The Eternal Castle [Remastered] (PlayStation 4)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): May 20, 2021
- Release Date (EU): May 20, 2021
- Publisher: SEVERED PRESS PTY LTD
- Developer: Leonard Menchiari
- Genres: 2D, Action, Platform
- Also For: Computer, Nintendo Switch
Game Features:
Remember when games loaded off of tapes? It's crazy to think how dangerously flimsy magnetic media used to actually store content like music and video games. I remember recording tape to tape, recording radio shows, and listening to my parents' tape collection as a kid. Two sides, ninety-odd minutes of entertainment, and if you felt really wild you could hold it aloft your head swing it around and round and rewind it manually with a pencil. Looking back, we were privy to barely 21Mb of storage data at 32kbps, across those two sides, and my goodness loading took forever! Even if you managed to load the game up and get it working you were often treated to a seizure-inducing spectacle of colours and shapes. Remember a time when your screen could barely handle more than four colours at once then it flickered and slowed down when too much happened at one time? Cough... yeah, no, me neither... cough.
Do you also remember playing a game with amazing graphics, incredibly realistic physics, special effects and an all-encompassing narrative? What was it called again? I vaguely remember playing it as a kid, around my mate's house. I just can't quite remember what it was called but I definitely it was great. Really great. Wait. Really? Was it though?
The Eternal Castle Remastered is a product of those heavily rose-tinted days, a master class in nostalgia and a very very clever lesson in tapping into people's hazy memories to market something that never actually existed. I'm going to go right ahead and plant a spoiler warning here, by stating that memories may vary and the illusion of such a game being a remaster is about to be shattered. If you want to know more, peruse-on intrepid reader!
1987's The Eternal Castle never existed. It's fine, it's ok, I'm ok with that. In fact, it's more than ok. Anyone who knows me will know that I like clever viral marketing, and I especially love it when April Fool's day comes around and all forms of written media go crazy mocking up fake images and articles to bolster the day's events and hopefully catch out a few of the less savvy readers. I mean, we all know that Kit-Kat is not all of a sudden changing its iconic red wrapper colouring to blue, and we definitely know that Playsaurus TFL Studios absolutely did not release the original Eternal Castle game on January 5, 1987... right? The Eternal Castle Remastered (TECR) immediately harks back to the '80s with its initial black and white, jargon-laden loading screen, which then throws you into a retro-inspired 2-bit CGA animated graphic world of wonder and exploration. If you remember Ceefax and Teletext then this is the aesthetic they have achieved. It's incredibly simplified and yet amazingly intricate at the same time.
Graphically, you have to adjust to the look. It's as harsh as ground-up glass on the eyeballs, but it's beautifully tactile in delivering minute atmospheric moments of clarity and composure. With a definite nod to Another World and Flashback, TECR begins with an opening cinematic of a ship crash landing on a strange planet, and though it's presented through a heavily stylised and flattened minimalist filter, you can still appreciate every tiny detail. The design of the ship, the futuristic vents and grills on its form, the craft burning up in electric pink upon entry, the cloud of smoke and the sand displacing as your ship comes to a grinding halt on the surface of whatever planet this is. Just as Another World used Rotoscoped animation, TECR uses a very similar if not identical method to capture the fluidity of movement within the granularity of a two-dimensional surface representing a three-dimensional object rotating and skewing in a shadow-like yet obscure colour-palette. In some scenes the lighting dramatically changes, shadows roll across the scenery, light floods in and the entire look of the environment changes. It's a testament to smart animators, able to pull off these visual tricks, and that makes TECR utterly compelling and entirely beautiful in its own way.
To introduce you to this environment, your parachute gets caught in a treelike canopy and you have to swing left and right to jostle yourself free. The animation flows and you can instantly feel the heft and shifting required to escape. The primary levels serve to educate you on how to navigate and explore the levels, forcing you to learn to run and long jump across expanses, climb ladders and duck into cover. Later on, you will realise that you can combine these motions into swift actions such as rolling to avoid bullets and jumping whilst striking. I liked the "?" question marks appearing above your head when you get stuck or miss something. It's a simple mechanic to bring your attention back to something important you need to pay attention to, and it's another great nod to this game's peers and inspirations, which like Kojima's Metal Gear Solid.
