If you’re the sort of person that judges a book by its cover, you’d have skipped Another Eden and probably tutted at it during your first glance. That is a pretty big mistake to make. Because while Another Eden might …
If you’re the sort of person that judges a book by its cover, you’d have skipped Another Eden and probably tutted at it during your first glance. That is a pretty big mistake to make.
Because while Another Eden might look just like another free to play gacha JRPG, it actually bears much more resemblance to the classics of the SNES era, just with a few more modern trimmings.
That makes sense when you consider the sheer talent that’s worked on it. You’ve got Chrono Trigger’s Masato Kato and Yasunori Mitsuda on the story and music – the latter of which is joined by Luminous Arc 2’s Shunsuke Tsuchiya – and the art is all created by Binchotan’s Takahito Exa.
And it really shows. Another Eden just oozes quality. Dialogue isn’t cringe-worthingly bad, even though it is a total cliché (which isn’t really a criticism when levied at a JRPG), the art is absolutely stunning, and the music is like JRPG comfort food.
During our first play through, we felt like we were replaying a classic rather than diving into a brand new game, and that’s both a positive and negative of Another Eden depending on the side of the fence you sit on.
You play as Aldo, a pretty standard JRPG sword-wielding hero who’s starting his new job as guardsman of a small, idyllic village. His worrywart sister Feinne expresses concern, and he constantly reminds her that nothing ever happens in the village anyway.
Without going into spoiler territory, Aldo is proven wrong, and sets out on an adventure with his sister Feinne to save the human race from extinction. The demon king, the primary antagonist, wants to wipe them off the face of the earth.
Cue a time-hopping adventure throughout ancient history, the present, and the distant future, as Aldo and Feinne battle monsters, greet new party members, and explore a gorgeous world.
While there’s nothing particularly new in Another Eden, modern trimmings have been wrapped delicately around ageing systems in a manner that makes the game feel more like a lovingly-crafted remaster than a brand new experience.
The battle system, for example, is your stand turn-based JRPG fare. However, there’s loads of quality of life improvements, like tapping and holding your character’s portraits to select a skill, a handy repeat button that lets you queue up that same skill for your next turn, and the ability to speed up combat. That’s a godsend while fighting through trash mobs to reach a dungeon’s boss.
Gathering new party members borrows from gacha mechanics, which is where Another Eden will likely make most of its money. Much like in the usual free to play garbage, you’ll spend premium currency summoning heroes – each of which have a star rating. It is here, and that will put people off, but we haven’t really had to use it so far. It seems you can get through the game without using it.
World exploration also manages to feel modern while sticking to the same basic formula. You explore a wide variety of side-scrolling areas, but you can move up and down paths at set points, which makes the world feel a lot larger than it would do otherwise.
There’s also a lovely 3D effect that makes the world look like one big animated pop-up book. The entire world, characters, and enemies have been lovingly hand-drawn, yet the animations to bring them to life are some true digital wizardry.
Overall, we’re super impressed with Another Eden. It manages to skirt the line between classic and modern with absolute ease and the result is a game that feels fresh yet comfortable – like a pair of old, clean pyjamas.
It is a shame that this isn’t a premium experience, entirely without gacha mechanics, but we can’t really complain given that that side of the game has been entirely optional so far. If you like JRPGs, definitely give this one a try.
