Few video games have managed to seize the identical sense of scale and spectacle as Shadow of the Colossus’s gargantuan boss fights, and none with the identical sort of deal with improvisational fight as Eternal Strands. In its greatest moments, it feels fairly dang particular – like while you’re holding onto a towering titan for pricey life, freezing its hand to its personal physique to keep away from getting grabbed and thrown off, shopping for your self a while to get just a few extra hits in earlier than having to dramatically leap away. Sadly, that scrumptious heart is sandwiched between continuously janky physics that usually result in confounding and punishing deaths, a weird climate system, and repetitive fight in opposition to smaller enemies that doesn’t evolve in a considerable sufficient strategy to justify the roughly 30 hours it took me to complete Eternal Strands. The tip result’s an motion RPG with excessive peaks and low valleys, however these valleys are nonetheless nicely value braving to see the spectacular heights it reaches.
Eternal Strands’ world is nicely developed and wealthy with historical past and lore, nevertheless it by no means managed to totally sink its hooks into me. It facilities round a warrior named Brynn and her band of “Weavers” – magically inclined wanderers which have been shunned by society ever since an arcane-fueled disaster referred to as the Surge ravaged the land a few years in the past. On the outset, Brynn and her fellow Weavers handle to interrupt via a magical barrier referred to as The Veil to achieve The Enclave, which was as soon as the beating coronary heart of magic within the nation, however had mysteriously remoted itself from the remainder of the world after the Surge.
What follows is a simple expedition into the unknown as Brynn and firm examine what occurred to The Enclave, what induced the Surge, and why The Veil was established within the first place. The largest concern with this story is its pacing. It’s dreadfully sluggish, with just about no main occasions or revelations occurring till roughly the midway level. Till then, it’s simply a whole lot of chatter in your ear as you discover a handful of fairly however pretty lifeless locales, finishing routine fetch quests and attending to know your fellow Weavermates via sidequests which might be additionally very sluggish to develop.
Brynn herself is likable sufficient, but in addition comes throughout as being a bit too good throughout conversations. She all the time appears to have the appropriate solutions or is aware of all the proper issues to say, and it results in a conflictless dynamic between her and her pals that simply feels sort of boring.
As an alternative, what actually makes Eternal Strands stand out is how the methods behind your numerous powers can work together with one another, permitting for some actually inventive approaches to fight and exploration. For instance, one in every of your most important talents creates a stream of ice that can be utilized to freeze enemies in place. Most video games with the same ice energy would most likely name it a day there, however in Eternal Strands, there’s thermodynamics at play as nicely. Meaning you can even use an ice wall to place out fires, or create a path of ice that cools you down and prevents you from taking warmth harm, or chill a chunk of metallic armor on an enemy to make it brittle to the purpose the place it may be shattered along with your weapon. It doesn’t cease there both, because the ice wall will also be used to attach two surfaces, so it could possibly make a makeshift bridge to cross a big hole, or most impressively, pin a large foe’s arm or leg to the bottom. That forces them to cease no matter they have been doing to allow them to pull their limb out of the ice, providing you with time to climb up and make your strategy to one in every of their weak factors.
Your different central energy is telekinesis, which is much much less novel, however let’s be actual: It’s by no means not been enjoyable to telekinetically choose issues up and hurl them round in a online game. And once more, there are different methods at play that improve its utility. For instance, one enemy kind has a magic defend that may suck up ice and hearth, making your elemental spells ineffective – that’s, till you deliberately enable them to suck one up, then telekinetically seize their defend and toss it again at them for a robust explosion.
These powers actually come to life while you’re battling in opposition to one in every of Eternal Strands’ “Nice Foes.” These are roaming boss battles that take equal quantities of inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus and the Horizon sequence. Like Shadow of the Colossus, you’re in a position to freely scale these enemies as you attempt to make your manner towards particular weak spots whereas they do every little thing they’ll to cease you. They’ll shake wildly, forcing you to tighten your grip to keep away from dropping all your stamina; they’ll solid spells; and so they’ll even attain over and pluck you proper off should you’re not on the transfer.
These fights are nice partially as a result of there are such a lot of methods to strategy them. You might begin from their legs and climb up their physique to search out and slash at their weaknesses, use your bow to hit these weak factors from afar, use telekinesis to toss objects within the surroundings at them, freeze their arm after they slam it all the way down to the bottom to get a shortcut to their shoulders, and the record goes on and on. However what’s actually cool is that each Nice Foe has a kind of puzzle tied to them, the place should you combat them in a really particular manner, you’ll expose the locus of their energy, which you’ll then climb to and harvest to improve the ability related to that combat. Or you’ll be able to defeat them usually by depleting their well being, which gained’t get you an influence improve, however will get you a ton extra uncommon crafting supplies to improve your gear. These fights are repeatable, so that you by no means want to fret about lacking out on one possibility in favor of the opposite, and it’s good to have the ability to make a alternative on the reward you need just by altering the way in which you combat.
