Curse of Eternity is an action soulslike title which borrows heavily from the formula set by games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring. This is hardly new in the indie sphere as a lot of games make that claim as it is a very popular idea.
So the real challenge is trying to stand out in the ocean of soulslike titles. That’s the question asked of Curse of Eternity, but does it deliver? Find out in our review below!
Curse of Eternity
Developer: Imakeda Games
Publisher: Imakeda Games
Platforms: Windows PC (Reviewed)
Release Date: December 1, 2022
Players: 1
Price: $19.99 USD
Curse of Eternity opens up without any prelude of a story. Instead bits of lore and information are scattered about through items you find or NPCs you can talk to. There isn’t much they add that the player can’t already get an idea of as they explore through the world.
The gist of it is there was an empress who took power through the use of a cult and this would eventually lead to the game’s setting falling into decay. There isn’t much description of who you are, though in lore there are some hints about it.
Most of Curse of Eternity’s gameplay falls under the same category as most 3D soulslike games. You get access to basic attacks and the ability to dodge or block incoming attacks from enemies at the beginning of the game. Sadly that’s mostly it from beginning to end.
Players don’t learn things to enhance their weapon attacks, there are a good number of spells at their disposal should they build their character to be a mage. It ends up feeling clunky to try, especially casting a spell when there are multiple enemies coming after you.
Much of the combat from said enemies is also very bland. There’s little variety in their designs and it gets even worse when you see that subclasses are basically the same.
All melee enemies use the same exact attacks, bow men shoot arrows and somehow dodge nearly every attack when you get close, and mages use the same exact spells, but with different elements.
The worst part is that this also extends to the player. Most weapons don’t feel different enough from each other to care about using one or another, and the ones that do don’t feel good to use at all. The only things you’ll notice that make a different are the elemental aspects, but this is only used for exploiting obvious weaknesses.
The end result is that you’ll spend the 8-10 hours in the campaign of Curse of Eternity doing the same things over and over again with little variance or enjoyment. Even the game’s boss fights find a way to reuse the same animations making them simultaneously easy, yet somehow frustrating when used on a larger scale.
And speaking of difficulty, for a game that takes heavy inspiration from soulslikes, Curse of Eternity is a very easy game with many frustrating moments. For example, most enemies have the same attack patterns. So everything you learn in the opening minutes of the game don’t require any more studying all the way through to the end.
This makes it braindead easy to do the right thing nearly every time you encounter a new enemy. That’s even assuming you fight them head-on. A lot of Curse of Eternity also centers around stealth gameplay, which is some of the least satisfying stealth bits I’ve ever played.
Most enemy’s field of view seems so narrow that you wonder if they need contact lenses, but sometimes they’re able to spot you from absurdly long distances in an inconsistent manner. This is especially frustrating with the archer enemies who are able to shoot like they have rifles with pinpoint accuracy.
And when you do fight the enemies in normal combat, things either range from exploitably easy to frustrating very quickly. As stated with bosses, they have the same attack patterns as normal mobs, but are bigger. So you do end up having to dodge their attacks when you didn’t have to worry on smaller foes.
And this is where Curse of Eternity has its biggest sin, which is that dodge rolling either doesn’t have immunity frames or that it doesn’t work most of the time. So even when you know the timing of all the attacks, which practically anyone can do, you’ll still get hit. This can lock you in place long enough for them to continue their combo, which are also inconsistent, and kill you.
Running around is slower than molasses and animations take a long time to finish. All of these have you locked into until they’re completed, meaning you can’t dodge while performing said actions. Locking onto enemies has issues when attempting to switch between foes, making encounters with a size over 1 more frustrating than they should be.
Curse of Eternity also is a rather ugly game as well. While drab colors suit the theme of the decaying world, everything just appears flat, like a title seen during the Xbox Live Arcade days. It comes across more as an unfinished college project rather than a game being sold on the market.
Also Curse of Eternity seems to be rather poorly optimized. It’s hard to say, since the developer’s listed PC requirements are vague, but the game struggled to run on my admittedly old GTX 970, despite the game not even pushing close to max settings and looking worse than games from 10 years ago.
This could be a problem with the engine of choice, which is Unity. Unity has shown in the past to be an issue for many indie and even AAA developers to get a game running without performance issues.
Curse of Eternity is far from a fun game and it is most certainly far from being a good game. There’s very little when it comes to content and what little there is, is a bland ugly mess at best. It’s frustrating in all the wrong ways and boring in many other ways as well.
This is not a game most people should play, no matter how much they may enjoy the genre.
Curse of Eternity was reviewed on PC using a code provided by Imakeda Games. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Curse of Eternity is available now on Windows PC (via Steam).
