Knight Eternal

This is a lovely hidden gem of a turn based RPG with excellent art and and fun gameplay.

Reminiscent of Final Fantasy 1.

[h1]The End of Timeline 1?![/h1] [h2]Story[/h2] The game has two main plot threads, with the first being the tension between Zamaste and Halonia and the second being Astraea's lost memories. However, both leave some loose ends, since the queen's [spoiler]curse isn't adequately explained until Knight Bewitched 2 and Astraea's connection to Abbie has yet to be clarified[/spoiler]. I'm hoping there will be a continuation of Timeline 1 someday, since while Timeline 2 is good, I still want to see how Timeline 1 leads to it. Personally, I feel like the queen's [spoiler]death at the end of the game would have hit harder if we had more interactions with her. By the time the party reaches her in the endgame, she's already on death's door without us really affecting the outcome. It really didn't reach the previous game's high note of confronting Zamas and getting Abbie back against all odds[/spoiler]. IMO, the game should have spent more time fleshing out Zamaste, since it would be interesting to see how much the kingdom was affected by their worship of an antagonistic deity. It seems strange that in the ending, [spoiler]they reconciled so easily with Halonia. Additionally, Adalia Primrose didn't seem that bothered by the revelations about Zamas in the Depths[/spoiler]. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] The game is mechanically similar to the previous one, but there are some improvements, such as the wider resolution. This makes it easier to fit all of the party's buffs on the UI, though the UI still doesn't show enemy buffs and debuffs. For equipment, characters still have a lot of freedom to equip whatever they want, but equipment types are more restricted to give the characters a bit more individuality. Though I still ended up putting the Ragnarok on Dylan because most of the other magic-based equipment was mediocre. However, I personally wish there was no distinction between spell and tech slots, since I felt like having more spell slots was better in the early stages of the game. There's now a skill tree, where you can spend SP to unlock nodes containing stat boosts and passives. In practice, most players will concentrate on a character's best stat first to maximize their strengths before going for the next most useful stat. There's also the emblem system, where characters have to complete certain events and choose between two emblems, which unlocks different branches in their skill tree that leads to some character exclusive skills, which means they have a bit more individuality than in the previous game. [h2]Verdict[/h2] TBH, the story feels even more underdeveloped than Celestial Hearts, but I did appreciate the improvements to the combat system and UI, though I wish there were more character exclusive nodes on the skill trees. 6.5/10