Eternal Radiance

A wonderful game, part action RPG, part visual novel, that was almost ruined by one of the worst final boss fights I've ever had the misfortune to experience. Almost, but not quite.

Eternal Radiance is the story of Celeste, squire of The Ashen Order, and her companions Ruby the mage and Valana the mercenary archer. The story is told in visual novel style sequences, and the actual gameplay consists of action combat sequences in large open 'dungeons'.

The artwork is mostly very nice (some of the side characters and a few miscellaneous scenes are clearly not of the same quality), the story is simple but fun, the characters are likeable and the dialogue is very well written and often genuinely funny. It's not the longest game, although you could say it doesn't overstay its' welcome.

Other than the aforementioned final boss, which I won't go into too much detail on here to avoid spoilers, I didn't have any major issues with the game. It looks nice, plays nicely and runs well. I would definitely recommend it, especially for the price, and double especially if you get it on sale.

Came for some action RPG, stayed for pantsus.

It's a nice crowdfunded game, part action part visual novel. Combat is good, albeit a tad basic. The enchantment system is a bit of a drag though. Story is short and sweet.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 15% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☑ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☑ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☑ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

The game becomes unbearably hard and unfair not because the bosses have difficult paterns, but because:
1. Your AI partners are very stupid. They can't dodge or deal damage as fast as you can. They have no positioning at all.
2. You take damage even if you are stunned. And yes, you can't roll to the other side to dodge a projectile - you'll get it, don't worry about it
3. Bosses in chapters 4-6 have the wildest amount of XP compared to the first three chapters

I've completed the game, but it's hard to recommend it

Great bite-sized Action RPG with Visual Novel story-telling. Enjoy cute knight-girl going on an adventure

Combat is a bit basic but does its job, could do with a couple more spells/skills. Some of the boss arenas could've been a bit smaller and the relics could've been changed to permanent small upgrade buffs instead of lesser enchanting.
Music and visuals are pretty nice, environments are varied enough. Fun to explore and be encouraged to be an exploring busy-body.

Overall solid game that does what it says on the tin.

Quite a good hidden gem indie anime game

🟢 Visual novel style story with 3D combat
🟢 Beautiful artstyle and character design
🟢 Decent story. It's more on the chill side, lacks indepth plots
🟢 Equipment stats can be deeply customized
🟢 The NPCs and character dialogues were pretty good
🟢 Great soundtracks

🔴 Game does not have V-Sync and forcing it through driver does not work. There's inbuilt FPS limiter but it has terrible frame pacing
🔴 Navigating the 3D environment can be laggy/stuttery occasionally
🔴 Combat becomes quite stale after level 15, as you don't learn any new abilities
🔴 Short game with no replayability value
🔴 No voiceovers (I know it's an indie game, but it could've been so much better with it)

Tales of Akleim on a small indie budget, and I mean that in the most wholesome and loving way possible

A wonderful and short action RPG packed with VN elements.
The story moves at a steady pace, the interplay of the characters in the main party is delightful and the open are ARPG combat is fast paced, albeit somewhat floaty and unpolished

Like with some other reviewers, I can say the biggest problem with this game is a strength - theres just such a criminally small amount of it.
As a player, I would love to have more party skits, more pointless story tangents, more character interactions, more side quests, more skills, more team attacks, just more of everything, to the tune of a traditional Tales 100hr RPG experience
If you never played a Tales series action RPG game before and dont really want to commit to the price or the 100+ hour experience, this game is a pretty good bite-sized alternative to try out

I hope to see more in this unverse from this developer in the future

I think the game's top merits are its art and music.
The story is simple but still has enough twists for me to get invested.
Combat and the other systems such as enchanting are fun, but needs more polish.
The game's weakest point is probably the bland environments and the lack of monster variety. I truly believe this game would shine if these were addressed in a future endeavor.

Overall, I truly enjoyed the game despite its flaws.

