Eastward is a new indie action-adventure game that pays homage to the SNES era of The Legend of Zelda and EarthBound. That’s why the Switch seems like the perfect fit for it. Indie games try to pay respects to the classics all the time and fail to capture the magic. Eastward, on the other hand, excels at its tribute all while making a name for itself.
That’s how the reviews are seeing it anyway. That’s not to say the game is without faults. The problems with it are not that terrible as compared to all of the highs it offers. This is one indie game that is surely going to be remembered by the end of the year, even if there are some issues worth mentioning alongside the praise.
10 Best: The Pixel Art
The pixel art in Eastward is out of this world. Everything looks like it has been hand-drawn. It’s like if a cartoon was a 16-bit game.
There is also a cool VHS-like effect on the screen which makes it even more distinct. There have been many modern pixel art games from indie companies but this might be the best in some time.
9 Worst: Slow Start
The art should jump out at players right away. What may not grab the attention of players is the beginning of the game. There is a prologue and a full chapter set in the underground before John and his party escapes to the surface.
It’s an expansive area for such a bleak tunneled society. The game moves very slowly in these two chapters. There is interesting stuff to see, but the dungeons offer up a lot of repeated themes.
8 Best: Character Design
The character design deserves its own special mention from the graphics and the pixel art. This is where the EarthBound influences really come into play. It is one of the most uniquely designed worlds of 2021 from the environments to the characters.
The animations and facial expressions really help sell these zany characters well from the smallest NPCs to the main leads. Players will surely wish to drink up every encounter with these characters.
7 Worst: John’s Silence
The silent protagonist a tired cliche in RPGs, or video games in general. John is a silent protagonist although there are moments where it seems like John is talking directly to the player.
These moments are fleeting though. Eastward is clearly aping from retro highlights and one of the classic design choices of these 90s games was to silence their leads like Ness in EarthBound. It was okay then but distracting now.
6 Best: Boss Battles
Like the Zelda series on which this game draws heavily from, the boss encounters are well-thought-out puzzles. The first big example is a robot right before the party breaks free of the underground.
Players have to force it to suck up bombs before they can attack it directly. The next boss is a giant hermit crab that needs to be forced out of hiding by releasing steam valves. These are only a taste of the great boss battles awaiting players in Eastward.
5 Worst: Combat
The downside to boss encounters is that the overall combat isn’t that exciting. John has a frying pan and can charge it up. Eventually, he unlocks new weapons like a shotgun to offer more variety.
Sam can stun enemies at first which is good to combo to add to John’s frying pan skills. It’s not terrible in any real way. It is serviceable as an action game but not engaging.
4 Best: The Opening Anime
Eastward opens up with an amazing opening akin to an anime. Even though the game draws heavily from the SNES era for most inspirations, this intro feels more reminiscent of the PS1 era.
It’s a fun introduction to the world and shows just a few highlights on where the game will go. The job of an intro is to get players jazzed for the adventure and Eastward does a great job at that.
3 Worst: The Save System
The save system in this game is both good and bad. On the plus side, the game autosaves in between each screen. This makes checkpointing one of the more accessible features in the game.
The downside is that manual saves are few and far between. Players can also only use one slot and not swap between the other two allotted. However, each save slot has four save slots within it but again, can’t be chosen which is a confusing setup.
2 Best: Earth Born
Earth Born sounds like it’s a mini-game based on EarthBound due to the name. It is actually more of an RPG like Dragon Quest. It’s actually really well thought out as a mini-game.
Players may find themselves sucked into this game’s narrative and mechanics more so than Eastward’s. It’s not going to blow any minds but it is better than it needs to be as a classic throwback within a throwback.
1 Worst: Switch Achievements
There are in-game achievements in Eastward. If players are gaming on other systems, these achievements correlate to actual console rewards. The Switch still does not have anything like that so the inclusion of them on that console can feel hollow.
Another Switch game from 2021, Disgaea 6, had in-game achievements as well. The big difference is that these achievements contained tangible rewards for the game which would have been nice to see in Eastward as well.