The Eternal Castle [Remastered]

It's not hyperbole when I tell you that The Eternal Castle has one of the best video game trailers I've ever seen. From the moment I glimpsed the gorgeous pixel graphics and the cinematic style, I was in love. And the fact that this so-called remake is also a love letter to games like Another World and Flashback only made me want it more. But sometimes you'll run into a trailer so good that it's nearly impossible for the game to live up to the hype. That's one of the many problems with The Eternal Castle, an intriguing adventure game that falls way short of its excellent trailer.

Don't let the title fool you, this is not a traditional remaster. The developers would like you to believe that this something of a remake of an influential 1987 game with a complicated past, but don't believe their lies. The Eternal Castle [Remastered] is a brand-new adventure that mimics the rotoscope boom of the late 20th century, right down to the striking animation, limited color palette and stiff controls.

Set in the distant future when the last remaining humans have been forced to flee the planet they once called home, this game tells the intriguing story of what happens when a survivor returns to check up on things. There's concern because the last group of humans to visit Earth haven't been heard from since, and those left scavenging for resources are fearing the worst. But things get hairy when our hero is shot out of the sky and forced to find the missing parts of their ship. The goal is to put the ship back together and find a way to the Eternal Castle, where the truth will be revealed.

The good news is that you can explore the stages in any order. Your journey will take you to the Forgotten City, Unholy Church and the Ancient Ruins, all of which are filled with unique enemies and elements you won't find anywhere else. One part of the map will have you surviving an all-out battle to overtake the planet, while another section will have you sneaking through office buildings. You'll race after bad guys while leaping off skyscrapers and flee for your life when a giant boulder is after you. The Eternal Castle is a game about incredible moments, and every one of these stages is packed with them.

I have a hunch that it's these moments I'll remember when I think back about this game in years to come. What I hope to forget is how much I hated playing The Eternal Castle. This is a broken experience that actively works against you every step of the way. From the game-breaking bugs to the rampant sound problems to the nightmarish gameplay, this game is a relentless assault of bad things getting in the way of the incredible moments.

Let's start with the gameplay. Like I said at the top, this is a love letter to the classic rotoscope adventure games of the 1980s and 90s, most of which were notorious for being sluggish and hard to control. I went in expecting this to be the case with The Eternal Castle, figuring that I would have no problem getting used to the handling. After all, I love Flashback, Prince of Persia and other classics with similar gameplay, so how hard could it possibly be?

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As it turns out, it's really hard. The Eternal Castle is a nightmare to control, even compared to similar games. Little things like climbing down ledges, picking up items, walking through doors and jumping over pits are often complicated by unreliable controls. And things only get worse when the game turns into a beat 'em up and you're forced to fight off hordes of enemies with a hatchet. The gameplay is sloppy in the worst way and not built for most of the tasks you need to do.

Look, I get it, the nightmarish gameplay is part of the charm for a lot of people, but that's not true when it comes to the never-ending string of bugs and glitches. The Switch port I played is filled with problems, but I'm going to only focus on the two most egregious issues. The first is that the hero has a bad habit of refusing to move. I don't mean that they get stuck on a stray pixel or incapacitated by an enemy, but rather that they just stand in place. It's almost as if the controller is turned off, but it's not and I'm still able to pause the game. And then, just like that, we're back in control. If there's a reason this keeps happening, then it's never explained visually.

That's annoying, but nothing compared to the way game forgets what checkpoint you activated. In theory, you're supposed to go back to the nearest checkpoint when you die. That's how they work. But you're never really sure where you're going to end up when you respawn. Sometimes you'll go to the right spot, while other times you'll get spit out two or three checkpoints ago. There were times when I would alternate between respawning at the nearest checkpoint and starting back at the beginning. And that's assuming it actually sends you somewhere. Too many times you'll go to a random room and not even spawn, sending you into a weird loop where the continue screen keeps coming up. There were multiples times when I wondered if I would even be able to finish the game. It's that buggy.

Unfortunately, the problems don't end with the unreliable checkpoints and unresponsive gameplay, because the music is also choppy and hard to listen to. It's as if the soundtrack didn't export properly or is having buffering issues, because it stops and stutters from start to finish. It got to the point where I needed to mute large portions of this game, which is never a good sign. And it doesn't end with the sound, because there are times when the visuals can be a bit too much. I don't have sensitive eyes and normally have no problem dealing with strobing, but there's an extended nightclub fight that gave me a headache. The fact that it's right after a checkpoint and I had to play it three times certainly didn't help.

This is not the reaction I expected after watching the amazing trailer. I couldn't wait to see all of these incredible moments in context and understand how they all fit together, but instead I couldn't wait to stop playing The Eternal Castle. The frustrating gameplay and rampant glitches ultimately overshadow everything I like about the three-hour adventure. If somebody wants to cut together a cinematic video showing all the best parts, I'll gladly watch it, but I doubt I'll ever choose to play this game again.