I did purchase this product when it was on sale, and would recommend it for others.
Its not a lengthy game, i beat it in 15 hours and finished almost every subquest as well, I played on normal and honestly i think hard might have been beyond my skills to win.
I would have liked a short tutorial for the dash attack as i barely got it to work most times and was actually uncertain what i was doing that properly triggered it.
Being able to switch and control the other characters would have been a nice option as well, as i am more the ranged attacker type then tank.
But all in all, enjoyed the time i spent on the game.

Really fun and cute RPG. The characters are really well written and have extremely good chemistry with each other leading to some wonderful moments and character interactions.
The writing hits a really nice balance with serious moments feeling tense and serious but still allowing for a lot of levity and fun in between.
Overall a really good visual novel with some fun and rather in-depth combat.
Casual playthrough took me a bit over 15 hours.
Really looking forward to seeing what else this developer decides to make!

This is a slowed paced game, with simple moves for fighting as well as skill tree. Sometimes I need a break from stressful complex games, this fits the bill, Good story and cute to boot, with all kinds of npcs she meets on her journey.

I would call it a pretty basic RPG in the anime-style. There are a few innovative I enjoyed, like speed roll (which I preferred to countering, 100% of the time). The skill tree system is pretty basic, and unfortunately, there are no skill trees for the other party members (for now, at least).

Regarding the AI, most of the time, they would do their job. But like in most games I've seen, the AI is not smart enough to heal you outside of battle mode and they tend to die pretty easily if you let stronger enemies get close to them. Well maybe things are skewed a bit, because for most of the time, I didn't utilize the upgrade/enchantment system fully.

I don't know if I missed it, but I didn't realize the full capabilities of the enchantment system from the tutorial. And some things are kinda like "Where do I go now to apply this scroll?". Anyways, I found out that you can upgrade the level of the scrolls by feeding them different scrolls and add effects with relics, which can themselves gain added effects from other relics. After fully enchanting every ring, armor and weapon this way, the normal mobs became really easy (though I don't know if you would have the money for that in the earlier parts of the game). I like the capabilities, although it's a bit complex and possibly not that well-explained (although, as I said, I may have missed it).

The difference between this RPG and most other RPGs I've played is that the main party is all girls, so this makes for some interesting interactions. Personally, I liked the characters, and they each had their own personality with facets.

The mysteries of the story were what kept me playing, and there is definitely a lot of reveals that were interesting, so I enjoyed the story.

There were some bugs that I encountered, like the "extra dialogue" with the X button not working on Xbox-Controller, or the quest dialogues for a quest resetting themselves over time (don't know if that one was a bug or intended though). Overall very good.

It was a great game. I needed something to lift my spirit. This was the story that managed it. Read in the reviews that control is clunky, it does require some getting used to. But I didn't feel it was hard to accomplish.

I always wanted to play more hack n slash games with a level up system and simple enchantments, and this game was great enough to keep me occupied. The world is one giant island with different regions you can travel around, but for the towns, you have a menu to select which NPC to speak to, or if you want to shop instead. Thankfully, this saves alot of time from exploring a town to find an NPC, but be warned that there is ALOT of talking in the game. You can only control the main character, Celeste, no one else.

Gameplay:
You can mash the attack button and dodge immediately afterward, which is always a plus. I'm not a fan of games that have a half second delay between one action to another. The mobs can be interrupted if you attack them while they cast a spell, but the same goes against you. Even in some boss fights, I still get injured while I'm knocked down and the boss keeps attacking me, causing me to get game over. You can enchant your 2 rings, armor and weapon, so it'll make fighting much easier.

Story:
To be honest, I skipped most of the dialogue because I wanted the game for the action, not really the story, but I was able to tell what happened with the still pictures in the dialogue windows.

Graphics:
Awesome graphics, but it feels like a playstation 2 game, with the mob designs and world structure. Plus the characters have an anime appearance to them, so I find that style very comforting to my taste.

