Eastward suffers from one of my biggest problems with indie developers nowdays: Make the game pretty, forget to make it fun.
But it also goes an extra mile by trying to be something that truly didnt need to: Earthbound
And also failing doing it.
Ignoring the obvious praise of the art direction of this game (seriously is real good) the game is basically a slog to play. According to the devs its 30 hours long (it took me 24 hours with like 3 being on a mini game that is more fun than the game itself) which you would mostly spend talking with NPCs, putting bombs to solve easy puzzles and talking to more NPCs for the first 10 hours of the game.
Then after it you would unlock the other mechanic of the game which would add another button to your current putting bomb button. Repeat this for another 10 hours.
While doing this you also get to read the story which, on a basic level, it has a lot of potential with an interesting setting and lore behind but that it crashes by the awful pacing and obvious lack of direction cause at the end of the day, the devs didnt know what to do with their characters.
There are, in my opinion, 6 prominent characters in this game, that you get to know during it just so at the end most of them end up doing nothing. It's a great disrepect for probably one of the 3 interesting aspects of the game.
Speaking of characters, this game could theorically have a rock or a box as the main character and i dont think it would change anything. So much shit happening in this world and in front of his eyes and he doesn't react or act to almost anything. It also doesn't help that his sprite makes him look like the most boring and uninterested person ever.
Then, after 20 hours of slog, you reach the final 2 chapters, which are filled with interesting concepts not only story wise but gameplay wise and you are wondering why wasn't the game cut 10 hours so you could just play this sections earlier.
And at the end of the day, thats the real curprit i mentioned earlier: this game is too big. Too big of a story that wasn't developed well enough. Too big of a game that was basically empty from mechanics up to the last 2 hours.
And too big of a disappointment, cause when you really think about the good parts, you can only think what this game could have been if it wasn't trying to be what it isnt.
But it also goes an extra mile by trying to be something that truly didnt need to: Earthbound
And also failing doing it.
Ignoring the obvious praise of the art direction of this game (seriously is real good) the game is basically a slog to play. According to the devs its 30 hours long (it took me 24 hours with like 3 being on a mini game that is more fun than the game itself) which you would mostly spend talking with NPCs, putting bombs to solve easy puzzles and talking to more NPCs for the first 10 hours of the game.
Then after it you would unlock the other mechanic of the game which would add another button to your current putting bomb button. Repeat this for another 10 hours.
While doing this you also get to read the story which, on a basic level, it has a lot of potential with an interesting setting and lore behind but that it crashes by the awful pacing and obvious lack of direction cause at the end of the day, the devs didnt know what to do with their characters.
There are, in my opinion, 6 prominent characters in this game, that you get to know during it just so at the end most of them end up doing nothing. It's a great disrepect for probably one of the 3 interesting aspects of the game.
Speaking of characters, this game could theorically have a rock or a box as the main character and i dont think it would change anything. So much shit happening in this world and in front of his eyes and he doesn't react or act to almost anything. It also doesn't help that his sprite makes him look like the most boring and uninterested person ever.
Then, after 20 hours of slog, you reach the final 2 chapters, which are filled with interesting concepts not only story wise but gameplay wise and you are wondering why wasn't the game cut 10 hours so you could just play this sections earlier.
And at the end of the day, thats the real curprit i mentioned earlier: this game is too big. Too big of a story that wasn't developed well enough. Too big of a game that was basically empty from mechanics up to the last 2 hours.
And too big of a disappointment, cause when you really think about the good parts, you can only think what this game could have been if it wasn't trying to be what it isnt.