izigame.me

First off, I want to thank the Developer at Yellow Brick Games, they have crafted a beautiful world with interesting mechanics and characters. I'm surprised the game didn't cost more, as I happily would have paid more! It was an incredible experience.
I'm not used to writing reviews, but I wanted to for this, so please forgive any strange formatting.
Gameplay
Overall the gameplay is a breathe of fresh air, and I can see inspiration from games such as Shadow of the Colossus and Monster Hunter, which has been pulled of magnificently. I love the fights with Small and Large enemies alike, as well as the gear crafting and the way that using different materials can change the colours as well as attributes of armour I use. I love the idea of breaking certain parts of a boss, or using the temperature mechanic to get the parts I needed. As a Monster Hunter fanatic, I felt right at home here.
Though I do have three criticisms to give, albeit minor;
Heavy Armour - I understand that wearing heavy armour needs to have a downside, such as slower movement or slower animations. I love wearing heavy armour in games, though when I do so in Eternal Strands, it feels like I just put on ice skates, which can detract from the general feel of the game as someone who typically loves the "Big Bonk wearing Pure Steel" playstyle.
Climbing - The climbing overall is fantastic, and executed very well, though I did notice some inconsistencies, especially noticeable when taking on bipedal bosses, such as the Arkons, and the Surgeborne Herald. These inconsistencies show themselves most when trying to traverse the arms and groin areas. Due to the nature of the climbing, if I wanted to climb the legs of an Arkon, then transition to the torso, I would often find myself getting stuck on the tassets/plating present around the groin area. Sometimes I have even automatically grabbed on to the arms, which would take me further away from where I was originally trying to climb. Additionally on the Herald, if I took out most of the armour, and wanted to get to just the gauntlet so that I could break it, I personally would find it a little frustrating trying to jump from the shoulder to said gauntlet, often just falling off, or latching onto something I never intended to.
Sensitivity - This is referring to mouse sensitivity. The lowest we can choose from is 50, which at least for my liking was still way too fast. It took a bit of adapting at first, but I got the hang of it in the end. Being able to lower this a little bit more would have been nice, though of course not essential.
Characters
The characters are all quite likeable, and it's easy to hate the ones the devs want us to hate, as well as helping us understand why we should hate them. The Eye coming to mind the easiest.
I would also like to praise Yellow Brick for their way of handling inclusion. It doesn't feel forced, and this is incredibly rare these days in games. The characters simply exist in the world, without constantly harping on about their beliefs, which is again, a breathe of fresh air.
If I had to pick favourites, it would be Casmyn and Oria. I absolutely adore the way they were both written, as well as their questlines. They're both incredibly interesting characters with their own problems, such as Casmyns' OCD, which is expertly portrayed as a religious affliction that not many understand, and the process of helping her through it felt genuine.
Cutscenes
The 2D animated cutscenes are absolutely beautiful, and credit must be given to the team that worked on them! They're stylised in a fairly unique way and compliment the overall feel of the world that is laid out for us. I just wish there were more!
I also love the 3D cutscenes, which take place in the games already beautiful art style. The only minor criticism I have here is the lip syncing. It can be a little distracting sometimes if, for example, Brynn is speaking but her lips don't follow similar movements to the words coming from her mouth. It's an incredibly minor thing, of course, and doesn't take away from the game much, if at all.
Story and Lore
I don't want to give away much here at all, on the off chance newer players click the thread anyway to inform a future purchase, so I won't. But I will say that the writing is fantastic, and for a first entry (hopefully not the last?) does a great job of setting up a believable world that our characters live in, with their own magic system, political climate, and religions. I love this, Yellow Brick! Well done indeed.
Magic/Strand system
I felt that this deserved its' own section. I adore the magic system in this game, as well as how you upgrade them. We have three "elements" to work with; Gravity, Frost and Fire. I love all of these and how they can even work with eachother! Finding combos out for myself felt incredibly rewarding, such as using Ensnaring Blast and well timed actions can launch myself great distances, which came in incredibly handy for mounting larger foes. Or using the Kinetic Stream and fire to rapidly heat up and area in front of me, helping take care of those pesky frost turtles!
The game engine
This one is a little bit more on the criticism side, I have a 7900XTX with a 7800X3D and 32GB of DDR5 RAM, it's a shame that due to this being on Unreal Engine 5, that I had to lower the settings to see more than 70fps at 1440p. Switching to 1080p didn't help either. It wasn't game breaking for me by any means, but an option to fully turn off ray Tracing I think could go a long way for those of us who would like to hit those higher limits.
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Overall, this was a joy to play, and now that the credits are ending, I see that I have even more to do! I can't wait to play this even more than I already have, as well as get all of the achievements, and I am incredibly excited to see what projects the Developers at Yellow Brick Games give us in the future.
I apologise for any strange wording and formatting in this post, I am just going over what I loved and thought could use small improvements as they came to my mind, I hope this wasn't too frustrating to read.
Also, if Yellow Brick Games somehow sees this;
Sincerely again; Thank you. This was such an incredible breathe of fresh air. I thought that I was getting bored of / too old for video games, but this has reignited a fire in me that I thought was fading. Thank you.