Legends of Ethernal

Legends of Ethernal is a starting point for an even grander game. All the pieces are in place. The compelling narrative, captivating visuals, and engaging soundtrack all help to create a vivid and living world that’s enjoyable to experience. While the gameplay can lag at times, the aforementioned elements admirably make up for these small deficits. A cliffhanger ending all but ensures the developers have something else planned. Wilfred’s journey has really just begun as the game ends, if that historian in the opening is any indication.

Frustrations aside, Legends of Ethernal is a decent step in the right direction for first-time studio Lucid Dreams.

Legends of Ethernal sports a lovely art style and surprisingly grim story, but unfortunately the main mechanics, clunky combat, and frustrating gameplay design make this a tale of mediocre myths rather than one that soars.

I really wanted to like Legends of Ethernal, but it nearly ended up being the most frustrating 2D game I played this week. It's a very modern experience in a lot of ways, but it also drug up some very unpleasant memories of NES games that were designed to not be beaten in a rental period.