While the game offers a nice diverse soundtrack and extremely well done pixel art style, the core gameplay mechanics are what you could best describe as 'functional'. This usually isn't a problem, but sadly the game fails to deliver in all other areas including characters (development), dialogues and the overall story.

The pacing in Eastward doesn't help either. It starts you off with the right 'adventure vibes' but that starts to fall apart around chapter 4. Although you can't grasp the full story you can't shake off the feeling that you are playing some kind of filler content. I'm not saying that everything in the game amounts to nothing, but the sheer amount of characters that get introduced and dialogues that play out feel extremely bland. You will remember those, not for the unique situations but for how tedious it drags on and on and artificially stretches the time you have to spent to get through the game. Around chapter 6 one thought started to cross my mind quite often: When is this finally over?

The game takes inspirations from all the right places (90s anime, videogames like Earthbound/Mother 3) but it doesn't help Eastward have its own identity.

Took me around 33 hours finish. You can probably finish it in less if you march through the game and don't look for treasure chests, cooking all recipes or playing Earth Born (retro rpg minigame within the game which was quite fun!). I can't help but feel that the game could've achieved the same (if not more) if it was 20 hours shorter.

The main problem with Eastward is that it's offers a really engaging start only to slowly but surely replace that with most tasks being a hassle to do. It fails to show the player the motivations of many characters and the overall story - though told visually impressive at key moments - leaves a lot to be desired.