Eternal Radiance

VIsual novel aesthetics help unite Eternal Radiance’s visuals, but it fails to hybridize the genre’s strongest traits.

Overall, I liked Eternal Radiance. The mix of story and action gameplay will certainly appeal to the anime fans or those that are looking for a good old action jRPG. For me, it scores a positive recommendation mostly due to the variety available to the player during combat sections. If you want to treat this as a simple hack and slash you can. But it was enjoyable to experiment with various moves, spells and parrying. What’s on offer is pretty solid but it doesn’t do anything groundbreaking or new. It feels quite formulaic with the approach of collecting side quests, then going out in the field and exploring until you find it. Then return to town, upgrade your equipment and repeat the process until the day is won. If that all sounds good to you then absolutely give Eternal Radiance a look in.

Overall though, Eternal Radiance was enjoyable. Being able to take the Switch from its dock and read through the visual novel portions before settling back into the TV for the action adventure RPG segments to have more visual real-estate, it was fun even if it wasn’t perfect. While still having some room for improvement from the hands-on gameplay side, I’m looking forward to sitting down to Visualnoveler’s previous Visual Novel work as both their visual art style and their writing for Eternal Radiance was easy to sit down and I enjoyed the time spent with Celeste on her journey of knighthood.

I don’t have strong feelings for Eternal Radiance. It’s got no egregious flaws, and boasts a lengthy quest and a combat loop sure to keep players satisfied. As a bare-bones, back-to-basics look at the action-JRPG, it’s fine. It’s just that on the Switch there are so many available games that take a more interesting look at the JRPG formula, whether it has to do with narrative or gameplay or visual aesthetic, and that makes Eternal Radiance seem woefully bland by comparison. Reading the situation generously, it does feel like the game’s simplicity comes down to the developer’s affection of JRPG tropes, rather than a lack of creativity or ambition. But it's still a quality that holds the overall experience back. The finished product is fine, and quite nice to look at, but it is something that makes me want to play something else instead.

On one side, a visual novel structure capable of skillfully building a sentimental story. On another, action moments that are intense and deep, though its presentation can sometimes be unsightly. Eternal Radiance is, therefore, an elegant RPG that manages to deliver a fun and varied experience on Switch.