Eternal Strands Review (Xbox Series X)
Eternal Strands is an independent third person fantasy action-adventure that channels Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Shadow of the Colossus, with a dose of Monster Hunter. While Eternal Strands does not reach the same heights, this is nonetheless an ambitious debut from developer Yellow Brick Games.
Eternal Strands features an all-around streamlined take on the formula, impressing with its worldbuilding and characters, fun boss battles, intuitive and experimental magic and physics system, and colorful presentation. This adventurer, however, suffers from a “Tell, Don’t Show” narrative, clunky combat, and tonally jarring transitions between 3D gameplay and 2D dialogue cutscenes.
As a result, Eternal Strands often feels bound by its independent roots. There is room for growth, although the passion and talent that Yellow Brick Games displays is evident. Eternal Strands is a worthy adventurer to get your trekking boots out for, and a debut that allows Yellow Brick Games to build a solid foundation going forward.
A Quest for Answers
Eternal Strands features a story wrapped in mystery. Players take control of protagonist Brynn, who must unravel the secrets of a long-lost civilization known as the Enclave. Brynn is accompanied by her band of weavers (magic users) that provide moral support… and a lot of lore. The story itself is concise and will take players around 25-30 hours to complete, getting closer to 40 hours for completionists.
The premise, mystery, worldbuilding, and characters are compelling. This is where one can see the storytelling pedigree behind Yellow Brick Games, who has veterans from old BioWare and Ubisoft. The worldbuilding is well-developed and often intricate to flesh out the Enclave and what lies outside. The characters were a surprise for me. I didn’t expect to bond with them so quickly. However, what works well here are the well-developed personalities and backstories of each character.
The player can choose to interact via dialogue options to tease out more of the past of each character. Don’t expect deep RPG-level interactions here or complex player-driven outcomes because Eternal Strands is not trying to do that. Instead, the different dialogue options allow you to create a backstory for your character.
The narrative, however, suffers from a “Tell, Don’t Show” situation. Because we are stuck in the Enclave, we don’t get to see what is outside except through excessive lore dumping. This is a sacrifice that Eternal Strands is willing to make to keep the action within a confined setting. While the worldbuilding is detailed, we mostly learn about it through talking to characters and journal entries that have to be unlocked by collecting items in the Enclave.
This frustration is compounded by the tonally jarring transitions between 3D combat and 2D dialogue cutscenes. While the gameplay is 3D, the dialogue cutscenes are mostly presented in 2D. Even though these are fully voiced, the 2D scenes make it difficult to enjoy the amount of lore that is handed to you. It is clear that Yellow Brick Games had to limit themselves in the development process, although that comes at a cost.
The World is Your Weapon
Eternal Strands channels Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Shadow of the Colossus, with a dose of Monster Hunter. Eternal Strands is not open world, and the developers have been forthcoming about that. Protagonist Brynn will explore different areas that feature their own unique creatures, biomes, and epic bosses. The traversal is mostly well done. We have a stamina bar reminiscent of Breath of the Wild. Eternal Strands features vertical exploration that is put to good use since this allows players to sneak around and skip fights altogether, while also finding treasures hidden at the top of structures. What is missing is a gliding system that Brynn can use to safely land on the ground from a high point. This would make traversal more seamless.
Brynn fights using a sword and shield, a two-handed weapon, and a bow. The sword and shield allows Brynn to be more flexible and fast in her movements, while the two-handed weapon will slow her down but inflict more damage upon enemies. The bow is a strange one. It can do decent damage when upgraded, although there is a certain weight that is missing when firing arrows. This is a larger issue that is evident with the combat in Eternal Strands — it feels clunky. When fighting enemies like arks, Brynn’s melee hits often feel like they don’t make enemies stagger or feel impactful enough. Instead, enemies continue to throw themselves at you without any care even after a few blows. This confusion is made worse by the inconsistent enemy AI, which sometimes charges past you when attacking. The auto-targeting also directs the camera angle to be too much toward a lower perspective, which will make you want to manually correct the camera.
The best part of the combat is without a doubt the boss battles. These are done in the style of the Shadow of the Colossus. Brynn can challenge these behemoths by climbing up on them, attacking and removing their armor plates, inflicting melee and magic damage. Or you can just use magic to systematically target weak points and throw giant rocks and structures at these. For example, fighting a fire-breathing drake can be approached by using ice magic or climbing onto its wings and attacking these as a way to immobilize it. Each boss feels exciting because of this gameplay variety.
“The World is Your Weapon” is the tagline that Eternal Strands advertises. This relates to the fun and intuitive magic and physics system. Brynn can weave fire, ice, and kinetic magic, which is then combined with the dynamic physics system to create some really engaging fights. Brynn can combine all of them together, create fire and ice vortexes and stick these to enemies as you watch them squirm and explode. Or you can simply use kinetic magic to toy with your enemies as you pick them and throw them around like rag dolls. The environments are destructible. Fire can spread, while ice magic may be used to create bridges, barriers, and even pin down enemies. It is satisfying to experiment and the physics system is mostly responsive.
Leveling and crafting form another important part of the experience. Brynn will collect raw materials from the environment to use for crafting, reforging, and upgrading armor and weapons. While the crafting and leveling system is not groundbreaking, I appreciated seeing how Brynn can use raw materials with fire and ice resistances and this becomes reflected in the look and stats of the armor and weapon. I encourage players to have separate fire and ice resistant armors and weapons that they can swap depending on the situation.
Colorful and Vibrant
Eternal Strands uses Unreal Engine 5 to deliver beautiful stylistically-crafted environments. While this art-style may not be for everyone, it is hard to deny the talent that Yellow Brick Games designers bring to making the Enclave a colorful and vibrant setting. Eternal Strands often reminds me of older generation games and their focus on stylistic over graphical fidelity. Eternal Strands is vibrant enough on a 4K display. However, it does not feature HDR or Dolby Vision support for consoles and PC. I hope Yellow Brick Games implements this soon as it would be unfortunate not to experience the very best visuals.
The original score by Journey composer Austin Wintory is a delight. While not matching the heights of his Journey composition, the Eternal Strands score does not fall within fantasy tropes. Instead, it uses a mix of old and modern instrumentation to provide a unique take. I just hoped that the score was utilized more throughout the game as it can feel infrequent.
Performance-wise, Eternal Strands runs at a stable 60fps on the Xbox Series X. It is generally a well-polished experience, which is impressive given the small development team. I did not encounter any game-breaking issues either. Yellow Brick Games has also confirmed that it is willing to listen to the community when it comes to reporting issues and suggestions. That is promising to hear.
Summary
Eternal Strands does not reach the same heights as its inspirations Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Shadow of the Colossus, and Monster Hunter. It is nonetheless an ambitious debut from developer Yellow Brick Games that impresses with its worldbuilding and characters, fun boss battles, intuitive and experimental magic and physics system, and colorful presentation. However, Eternal Strands suffers from a “Tell, Don’t Show” narrative, clunky combat, and tonally jarring transitions between 3D gameplay and 2D dialogue cutscenes.
Eternal Strands often feels bound by its independent roots. Nonetheless, this is a solid foundation for Yellow Brick Games going forward. Eternal Strands is a worthy adventurer for which to dust off your trekking boots.
Eternal Strands launches January 28 on Xbox Game Pass, PC, and PS5. The title was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.
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