Eternights review

With humanity on the precipice of extinction, the time is right for romance.

Eternights doesn’t just invite comparison. No, the inaugural effort from Seattle-based Studio Sai begs to be likened to the Persona series. Notably, there’s the same gradual sense of apprehension every time the in-game calendar inches toward your next deadline. Similarly, when you’re not navigating through the game’s meandering dungeons and confronting nightmarish creatures, you’re attempting to build rapport with your acquaintances. Yes, just like Atlus’ celebrated franchise, comradery is the catalyst for success.

But despite all the outward similarities, Eternights is no mere clone. It’s much more akin to an original song that utilizes a sample from a well-known hit, transforming the work into something remarkably different. The influence is intentionally obvious, offering a few points of reference before the game ventures into bold, new directions.

Doing the Deed Before We’re All Done In

Take the relationship between Eternights’ nameable protagonist and his long-time friend Chani. Whereas Atlus’ lead characters are all relatively chaste, Eternights’ two lads act like a couple of actual high school-age horndogs. Chani is simultaneously preoccupied with sex and yet undoubtedly under-experienced. Prodding you into signing up for the latest dating app, he’s the ultimate wingman, habitually supportive when responding to your dialog choices.

Likewise, interactions between you and the game’s other romanceable characters feel organic. Sure, Eternights’ companions are rooted in trope, with a cast built around familiar archetypes like an eccentric scientist, a pop idol, a rather timid athlete, and a peculiar, world-weary young male. But the way each of their backstories and personalities is progressively revealed makes interactions remarkably fulfilling. And while the game doesn’t nail every arc, most of the depictions of bonding are a cut above Eternight’s contemporaries. Everyone here understands that the end of the world might be imminent, so making one last connection is going out on a high note.

Anime, American-Style

But the broader narrative is where Eternights doesn’t quite live up to its potential. The plot kicks off when a profit-hungry pharmaceutical firm puts out an untested anti-aging drug, which inadvertently turns most of the world’s population into zombie-like monsters. Given our current climate where corporations are rushing headfirst into everything from artificial intelligence, genetic manipulation, to wanton ecological degradation, Eternights could have ventured in a multitude of salient directions.

But oddly, it eschews blatant societal critique, for supernatural entities fighting over machines that sustain our sense of reality. Alas, those who prefer the escapism of anime over the news will be amused, especially since the game’s final moments provide the kind of closure a final episode can bring. And while the lack of real-world consequence might be faulted, it’s difficult to stay mad at a story that regularly offers good-looking, animated cutscenes. Eternights is the work of a solitary developer, but it habitually looks like the work of an entire team.

Armed and Dangerous

Of course, that means Eternights is filled with some wonderfully incredulous events. In the opening moments, the protagonist’s arm is severed. But a character he met via a dating app summons a replacement that can take the form of a sword. Smartly, this narrative conceit becomes the basis for the game’s lively fights. Sure, it’s no match for dedicated action titles like Scarlet Nexus or even some of the Tales titles. But it is polished and thoroughly entertaining.

You head into battle with a light and heavy attack, an invaluable dodge, and a powerful assault that can be initiated when an on-screen indicator appears. Pleasingly, your companions offer some assistance as well, flaunting an arsenal that develops alongside your relationships with them. You quickly learn that button mashing won’t get you far, even on the easiest of Eternights’ trio of difficulty settings.

Instead, success involves waiting for your foes to attack. Parry with precise timing and your adversaries will slow to a crawl, allowing you to dish out a deadly combo. Although boss fights can feel like battles of attrition, combat is persistently responsive, even on lower-spec hardware like the Steam Deck. Studio Sai understands that an endless cycle of dungeon exploration and companion conversation can grow tedious. Smartly, there are several mini-games that help to break things up, providing two types of dividends: relationship-related skills and aptitudes for the main character. And yes, you’ll even stumble across a few puzzles across your trek. Fortunately, they’re all simple so they won’t impede the sense of progression.

Conclusion

When it comes to transgressions, Eternights makes surprisingly few. While the game dungeons tend to be rather linear, there were a few times I got disoriented by an enemy encounter and had to regain my bearings. Undoubtedly, some kind of mini-map would have been useful here, but the game forgoes any navigational assistance. And while most of the game is wonderfully stylized, exploiting a palette of rich reds, purples, and blues. But for some reason, the in-game calendar isn’t as eye-catching and animated far too sluggishly.

However, it’s easy to overlook these minor blemishes when you’re chatting it up with your waifu or husband of choice. Between Eternights entertaining conversations, its involving combat system, as well as aesthetics and performance that belie the size of the development team, this is one of the best indie surprises of the year. Instead of dropping sixty or seventy dollars on the latest output by a corporate publisher, consider buying Eternights instead. It’s less than half the price and probably twice as enjoyable.

Eternights was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.