Legends of Ethernal

Criminally overlooked.

The game is full of platforming scenes where you need to perform ~20 jumps between two save points, while the platforms are crumbling and enemies shoot at you, any mistake cost you a restart. This could be fine, if the controls would be fluid, but this is not the case in this game: I've died 99% of times because the character simply didn't move the way I've wanted him - having jump direction and climbing on the same stick does just that, you need to do a high jump a little to the slide, and you'll either fail to grab the ledge or you simply perform a vertical jump while the previous platform have already fallen apart and you'll fall to your death. You can't look up/down, which is less than ideal in a game full of bottomless pits. The enemies are constantly respawning which is necessary for the skill/pouch/ether system, but killing them is just boring, like the whole combat system. The casual enemies are either annoying fast flying mobs (bats/insects/birds) with low hp, tankier enemies which are kid's play to dodge and shooters which are only there to accidently hit you mid-air while you are above a bottomless pit. The boss fights are typically consists of finding a pattern and …

Many games try to innovate, to add a new twist or even coat of paint over a beloved formula. Others don't. [i]Legends of Ethernal[/i] is a platforming adventure that does nothing new. You jump, you defeat enemies, you collect power-ups, and solve some basic traversal puzzles. There is nothing here you haven't seen before. It does all this well enough. Combat is decent and there are a few fun boss and mini-boss fights. The level design is OK: platforming is not too hard and the traversal is mostly linear. Exploration is rewarded if you take your time. There's no in-game map, which is fine ... unless you leave the game for a while and come back. You probably won't remember where to go. Does anything stand out? Anything at all? Well, I guess the graphic style is especially nice, calling back to the early days of video games with some crisp and artsy flourishes. The music is fine but too repetitive. All in all, I enjoyed my time with this game. But there are countless games in this genre that do pretty much everything better.

Absolute great game, Metroidvania pure and very well done. A+++

The game is absolutely gorgeous, but listen here friends: there are way too many action platformers out there for you to play, and many of them are quite beautiful as well, and so simply "being beautiful" is not enough to excuse the fact that [i]Legends of Ethernal[/i] is simply not a very good game. And while it may be "beautiful" this is hampered by the fact that the game's "beauty" feels very repetitive. The feel of the physics, along with the avatar's silhouette, reminded me a lot of [i]Limbo[/i] in how it played; [i]Limbo[/i] had that distinctive "springiness" to jumping and falling that sort of felt like you were propelling a heavy ragdoll, which can actually feel very satisfying and fluid. Unlike [i]Limbo[/i], however, which exists under a completely despairing and oppressive atmosphere, [i]Ethernal[/i] is bright and whimsical and as a result winds up using this fluidity of play to create a very comforting, relaxing experience, to which this sort of game-feel is well suited. The problem, however, is with how the other elements of the game interfere with this fluidity. Firstly is the combat. Combat in [i]Ethernal[/i] is very stop-start. It feels "static" and makes the game'…

A little too basic, a little too paint-by-number, a little too much repetition in enemies, just too blah to keep me from turning from turning it off due to boredum.