To start off with, the fact that this was made by such a small tean is nothing short of amazing, that being said although I wanted to really like this game, it fell very short for me in alot of areas

The inital concept and characters were great but the writing is too basic/juvenile to hold my interest.The fact that I needed to scan a QR code to be directed to a youtube video for the true ending was kind of jarring. The real killer of this game was the gameplay, I wasnt expecting the depth of something like Devil may cry but I also wasnt expecting it to be so dull, repetitive and downright broken in some areas

It feels instead of scrapping some ideas, as soon as the devs had a gameplay idea, they put it in the the game, I can only go hunting for a flamethrower at the local 7-11 or play a math mingame so many times until I become uninterested

Overall, a cool concept brought down by too many uninteresting gameplay elements and a story that doesn't stick the landing

4/10

I actually just wanted to have a first look at Eternights out of sheer curiosity and only play it for an hour or so. I had heard from a YouTube reviewer, whose opinion I hold in high regard, that there was this small indie Persona-like which he really liked and that it was essentially developed by a single person. As the game was currently on sale, I thought the time had come to satisfy my curiosity. I was half-expecting to make use of the refund function if it turned out to be a piece of crap :D But lo and behold, I actually really liked Eternights and I'm really impressed by what a single developer from Korea has managed to create here.

At its core, Eternights is really a simplified version of Persona with pretty much everything that goes with it. You have a daily routine in which day and night alternate and different activities are available at different times. Here you can deepen your social ties with other members of your group, explore the outside world or work on your character stats. As in Persona, character stats have an influence on how much you can deepen a relationship with a particular character. And yes, there are dating sim aspects here as well, just like in Persona. And just like in Persona, there are certain "hard" deadlines at regular intervals by which a certain objective in the outside world (basically the dungeon of Eternights) must be achieved. During these explorations, you fight your way through hordes of enemies with different movesets, strengths and weaknesses. The combat system is action-oriented, requiring the player to dodge, parry, time their attacks correctly etc. Then there are combo attacks with the party members and other skills that you can unlock bit by bit. That way, you fight your way through the world of Eternights, where social events and combat passages alternate and create a good flow until the end of the game.

Unfortunately, you can tell in many places that this is a single developer's first work, as the game does have some weaknesses. For example, I had to restart the game twice because I was softlocked. Once my character was stuck in a corner and another time, a cutscene didn't play and all the characters just stood around super awkwardly without anything happening :D The camera is also a real pain in the ass in some of the fights. It jumps around wildly, crashes into walls and really irritates the player. In general, the combat becomes quite chaotic when more than one enemy enters the fight. The lock-on system has a mind of its own from time to time and it's easy to lose track. Nevertheless, I had fun with the battles in this game. It took a while, but after some time I got into it and learned to handle the controls as best as I could. Some boss battles were pretty tough and presented me with somewhat hard challenges, which was fun.

Overall, I would still recommend the game, especially if you have a fondness for Persona, action RPGs and anime aesthetics as well as storytelling. Yes, the game has its flaws in terms of gameplay, the writing is far from perfect and the length of Eternights is quite short at around 12 hours for one playthrough. Nevertheless, the game also has its strengths - likeable characters, good humor, a fun combat system (once you get used to it), very, very cool monster designs and a generally very convincing dark atmosphere, which is underlined by the sometimes quite high level of violence. Even if Eternights doesn't have the highest production values, I wish that such passion projects would get more attention. Give it a chance :)