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CoE is set in the Viridian empire, more specifically in its capital, where a powerful curse has turned almost everyone into mindless, aggressive beings; consequently, the once-mighty reign found its downfall. Playing as one of three heroes (respectively mage, warrior and rogue), your immunity to the curse makes you the only one able to challenge and perhaps slay Midrhada, the mad goddess that caused all of this.

The setting is primarily dark fantasy, and it can be seen there’s an inspiration to some of Dark Souls’ famouls locations, like Undead Burg, Anor Londo or Blighttown, in the making of several areas. But don’t get me wrong, CoE retains its originality and doesn’t try to ‘copy’ DS at any point in its world-building. Even if the levels’ verticality and complexity are not as deep as some other titles, it’s definitely on passable levels. Unlike most souls, CoE prefers to use direct narration in the form of lore volumes to speak of characters and events, which isn’t a bad choice if done properly.

The world is made of interconnected areas, each having a ‘main path’ to traverse, that will inevitably lead to that zone’s boss, and also secondary ones that, of course, lead to secrets, optional quest-giving NPCs, treasure chests and so on. Despite this fact, not all of them are well-interconnected with shortcuts, so if you need to backtrack at any point for whatever reason, prepare for the long haul as there’s no fast travel, either - a disappointing decision that really has no point other than making you waste time.

While you explore, you’ll come across several puzzles that usually are about finding the correct combination of symbols by deducing it from the environmental hints in the area, or locked chests that will engage you in a shape-matching sequence, where you’ll have to arrange symbols in various slots to unlock the chest. As customary for the genre, there’s no map, but that’s fine because the various levels aren’t overly-complicated and you most likely won’t get lost.

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Combat plays out in third person, with, as expected, an emphasis on learning enemy attack patterns to strike and dodge at the right times, while also managing your stamina, without which you won’t be able to roll, block or attack. Each weapon category (daggers, swords, etc.) has its own attack pattern between light and heavy blows, as well as sprint and leaping strikes that are slower but inflict more damage. The main issues with melee combat is how tremendously slow and stiff every one of your attacks is, while enemies may not follow this same pacing. There aren’t detailed stats about weapon scaling or status effect buildups; generally you won’t be able to have a detailed stat breakdown.

Boss fights are average at best, and save for the final boss and a couple of exceptions, there won’t be any particular challenge to overcome even without grinding or over-leveling. Those exceptions I mentioned are instead huge spikes of difficulty that will turn you to grinding before all of a sudden your weapons and eventual spells will feel like toys. Speaking of spells, they use stamina to be cast as there’s no mana, and for the better ones you’ll also need Magic Crystals, obtained only from specific consumables. For the rest you have your regular Estus equivalent in combat, that will be refilled at one of the blue-hued bonfires or when you die.

Instead of leaving your Shards (souls) on the ground, they’ll be absorbed by the Shard Keeper, an enemy that randomly spawns only when you have enough souls to level up, so you can’t just get them back immediately after dying. It’s an innovative mechanic on one side, but the Keeper is weak, slow, and frustrating to trigger as an event, so it’s just the regular soul recovery with extra, pointless steps in the end.

You’ll gain equipment from looting, boss drops and trading, other than a few quests. It may be in the form of spells, consumables or weapons, which can be sold to a trader if you need souls to buy other stuff or level up. Leveling will give you one point to spend in the four main attributes, and a perk point to spend on perks related to that attribute, like for example magical mastery for INT, that enables using spells of the selected element. These passive abilities are useful and make the difference in the long run, especially at higher ranks.

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This is a super fun souls-like game that you can't put down once you pick it up! The different classes and possible specs you can play give the game a lot of replay value and by the time you're about to finish the game's campaign you're already thinking about your next character build. The game is just the right amount of challenging to keep you wanting to retry until you overcome it, and between the diverse enemies and the character build options there's a ton of variety to the gameplay that keeps you on your toes. I totally recommend it for RPG lovers and Souls fans alike!

When I blocked a mage's spell with my arrow almost by accident, I knew this game was deep. Then I met a floating talking skull, and a talking fern, and I knew this game was weird. Then I heard the absolutely shredding guitar soundtrack and I knew this game awesome!

