I’ll admit it: I have a tender spot for creature collectors. WITH Pokémon Down Moonstone IslandI have played quite a few games over my many years of gaming. There’s nothing better than combining a series of pixels and then using them to knock the ever-living snot out of other pixels. As a Certified Adult Gamer™, I also love roguelikes and roguelites due to their replayability. It’s challenging to commit to an 80-hour narrative-driven RPG, but a roguelike where a single playthrough can take 30 minutes and each playthrough is a distinct experience? Register me.
Now combine both of these genres into one and you get Etermanta great up-to-date title that launched in Early Access on September 23. Etermant there is a younger sibling Monster Sanctuarycollectible metroidvania from independent developer Moi Rai Games. It’s very clear that the team has taken the lessons from the first title and expanded upon them to create an enjoyable adventure for fans of roguelites and monster slayers alike.
Etermant is a lovely representation of two genres in one, with a lot to offer those who enjoy the nuance and difficulty that roguelite games are known for. It is worth reaching for anyone looking for another adventure, although it is not without its flaws.
Mastering monsters and mechanics
Assumption Etermant is plain: you play as Siriux, a mage-like creature called Aethermancer who enters a obscure world of the void to “catch” monsters and fight them. Monsters fight in teams of three using a mana system in turn-based combat, with five different types of mana based on different elements. These creatures play different roles; you have tanks, supports and damage dealers. Add poison, stagger and critical hit systems; mana control skills and other negative effects, and you also have many diverse archetypes to build a team around.
There are three main biomes to explore in one run, and you must make your way through three to four different rooms per biome. At the end of each room you can choose what type of room you want to enter next. Some of them have a merchant where you can buy items and gain experience points for your monsters. Others contain uncommon items that benefit your beasts in every fight. But in each room you’ll find gold and aether crystals to collect, and hordes of monsters to fight to train your team. As your monsters level up, you can choose from a set of random traits and abilities that further shape your team’s strengths and weaknesses.
Each biome is home to around eight different monsters that you can catch and add to your team, bringing the total to over 50 monsters in the game. You’re not guaranteed to see every type of monster in one go. It took me a few rounds before I saw all the monster species the first biome had to offer. Similarly, monsters can come in “Shifted” varieties, such as Shiny Pokémon. This feature increases the replayability of the game, further rewarding you for starting up-to-date streaks and keeping the gameplay up-to-date and exhilarating every time.
At the end of each run, you respawn in Pilgrim’s Rest, a town of amiable NPCs who provide boons for future runs. From upgrading consumables to unlocking up-to-date paths that house different creatures, these amiable NPCs make future runs easier – that is, if you pay them enough Aether Crystals. During your runs, you will also find up-to-date NPCs that will appear in Pilgrim’s Rest the next time you return to town. NPCs also have their own lively dialogue, offering story and world-building elements that add to the overall charm of the game.
That’s about where Etermantsimplicity ends. Is Very to roguelite and it took me a few rounds before I started to understand most of the gameplay mechanics. And I’m a fan of roguelike games Kill the Spire Or Wild Frostboth of which have quite a few archetypes, mechanics, and combat effects. This nuance would typically make it arduous to recommend the game to newcomers to the genre or to players who want easier-to-understand gameplay loops. However, there are accessibility options that disable the game’s corruption system or weaken enemies, opening the door to those looking for a more forgiving gameplay experience.
Development Issues: Early Access Issues
Early Access games often look completely different when launched in full. Most players who have played a title in its early development cycles know to expect bugs or future balance changes as the developer refines the edges. In the almost 15 hours I spent with Etermanthowever, I only encountered one bug and a few other minor glitches.
At the beginning of the save, the game allows you to choose one of four starting monsters. But after I selected the starter on the very first run, I tried giving it a name and managed to select the second one after restarting the selection menu. These starters are very uncommon and can be quite powerful, and since I had two of these beasts, I made it to the third biome on my first try. This error only occurred in my initial save file, but I eventually started my journey through the void on a separate save to play the game as intended.
The game’s biggest challenge, however, was its own combat interface. Some of the symbols are miniature and arduous to decipher, which means abilities sometimes look different in combat than when you view them in the monster’s menu. The game indicates what attack your opponent is going to utilize by showing a skill symbol above their head – and this information is crucial in deciding how you will react on your turn. Sometimes I would check the monster in its skill menu to decide if I wanted to block an attack, but since I couldn’t easily decipher which skill was used, I had to open and close the menu multiple times to try to figure it out.
However, one of the great things about early access is that developers often listen to player feedback and often release plans for bug fixes or upcoming features. As of September 26, just three days later Etermant launched in early access, Moi Rai posted on Reddit with an extensive list of bug fixes and indicated to players that a roadmap with future updates will be released in the near future.
Is Aethermancer worth the price?
Etermant is currently priced at around $20, which is on par with similar titles Wild Frost. It has also already achieved a “Very Positive” score on Steam with almost 900 ratings, showing that most players were having fun. And I am one of such players myself. I found Etermant be challenging and intriguing in its gameplay. The monster designs are unique and it’s a lot of fun to build around several archetypes, which makes me excited to discover up-to-date creatures and choose from a list of random abilities as my team levels up. My only complaints are that I wish the biomes offered more variety and there were more NPCs in the system; a friendship system or multiple dialogue options would greatly improve character interactions.
We have yet to see Moi Rai’s roadmap and plans for the future Etermantso we’ll be able to see improvements to these systems as we get closer to the game’s full release. Still, I’m pretty elated with what we have right now. Etermant it’s not without its flaws, but it has an enjoyable gameplay loop that provides a challenge that any roguelite fan and creature collector will surely appreciate.
