They say you should never judge a book by its cover, and those are words that you should definitely live by, otherwise you might end up missing out on something as awesome as Another Eden.
At first glance, this game might look like just another free to play JRPG full of gacha, but in reality, it actually has a much closer relationship with the classics of the SNES era, albeit more polished with some modern elements.
Another Eden trailer
That is not too surprising if you look at its development team: There are Masato Kato as well as Yasunori Mitsuda, story writer and music composer of Chrono Trigger respectively. Mitsuda also had the assistance of Shunsuke Tsuchiya, who worked on the music of Luminous Arc 2. Meanwhile, the graphics are created completely by Binchotan’s Takahito Exa.
And it truly shows. The entire game just oozes quality. The visuals are incredibly gorgeous, and the music is a real treat. The dialogue, meanwhile, is admittedly cliché, but then again, this is a trap that many JRPGs fall into, and it isn’t too bad to the point of being cringe-worthy in this case either, so it’s not that big of a complaint.
During our first playthrough, we didn’t really have the feeling that we were playing a new game. Instead, the whole experience felt like diving back into a classic. Depending on how you look at it, that is either a compliment or a criticism.
The whole experience feels like diving back into a classic instead of playing a new game
You’ll follow the story of Aldo, a rather generic sword-wielding JRPG protagonist who has just begun his job as a guardsman of a peaceful village. His sister Feinne, who is a bit of a worrywart, is concerned about this even though he keeps assuring her that nothing ever happens in the town anyway.
Now, we don’t want to spoil the plot for you, so let’s just say that an incident then proves that Aldo is wrong. A demon king – the main villain of the game – appears and seeks to wipe out all life on earth. Naturally, it falls to our protagonist and his sister to save the day.
Cue a time-traveling adventure through the past, present, and future, as the duo battle fearsome monsters, meet new friends, and explore this massive and beautiful world.
Yes, this motif is not really something you’ve never seen before. But while Another Eden doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the table, it has done a good job of wrapping a modern cover around an aging system in a delicate manner. The result is an experience that feels more like a lovingly-crafted remaster of an old title than a new game.
Take the battle system as an example. It follows the usual turn-based JRPG formula, but a lot of quality-of-life improvements have been added. For instance, you can tap and hold the portrait of the characters to pick a skill, and there’s also a convenient repeat button that allows you to use the same skill as the previous turn in addition to the ability to increase the speed of the battles. You’ll no doubt feel incredibly thankful for these features when fighting through random battles on your way to the boss.
Gacha mechanics are present
Unlocking new characters is done by spending premium currency in a gacha system. This is likely where Another Eden generates its income, and this will surely put many people off. So far, however, we haven’t had to touch it at all. It is entirely possible for you to get through the entire game without it.
In term of visuals, the world, the characters, and the enemies are all portrayed through a hand-drawn art style and brought to life through some truly wizardry animation works. Clearly, a ton of effort and love has been put into the making of this game.
Overall, we find Another Eden super impressive. It manages to be both nostalgic and modern at the same time, and so we’ve got ourselves here a title that is fresh yet still comfortable. If you are a fan of the JRPG genre, you should definitely try this one out.