EASTWARD SWITCH FULL
The tale that Eastward weaves begins as an almost Platonic ‘Allegory of the Cave.’ The setting is a subterranean slum known as Potcrock Isle, a town full of quirky, cantankerous inhabitants who have plenty of stories about the outside world beyond the surface but little firsthand knowledge. Unfortunately, for me, Eastward didn’t hold up nearly as strongly on these fronts. Of course, as incredibly important as these ingredients are in video games, action-RPGs tend to thrive on story, and most essentially, gameplay. It certainly lived up to my expectations in these regards.
Thus, when it comes to Eastward’s affect upon one’s eyes and ears, I have nothing but positive remarks to offer. Corelitz’s songs are super catchy (especially the little jingle that plays when you cook meals), and this is no less true of the scaled-back but still excellent soundtrack written for the 8-bit arcade game-within-the game, ‘Earth Born.’ I will have more to say on these further gameplay mechanics below. Each composition conveys a level of veteran craftsmanship and attention to detail that not only accentuates Eastward’s dystopian, sci-fi vibes, but also nicely compliments the great efforts that obviously went into the overall look and feel of every scene. Handled by Joel Corelitz ( Death Stranding, Halo Infinite), the synth-heavy, chip music of Eastward ranges from the playful and peaceful to the thoroughly menacing, borrowing from a variety of genres to create a sound that is both retro and modern in equal measure. If there’s a video game with better looking pixel art than Eastward, I don’t know of it.Īnother aspect in which Eastward shines brightly is its musical score.
For all else that might be said about Eastward-and I have a lot more to say-the game is downright gorgeous. I don’t need video games to ‘evolve’ towards ever greater examples of photorealism so long as artists continually find ways to maximize the beauty they are able to create with pixels. In a word, on surface appearances alone Eastward embodies absolute perfection. From its dazzling environments to each one of the character sprites, the designs and animations on display in Eastward are colorful, elaborate, and unique. There’s no other way to put it except to say that I consider Eastward’s old-school visuals to be the consummate representation of anything that one could ever want from pixel art. Aesthetically, Pixpil’s debut sports a lovely, detailed, 16-bit graphical style that makes my inner aficionado for the Super Nintendo’s glory days weep for joy. I want to begin with the game’s best features and these unquestionably involve Eastward’s presentation. Scroll downward to find out! Presentation So, did one of my most anticipated games of 2021 deliver on the hype? I literally could not wait for the chance to play this game on my Switch, and after numerous delays, that day finally arrived on September 16th. This is, after all, how Pixpil themselves described Eastward in their ‘first devlog.’Ģ-D Zelda? Japanese anime from my youth? That was more than enough to precipitate my utter fascination and excitement over Eastward. Likewise, the vibrant pixel art of Eastward was repeatedly said to take inspiration from mid-1990s Japanese anime. Aside from a similar camera perspective, Eastward was billed as sharing Zelda’s DNA in its real-time combat as well as its emphasis on puzzle-solving. Over the intervening two years, it became all but impossible to excavate information about Eastward without meeting comparisons to The Legend of Zelda, especially the legendary franchise’s top-down, 2-D iterations. With a development cycle that took up the better part of half a decade, it wasn’t until Eastward was announced for the Nintendo Switch back in the summer of 2019 that this action-RPG from Pixpil, a small indie studio based in Shanghai, China, and British publisher Chucklefish ( Wargroove, Stardew Valley), completely enraptured my imagination.
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