XBOX REVIEW | Eternal Strands

Eternal Strands is the debut game from Yellow Brick Games and is an action-adventure game. Players control Brynn, a warrior exploring the secrets of the Enclave, a long-lost civilization. Eternal Strands features elemental manipulation, allowing players to freeze enemies, ignite them, and alter the environment through temperature changes. Additionally, Brynn possesses telekinetic powers for combat and exploration. There are many great characters to meet, each with their own story to discover. Brynn will have to defeat Arks, giant creatures scattered throughout the Enclave, a once-powerful and now sealed civilization, along with many other ghastly creatures as she does her best to prevent the world from descending into chaos and destruction and stop a dark force threatening the balance of the world.

Things I liked!

• Visuals | I was very impressed with the visuals in Eternal Strands. I really was not expecting it to look this appealing, with stunning vistas wherever you go. Looking up from the ground, you see towering buildings and large monuments. While some may be outside of the playing area, I found this really adds to the immersion you feel and experience when playing. I would compare the visuals to those found in the Dishonored games. Character models are brilliant, each filled with lots of detail that helps to distinguish them from others. While there was some slowdown, I noticed this did not happen until later in the game when there was a lot happening on the screen.

• Gameplay | As I started playing Eternal Strands, the first thing I noticed was the scale of everything. With so much to explore, I couldn’t wait to finish the prologue and really get stuck in. As you begin your adventure and get to grips with the weapons and abilities at your disposal, which did take a few hours to master. You have your trusted short sword and shield, your long two-handed sword, and bow and arrow, all of which can be upgraded as you gather resources, complete quests, and find new blueprints. You also have magical abilities such as kinetic, ice, and fire, which can be upgraded by removing special strands from gigantic beasts called Arks. You will also face many other magical creatures who are around the same size as you. Here, it’s important to use your weapons like the sword and shield, where you can block, parry, and stun your enemy before striking a fatal blow. I like to stun with a parry and then quickly switch to my double-handed long sword, which I found very effective. You can also craft weapons infused with kinetic, ice, and fire. You also have potions such as health potions for when your health is low, and other potions which make you less vulnerable to ice and fire. As you find better crafting materials, you can simply reforge your weapons and replace components back at the base camp. As you explore and complete quests, you will notice that there are no markers telling you where to go. These only appear when you are very close, but by pressing up on the d-pad, a light will appear for a few short seconds and move in the direction you need to go. This does have a cooldown timer, but as you complete quests, the timer gets shorter.
  
  
• Arks | Arks are these giant creatures that come in all kinds of different forms, from large statues to enormous insects or dragons. They are huge and are one of my favourite parts of Eternal Strands. Most Arks are defeated by climbing up them and attacking weak spots until a glowing spot appears. Here, you can attempt to pull out a magical strand, which is needed to upgrade your magical abilities. If successful, the Ark will die. Along with the strand, you will also get lots of high-value loot used for crafting. However, you have to be careful not to kill the Ark by getting all its health down to zero before the strand appears. If this happens, you get the high-value loot but not the strand.
  
  
• Audio | The voice acting, music, and sound effects are all really good in Eternal Strands. I felt that the incredible voice actors did a tremendous job bringing the game to life, showing emotion when needed. The musical score is also incredibly well implemented into the world of Eternal Strands, as you might expect from an action-packed fantasy adventure game, and definitely does not disappoint. It sounds like something straight from a blockbuster movie like The Lord of the Rings. The sound effects as you explore the worlds in Eternal Strands are great, such as ice cracking or fire roaring down from a dragon hunting you. However, at times during normal combat, the sound effects did seem a little underwhelming, but I’m sure this will be fixed in the future.

Mixed & disliked!

• Difficulty | I started playing Eternal Strands on normal difficulty, but midway through I changed to easy difficulty because I was dying far too often and I wanted to see how much difference it would make. I would say that even on easy difficulty, Eternal Strands was still challenging, but for me, it made the whole experience with gameplay and story much more enjoyable. There were still times when I was getting killed, but it was far less often than on normal difficulty. Each time you die, you lose some of the resources that you have collected and also respawn back at the start of that area.

How long did I play the review before publishing? 30 hours
How long to beat the story? 25 hours
How many Achievements did I earn before publishing? 23/44 or 270/1000
How long to achieve 1000G | 40 hours +
You’ll love this game if you like these | Darksiders 2 and Immortals Fenyx Rising

CONCLUSION

Score: 90/100 – Eternal Strands was the game I never knew I wanted to play until it came along. I really did not know very much about it, which I think is always a good thing. Early on during the prologue, I was instantly hooked. All the weapons and magical abilities are fun to use, each with their own strengths and weaknesses depending on the enemy type. My favourite weapon was the two-handed long sword as it has high damage and could weaken enemies quickly. I liked that when you are in a conversation with another character, you have the option to have a longer conversation with them, which would not have any other effect on the game, or you could simply select the first option to close the conversation. This greatly improved getting to know more about each character. When you are talking with another character, you have storyboards that appear, which do look great, but having been used to seeing cut-scenes for these types of interactions in other similar games, I would have loved to have seen that here too, especially with the talented voice actors. However, I soon got used to it. There is one quest that turns out to be related to mental health, and I thought this was a nice touch to be included in the story of one of the characters. I really enjoyed my time playing Eternal Strands and was happy to see that I could continue playing after completing the main story. With Eternal Strands being the first game from Yellow Brick Games, it’s exciting to see what they do next.