Eastward Crashing On Switch
Edilma Howard
The gameplay to dialogue ratio is bordering on unpleasant during its first 4 chapters, but this is remedied as the game progresses. Unfortunately, the game is easy to break mechanically, and a lot of its attempted depth with combat is mitigated by how easy it is to eat food and face tank most attacks. In addition, puzzles remain relatively simple, and most do not return in meaningful ways or evolve in interesting degrees as the game chugs towards its conclusion. Original bombs become useless once remote bombs are handed over. Flamethrower stops being useful outside of 1 or 2 gameplay segments after its introduction. Saw gun is useful for the chapter it is introduced in, and one puzzle room in the future. The best puzzles in the game typically revolve around controlling your two characers at once and splitting them up, though this only happens a handful of times. Most enemies can be dispatched with pan-spamming though a few late game enemies use erratic attack patterns to encourage use of Sam's magical stunning abilities. These are the best regular enemies in the game as they employ more mechanics to defeat while mitigating damage. But I digress.
Despite these notable gameplay flaws, and its messy story, it is difficult to dislike a game with as much passion put into it as Eastward. It is genuinely the most gorgeous pixel art game I have ever played. I can only hope one day that I can create something with as much love and care as was put into this title. Hopefully Pixpil will learn from Eastward and create a new game in the future that can be more fun to play through in its moment to moment.
This is important because I think this game is a gem that might have been marketed wrong to appeal to a wider audience where it is in essence a niche game. While the gameplay is close to any 2D ARPG such a Zelda, the focus is mainly on the story, atmosphere and world building. That is where I think the game excels if you are receptive to the post apocalyptic, cute but dark vibes.
I feel like the pace of the game is probably what caused a lot of poor reviews but I found that quite refreshing to have a linear experience with rich characters in a game when the trends are mostly huge worlds that feel bland and empty. For instance I couldn't go past the first few chapters in crosscode because of the grinding and repetitive puzzles.
Okay the dungeons are beautiful with a lot of details but they might feel a bit easy and far between but that's okay because they always serve the story or the moment to moment exploration of this strange world. Plus the characters are super lovable.
The whole journey feels pretty uneven, but in kind of an interesting way? Most games have even mixes of gameplay, story sections, secondary gameplay type, etc. Eastward bucks this and will have you spending two hours in a story section, 10 minutes of adventure gameplay, then another hour of story section, followed by an hour of adventure gameplay. But that's not a bad thing! The game does a pretty good job of justifying adventure gameplay with plot. Sometimes it's a little silly in how it does that, but it's generally in a fun way.
It definitely could have used another three or four months to iron out some small things that hamper the experience, and it would've been nice if a few more sections were playable instead of being cutscenes. That's what drops this a star. But don't let that discourage you! Eastward has a lot of heart, and I'd definitely recommend it to just about anyone. Also, the game within the game is super fun. Very very good.
Speaking of nice contrasts, they cutified every aspect of the characters they could while still keeping the tone, I believe it is hard to find the balance between these aspects of modern and pixelated, silly but serious, charming and cozy but still kinda in the back of your mind a weird rendition of The Road mixed with some cyberpunk RPG. I understand why many people complain that the plot drags on and is cluttered at the start and ironically seems to be extremely vague and minimalist around the end, even though you know, the plot is actually fairly simple, it is just presented in an epic manner.
This is probably one of the best indie games I have played in a while, a must-play if you like Zelda clones, even if it is "flawed" due to pacing you can't really blame it because it shines in so many departments. Like really, we live in a really perfectionist world where "oh this game is ALMOST PERFECT!" which seems to be a very common review of the game like, very few games are really "perfect", some would even consider imperfections make it stick out as it's own product and you need those lil flaws to be perfect, they're tolerable, I'm willing to give it a pass, plus the full price of this game is worth alone for it's beautiful art, if i could hang it's pixel art on a wall, I would, anyways I still recommend playing this game.
In Eastward, you control both John and Sam, who have been living in an underground community of miners. Drawn to a mythical surface world of blue skies and green grass, the duo is quickly forced to embark on a heartfelt journey that takes them to a variety of locations.
The main gameplay inspiration behind this game is, quite clearly, Zelda. John swings a frying pan around in a way that reminds me of a certain pointy-eared hero, while Sam can use ranged psychic abilities to stun enemies. In addition to bombs, you also get access to an assortment of combat tools. The way the game has you simultaneously control Sam and John in order to solve puzzles feels quite reminiscent of the Four Swords games, and there's even a light Breath of the Wild-esque cooking mechanic.
Unlike Zelda, Eastward has a linear chapter-driven structure, not unlike Mother 3. Exploration is kept to a minimum, and you progress through the game by hopping from story beat to story beat. Unfortunately, this is where this game's main flaw lies. The story's pacing can swing from brisk to absolutely glacial. After only a few hours, I have to admit that my initial admiration for this game's stunning visuals and endearing character designs turned sour as I slogged through heaps of inane dialogue sequences.
It stinks, because when the game actually lets you play, I had a blast. While the puzzles lack the depth accomplished by most Zelda games, there are still plenty of moments of brilliance to enjoy here. It's just such a bummer that the game constantly wrests control from you to make you sit through slow dialogue sequences that lack much substance.
While the dialogue can be a chore, the overarching plot is pretty endearing. It has just the right balance of lighthearted silliness and heartbreaking drama, something that you can easily compare to the likes of the Mother series. It helps that the protagonists are really well done. John is completely silent throughout the game, but is given so much personality through his actions and animations. Meanwhile, Sam is the center of the game's story, and her feisty personality never fails to steal the show.
Where this game truly marks its place as a masterclass is, most obviously, in its visual presentation. The gorgeous environments are colorful and full of immaculate detail. The sprites and their animations are full of heart and personality, to a level that I rarely see. No matter how annoyed I got with this game, I could always trust that there was a visual feast waiting for me any time I booted it up. Even the game's Game Boy-esque JRPG side-mode, Earth Born, is full of minute attention to detail--there's even an in-game manual you can consult!
The music and sound design are subtle, and after a full playthough, there weren't that many specific melodies that I could easily recall. That said, I found the soundtrack to be quite perfect in the moment. The songs that really stuck with me are the more understated ambient moments that punctuated some of the game's most emotional key scenarios.
One thing I have to note before wrapping up--I experienced frequent crashes in the Nintendo Switch version of the game. The game's auto-save mechanism was consistent enough to protect me from losing much progress, but I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said the game would crash on me at least once per play session.
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