While not every idea in Edge of Eternity fully gels, developer Midgar Studio gets enough right that the game feels familiar and welcoming – a fantastic classic RPG in modern clothing. With fun characters, a solid battle system, and just enough surprises to maintain the player’s attention, Edge of Eternity announces the arrival of Midgar to the top echelon of JRPG developers.
Edge of Eternity is solid attempt of being love letter to bygone era of JRPG. The well-established world and combat system could take you dozens of hours and soundtrack will please you every time. But poor pacing, weak character models and uneven difficulty could lower your enthusiasm here.
If the rich, dramatic and engaging intertwining, and the ingenious turn-based combat system with a strong tactical component could abundantly satisfy the palates of fans of the genre, the technical backwardness is attributable as much to the low budget available to the transalpine studio as to the years delays that this has accumulated during development, however, risk obscuring what is good in Edge of Eternity.
Edge Of Eternity has some
modern touches – you can freely
speed up battles, and a variety
of difficulty toggles can reduce
the grind. Less care, however,
has been given to optimisation.
Even on PS5 you’ll fail to get a
smooth framerate in
performance mode when out in
the field, and while teleporting
is fast, assets can’t keep up,
clipping in sometimes seconds
later. It might hold you over
until Final Fantasy XVI arrives
but it’s hard not to feel
like you’re playing, as
the French say, a faux
pas. [Issue#12, p.75]
This love letter to the JRPG genre looks beautiful and its combat is very well done. There are many problems, however – awful animation quality, a clumsily paced story, an empty world and cringey dialogue.
Edge of Eternity has heart and Midgar Studio should be proud of what they’ve achieved for a small indie team. I just wish I liked it more. Thanks to an uninspiring story, lack of overall polish, and some uneven visuals, the final product simply can’t match the developer’s ambitions, making this a hard game to recommend. If you’re curious to dive in, there’s still plenty to like. With a versatile combat system, colorful environmental design, entertaining side content, and old-school design, JRPG fans may find something to enjoy here. It’s on Game Pass at launch, so if you’re playing on PC or Xbox, you could always dip in that way, but otherwise, you’d be better off looking elsewhere.
I just did not care enough about anything that I was seeing or doing to enjoy Edge of Eternity. The narrative lacks thought and insight, the characters are bland, and each new location simply means more fetch quests and slightly higher level enemies to go through the motions to fight. Edge of Eternity is undoubtedly beautiful and the art team deserves kudos, but it is a hollow, empty, and shallow kind of beauty, and with no intelligence nor soul to back it up, the talents of the artists are largely wasted on this one.
SummaryWage epic turn-based battles as you follow Daryon and Selene on their quest to find a cure to the all-consuming Corrosion in this grand tale of hope and sacrifice.