Video Game Review: Eternal Radiance

Developer/Publisher: Visualnoveler

Genre: JRPRG

Reviewed On: Nintendo Switch

Also Available On: PC, PlayStation 4

Let’s be totally honest: Breath of the Wild left some impossibly big shoes to fill, and those were trainers that got set out nearly five years ago. Since that fateful day as arguably the best launch title ever, developers around the world have been scrambling to try and pick up the slack left behind by the first open world Legend of Zelda game. The results have been a number of 3rd person, 3D games that seek to capture an element of the same wonder and excitement that came from being dropped into that familiar-yet-different realm and exploring, leveling and finding things to your heart’s content. The development team of Visualnoveler may not have been hellbent on trying to copy Link’s amazing adventure, but the notes of familiarity cannot be overlooked when it comes to Eternal Radiance, which launched for all platforms recently.

Eternal Radiance drops you into the shoes of Celeste, and I use the words “dropped” because the game starts with no preamble whatsoever before you’re immersed into conversations with characters who barely know who they themselves are and certainly don’t know who you are. We find out that Celeste is a knight in training, a squire, who has lofty dreams of becoming a full-fledged knight and doing her kingdom proud in defending the paragons of virtue and honor that tentpole her society. Joined by her compatriots, Celeste quickly finds herself embroiled in a plot of sinister thievery and usurpation that she must stop at all cost. But not before she finds out what the goblins are up to. Or what kind of armor her favorite knight wants to wear. Or finds a bunch of random items for the local shop keep because why not.

Yes, the 3D action/adventure/RPG of Eternal Radiance is a never-ending series of side quests, and it’s a big enough element of the game to mention up top and very prominently. Unlike the side missions of other 3D action/adventure/RPGs, you’ll constantly feel that Celeste is prioritizing the needs of other, minor characters above the main quest, but that’s less about her and more about the game design. From the drop, it’s clear that there’s an intent to give the game drive and direction while also padding the experience, and the result isn’t very well balanced. It’s not like the side quests are out of your way: hell, a vast majority are completed while just trying to move forward in the plot. It’s that they keep coming up in a very inorganic way. While talking to a nobleman or woman about the plot points you’re trying to pin down, they’ll offhandedly answer you and promptly slide in a request for you to also go grab something for them. While this isn’t terribly insidious, it happens often enough that it feels like these missions could have been addendums to the main mission. Like, a little creative design could have made them stepping stones towards an ultimate goal instead of the appearance of a protagonist with the attention span of a gnat.

Speaking of the protagonist, the devs of Visualnoveler did a decent job of creating a likable personality in Celeste. Eternal Radiance is very text heavy between the adventure portions, but they do a solid job of letting you know what Celeste, Valana, Ruby and the rest all stand for. The text is long but broken up into decent chunks of storytelling, backstory telling and exposition without being blunt or silly. It actually feels that we could have had a solid visual novel had the developers been left to their own devices: the name of their group leads me to believe that was the original intent. Perhaps there was an outside force that recommended doing more than just text, and that’s a shame: the portraits and busts of the cast are solid and the artwork during the dialogues and longer story portions are gorgeous to look at. The visuals of Eternal Radiance are what drew me to the game in the first place, in spite of the title feeling like a Kemco cookie cutter RPG-Maker title.

Instead, we break away from the heavy text after an astonishing 16 minutes of reading introduction to bring you to the meat and potatoes of the game, which is really subpar hack and slash combat. Run around, find enemies, weak attack/heavy attack, dodge, repeat. Hit until dead. Use magic if you really need/want to, and you almost never need to. The layout of Eternal Radiance gives me the vibes of someone combining the exploration of a Hyperdimension Neptunia game with the watered down version of Ys. The result is combat that initially evokes Dark Souls methods until you realize that anyone can do this with little to no prior experience because the AI is laughably simple. Hit. Dodge. Hit. Win. It’s this simple all the way through a majority of the boss battles as well, which are also few and far between.

After that, everything else that Eternal Radiance trots out for players is something we’ve seen before. Decently rendered but forgettable terrains and lands. A soundtrack that gives ambience and very little else. A collection of weapons, armor and relics that feels like it was copied straight out of the JRPG for Everyone handbook, and some magic spells sprinkled in because why not. I don’t mind that the game is so standard, I mind because it feels like there could be something more. The art and writing is so ambitious for such a text, and I think I would have loved to see a visual novel that just stood on its own two feet and went for it, even if it is set in a world that’s combat intensive by nature. Instead I just return to a similar song and dance as always. It’s not bad, but it’s not memorable.

That’s probably the saddest part for Eternal Radiance. As bright, colorful and engaging as it is, it’s ethereal and leaves no footprint on my mind. I had to keep picking up my Switch and playing it again and again just to remember enough to write down what it was like. It’s a day late and a buck short in terms of making a splash, and the result is a game that will get shuffled into the ever sprawling Switch library. If you’re looking for a polished and decent title that will occupy your time, have at it. But I sadly feel that the legacy of this game is anything but eternal for most players.