Eastward

I liked it, generally speaking. There's some flaws, but there's a pretty good core gameplay loop here. It's pretty standard for RPG standards, but definitely serviceable. I think the artwork was generally the strongest part of the game. Most environments were vibrant and colorful with their own distinct identity, and the characters themselves are very expressive- especially the main character Sam. This made it pretty easy to keep track of everyone- even after finishing the game pretty much 24 hours later I still have a pretty good idea of who you met in the first half of the game. The same can be said for the soundtrack- I've added several tracks of the OST to my Spotify playlists. Storywise I have to admit the game occasionally lost me a bit, and I would argue it is the game's weakest point. While I generally understood what's going on, the worldbuilding did not always feel "grounded" enough for me to get a sense of what is happening at some points in the story. For example, the chapter Monkollywood of course introduces some elements that are relevant to the story, but the characters themselves and how they fit in the world at large felt a bit random to me. In general the story seems to hop from concept to concept a lot, but the concepts never really come together in a satisfying way. There were also some segments were the game took its sweet time to get back to some action. Dungeon crawling is often interspersed with more story-heavy segments that take place in the safe cities, where you have to perform some menial tasks. Some of these segments are quite long and overstay their welcome quite a bit. I think the story structure also led to another annoyance- there are a lot of point-of-no-returns, so you will often continue on with the story without a chance to return to previous areas. Admittedly it's in the name- Eastward, you keep going east- and there are definitely narrative reasons as to why you cannot return to an area. However, this does lead to some missable content. For example, you have several "completionist" achievements such as eating every type of food or opening every chest. However, there are more than a hundred chests, so if you miss even one you cannot complete this achievement anymore. But overall, I enjoyed this little game.

I loved the art style, the music and a some of the characters. The main story is also quite interesting. The combat is quite simplistic, which is fine by me for a story-driven game, but at times instead of being challenging it becomes annoying. The last couple chapters feel like they're trying to drag out the ending by introducing chores, totally messing up the pacing of the game for me.

画风讨喜，剧情为了刀而刀，并且逻辑有点混乱，可以玩，但是不要太考虑剧情，另外有些关卡是真恶心，纯粹是为了折磨人做的，诗人握持，费半条命过去，人生也荒废了不少时间，不建议入手。

玩了三十多个小时，完全是美术骑在策划上的一款游戏，剧情简直是一坨，越打到后面越难受，剧情上总是莫名其妙的留白，情节很生硬，全靠美术撑着。

非常差劲的游戏，被画风骗进去，结果还给像素小人特地做乳摇，而且剧情莫名其妙开始给小村村花和男主拉郎，还搞村花穿礼服“魅惑”男主的戏码，肯定是男作者，剧情莫名其妙，又臭又长，玩法剧情至少也得有一个能打吧？结果战斗拉胯就算了剧情还充满男性幻想，差评差评不推荐！！！真是浪费我玩游戏的时间

像素风和美术很美丽，编剧给美术磕一个吧

An action-adventure in the style of a Zelda-lite experience but wrapped up in some increasingly mind-bending Earthbound-esque writing, Eastward is both a lovely homage to golden age RPGs and a really strong game in its own right. We follow digger John and the odd girl he finds deep underground, Sam. The pair are exiled from their underground home to the supposedly toxic surface world, but find it not at all like the stories - until the deadly MIASMA returns and they have to flee eastward to try and survive. Front and centre to the experience is the wonderful character writing; although it's fairly slow-paced, that means there's a lot of space for the cast to show off their personalities and growth, which I have a lot of patience for. Gameplay is more like a top-down SNES-era action-RPG, or an early Zelda title. John's arsenal is basic, as are his attacks, but that's fine; this is a reasonably sedate game in terms of combat challenge and puzzling, but that makes the experience flow by as you sink deeper into its world-building. A very solid game indeed.

[b]“I’m aware that explosives are standard equipment for a miner, but must you hit the bombs with a pan while the fuse is active?”[/b] [i]-One concerned contractor[/i] [hr][/hr] To preface this review with a suggestion for the devs on future games: If you make something with an element that a total 10/10, please keep that as a focus. [b]Eastward[/b] is maybe the biggest example of a game with an unequal element to it, bogged down by another, lesser, element it chooses instead to make its whole focus instead. [h1]X-Factor[/h1] The artwork is incredible. IN-CRE-DI-BLE. I didn’t even knew something so hard stylized could look this good in the medium of pixel-art. And not just and not just on the main character, EVERYTHING looks amazing, with animations that are just as good. Other effects too, especially lighting, are applied in such an expert way that makes it feel retro graphics always looked like that. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Part action, part puzzle. Your weapons and powers will double as puzzle solving devices as the game revolves around navigating one such action-puzzle section to connect the story scenes with. Also featuring a clever little cooking minigame that doubles as your main way to obtain healing items. [h1]Story[/h1] Play as John the miner living an underground life with your surrogate daughter Sam you found in a human growing vat, what is there above? You’ll find out as Sam’s curiosity will shake up this ordinary life of yours. Very post apocalyptic while being very silly, making it both a cozy and interesting setup where people have access to amazing feats of tech while they seem to have lost knowledge of all the rest. [h1]Downsides[/h1] The story is a very aimless hot mess. There is never a real overarching drive that moves the characters forward, it’s more like: Bad stuff happens, The characters move to safety, The characters settle down, More bad stuff happens, Repeat. It’s especially weird since it has a great first chapter which makes you wonder about what the world above is like, and you’ll be tricked into thinking the whole game’s drive is to reach this mythological “surface” that only legends remain of it… before just straight up having the protagonists reach it not even 2 hours into the game. This trend continues for the whole game though, introducing something that could be a great overarching theme only to have it immediately resolved and never talked about again. The cast is at the same time very bloated and barebones, in the first 10 minutes it introduces the same number of characters that a whole game normally has, just to have them say 2 lines at best before replacing them with even more characters to again throw away. While at the same time the two main characters barely fill the shoes they’ve been given for this role, one is a mute who adds nothing to the conversation nor emoting in almost any way and interesting as a brick, while the other is a kid that despite being good has nothing to bounce off of to make her character shine. Many games have terrible stories, but they don’t make it the focus, here however it’s front and center. The combat is very simple but serviceable, the problem with it arises when encountering enemies that don’t seem to have been made with it in mind. [hr][/hr] Eastward is a game that suffers from having made its weakest part, namely the story, its main focus, turning what could’ve been a shining example of independent games into just another title.