time.
Now what do i make of all this?
Even though the game was on a discount when i bought it,i just cant feel as if it was worth it.
I started to compare it with 2 other games i used to play:
Demon slayer,and juggernaut.
Juggernaut is closed now and demon slayer isnt very popular anymore i believe,but you can still look up videos about those games on youtube.
They both are free to play browsergames with turn based combat,similiar to eterna.
Yet,there are some things they handled much better.
In demon slayer,you only had a few seconds to make a move,more skills to use and even quick time events that could make your skills stronger if pulled off right(and all skills had animations).
You could also hire soldiers for your formation and fight multiple opponents at the same time aswell as join a,,war map''where you could fight other players in real time,in some kind of CTF.
Juggernaut allowed you to join other players fights(whitch have been kinda hard,so you often ended up getting killed),so it was possible to start the game with a friend and adventure together the whole time.
Story was slower paced and if i remember it right,you even had different dialogue options aswell as 3D fights.
For a singleplayer game,eterna isnt nearly complex enough and for a multiplayer game,it lacks,well....multiplayer features that are more than just little side activities.
But since the game is still in EA and has more features planned,i have hope.
Some things i would recommend:
Rework the combat system.
Dont let players see skills the opponent will use,get rid of mercenaries for already easy fights,no automatic hp regen in dungeons,a time limit to make a move,add items to use in combat,multiple enemies or even QTE,s.
Add more multiplayer modes that require players to work together in realtime.
If the upcoming raid feature just turns out to be a little side feature,it wont be enough.
A journal that sums up your journey and lore about locations and characters,would be really helpful to keep track of the story.
Multiple decisions with a karma system like SWTOR has for example,would also help to make it a better singleplayer experience.
Set the price to 10-15 euro or make it free to play with non-p2w items,i doubt the game will sell a lot of copies with the current content and price.
Good luck with the game,i will still be around and should the game improve,change my review aswell.
