Since Ragnarok Online first captured the hearts of players in 2002 its creators, Gravity, have struggled to do anything but try and capture its player's wallets since. Eternal Love isn't even trying to be subtle about it's nostalgia baiting, and serves as another lazy cash grab that does as little as possible while adopting anti-player mobile game mechanics.

The game has you returning to some of the familiar locations from the original MMORPG but in name only as everywhere now looks quite different, even if they've tried to capture a similar aesthetic. It does mimic the original art style well and brings back a lot of the iconic monster designs, sound effects, and music - however gameplay is radically simplified.

ROM follows the latest SEA mobile trend of being entirely automated. You can do things manually but the gameplay is built to be so simple and monotonous that you wouldn't actually want to. You set an objective like a quest to complete and the game walks you to where the mobs are and begins auto-grinding and looting, then it walks back to the NPC and waits for you to read the dialogue to continue. The only thing it doesn't automate is item usage, so you will need to glance and check what you're low on from time to time. Later into the game you'll essentially have to pay if you want your character to be able to complete objectives on the first try and keep up with the XP curve.

The end result is an idle game wearing Ragnarok Online's skin that only wants to celebrate the brand and replicate the atmosphere of RO being played by someone behind you. It pretends the worst part of the original game was actually playing it. It's also a bizarre attempt to rewrite what RO was even about by injecting a ton of story and characters that never existed, expanding on the barely-there storylines while wiping out the content that actually mattered, all while trying to charge you for the indignity. A huge step forward in the wrong direction.