Eternal Strands – Review - Treat Your Geek

Eternal Strands is the first game created by a new independent gaming studio – Yellow Brick Games, which is co-owned by Mike Laidlaw who previously developed games such as Dragon Age, Mass Effect and Jade Empire.

It’s a third-person action role-playing game (ARPG) with bountiful amounts of story and lore, enhanced by beautifully drawn animated cutscenes. It’s a fresh approach to an ARPG that combines a breath-taking and well-crafted world with unique characters, deep lore and epic boss fights.

You play as Bryn, a weaver who can handle the strands of magic navigating her first adventure with a merry band of adventurers to discover the truth behind the Veil in the Enclave. As you progress through the various parts of the Enclave, you are introduced to different mechanics which will assist you throughout the game. These include cold vs heat resistance, and learn the numerous ways to weave magic to your advantage.

The characters and the story bring this beautiful world together. There is so much dialogue you could easily get lost in it, which isn’t a bad thing. Every character has their own backstory and traits which they will share with you. Through this, you will be able to explore their past and future problems together.

The voice acting was immaculate, there haven’t been many games in which I have enjoyed just listening to the pages upon pages of dialogue and enjoying every second of it. Bryn can make multiple choices while talking with her team and other NPCs. Although these choices do not make an impact on the world or the story, they do alter the others’ perception of Bryn depending on which dialogue options you decide to go with.

The main quest is very well written and it also works quite well with the side quests. Trying to discover the mysteries of the Veil and the Hearthsiders living inside it. The main story will take you on missions to discover the lost history and technologies of the Enclave and why the once thriving most powerful nation in the world disappeared. The side quests focus on either collecting more strands from epic monsters to make Bryn stronger or fulfilling companion quests to discover more about them or to help them reach their goals inside the Enclave.

While the classic elements of an ARPG remain the same, the movement and attacks feel very satisfying and fluid. With there being only three weapon classes in the game they made sure to focus on how good and satisfying it feels to wield them. However, when it comes to the movement during epic monster fights it can feel clunky and unresponsive at times.

The movement while climbing onto epic monsters is reliant on your camera and your input, which can feel very frustrating if the monster keeps shaking you and the camera, changing your movement path and making you go in a direction you did not want to go to. Different kinds of equipment will aid you throughout Eternal Strands and add the needed flair to your gameplay.

Certain weapons and mantles have different magic powers imbued into them which adds a unique design and also reflects on their stats. The crafting and gathering system is quite a grind until later in the game when a certain upgrade will solve this. Nevertheless, it is enjoyable to fight epic monsters to gather the needed resources to upgrade your gear.

The gathering system includes a unique mechanic of heating and freezing ore veins to harvest unique resources. The rarer resources you will need can be gathered by either freezing or heating different ore types and also certain enemy types. This game requires you to have different kinds of equipment sets which means that you have to look out for specific kinds of resources to make sure you have a fighting chance with certain enemies.

Now the epic monster fights do resemble hunts from Monster Hunter, however, they are not as in-depth or challenging. Most of the ark fights feel very similar and repetitive, especially the flying epic monsters which were almost the same. Saying that, I did enjoy fighting and harvesting them for required resources but honestly, I did avoid them late game.

After playing around 25 hours of gameplay, I still think I have around 10-15 hours of playing left to 100% Eternal Strands, which is a good time for an ARPG of this scale. I can confidently say I have completed and found around 60-70% of all available content which, in my opinion, is a good amount of content for the price and gameplay time, not to mention for an indie game.

I was pleasantly surprised to feel emotionally connected to the characters and their stories. Eternal Strands has left me craving a sequel so I can play and interact with these characters again. Considering Eternal Strands has exceeded my expectations, especially as it is not only developed by an independent studio but is also their first game, I am confident it will make a name for itself for being an amazing ARPG and highly recommend fans of this genre to play this.