Eternights Review (Iradicos)
Intro
To start off, I first want to say that the people that are comparing this to games like Persona need to understand that this is an indie dev, and looks to be their first game, made by just a fairly small team with one person who did a lot of the artwork, game design/mechanics, and story. So I say kudos to the developer. Having played through Eternights multiple times, here is my breakdown of the game, some minor spoilers:
The Story
The main story arc is a semi-standard anime/manga/jrpg setting where the main protagonist is "chosen" and granted an ability to help thwart the big bad who is out to corrupt the world. While the main story is fairly basic, where it has heart is with the interpersonal friendships and relationships. The characters can be rather 2-dimensional. sticking to their character tropes and it's often very middle-school/high-school levels of romance with the characters, which can be cute but can also be eye-rolling (Like really, Yuna, you're going to risk the zombie-like infestation to do an emergency public broadcast to apologize to one friend? Not, say, perhaps warn people who may be seeking out shelter, or make sure everyone knows that someone hacked your account and to disregard the messages sent by "you"?). There are also some plot threads that are never fully developed, or are shoehorned in for sake of "character development". For example, The whole term Eternights is a reference to a company's new anti-aging wonder drug and there is some foreshadowing at the beginning that there's a bigger conspiracy to be had, and while it's brought up towards the end of the game, it's not really fleshed out other than in some "personal logs" and is never a main focal point. There are multiple endings for the game, most of which play out the same with the exception of the bad ending, and while predictable, can tug at your feelings. Overall the story is coherent, with some lightness and humor albeit a basic narrative.
The Gameplay
The core gameplay is fairly typical of a jrpg, a bit bare bones, but responsive. It can be a bit tricky to pick up the timing for dodges/parries, but once you've got that down, combat is enjoyable. You're rarely overwhelmed to the point of frustration and there were times where I wished there was more combat. The one thing that was a bit confusing was the attempt at puzzles or mechanics that were pretty much a one-off. For instance, you're told about sneaking at the beginning of the game, but it's never used after that even though there are a couple of instances where it would seem like it would come in handy, but if you try, it has no bearing on the outcome of the circumstance. You also have to do a dance/rhythm mini-game twice, but then never see it again. The individual characters' mini-games can vary between being too easy, to being rng to the point of not being able to achieve a maximum score even if done perfectly (I'm looking at you Yohan). The mini fetch quests are also random at first until you figure out the layouts, and utilize the save/load states. Not everything is explained, which I'm all for games not hand-holding, but building social stats is a guesswork during dialogue cues, and is vital to ranking up your relationship with characters. I'm glad for the New Game+ which rolls over all earned stats and abilities, (and FYI, it will take multiple playthroughs to max out all abilities) but understandably you do have to still earn each relationship rank again, although all relationship perks/abilities are still usable/unlocked if you earned them in a past playthrough. One minor thing, there's no character customization or alternate outfit choices which narrative-wise is fine, just might be something for the devs to think about for their next game or even a DLC.
Visuals/Audio
The visuals, while not AAA, fit the tone of the game and suited the narratives well. The character models and expressions give a sort of XBox 360 Avatar (not the blue guys) vibe. The 2D animated scenes were really well done and hit a home run each time they were used, whether for exposition, for laughs, intensiveness, or emotional impact. The audio set the mood well, and has a good combat groove to it. While I can't speak for the other languages, as a sound engineer, I believe the English voiceover work was very well done, directed well, and sounded professionally recorded and edited.
Summary
While rough around the edges, for the Developers' first major release, Eternights is a solid, enjoyable game.