Controlling the game is simple enough, with a control scheme that reminded me of 1989's Prince of Persia on the GameBoy. You can jump, grab on to ledges and pull yourself up, climb ladders, long jump with a run-up, crouch, roll from cover to cover, and melee attack, pick up a rifle to blast away your foes, lob grenades, and reign down attacks from above with knives and axes. There is so much you can do in order to traverse the terrains that, though the game is strictly linear, you can really approach it however you want. You can also free prisoners, forming a small army and go in with force to take down the opposition, or just go it alone and stealth it up--again somewhat like MGS, especially with that iconic bandana swaying in the wind around your head giving you extra strength.
Overall the animation and art direction is actually mind-blowing. From directional drama enhancing lighting (including muzzle flash) to the superbly kinetic flow of your character's movement, there are ballistics and particle effects to emphasize glass breaking, explosions, water trickling or fully hammering down with rain; it's all just so cleverly portrayed it envelops you and embellishes each environment incredibly well. For example, you have to navigate a series of tunnels, slinking around stealthily, keeping out of the line of sight of any hostiles and you really get the impression the walls are covered in grime. There is a hint of brickwork, the occasional glint of a piece of barbed wire, the floors are thick with sewer-typical nastiness, squelchy and moist, and when you move underneath a ladder with a manhole cover above it your character illuminates around those edges that would legitimately become bathed in light. Picking up dropped weapons, your character has short inferred animations where you size it up, holding it up to admire it. Beautiful subtleties make for a beautiful game.
Whilst in the midst of gunfights I also noticed pieces of rubble falling from environmental bullet impacts, wood splintering and fully destructible background furniture, the wind ambiently rushes through, leaves and dust fly across the screen adding yet more depth and movement. There are screens full of static flickering and pulsing lights, and the water effects are delightfully parodying the real world but in their based stylistic way, especially when combined with layered ambient watery sound effects.
The sound effects in general are as brash as the visuals and I love them. Guns sound powerful, blasting from the compression chamber and thudding into your foes, and the synth music punctuates it all nicely. It's not too over the top, not too repetitive and overall grounds the game in realism. TECR visually and audibly builds coherent environments through minimal details, like a highly skilled artist with a paintbrush, and it allows your mind to fill in the blanks. You're totally sucked in there, living and breathing the adventure, wondering what might be around the next corner.
With five main worlds split into twenty missions, you get to explore ancient ruins, the forgotten cities, the Unholy lab and, lastly, enter the Eternal Castle as either Adam or Eve. It's a fight for survival in a very hostile world, and it's up to you to get the parts you need to fix your downed craft and defeat everything you come face to face with. The bosses are monstrous, hulking, screen-filling devilish creatures, and you will have to learn their patterns and adapt your tactics to thwart them. As a throwback to a previous era of gaming, these bosses are fun to figure out and you get a real sense of accomplishment when you smash them to pieces.
It won't take you too long to finish TECR with just 4-5 solid hours of gameplay and perhaps a few more on top of that if you're a true completionist. For the £11.99 price tag, I feel it's perhaps a little light on any expansive content, however, it is truly action-packed for that entire 4-5 hours and the adventure is hugely enjoyable. I liked the fact there was a co-op mode and there were a couple of unlockable secrets; it really reminded me of how games used to give you bonus levels and extras at the end of your first playthrough.
The Eternal Castle Remastered is a love letter to games of its precursory ilk, but do not be fooled; it's not a remaster! If you love 2D action-platformers with stealth and satisfying ballistic elements then TECR is definitely one to check out if you want something to get your teeth into while you're between games or simply have a couple of hours to spare.
Verdict
- Exquisitely retro aesthetic
- Cooperative modes
- Ideal for speed-runners
- Secret unlockables
- Arguably short at around 4-5 hours casual play.
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