Oh man, this game is fantastic! It's an amazingly handcrafted adventure, with an old-school vibe that inspires exploration and sense of adventure across the massive detailed world. There are tons of secrets to find, challenging fun combat, amazing heated boss fights and fun puzzle solving. It's a hard game to put down even when you've already been playing for 8 hours straight. All the different areas and zones have a distinct look and feel, and the level design and flow is simply top notch. You are able to multi-class in a very unique way which allows for building very unique characters each time you play. I went full on mage, but the possibilities are endless and will have you starting new characters over and over again. The music is amazing, the developer did a great job building a genuine and interesting world. Highly recommended to those who love skilled combat games, or even just for those who love a good exploration experience. Excited to play more! :)

This game is a lot of fun! If you have played any of the FromSoftware games (Dark Souls, Elden Ring, etc) then the combat system will be very familiar to you. You can't just run in swinging; enemies have sharp attack timings and the game really rewards you for learning their patterns. It's so satisfying when you manage to take down a tough enemy without getting hit once.

On top of that, the game has solid world-building delivered through lore books you find scattered around the world. It rewards exploration with plenty of items hidden around corners and in "easy to see but hard to reach" type areas.

So far I've only gotten through the first boss, but I can definitely recommend it and am looking forward to beating it!

Summary: Recommended if you enjoy the slower, more methodical combat of the earlier Souls games, like to experiment with different playstyles, and appreciate gameplay diversity in the form of simple puzzles.

Curse of Eternity is a weighty Souls-like game with a lot of charm. The bright locales and light-hearted (but not obnoxious) sense of humor distinguish it clearly from the grim and miserable worlds the genre usually finds itself in. You can really feel a good-spiritedness emanating from the game as a whole, which inevitably comes from the fact that this is a passion project from tiny, two person team. I feel that many will find the trademarks of this game to be somewhat divisive, but on the whole they landed positively for me.

The speed of the combat is the most notable element that anyone familiar with Souls-likes will notice right off the bat. It is slow, weighty, and some might say, clunky. Personally, as a lifelong Greatsword user, I really enjoyed this. Landing and dodging attacks didn’t feel like a punishing trial of lightning-fast reflexes – rather, it felt strategic and deliberate. You have to be decisive about your attacks, rather than light attack and dodge roll spamming. As someone who feels like every From Software game since Dark Souls 3 has been too speedy, this was really refreshing.

Another element that some may find divisive (but I personally enjoyed a lot) is the inclusion of simple puzzles and challenges throughout the world. Treasure Chests are often opened with a brief logic puzzle, and many hidden (but totally optional) chests can be revealed by completing an archery challenge or another form of logic puzzle. These are never particularly challenging, but also not insultingly easy, and I found that they provided a really nice variety to the experience (compared to constant combat).

Finally, some may think that the price of the game is steep for the game’s length and level of polish. This is not unfair, especially considering other recently released Souls-likes in a similar price range. However, I don’t think 4 years of hard work from a solo developer should be valued less than the cost of a large pizza.

Thanks for reading, and go give this game a shot!

My time so far in Curse of Eternity has been a lot of fun! The Shard Keeper is a cool twist on the mechanic to get your "Souls" back, I look forward to defeating him every time I die and reclaiming my shards. I played the Mage class to start out and I can already see the different ways I could have chose to build my character. If you are looking for a fun souls-like to play with some awesome classes and character builds pick this game up.

Damn. I'm a sucker for a Souls game, but this game is not fun. I say that with complete respect for the efforts of the developers here as I'm sure making a game is no easy task! This game play is just flat. Maybe it gets better later on, but it makes a terrible first impression. At 16.99, the price point doesn't sting so I won't go for a refund and hope that the game improves or is improved with future updates. Good luck devs!

the game is fun and i can see the direction.
id give it 4/5 stars

Curse of Eternity is great so far. I recommend starting on the default difficulty and definitely take care to preserve your stamina. I think it's a good price-point and the graphics are wonderfully nostalgic. I love the subtle humor in the game and would recommend anyone who enjoys a true-to-genre RPG to give it a shot. The controls are reasonably intuitive and once you fight a couple battles they are second-nature.

It's well balanced and fun to play, and so far the story is engaging and holds your interest. The pacing and built-in tutorial is done nicely, and the game feels smooth and polished. Wonderful release from a new studio and I hope others play it.