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HUGE SPOILER. LIKE, MASSIVE SPOILER. ONLY READ IF YOU FULLY PLAYED THE GAME. Or if you're just very curious.


I really need to get my thoughts out in some way because I was very much enjoying my time with the game until right at the very end. So, if you're still reading I am going into detail about the ending since this is the main reason why my opinion of the game changed so drastically. Last warning. Here I go ranting again.
SO. Eternights has a social sim similar to the Persona games. You hang out with characters during the day and level them up and everyone except for Chani is romance-able. This aspect of the game was the thing that was advertised the most so I was expecting something somewhat in depth and no... It really isn't. It's very easy to upgrade your team and date your party members which makes sense since the story moves at a mile a minute. You can even date all of them. (or so I'm told) One of the few things I can say about this game with 100% confidence is that the game does pretty well on getting you attached to the characters. Or at least to the date-able ones. I'm still not sold on Chani. BUT the character stories are good enough to get you involved and wanting to know more while strengthening your bonds. With that bit of context now I can talk about the ending.
THE ENDING. This disappointing as all hell ending. Right before the final boss section of the game the story has you pick the character you think is the most important to you, i.e your love interest. So, like you may think, you are locking in who your romance partner is and who will appear with you in the ending. EXCEPT. You are also marking them for DEATH. After all the repetitiveness the game throws at you, after developing your bonds and and potentially growing attached; the game kills the most interesting character to you. But this isn't the most annoying part to me which I'll get to in a second.
The writing needs work. There's some great moments with the writing. For the most part, I think they nailed the humor. For the rest, I feel as though the tone of the game shifts too much and kills immersion. (Like they killed my Min) And where the writing really falters for me is The End. When your MC goes under for the operation to put his hand energy in the fudgin' cannon or whatever. Your love interest (Min for me) is bedside with you and you say "I love you" it's all very sweet. But theeeeennn Min just leaves the train?! Why did she leave the safety of the train fully knowing there are still monsters roaming about? Is she stupid?! Then I thought, "Oh, I guess I'll have to save her now." NOPE no saving. You run out and see her strung up in the air while spewing blood and body convulsing. Much like the rest of the game it happens way too quickly and just left me mad at how random it felt. Turns out Umbra like, fused with her or something. So you fight the super lack luster final boss and get a scene where Min goes to sacrifice herself to stop Umbra from within. First parallel that came to mind was the end of Guilty Gear Strive where Jack-O goes to sacrifice herself to stop I-NO from within but Sol rips her out of there and they find a new way to defeat her with the powers of all the characters working together to stop her. Although I wasn't expecting that exact thing to play out in Eternights but I was hoping to have the best happy ending where the cast came up with an alternate plan to defeat Umbra. Now I will admit that comparing an indie game's writing to something wild and complex like Guilty Gear is a bit unfair. But just because the video game is indie does that mean that other important factors like the writing need to be indie too? Does that make sense?
So Min dies, Umbra is defeated, and on to the thing that peeved me the most. Everything is instantly better. All of the horrible things that happened? Doesn't matter! It's all fixed now yippee! Of course, all the people who died are still dead. Unfortunately, the Eternights Anti-Aging Pill won't work if you're a corpse. You know who's not a corpse? Min. Because after the sacrifice it's only a matter of minutes before it's revealed that your love interest doesn't die for good and Lux just brings them back after a couple weeks. Not only that, the MC gets his flesh and bone arm back. Which means losing that arm meant nothing in the end and giving up the energy in the final act was pointless anyway because Umbra upgrades and you simply grow back the energy arm. Then you get "Where-are-they-now" style text on screen about all the party members. Yuna goes back to being a pop-star but makes more time for her friends. Sia continues her research and love of science. And Chani is cool now. The last 2 hours of the game feel like a blur because of the pace of it all. Not only that, all the fixes characters get to their stories and your love interest resurrecting feel so rushed and unimportant. And on top of it all, when you finish the game completely you get a QR code. Scan it and you get a 30 second video from your partner. It's mostly there to reinforce that fact the sacrifice didn't have emotional weight. It's cute and all but it makes me wonder why that couldn't just be in the game!
Overall, I feel kinda guilty. I didn't hate the game, but the end really soured all positives I had to say about it. Aside from the writing, the pacing, and the ending I liked the social sim and found some fun with the combat. If you read this whole thing I'm sorry I rant a lot. But that's only when I'm really passionate about something and indie games bring out my passion. Eternights was within my top anticipated games when I saw the trailer and now that I am finally able to play it I'm left pretty underwhelmed. I have nothing but respect for the devs for putting time and effort into a thing they love. Much like any studio that puts their name out there, there's always something to improve on. I still have immense faith in Studio Sai and I will keep my eyes peeled for any of their future projects. That is all. Thank you for indulging my rant.