Choice is one of the defining aspects of modern game-making. Hell, it’s one of the defining aspects of game design, as a whole, going back literally thousands of years. Within the loop of a video game — from Green Hill Zone Act 1 to Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty‘s gut-wrenching point of no return — the ability of the player to shape their playthrough is one of the critical keys to a successful project. It’s not the only key by any means, but, as I sit down to write about Studio Sai’s Eternights, which the team describes as “an uncommon blend of dating and hackNslash you didn’t think possible,” choice and its making are at the forefront of my thoughts.
I like Eternights. I admire its ambition and accomplishment — particularly given how much of it is the work of one person (while Studio Sai is expanding in the wake of Eternights‘ success, a significant portion of the project was directly crafted by studio founder Jae Hyun Yoo). I dig its willingness to experiment; to hop from its primary dating sim/character action mode into, say, light survival horror platforming that carries the fire from Inside.
I’m frustrated by Eternights, particularly its opening, where the player-named Protagonist (Brandon Winckler, Youtarou Negishi, and Seo Hwa Jang) and his horndog best friend Chani (Alejandro Saab, Jun Fukushima, and Seung Woon Jeong) engage in grating hijinks on their quest to get laid. It passes soon enough, and Eternights‘ further ventures into horniness and sex get into a genuinely sweet, even sexy groove, but great googa mooga, it is not a flattering introduction.
More seriously are my frustrations with its combat balance. There are pieces of Eternights‘ combat that are incredibly satisfying, like breaking through enemy barriers and building combos high enough to trigger stylish finishing moves. But balance-wise? It is messy — enemies frequently swarm the Protagonist, long-range attackers interrupt combos, and short-range fighters close distances faster than your initially limited toolkit can keep up with.
Though forging bonds (romantic or platonic) with the motley crew who survived the near-end-of-the-world alongside the Protagonist opens up more options, Eternights‘ opening hours are punishing — and not in a From Software learn-through-failure-and-build way. Once the toolkit begins expanding, combat comes into its own a little better, but it is never Eternights‘ highlight. Even climactic bosses just are not that fun to fight.
No, where Eternights comes together is in the “dating” side of its “blend of dating and hackNslash.” The cast, survivors of a reversible but rapidly advancing armageddon, are deeply lovable. The Protagonist, while by design a figure on whom the player can project themselves, can be played with enough sweetness (and/or cutting humor) to sell his castmate’s falling for him. In other words, the parts of him that are not the player. Chani, grating as he starts, has the self-awareness to realize why folks find him grating and why he acts that way in the first place.
They are joined by:
Yuna (Risa Mei, Atsumi Tanezaki, and You Lim Kim): an idol grappling with the fact the vast majority of her fans are either dead or have been transformed into horrible mutants, that bad actors have used her reputation to prey on survivors, and her having badly failed a dear friend before the world ended.
Sia (Kira Buckland, Shizuka Itoh, and Yea Lim Kim): a scientist who’s navigating the calamity with curiosity, the limits of how content she is alone, and the question of who she is outside of her work. She loves what she does, and she does not want to stop, but knows there is more to her — a lesson she was just starting to learn.
Min (Xanthe Huynh, Reina Ueda, and Seoyi Jung): a track runner who has mistaken a moment of understandable terror and her subsequent failure for moral cowardice and whose performance anxiety belies her true bravery and a deep well of determination
Yohan (Aleks Le, Makoto Furukawa, and Sun Ill Yoo): an immortal who first appears to the Protagonist in a dream, wise and curious but haunted by the life he’s led. On the Highlander‘s Queen Soundtrack-based Immortal Scale, he’s closer to “Who Wants to Live Forever” than “Princes of the Universe.” The Protagonist is the first person he’s really had a chance to bond with — let alone flirt with — in a long, long time.
They are, to the last, a lovable bunch. They’re dimensional and compelling. They have solid chemistry as a group during Eternights‘ big story moments. As romantic interests, each is appealing and distinct, bolstered by the strongest writing in the game. While Eternights‘ big picture story can be vague to the point that its coherence frays, each of the primary cast’s individual stories are well told, with turning points bolstered by genuinely lovely illustrations.
Whether it’s a deepening friendship, a friendship turning romantic, or a romance turning sexual, Eternights‘ character work and relationships play genuinely. They’re striking storytelling, complemented by strong visuals and, to paraphrase A Scanner Darkly, moments of connection where in the dark world where the cast dwells — a world of ugly things and surprising things — sometimes something wondrous happens. Or, like Brue Lee sez, the sort of “emotional content” that makes a piece of fiction stick with you, that makes it special.
For all that Eternights stumbles, when it clicks, it clicks. More works than doesn’t, the romances really are very fine, and I’m excited that Studio Sai will be able to push further with their next project. For folks who dig romance games, and folks seeking the striking who can roll with rough edges, this is well worth checking out.
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