As a fan of JRPGs and Visual Novels Eternal Radiance has caught my interest since the very beginning. After seeing the Kickstarter failing to get funding, I’m glad that the developer still decided to not give up this project. Eternal Radiance is a game which focusses on storytelling with its Visual Novel elements while containing gameplay. In a preview demo, I was able to see what the beginning of the game looks like including the first dungeon. This is the same game as Destiny Chronicles and only got a name change.
The demo of Eternal Radiance lasts about 1-3 hours, depending on whether you decide to grind a lot or just rush through the dungeon. I found myself enjoying this short demo so much that the time was passing so fast and I ended up getting surprised that this demo was already over.
Eternal Radiance resolves about Celeste who is traveling to another city to help the people there. She also wants to become a true knight so she has to complete her mission and encounters a lot of different people. First of all, Celeste is indeed a very cute and small girl, but it still annoyed me at times with several people literally looking down on her while thinking she could never become a knight anyway. The visual novel element only took up a short part of the demo and despite a few annoying comments, there are also very cute and adorable girls available in this game. There are already a lot of choices available early in the demo and some of them made me chuckle a few times. Eternal Radiance is a truly humorous and entertaining game.
The gameplay is quite simple and similar to your typical JRPG, you can dodge, attack, block, and etc. There is even a special attack available which gets filled up by defeating enemies. Characters have mana in this game as well to use certain skills and can also attack from a long distance. One feature that I really liked was how killing enemies also let you earn back some HP as it’s sometimes tedious if you have to go through the process of reentering a dungeon or have to level up in order to get your HP back. There was also side-quests available to accept that I was able to complete alongside the main mission.
The artwork in Eternal Radiance and even the dungeon is very well made. However, I wish there was a variety of different enemies as all of them are only trolls. The game does say that the problem with the woods is that it’s overflowing of the trolls, but I would have still liked a few different enemy designs. While exploring the dungeons, there are items you can find scattered throughout the map that can help you in tough situations. Characters can also be equipped with the typical gear like armor, weapon or rings, which are given as insentives for completing quests.
As I mentioned above, the demo of Eternal Radiance might feel pretty grindy as well, but luckily you are immortal in the beta so you can just rush through the dungeon to be able to get a feeling for the story and gameplay without having to spend a lot of time leveling up. Although I have to complain that there is no save feature so it’s only possible to finish this game in one sitting. This could get very frustrating especially if you decide to get a bit more into the grind.
In the end, Eternal Radiance was a very enjoyable experience for me and I am looking forward to the full game which will get released late 2019. I will definitely check out this game once it gets released and I am hoping to be able to find more out about Celeste. You can check out the game and the demo on the Kickstarter page.
