Eternal Strands Steam Charts & Stats

a delightful game about throwing rocks at big monsters, while setting everything on fire

extremely interesting lore and world. great graphics, great characters, great VA. great studio behind it. but i personally get sooooo bored with open zone/open world games, especially with resource gathering that feels kinda boring, plus i dont think this game has any motion sickness accessibility, which is a huge deal for me. if you like these things this game will be great. the magic system is super sick and the boss fights are insane, but for me personally the open sections between can get tiring, I would certainly read a book or play an RPG in this world. looking forward to more yellow brick games,

This is a fun game. Not perfect by any means. But if you can pick it up on a decent sell, you will get every dollar of your money out of it. Strongly recommend.

Did I enjoy this game? Mostly. Would I recommend it? No. Engaging combat, generous parry windows, materials are never wasted, the shield can actually block things, the world and lore are fascinating. All of these are good. But: In order to get certain special resources from some of the larger enemies, they often have highly specific moves that you might have to wait several minutes for. Trying to determine these mechanics without a guide or checking the codex (which the game rarely if ever tells you to do) is nigh impossible. Fire abilities are simultaneously critical for some mechanics, and horribly underwhelming. You can build gear to focus on fire resist, armor, or cold resist. But cold resist ends up being overwhelmingly more valuable than everything else. The characters definitely detracted from the experience to a large degree. One starts off hating you, then proceeds to rapidly shift from weird gay flirting to having a full on mental breakdown. The only actual parent in the game is an irredeemably vile scumbag for no real reason. And you have to play marriage counselor for the literal only straight couple.

very nice game with unique mechanics and a very fun story to follow

It's fun - I skipped the story mostly, the gameplay holds up and the art is good. Seems inclusive as far as representation but I mostly just like that it's a good game and the physics add a lot to the monster hunter formula.

Don't want to be the "oh my god game reviewers are so dumb" guy but this game deserves way better reviews. Like how did CoD 23 get better reviews than this. That is a travesty. It's got one of the best sandboxes I've played in a game. The magic system is absolutely amazing. There's always a new way to use a spell or combo it with another spell, even If it isn't always better than the alternative. The black hole spell you get early on is the greatest magic spell not just in a video game but real life as well. I don't want to spoil all the stuff you can do with it because figuring out how to use the spells was by far the most fun part for me so please don't spoil it for yourself but if telling you means it will push you over the edge when deciding whether or not to buy the game here are some things you can do with it. [spoiler]You can chain the black hole spell back to back to launch yourself around the map with good timing and positioning[/spoiler] [spoiler]You can use it to quickly cool or heat the area around it if you put fire or ice in the middle[/spoiler] and my favorite one is too good for me to spoil but if you really want a hint [spoiler]it involves a certain spell you get right when when you make it to the city[/spoiler]. I digress, the the big monsters are the perfect addition to that sandbox feeling like a puzzle and the best test of new strategies. The big enemies are definitely the highlight but even the little enemies are fun to mess round with and if you can't be asked just throw them away. Generally the game is nice to look at and it's a pretty cool world. Exploration feels more similar to Dragon's Dogma 2 with some Zelda than Assassin's creed which is great but don't expect to find some crazy new item in every chest like Elden Ring. Unfortunately the last few hours just aren't that good. Really my only true complaint I have of the game. The main and side quests' stories/objectives weren't great IMO and the crafting system was kinda a mess but those didn't effect my enjoyment because I was having fun just playing the game. There were some other small gripes but the only thing that actually affected my enjoyment was the last few hours before the very end. It was almost none of the stuff that makes the game great aside from one new power. No new areas to explore, no new gear, no new bosses to farm and no new puzzles to solve. ~2 hours of meh is easily worth the 40 hours of great game and I'm still looking forward to the 2nd free DLC. It feels like a combination of the new Zelda games and Dragon's Dogma with a hint of Monster Hunter and that shit all bangs so this does too.

Enjoyed this more than I expected based on the original demo. Positives - clambering around on giant monsters was fun - crafting system is generous and flexible - voice acting is on point Negatives - one late-game boss is extremely annoying to fight - too many companion quests consist of simple fetch quests (somewhat understandable given the smaller scope of the game)

This game makes me excited and sad at the same time. The opening premise and the first 2 hours of the game are really good. The opening incident sets an exciting tone and the voice acting carries it well. The first 4 or so areas are excellent, full of locations to explore, monsters to kill and material to gather. The game however feels like it hits a kind of wall around that 2 hour mark. The game starts dropping a lot of side quests for the player, and they start feeling like a lot of unnecessary busy work, forcing you to return again and again to locations that had been exciting to explore the first time, but the 5th they have lost all luster. Most side-quests don’t have rewards, the cutscenes being the only thing you get for the majority of the game, but that unfortunately brings me to a second problem. This game encapsulated the term “Speaking as if HR is listening”. I quickly lost all interest in the characters you’re surrounded with and by god there is so much dialog. I honestly feel bad for not liking it because there has obviously gone so much effort into the amount of dialog and voice acting. None of the characters have interesting dynamics and the very few “flaws” anyone has are treated with such kiddy gloves it fails to create any interest for me. By the 8 hour mark, I had completely tuned out the dialog and sidequests, enjoying exploring the vast world, but the disengagement from the main story dragged that enjoyment heavily. Killing mobs becomes pretty boring and only useful for farming rare crafting material and so the only things worth doing becomes killing bosses and exploring. The game's bossfighting mechanic never lost its luster to me. Bosses are huge monsters you get to climb as you chip away at their huge healthpool, or solve simple “puzzles” to harvest them for upgrades for the game's magic system. The puzzles are never really more complicated than “Destroy or cripple certain body parts, but not others”. Close to the end of the game, you unlock a new spell that catapults your character so you can climb much faster and easier and refreshes the excitement of the battles. I think that spell however really reveals the game's true shortcoming. The levels are vast and lovingly crafted, but from the start of the game, you can climb all surfaces, meaning nothing is really out of your reach. The catapult spell is the ONLY movement spell in the entire game and with it you can access a single extra armor piece you didn’t have before, and a couple of lore items. With the amount of times the game expects you to repeat areas, it really needed more areas, locked behind future spells. Shortcuts, rare material and sidequests could be gated by advancing spells instead of just being repeated treks through the same levels. There are many systems I’m not going to touch on, but just know that it all comes together in this unfortunate bundle where the game has some strengths, but also many weaknesses, creating this strange rough diamond. I cautiously recommend the game, mostly for the novelty of the boss fights and its beautiful world. Is that worth 40$? It was to me.

A really great game and one that seems to be slept on more than I would expect. People were worried Clair Obscur would fly under the radar but this game should be talked about by the same people. Unique magic wielding system. Armor/Weapon crafting with full retrofit / resource swap capability. Monster Hunter style combat with large monsters, Breath of the Wild style exploration. Good writing with interesting characters. And you can ignore the nonsense about "woke agenda" that some people claim - this game is actually a perfect example of "show, don't tell" and doesn't unnecessarily insert modern culture war topics into the game. The characters simply are who they are and have interesting stories of their own. Exactly what "anti-woke" people claim they want. It's not a perfect game. It gets a bit repetitive and can be grindy, especially if you're more of a completionist like me. But it's only asking $40 up front and it's absolutely worth that price. It's exactly the kind of "mid-price + moderate length" experience that people are always asking for. Well, here it is!