Edge of Eternity finally see's a console launch after being released into Early Access on Steam back in 2018 and it's safe to say even after over 3 years of development its consistently inconsistent.
Created by French indie developers, Midgar studios, Edge of Eternity started out as a homage to classic JRPGs created by a small team. The project grew as the title gained more traction and a cult fan following in early access on Steam. Even attracting Xenoblade composer Yasunori Mitsuda.
So what's the game all about and does it justify a $39.99 price tag as it breaks into the mainstream console market?
Set in the world of Heryon , the arrival of a mysterious alien force has plunged the planet into a war where both magic and technology were unleashed to their worst and darkest extremes.
Now an even greater threat has emerged: in a despicable act of war, the invaders released the Corrosion, a fatal disease turning living forms of all kinds into misshapen abominations. You play the part of Daryon, a young warrior thrust to the forefront of the conflict to become a reluctant hero.
The game itself is obvious homage to Final Fantasy, both in terms of it's design choices and gameplay. Main story and side quests are played out in semi open world areas you are free to explore, while initiating combat transfers the game into a turn based, action point style of combat.
While it stays true the legacy of its inspirations, there is nothing new here, but at the same time it handles both of these elements perfectly well.
As I mentioned in my opening paragraph, the game is incredibly inconsistent.
Some parts of the game look well polished and very contemporary and downright gorgeous, while others do look like something a small team created 3 years ago with limited experience and resources. Rather than go back and redo certain parts of the game it seems to have been woven together, creating a tapestry of mixed quality and player experience.
Some of the worst elements are to be found in the game's opening hour as it sets the scene and walks you through the mechanics (which it does admirably).
Graphically some beautifully rendered backdrops and clothing are completely ruined by PS2 era heads and stilted animation. Certain parts break immersion to the point of being comical. This leads to a confused bag of emotions from the outset, "this looks interesting" to "WT actual F" to almost spitting out my coffee when i met the priest in the prologue...those teeth!
The voice work is also very hit and miss, thankfully, the main characters, Daryon and Selene are well performed, but again some of the supporting cast are terrible, almost placeholder recordings. Ordo really needs to take it down a notch, it's hard to think of anyone outside of the WWE going through life with his level of intensity.
Movement through the "free" sections of the game is another area of concern, some strange collision detection that doesn't always tally with the visual ground clutter and no jump often creates frustration in navigating from A to B. And boy is there a lot of navigating! A lot of distance needs to be traversed in the all too frequent, fetch this, deliver that, kill a thingy, filler quests.
As soon as the game opens up into the actual story however, there is a marked increase in the overall quality, but some inconsistencies carry over. Visual effects are nice, environments and backdrops again all nice, even Daryon seems to have had a makeover. However this one of those games that looks far better in screenshots than it does in motion.
I played this on PS5 and there were the standard two graphics settings of Fidelity and Performance. Try as I might I couldn't discern any real difference between the two. Usually performance gives a smoother appearance running at 60fps, but both modes seemed to be awkwardly spluttering along at 30fps. I'm one of those people particularly sensitive to low frame rates and playing for more than an hour at a time started to make me feel dizzy. However this was in a pre release preview copy and might be something that's addressed in final release.
Controls have been very well thought out and mapped well to the controller, menus are intuitive and its easy to move and select units and abilities in combat. While the PS5 version boasts Dualsense optimization, its pretty perfunctory. As space craft scream overhead the controller buzzes a couple of times like someone has sent a message on vibrate and the right trigger is inexplicably locked up while not in combat.
Overall this is a decent game and I did have fun with it for several hours, but I know it isn't a game I will be going back to finish. While its draws inspiration from Final Fantasy, Chronotrigger and Xenoblade, it really doesn't come close to any of them in terms of narrative or quality. The devs obviously had very high ambitions that ultimately aren't realized. Understandably too, as they are a small team and have created something quite incredible for their means,
But this doesn't translate to a consumer paying $40 for the game.
This really would have been so much better to have been released as something more like Octopath traveler, cut back on impressive visuals and concentrate on quality. Their own imagining of FF15 could have come at a later date as the studio grew, developed and was in a positions to create something of consistent high quality.
A saving grace for Edge of Eternity is that it is a day one release on Xbox's Game Pass. However combined with its frankly laughable prologue could prove to be a double edged sword. While more gamers may try the game as its "free"; because it's free many may not play past the opening to get to where the quality picks up.
All said and done this is a decent JRPG. It just doesn't do anything different or raise the bar to make people chose it over other more established titles. However for people who have already exhausted those games, its well worth a look, especially on Game Pass,
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