Music:
Pleasant music, really relaxing, and I wish I could get the soundtrack. My favorite song is played in the snow area, although it sounds sad.

Overall Score: 4/5
Great gameplay, but can be finished in 13 hours game time, plus 3-4 hours of deaths to some boss fights before training. I finished the game at lv45, but struggled with the final boss fight.

Should have a visual novel tag
I guess the name of the Dev should've given it away, but I thought there would be reasonable amounts of conversation in between gameplay and not almost an hour of worldbuilding or whatever before you even get to any gameplay.
I know there are people who are into this, but I got mislead by how the game was presented.

I love it

This is an absolutely fantastic game--I'm just sad that it's over. That said, it ended up being longer than I expected and, in general, more fleshed out and polished than I was expecting. It certainly isn't without its flaws, but it was really fun

Story, Writing, and Characters

Pros:
-Celeste is a well-realized protagonist who isn't as archetypal as she seems at first glance
-The banter and overall dynamic between Celeste and Valana is great
-Huge amounts of optional dialogue with largely well-written side characters
-Unexpectedly interesting lore
-A story that isn't mind-blowing, but certainly isn't boring either

Cons:
-Ruby, to me personally, is the weakest writing-wise of the main trio
-More backtracking than is probably necessary
-Overall I'd say that the side characters are good, but there are definitely some duds

Visuals

Pros:
-The visual novel aspects of the game are absolutely gorgeous
-Prior to buying the game I was turned off by the gameplay graphics, but they grew on me

Cons:
-While they did grow on me, for some people, the low-end gameplay graphics may be a downside
-The UI is not very pretty and there is no artwork associated with items or gear
-Adding on to the previous point, gear has no visual effect on your character. I did not really mind this, however

Gameplay

Pros:
-Far more fun than I was expecting
-Controls feel good (I played with a controller, which I recommend)
-Itemization (enchanting in particular) is actually quite in-depth
-Celeste's talent tree is a really nice form of progression (points can be reset later on with a potion)

Cons:
-While Celeste's talent tree is great, she is the only one that has one. This was disappointing
-Your AI companions are dumb as rocks (They are still useful, though. Particularly the combo skills)
-Enemy variety is pretty low
-Bosses never respawn and they don't offer much reward
-I found the guard mechanic to be finicky and not worth using. Dodging hits entirely is far better
-Level design is decent enough overall, but the desert is absolutely awful
-Related to the last point, a more informative map would be nice (the entire desert zone is just one big empty square on the map)

Overall, gripes aside, I was incredibly pleased with this game and enjoyed it immensely. Please, please, please give it a try if you have any interest at all in this sort of game!

If you are not currently too picky about what you play, "Eternal Radiance" can be a great choice: it is a good game overall. So, what is the problem? Here is the list:

• Unfortunately, you will spend most of your time in battles, and battle mechanics are flawed.
  The fights feel a little sluggish and, which is more important, always play the same, there is literally no reason to change the chosen style or adapt in any way. The skills look interesting at first, but after a few level ups it is easy to see that, except for the +% damage, they do not affect the encounters at all. For example, the main character has a "Shield" action that creates a damage absorbing bubble, and a separate skill that makes this bubble burst when it breaks. Looks cool, right? But the AoE of the skill is so weak that it makes zero difference. Also "Eternal Radiance" is one of the games that have the concepts of dodge invulnerability and perfect guards, which makes any damage absorbing inessential, because the player simply learns to not take any hits.
  
• The levels are trying to be immersive, but fail.
  The maps are, IMHO, created with some love and they are definitely not bland, but at the end of the day the corridors are still corridors with not enough decorations to liven them up. I liked the choice of background music though.
  
[*] Visual novel parts are cute, but a lot of the interactions are there only to mask the fetch quests behind them.
It works a few times, but after an hour or two I started to question the heroine's motivation to help everyone with any task, be it the monster extermination, placing a probe in a cave, or looking for a long-lost doll in the desert.

