Review - Eternal Strands
"I Chose This Life Years Ago"
Eternal Strands
January 28, 2025 - Yellow Brick Games
Action Adventure - Mike Laidlaw, Frederic St-Laurent
PS5, Xbox Series Consoles, PC
As the warrior Brynn, you join a clan to search for the secrets of a lost civilization. You‘ll use your abilities to manipulate elements and battle large bosses and creatures along the way.
Characters, World, and Presentation
Eternal Strands’ world and characters are best described as full of potential. While I don’t think they use that potential, you can still appreciate what they give us. You’ll look into lost ruins and areas as you discover the secrets of the Enclave, a lost civilization. As you progress, you’ll get help from your clan, which has some interesting characters. For the most part, you can talk with these characters to learn more about them or to use them for upgrades and tools. They’re fairly well-done characters, but they don’t get enough time to shine with character arcs, or if they do have an arc, it’s solved pretty quickly. Brynn isn’t a bad protagonist, but I wouldn’t say she will be memorable for me, and the same goes for the villains and enemies. I will say that the cast is doing hard work, and everyone is giving it their all voicing these characters. While they lack memorability, the performances are excellent.
The game's world looks cool, and I like the painting-color art style, which works well with the world and character designs. There’s some rich lore here, and you can stop and read all of it, but since it’s collected, it can feel like a lot if you want to understand the world better. Areas in the games vary, and you must pay attention to temperatures and elements as they can affect your traversal. Each area you visit is different enough not to feel the same when exploring, even with some formulaic elements.
Gameplay, Design, and Sound
The game is simple when it comes to weapons combat, with lots of mashing to hack and slash or use bows. There is some weapon variety, but primarily elemental, and upgrading them is done well. You’ll fight various constructs, creatures, and colossal enemies as you look to complete your tasks. You can use elements to attack your enemies or help when traversing specific areas. You can use fire or ice or manipulate objects. This was the part of the combat that was easily the most fun.
The best part of the game overall is the battles with the huge bosses and creatures you’ll deal with. There’s a Breath of the Wild and Shadow of the Colossus feeling during these fights, which require climbing these enemies and hacking away at armor or weak points. Whenever I found myself in these encounters, I had the most fun. You can also use climbing mechanics to explore the world, which reminds me of the modern open-world Zelda titles. Plus, sometimes they switch it up on what you must do to defeat them.
The sound design and direction are solid. Even though this is an indie game, you can see the touch of some of the industry veterans involved. I appreciated the pacing, and it was nice to go to separate open areas instead of one giant world. The music and score are also solid, but I wouldn’t say memorable. However, they do the job of giving the world personality as you walk around.
Negatives?
My main negative is more subjective: the game feels “floaty” to me. Many indies and small-budget games tend to have this feeling when controlling your character or hitting stuff in the game, and unfortunately, this one has it. It doesn’t kill the experience, but I tended to notice it a little more than not. Another negative is that the game tends to play things safe, as some character arcs feel rushed, the weapon’s combat is simple, and everything feels like it’s just there. I know that sounds really negative, but I’m trying to say this won’t be a memorable game for me. While the cast tried hard with their performances, I felt the game had a generic feel most of the time.
essential - recommend - OKAY - don’t recommend
Eternal Strands has a lot of potential, but it never meets it. The concept of the world, the combat ideas, and the lore of the world all sound great on paper, but when playing, they aren’t going to set the world on fire. That said, I think there’s still some good stuff here with elemental magic, the huge enemy encounters, and a pretty paint-style art direction. While this game isn’t going to be the most memorable for me, I do think you should try to check it out and see how you feel. If you like new experiences and indie titles, plus you’re a sucker for fantasy - I do think you should give it a chance and see if you like it more than I did. Not a bad game, just not memorable.
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