You can actually walk to the left.
The game's main inspiration is, quite clearly, classic Zelda, from the isometrical viewpoint, to having bombs as a subweapon, to mixing puzzle-solving with combat, and, hey, you can even collect 4 orbs to get an extra heart-piece, which are also rewarded upon defeating a boss. Just like Zelda. But it's more than just a Zelda clone. The main characters are silent-hero John and his protegee, Sam. You can swap between characters, John being able to fight with either a frying pan or a few different guns he finds, as well as place three different types of bombs, which while useful to fight enemies, are mainly used to solve puzzles. You can swap characters at any time, and while Sam can't deal damage directly, she can use her psychic powers to constrain enemies for a short while, infinitely useful to then pummel them with John's pan, as well as other powers with different utilities.
While this is an adventure game, it's a very linear affair, you are always moving forward, visiting new areas and towns... and most of the time you can't return to previous areas. This was a minor issue for me, because you might see a chest, not figure out how to get to it and guess that the hidden route might lie ahead... only to find out that you triggered the next cutscene, and there's no going back and that might've been a heart-orb or an upgrade piece you just missed. Forever. You can even miss out on some of Sam's powers permanently like this. On the flipside, the fact that you are always pushing forward, meeting new NPCs and then leaving them behind... kinda gives the whole game this epic adventure feeling that I really enjoyed. It does feel like a grand globe-trotting adventure towards the east, and this does help in that. Plus, the fact that every town is different, and the game has a ton of NPCs...
The puzzles in the game were fun. They are usually about figuring out how to use your bombs. Maybe SMASH them across a gap, maybe you need to use a Remote bomb to time it, or something of that ilk. Other times you'll have to split John and Sam, having them go on separate routes, helping each other progress. They were fun. That said, I feel that some optional puzzles don't properly reward your effort. Sometimes you'll come across a chest in the open and it will have a very important upgrade item, and then you'll go through a brain-teaser only to get rewarded with less valuable ingredients to cook. As a matter of fact, every chest that rewarded me with Salt, the game's currency, or ingredients just felt like a huge let down, as both of those can be found as random enemy drops.
Getting back into the combat, it is rather important to learn how to capture enemies with Sam so that John can knock'em dead, because about a third into the game... it gets very tough. Like, really, there are some sudden difficulty spikes that will probably catch you off-guard, as just as you get used to the new, tougher enemies.... even tougher enemies show up. To be fair, most of the difficulty came up from the fact that I kept being stingy with healing items, but still. Adding to this, hearts don't start showing up from beating enemies or breaking barrels until you are nearly dead! In theory, if worse comes to worst, I bet you could just farm enemies until they drop enough Salt or ingredients, so that you can cook up more healing items or buy them directly from the town's store, so I'm sure you could eventually brute force your way through the game.
The game's presentation deserves a special mention, as this game has some of the finest spritework I've ever seen. It's downright GORGEOUS, and adding to how beautiful everything is... they created SO MANY different NPCs, it's unreal just how much work must've gone into drawing and animating every single character in the game. And it doesn't stop at unique NPCs, as mentioned before you visit many different towns, which means widely different backgrounds. A lot of love and time went into the visual presentation, and it shows.
The game's story, however, isn't strong. The early parts of the game I felt are more interesting, as you start in this underground world and then set out to explore the world lying above. Then, I feel as if the game's plot peaks at New Dam City, which is the city in which you'll spend the most time and get to meet all these interesting, wacky new characters, such as Alva, Lee and Isabel, and it's hard not to fall in love with a few of them. Afterwards, while I wouldn't call it boring, the rest of the story just doesn't reach the same highs... although I adored what they did with Isabel, probably my favorite character and character arc in the entire game. But I digress, another issue... is that some things go a bit unexplained. There's a character that you meet in three different forms, sometimes it seems as they were working with the big bad, other times as if they were fighting against said big bad. This also goes for the big bad's intention, it seems they seek something other besides 'I HATE HUMANS', but then near the end of the game they claim to hate humans, so I don't know. Translation issues? I somewhat doubt it, as the dialogue is very colorful, but... On that same token, I feel as if the game might be a bit too long. Some scenes, particularly during the time-loop town, could've probably been shortened, and the final dungeon as well, as it felt as if it went on and on but I was ready to finish the game like an hour ago.
I read that the game supposedly is wont to crash a lot, but in the 20 hours we spent playing it we didn't get a single crash.
Well... I think Eastward is one of the best Indie games I've played. It has a few flaws, the story could use some ironing, but they also gave us a fantastic set of characters and a setting, that while not the most original, was pulled off well. Getting to a new town was always exciting, the puzzles were never brain-bustingly hard and while the combat could use some balancing, it was still fun to play.
8.0
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