It is a pity, but the game became a chore to play for me.

A really fun RPG that does not require a long-term commitment to finishing the story, quests, and achievements. It's not a turn-based battle system either (more like KH-style). The main cast is adorable and the story seems to focus more on platonic relationships than forced romantic ones (it's refreshing, honestly - but you could argue there are opportunities for pairings). The BGM is surprisingly good and not irritating. You can certainly play through this more than once, but you can get all achievements in one go.

Things I Noticed:
-I really would recommend playing with a controller if possible - I stumbled through the final 2 or 3 chapters in one day and the final chapter leaves you pondering the possibilities of carpal tunnel setting in if you play mouse/keyboard. You could also be smart and pace yourself (not sure how likely that is for most of us).
-A few moments of rage are expected when hoards of enemies surround you and prevent efficient magic usage to heal.
-Normal and hard mode are actually challenging.
-Most "grinding" for levels occurred while exploring required maps, so I didn't feel like leveling up was a chore (on normal difficulty).
-I was not a huge fan of the lock-on feature other than targeting long distance enemies for spells. I could just be terrible with coordination on my keyboard however.
-Dodge roll! <3

Solid hack and slash RPG. It is exactly as long as it needs to be, around 10 hours. The abilities are few and the story is so boring they developed a fast forward capability for players to skip through it. That aside, leveling is quick and allocating points to the skill tree has direct impact on combat. Speaking of combat, not as tight as it's peers like Mana or Ni No Kuni (whatever it's called) but still fun and engaging. Some of the monsters are pretty cool and some of them are tomatoes. The youths would call the entire experience cozy. 3/5: fans of the genre will dig it.

It is a very good text-type RPG with action elements thrown! The combination works really well! As for the story, I love its simplicity; that is, most text-type RPGs include heavy and rough terminology, but Eternal Radiance is light. You can sit back and enjoy the conversations. Most side quests are give me that, do this and that, tell me a story, find the treasure and so on!

I fell in love with the music! Especially when you reach the Zebi Desert!

The action is quite simple; there are weapons, shields, accessories, enchanting and synthesising!

All in all, it is a very good RPG and enjoyable!

An absolutely charming anime action-RPG with a very whimsical art style to it. A wonderful and pleasant break from the doom and gloom of 2020, I can scarcely imagine anything in the store right now that's as lighthearted as this. It's Mister Rogers' Neighborhood level wholesome.

Anyway, that has to be one of the hottest upskirt shots I've seen in years.

Wraithseeker is very quick to ask for input regarding aspects to improve with his game, he is quick to address and fix issues as they arise, and he's constantly involved with his players both on the main discord and on steam. All the signs point towards this game being a really good finished piece. I am enjoying the game as it is already, and I think its future is very bright.

Eternal Radiance

After sitting in my wishlist for what already feels like ages, and it's postponed initial release date end of last year, Eternal Radiance now finally makes it debut in Early Access. So, what is this game I have been waiting for for so long?

Overview
Eternal Radiance is a RPG in a rather cute anime style - though I'm pretty sure you already guessed as much.
And, as to be expected at this price, I honestly don't know how to describe the game itself other than "cute". It's an Indie game, obviously, so you can't expect an AAA, cutscene filled masterpiece but Eternal Radiance does a good job for what it is and what it wants to be, giving you a fun time for whenever you got to kill a few hours.

Gameplay
The game consists of two main elements, story and gameplay, with - depending on your playstyle - either of them taking up around half of your actual gametime.
The story is told in the good old Visual Novel style, with a handfull of really nice CGs thrown in here and there. It's not voiced or animated but that doesn't matter. It's overall funny and sometimes rather silly but enjoyable nontheless. And don't forget it's cute.
The gameplay consists of area-seperated Open World roaming with real time fights in between, compareable to titles like "Sword Art Online - Lost Song".
You can use melee attacks, ranged magic and skills of either category both on the ground and in the air, and with features like blocking, parrying and time sensitive dodging the combat offers enough variety to not get boring too early. The enemies encountered around also feature a variety of different attack patterns, and while it sometimes seems too easy, you can easily be overwhelmed by a group when not careful.

