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 type of deal with improvisational fight as Eternal Strands. In its greatest moments, it feels fairly dang particular – like whenever you’re holding onto a towering titan for expensive 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 a number of extra hits in earlier than having to dramatically leap away. Unfortunately, that scrumptious middle is sandwiched between continuously janky physics that always result in confounding and punishing deaths, a weird climate system, and repetitive fight towards smaller enemies that doesn’t evolve in a considerable sufficient solution to justify the roughly 30 hours it took me to complete Eternal Strands. The finish result’s an motion RPG with excessive peaks and low valleys, however these valleys are nonetheless effectively value braving to see the spectacular heights it reaches.
Eternal Strands’ world is effectively developed and wealthy with historical past and lore, however 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 generally known as the Surge ravaged the land a few years in the past. At the outset, Brynn and her fellow Weavers handle to interrupt by way of a magical barrier generally known 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 an easy expedition into the unknown as Brynn and firm examine what occurred to The Enclave, what prompted the Surge, and why The Veil was established within the first place. The largest situation with this story is its pacing. It is dreadfully sluggish, with just about no main occasions or revelations occurring till roughly the midway level. Until then, it’s simply a number 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 by way of sidequests which are additionally very sluggish to develop.
Brynn herself is likable sufficient, but additionally comes throughout as being a bit too excellent throughout conversations. She at all times appears to have the correct solutions or is aware of the entire proper issues to say, and it results in a conflictless dynamic between her and her buddies that simply feels type of boring.
Instead, 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 among your predominant talents creates a stream of ice that can be utilized to freeze enemies in place. Most video games with an analogous ice energy would most likely name it a day there, however in Eternal Strands, there’s thermodynamics at play as effectively. That means you may also use an ice wall to place out fires, or create a path of ice that cools you down and prevents you from taking warmth injury, or chill a bit 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 will 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 had been doing to allow them to pull their limb out of the ice, providing you with time to climb up and make your solution to one among their weak factors.
Your different central energy is telekinesis, which is way 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. As an instance, one enemy sort has a magic defend that may suck up ice and hearth, making your elemental spells ineffective – that’s, till you deliberately permit 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 whenever you’re battling towards one among Eternal Strands’ “Great Foes.” These are roaming boss battles that take equal quantities of inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus and the Horizon collection. Like Shadow of the Colossus, you’re capable of freely scale these enemies as you attempt to make your method towards particular weak spots whereas they do every little thing they will to cease you. They’ll shake wildly, forcing you to tighten your grip to keep away from shedding your whole stamina; they’ll forged spells; and so they’ll even attain over and pluck you proper off when you’re not on the transfer.
These fights are nice partially as a result of there are such a lot of methods to method them. You may 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 setting 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 checklist goes on and on. But what’s actually cool is that each Great Foe has a kind of puzzle tied to them, the place when you combat them in a really particular method, you’ll expose the locus of their energy, which you’ll be able to then climb to and harvest to improve the ability related to that combat. Or you possibly can 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 choice 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 one of the best a part of Eternal Strands, however a minimum of there’s a respectable selection within the 9 Great Foes which are 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. Unfortunately, primary fight towards the smaller enemy varieties between them doesn’t fare fairly as effectively. It’s positive, but additionally very odd. There are solely two melee weapon varieties (both a sword and defend or a two-handed sword), you by no means be taught any new assaults apart from those which are tied to new weapons which are 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 wherever close to the identical flexibility and creativity.
For the primary 10 or so hours of Eternal Strands, every little thing was nice. Combat and exploration stayed recent because of a gentle tempo of recent enemies, places, weapons, bosses, and powers – regardless that not one of the later powers ever got here near matching the enjoyable or utility of the 2 beginning choices I discussed. Eventually, although, that tempo slows method down as you’re usually despatched again to earlier zones to combat principally the identical enemies and journey to the identical places, normally simply to choose up a observe 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 method exploration and fight, however nearly 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 injury; 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 comparable, however the massive distinction is that these video games talk how sizzling/chilly you might be and the way a lot resistance you really have to keep away from taking injury. Eternal Strands makes it a guessing recreation, leaving me uncertain 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 recreation, two within the center, and three by the tip.
As a outcome, I dreaded having to finish a predominant quest throughout a climate occasion. Flash freezes had been the worst, however droughts aren’t way more enjoyable on account of ice bridges melting extraordinarily shortly after putting them, making navigating every degree a ache. And then 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 on account of their tendency to throw you into these demise clouds.
Fortunately, 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 situations. Like the aforementioned Zelda video games, there’s an ideal freedom in exploration – you possibly can climb any floor, and like most survival video games, just about every little thing may be damaged down for crafting supplies, permitting you to actually carve your personal path by way of 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 when you actually wish 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 components and blueprints for brand new gear. The blueprints are nice, don’t get me unsuitable, particularly as a result of these items of drugs include distinctive perks for the armor components and particular talents for the weapons, however I might have liked to search out some upgrades that elevated my well being, stamina, or actually something.
Instead, all of that development is tied to your gear, which you’ll be able to craft again at base camp utilizing the crafting supplies you discover by defeating enemies, opening chests, and busting up items of the setting. 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 completely different supplies to barely alter the stat bonuses and alter what it is advisable to improve them additional.
If that sounds convoluted, it’s, and I do want this method had been less complicated, however there are a minimum of a number of benefits to the way in which it’s designed. For one, gear by no means actually turns into outdated. Even the beginning armor may be helpful all through the entire recreation because of its comparatively excessive and balanced base stats, which may be elevated by reforging it with higher crafting supplies, after which upgraded much more from there. But when you’re planning on going up towards a big boss that you just’ll possible be climbing on, you would possibly wish to increase your stamina, so you possibly can equip an armor set that offers you extra max stamina as a substitute. 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 solution to save completely different loadouts. You must individually change each piece of armor each time.
Those completely different armor choices are a minimum of good to have a look at, and typically, Eternal Strands is sort of pleasing on the eyes and ears. The artwork model could 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 without delay (and there have been tons), 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 correct notes, particularly throughout the Great Foe battles, enhancing the motion and making these bigger than life fights really feel appropriately epic.
