I will always consider the prime era of JRPGs to be the heyday of the SNES. Not only was this the period of my life when I was first introduced and had the time to be fully consumed by the best the genre had to offer, but this was also the time where these sort of fantastic stories and grandiose plots told in 16-bits were at the forefront of what video game storytelling could be. So as I was offered the opportunity to give a go at Blossomsoft’s Eternal Eden, a game that harkens back to the titles I grew up loving, I jumped at the chance. Does Eternal Eden live up to the genre established by its predecessors or is it an uninspired imitation come ten years to late? Read on to find out.

Throughout my entire experience with Eternal Eden I never stopped rooting for the game. I believed it had the possibility to be great, I believed it had what it took to come together and be a memorable experience, I believed it would pick up at some drastic turning point and the story would just take off, and though I never stopped being full of hope the game ultimately never fulfilled my expectations and thus never became more than a mediocre experience with a healthy amount of promise.

In Eternal Eden you take control of the young protagonist Noah and his friends as they search for their missing Father, a god-like figure who created and protected the land known as Eden. There are several story elements that pull from the rich biblical mythology including a babel tower and forbidden fruits, but aside from being recognizable names and scenarios the biblical themes aren’t pursued in any exceptionally deep or unique manner and eventually give way to a generally traditional JRPG plotline. That’s not to say, however, that the story of the game is at all poor. Most of the developments in the story had my interest piqued and there are several instances where a genuine sense of gain–and loss–are felt. The tale told in Eternal Eden is good, but is too often marred by cliché revelations, unrealistically quick acceptances, and quite a few errors in grammar and spelling.

The gameplay is pretty much the general RPG fare we’re all familiar with. The world map and towns are varied, if unremarkable, and the battle system is about as straight forward as it gets. Throughout the game, however, it is clear that the developers took their time and carefully polished each area as there is no shortage of secrets and rewards strewn around for those who take the time to look. For me it’s the little touches like that that really give a game spirit and indeed I found that most of the fun I had while playing was when I was looking for these secrets.

My biggest gripe about Eternal Eden is actually nothing big at all; it’s ton of small, annoying things. Like mentioned previously, the game is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors that can begin to feel like you’re reading an uncomfortable translation. Also, inexplicably, a large number of the enemy portraits in the game have terribly jagged edges that make it look like a smaller image was just sized up without care or regard for the alpha map. This really is a shame because not all of the enemy portraits have this problem and most of them are quite well drawn. It is to the game’s benefit that these problems are of such minute nature that they can easily be fixed with small updates and from what I’ve read at the Blossomsoft forum a lot of them may already be fixed by the time you get around to playing it.

So what’s my final verdict on Eternal Eden? I don’t recall the last time I held out so much hope for a game as I played it. It always felt like it was just about to pick up and it wasn’t until I was about halfway through the game that I finally accepted that it wasn’t going to happen. Eternal Eden doesn’t explicitly disappoint, it just never quite excels either. As a game serving purely entertainment values I can’t recommend it to anyone other than those who are seriously jonesing for an old SNES-style JRPG, but Blossomsoft is a young, small developer and considering how much potential is in this game I’m eager to see their next outing backed by the financial support of this one.

For those of you interested in some old-school JRPG action or just want to try out this fair game, here’s a link to the demo courtesy of Blossomsoft:

Eternal Eden Demo