Edge of Eternity [PlayStation 5] | REVIEW

Edge of Eternity has been on my radar for quite a long time, with it initially releasing into early access on PC back in 2018. It had multiple updates that brought with them a plethora of content since then, up until the game’s official full launch in the middle of last year. I’m not really a PC gamer though, so I had to wait until its console release to stick my teeth into its Final Fantasy-inspired adventure.

It has finally released on console now (and is available on Game Pass if you’re an Xbox owner), so how does it hold up? Well, I actually had a fun time playing it, but it does have a few too many shortcomings for it to stand tall as an essential RPG experience.

Check out a gallery of screenshots down below:

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Edge of Eternity takes place in the world of Heryon, which finds itself in the midst of a war with an alien race. If that wasn’t bad enough, that alien race also released a disease known as the Corrosion into the world, leaving with it a trail of mutated bodies as it spreads further across the land. It proves especially troublesome for the main protagonist Daryon, whose mother is suffering from the illness and sure to face death if untreated. Fortunately, his sister Selene believes she knows of a cure, so they venture out to try and uncover it. Of course, things are never as simple as that and there are plenty of mysterious threads woven into the narrative, with the whole fate of the world seemingly in your hands as you progress on your journey. Sounds like your typical RPG, right?

The narrative is a bit of a mixed bag, though it did enough to keep me engaged. I enjoyed seeing how the world was affected by the war, how the heroes would fight it, and putting the pieces together to discover the cure for the Corrosion, but there were also plenty of pieces of the puzzle that ended up getting ignored. Edge of Eternity often felt like it left a lot of elements of its story unfinished, and whilst this shouldn’t prevent most players from understanding the grander narrative, you shouldn’t be surprised if you find yourself left with plenty of unanswered questions. It just felt a bit disjointed in places, which is a shame because there are plenty of mystical elements and moments of intrigue where it can really shine.

“There’s an impressive amount of variety to be found across the environments and you’ll really feel like you’re ventured through a vast fantasy world by the time you reach the conclusion.”

Much like a lot of RPGs, there is a large and luscious land to explore in Edge of Eternity. I’ll give the game some credit, I was mighty impressed with the environments; whilst some were a little bit larger than they needed to be and did have some vacant spaces, they always looked great in-game and brought with them enough treasures to make exploration feel worthwhile. There’s an impressive amount of variety to be found across the environments and you’ll really feel like you’ve ventured through a vast fantasy world by the time you reach the conclusion.

Maybe it would have been nicer if I didn’t have to constantly traverse them over and over again, though. Edge of Eternity brings with it plenty of quests that’ll see you running from point A to B and back again over these large landscapes and it can get tiresome fast. Sure, there is some form of fast-travel in place and riding a mount does make it a little easier, but it didn’t take me too long to tire of doing a lot of the same trudges over and over again. It reminded me of an MMORPG in this sense, but the journey felt a lot more lonely when you’re not joined by other players.

Still, the game does a good job of sign-posting where you need to go with quests, so you’ll never find yourself lost or confused… well… as long as you can make out the text. You know how some console titles seem to come with really small text that you can’t increase in size? Well, that’s the case here, whether it’s when browsing menus, looking for NPCs, or picking out enemies in the wild. It’s not a HUGE issue really, but there will be a few times when you might find yourself squinting at the screen to make out little details.

“Battling has a good balance of simplicity and strategy, with the basic mechanics of combat easy to grasp but allowing for plenty of tactical prowess through the player’s position or abilities.”

One of the biggest deal-breakers in an RPG is its combat: if it isn’t fun to fight enemies, you’re in for a rough time. Fortunately, Edge of Eternity’s is pretty good, even if some battles can drag out a little longer than they need to. It’s worth noting that you can see the enemies roaming in the world too, so can decide who you want to attack and who you want to stay away from – there’s no random battling here!

Battles take place on a hexagonal grid, with the player able to change up the position of their party beforehand if they have a particular strategy in mind. You’ve got your standard array of actions, with attacks, magic, abilities, and items to use, though the game does spice things up by allowing players to interact with environmental weapons to deal some decent damage, whilst moving position mid-battle might allow you to gain advantage by keeping out of an enemy’s range or hitting them from behind to deal more damage.

Battling has a good balance of simplicity and strategy, with the basic mechanics of combat easy to grasp but allowing for plenty of tactical prowess through the player’s position or abilities. Sure, you could mash attacks on a foe, but it’s always more satisfying when you have one character attacking from behind, another using a siege weapon in the environment, and another exploiting elemental weaknesses. Good strategic thought can be imperative at times too, especially when facing enemies of a higher level who can do a lot of hurt if you aren’t careful. It makes for a fun system overall, with some stand out encounters found across the adventure.

The only real caveat is that some battles could drag out a little too long. There’s a LOT of battling taking place in the game, and believe me, going through everybody’s turn could take some time – especially against larger groups of enemies or those with a lot of health. You can speed up battles to get through things a bit quicker, but the general pace of battling could feel a bit slower than your typical RPG.

“I have to make it clear, there was nothing outright bad here and there were plenty of moments where Edge of Eternity would impress; there just weren’t enough of them to make it stand out as a ‘must play’ RPG.”

One of the things I’ll give Edge of Eternity credit for is the way that it tries to implement so many different ideas. There are things such as crafting, a day-and-night system, weapons that level up, refined character levelling that players can fine-tune (it reminded me of Final Fantasy X’s ‘Sphere Grid), a buff system when eating – whilst these are things seen in plenty of other RPGs, it’s neat that the developers have tried to ensure that Edge of Eternity offers plenty of depth for players. Admittedly, some of these systems are better implemented than others (and some weren’t really explained fully so I ignored them), but their presence was still appreciated.

Another thing that impressed me was the sound design, with the soundtrack certainly packing an impressive amount of fantastical oomph to ensure the game sounds as epic as its big-name peers. It even has some musical pieces from legendary composer Yasunori Mitsuda (of Xenoblade Chronicles, Xenogears, and Chrono Trigger fame), so it’s clear that a lot of effort has been made to ensure the game sounds fantastic. It has paid off too, whilst some decent voice acting all adds to the storytelling.

Still, whilst it gets plenty of things right, it also gets some things wrong. Things like the unresolved plot points, repetitive travelling, small text size, and long-winded battles are disappointing, but I also came across plenty of texture pop-in when exploring and found that the character models and animations didn’t always look great either. It’s one of those things that I feel bad to criticise, especially since Edge of Eternity is made by a smaller team, but it was something I found hard to ignore the longer I spent with the game. I have to make it clear, there was nothing outright bad here and there were plenty of moments where Edge of Eternity would impress; there just weren’t enough of them to make it stand out as a ‘must play’ RPG.

Developer: Midgar Studio
Publisher: Dear Villagers
Platform(s): PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
Website: https://www.eoegame.com/