I do want there have been extra of those battles as a result of they’re far and away the very best a part of Eternal Strands, however no less than there’s a respectable selection within the 9 Nice Foes which might be right here. There are the standard towering giants, 4 legged beasts, and flying dragons, and even inside these archetypes no two fights felt the identical. Sadly, primary fight in opposition to the smaller enemy varieties between them doesn’t fare fairly as nicely. It’s fantastic, but in addition very strange. There are solely two melee weapon varieties (both a sword and defend or a two-handed sword), you by no means study any new assaults aside from those which might be tied to new weapons which might be crafted, and there’s not a ton of enemy selection contemplating how lengthy the marketing campaign is. It’s a blow that’s softened because of the aforementioned utility of your powers, however I typically discovered myself wishing that conventional weapon fight had anyplace close to the identical flexibility and creativity.
For the primary 10 or so hours of Eternal Strands, every little thing was nice. Fight and exploration stayed contemporary because of a gradual tempo of recent enemies, places, weapons, bosses, and powers – though not one of the later powers ever got here near matching the enjoyable or utility of the 2 beginning choices I discussed. Ultimately, although, that tempo slows manner down as you’re frequently despatched again to earlier zones to combat largely the identical enemies and journey to the identical places, normally simply to select up a be aware or another easy quest merchandise.
It’s true that not each journey again to a earlier locale would be the similar, as climate occasions can dramatically change the way in which through which you strategy exploration and fight, however virtually by no means in a great way. A flash freeze makes the entire degree freezing chilly, enhancing your ice powers however forcing you to both equip cold-resistant clothes or drink a particular potion to keep away from taking fixed harm; whereas a drought does the identical factor, simply with warmth. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom use a temperature system that’s very related, however the huge distinction is that these video games talk how scorching/chilly you’re and the way a lot resistance you really must keep away from taking harm. Eternal Strands makes it a guessing sport, leaving me not sure of what number of gadgets I wanted to put on to have the ability to get the identical profit as simply consuming the potion, of which you solely have one within the early sport, two within the center, and three by the top.
In consequence, I dreaded having to finish a most important quest throughout a climate occasion. Flash freezes have been the worst, however droughts aren’t way more enjoyable as a consequence of ice bridges melting extraordinarily shortly after putting them, making navigating every degree a ache. After which there’s the Miasma occasion, which simply straight up blocks off sure areas with toxic mist, forcing you to take lengthy methods round and making it exceptionally punishing to combat the larger bosses as a consequence of their tendency to throw you into these loss of life clouds.
Happily, more often than not you’ll be adventuring in clear skies, and on the very least it’s enjoyable to discover Eternal Strands worlds below these circumstances. Just like the aforementioned Zelda video games, there’s an incredible freedom in exploration – you’ll be able to climb any floor, and like most survival video games, just about every little thing might be damaged down for crafting supplies, permitting you to really carve your personal path via its open-ended playgrounds. The one draw back is that there isn’t that a lot incentive to essentially look deep for secrets and techniques. There are hidden shinies that unlock bits of backstory in your codex should you actually need to dive into the lore, however so far as collectibles go that have an effect on gameplay, all you’ll actually discover are unusual crafting elements and blueprints for brand new gear. The blueprints are nice, don’t get me improper, particularly as a result of these items of substances include distinctive perks for the armor elements and particular talents for the weapons, however I’d have beloved to search out some upgrades that elevated my well being, stamina, or actually something.
As an alternative, all of that development is tied to your gear, which you’ll craft again at base camp utilizing the crafting supplies you discover by defeating enemies, opening chests, and busting up items of the surroundings. That gear can then be incrementally upgraded by offering extra of the identical crafting supplies you used to craft it within the first place, or reforged with totally different supplies to barely alter the stat bonuses and alter what it’s essential improve them additional.
If that sounds convoluted, it’s, and I do want this method have been less complicated, however there are no less than just a few benefits to the way in which it’s designed. For one, gear by no means actually turns into outdated. Even the beginning armor might be helpful all through the entire sport because of its comparatively excessive and balanced base stats, which might be elevated by reforging it with higher crafting supplies, after which upgraded much more from there. However should you’re planning on going up in opposition to a big boss that you simply’ll probably be climbing on, you may need to enhance your stamina, so you’ll be able to equip an armor set that provides you extra max stamina as an alternative. It’s a system that advantages from having a number of items of armor for various events, which is why it's a bit puzzling that there’s no strategy to save totally different loadouts. You need to individually change every bit of armor each time.
These totally different armor choices are no less than good to take a look at, and basically, Eternal Strands is sort of pleasing on the eyes and ears. The artwork model may be very colourful with nice character designs throughout, it runs tremendous easily no matter what number of loopy hearth and ice results are on the display screen directly (and there have been heaps), and there are some nice anime-style cutscenes to punctuate the large moments of the story. The soundtrack from Austin Wintory additionally hits all the appropriate notes, particularly throughout the Nice Foe battles, enhancing the motion and making these bigger than life fights really feel appropriately epic.