We are approaching the end of February! It is finally a little warmer here in the UK, so I no longer need to dress up like a mediocre Eskimo when I leave the house. Many games are coming out, and my game-loving brain feels like a little puppy running around a room, all excited. That is fine, and I prefer happiness to being miserable!
Eternal Strands caught my eye even before its release. It is a debut title by Yellow Brick Games and set out to be a solid AA title without all the fluff and bloat that seems to plague many modern AAA titles in recent years. It launched with a lot of fanfare and has been well received. You can imagine my excitement when the developers accepted my review request: big thanks to them for getting back to me. It’s always a nightmare to respond to thousands of requests when a big game launches, so I always take the time to appreciate them.
I have played Eternal Strands for a few hours and am pretty impressed by what Yellow Brick Games has put together! It might not win any prizes for originality, and I wish several things were better, but this is a well-put-together experience for the money. There are some creative ways in which magic affects the environment.
In a world known as the Enclave, a team of explorers is led by Brynn, a young Weaver who is determined to recover her people’s lost home. The game takes on the usual action-adventure model, with a hub camp players return to after expeditions to rest, chat with the group of diverse and enjoyable characters, and upgrade resources before setting off on more expeditions. It is a solid gameplay loop, and I’ve enjoyed the characters and how they interact with each other so far. It is focused more on positivity and the power of friendship, and it works well enough. While the narrative has some pretty dark aspects, such as nearly getting melted by a gigantic dragon, the dialogue put me at ease with its charming nature.
Exploring the Enclave in Eternal Strands is a delight. While the game is more streamlined than many open-world games, the diverse biomes are a joy to navigate. The inclusion of environmental puzzles that seamlessly integrate the physics-based magic system into the gameplay flow adds an extra layer of enjoyment. The world is teeming with dangerous creatures to fight, and mastering Brynn’s stamina levels is a satisfying challenge.
Your standard weapons are a bow and sword, but there are blueprints to find that can be crafted into more powerful weapons. Eternal Strands isn’t a game where you can spam attacks and expect the enemies to roll over and die, even in Easy mode. You must dodge attacks and parry with the shield, and your stamina runs out fast. I’ve lost count of how many times I had to guzzle down a potion because I got mauled by wolves due to not managing my stamina correctly. You think I would learn better!
The magic system is what sets Eternal Strands apart from most games. While you unlock more spells throughout the game, your two base spells manipulate objects and conjure ice. A ton of experimentation is available for players, and even the standard magical powers grant so much diversity in combat. When I needed time to recover from a pack of wolves, I froze them with a wall of ice. When some golden-armored blokes shot arrows at me from a distance, I grabbed rocks with my telekinetic powers and introduced them to my new friend, Rock. Later on, when I got some frost-resistant clothes, I was even creating platforms of ice to cross large chasms. That is scratching the surface of how the magic interacts with the world and gameplay.
All the different combat mechanics came together for my first big boss fight when I had to cut the carapace out of a gigantic, sentient statue. This colossus hit hard and needed his armor broken open to bring its health down, and I had to use everything at my disposal. Freezing his legs in place to slow him down, climbing onto elevated paths to give my ranged attacks an advantage, and hurling rocks at him with my psychic powers were a few of my tactics to win the fight. Climbing onto this giant monster gave me Shadow of the Colossus vibes, and it might be my favorite boss fight in months.
It is the early days, and I have many more Eternal Strands to play, but I like it more than I expected. I have had a couple of bugs with getting stuck on terrain, and I wish we had more animated cutscenes for dialogue instead of static character screens, but these are minor nitpicks. So far, I’m pretty impressed with Eternal Strands, and it is a true breath of fresh air.