While progressing through the story you gain two AI allies which help you fight in a way that seems rather focusing on not outdoing the player than actually helping. Every character's equipment can be changed and enhanced through "enchanting" - applying addional stat buffs to your items.
The AI can go down, but will be revived (without any real health) after you win the current fight, or you use an item to so do in midst of a boss battle.

The areas are large enough to give you some space to explore and find the loot spots and (sometimes rather hidden) treasure chests throughout.

With a perk tree you can furthermore upgrade Celeste's - the protagonist - skills, active and passive when leveling up.

Technical stuff
The game's graphic is ok. As mentioned you can't expect some high quality AAA stuff but it's certainly more then your usual serving of Unity default assets. The areas are rather empty, but what is there looks good.
Atleast for me there were one or two performance hiccups (i.e. low FPS when playing on very high) which shouldn't be there considering how smooth way more intense games play out, but I'm sure this will improve with time. It's Indie Early Access after all.

The controls work smooth enough for both PC (with native mouse support, though no options to change mouse button actions) [with a few changes to the default keybindings] and controller, just for convenience sake am I recommending playing with a controller.
But the vertical camera speed on controller (which doesn't seem to be affected by the settings) feels too high, and the timeframe to chain melee attacks is pretty short.

Conclusion
Eternal Radiance is a nice little game for when you are bored. As an Indie game, and especially with the amount of "Early Access" content right now, you can expect only a few hours of gametime, though it's worth its price.
Also, over the course of the coming year - when the game is supposed to leave EA - there can be lots of changes to look forward to.
I for one am enjoying the game enough to come back every now and then to check on its progress, and will update this review accordingly. And of course am I going to finish its current content in the next time.

Honestly I wasn't expecting much when I went into this game. And actually I wouldn't say that I got a masterpiece or something like that, but I was pleasantly surprised.
You get some nice visual novel topped with some action, a cute female protagonist and overall a "comfy" experience.
It reminds me somewhat of that feeling you get when playing an Atelier game, nothing grandiose, no overarching plots, just cute girls doing their stuff.
So, completely recommended for those who are into that type of SoL games. If the whole game was in 3D it'd be even better.
PS. You're able to see the MC's pantsu.

Edited to add some more info on the game.

After finishing the 3 available chapters, I didn't find any problems while running the game, it runs pretty well, no crashes, not detectable frame dips, etc.
Still, I believe there's things that can be improved.
For example, not being able to rebind the actions to your preferred keys. We could also do with shortcuts to use consumables in real time, instead of having to press a key and pause the game.
Also, I know they tried to fix this making the mana orbs drop a bit more frecuently, but it's still annoying how much you're limited to use your abilities, especially in the case of your party. They both tend to use their abilities as soon as a battle starts making them unable to use abilities for the rest of the battle, unless you pause the game and refill their mana. I hope the dev can work on this in the future.
The variety of monsters/mobs it's really not that good, most of them are just recolors of the same monster, like that slime-looking. More varied designs would be welcomed.
The world, and I mean the explorable world feels deserted/sterile and fighting the enemies gets old pretty fast. Maybe adding some other mechanics, like being able to craft your own equipment which requires farming specific materials, dunno, something to make you want to go to the open fields and farm those monsters, a dungeon maybe.

Anyway, like I stated before, overall you get a "comfy" experience and by the time you finish chapter 3 you'll be wanting more, Celeste it's very likable and will grow on you the same way she starts growing from her autistic personality at the beginning, her dynamic with the other two feels good too.
I hope we don't have to wait too long for the next chapter/s.