Eastward (Xbox One)
Eastward is a wonderful assembly of talent and ideas in strong need of an editor. There’s a clear knack for world-building and character writing on show, the game easily able to get the player invested in a string of new characters with often cozy and wholesome interactions, and then the game begins to sacrifice it all on the altar of a messy mystery. Bold decisions are taken to push the game into new dark, depressing, and disturbing directions despite otherwise being so lovely and cheery and this could have worked for a marvelous contrast, but Eastward also seems to fumble as it struggles on what to leave opaque and how to even properly transition into new stories.
Eastward is an action adventure game taking place some time after a world not quite different from ours was overwhelmed by a lethal black substance known as miasma. While not a consistently active threat, the world has needed time to recover and the danger isn’t quite gone either, meaning different societies have had time to develop often in isolation. While there are robots with human levels of intelligence and emotion, people are still scraping by and living humble lifestyles for the most part, not enough advanced technology on hand to really elevate these communities into something reliable and perfectly sustainable. These communities are definitely Eastward’s biggest success, the story told involving two characters traveling between them as they seek answers on the broader mystery of the world they find themselves in. John, a simple miner who never talks in the story even when its clear he’s meant to be saying something, and Sam, a white-haired girl with unusual powers he uncovered in a strange chemical tank deeper underground, are the lens through which you get to know the world, and Sam especially really helps you to grow invested in every community you spend time in.
John’s silence is likely part of building up Sam as the heart of the adventure. Sam frequently speaks for the two and directly to John, the player meant to feel more like her companion rather than John being a robust character himself, and Sam’s perspective on the world easily works to help her worm her way into your heart. She’s precious not precocious, excited to be experiencing so much of the world outside the mine and guided by a strong desire to help out and make friends. Another of the game’s strengths comes through to support her, Eastward’s visuals and animations richly detailed and full of character. Sam has an adorably simplified look that blends with her actions well, her excited little shuffle always a delight to see since you can feel the energy radiating off it and her small smile. The environments you explore are gorgeously detailed, drawn in pixel art but able to fluidly produce fields of grain that are brushed aside delicately as you pass through them. Cities are coated in details that help sell the idea this place has existed before you ever visited and will have a long life after you leave, and the characters can have exaggerated comedic designs and yet still express subtle and subdued emotions.
Eastward spends so much time building up the range of characters found in each community that it ends up hard to leave them to continue the investigations into the miasma and Sam’s mysterious origins, but that ends up being one of Eastward’s first huge issues. The time the game spends immersing you in these new settings can proceed at an almost glacial pace. There are comedic moments that can get a pass and usually there will be at least small albeit often vague hints at the grander mysteries peppered throughout, but Eastward’s efforts to get you invested in these locations and their people really starts to drag as dialogue putters forward without much being said and side characters pitch in with things to say and distractions to pull you away from the main concerns. This is all part of the main story path as well so it’s not like it’s side content you’re opting into, and unfortunately one reason you feel that longing not to leave a place is because the game spent so much time working on this latest batch of personalities only to need to begin the construction over again at your next stop.
New Dam City, the most involved and elaborate of your stops, could have carried a game on its own with its wide cast, many of them having compelling connections that could have been explored more deeply or tested if John and Sam didn’t have to mosey along to new places where things start to get occasionally convoluted and sometimes more wrapped up in science fiction shenanigans than engaging characters and interactions. What could have made this all forgivable is the game is definitely tearing you away from each location with purpose, places establishing a sense of safety so the incursion of something dark or foreboding can shatter it and push you towards the overarching plot. Had a satisfying finale and suitable wrap-up awaited you after over 20 hours of travel, then it would be hard to argue with that choice. The payoff is muddled though and doesn’t seem to really understand what should be left ambiguous. Questions that arise constantly across the adventure to hold your interest are only lightly brushed upon, and while you can piece together something serviceable to explain it all, the trust you put into Eastward to make the time investment worthwhile feels slightly betrayed as the game seems afraid to lock down a few hard answers on major elements.
After trying to stoke your interest with its dark mysteries only to drop the ball and hope your imagination will do the heavy lifting, you’d hope Eastward could rescue itself with other parts of the experience, and there is still some excellent work found elsewhere. The music is superb, the game having a few recurring themes that crop up during moments to set a certain tone and work wonderfully once you start to recognize them, leading to many scenes have a strong musical push to pull themselves out of the mire of the meandering writing and events surrounding them. The kids in-game have a video game they can play called Earth Born, and it’s a surprisingly inventive take on a classic role-playing game where it features turn-based menu combat but you need to gather party members before the world resets and Pixballs that are collected out in John and Sam’s adventures bolster your item resources in Earth Born. An almost rogue-like RPG, Earth Born would probably work better if it got a full spotlight, but it’s an interesting dalliance and one you’re in control of your engagement with so you can instead focus on the game’s more straightforward action and puzzles should you wish.
Eastward definitely pulls some inspiration from The Legend of Zelda series when it comes to its action-adventure gameplay, but it’s not quite as well-crafted as most entries in that series. John begins with a frying pan for attacking enemies and most of the time the combat just involves approaching and smashing a creature a considerable amount of times before they perish. Later you will get a gun and other long-range weapons, but they all draw from the same ammo pool and that limitation also means you’ll probably be more inclined to spend time smacking foes around more often than not. The strange mutated wildlife you encounter in Eastward can be bothersome but not often a real threat, mostly because it is incredibly easy to get powerful healing items. The food you can collect throughout the world can be cooked into hearty meals, and as you spend the salt used as the game’s currency for backpack upgrades, you’ll be able to carry so many meals that you might as well have five times your current health. Sam can sometimes contribute to battle, mostly with a stunning energy blast that does feel like the intended counter to the few foes who would otherwise be quite pesky, and she has a few unlockable special skills like a gradual heal or shield that also detract from a sense of real danger.
Bosses who rely on their durability and strength over special gimmicks end up being surmountable just by standing by them, weathering the damage, and scarfing down your prepared meals, but when a boss has some puzzle to it or way to keep you from getting in close, they can still at least provide some strong combat in a game where it otherwise fails to stand out. Oddly enough though, the bosses near the end of the adventure start to require a parry mechanic to beat despite it never being relevant before, so while you can easily shove your way through most battles before then, the game’s ending will require quick reflexes to overcome the last barriers in your way.
Puzzle solving and exploration are Eastward’s greater strengths though. John gets a range of bombs used used for activating switches and breaking objects in different ways, Sam’s energy powers can trigger certain mechanisms, and generally new areas will put forth a new idea that needs figuring out. Trying to race to clear a path in the right way before a whole room resets, propelling yourself off surfaces you break or let regenerate to move a raft, it does feel like you’re doing some proper problem-solving and it makes it easier to accept the battles around these puzzles are mostly going to be plain or pesky. The action can sometimes get a big win, a rather odd segment in chapter 6 called Monkollywood actually cooks up a strong design for combat where you’re stuck using a gun and the enemies all are designed to react to it or deny space as you’re trapped in small areas during the fighting segments, but they aren’t so exceptional that the sometimes plodding character chats feel like they’re denying you the real meat of the experience.
THE VERDICT: Eastward should have been a great game, but its beautiful pixel art, catchy and evocative soundtrack, lovable characters, and solid puzzles are all arranged over top an adventure that can’t quite bring it all together. It wants you to get invested in its communities and characters partly so it can tear them away from you as you’re made to journey on, but the dark twists and constantly teased mystery don’t culminate into something strong enough to make turning the attention away from its strengths so often worthwhile. Weak battles are peppered throughout a sluggish plot, Eastward investing more effort into a purely optional RPG side-game than the biggest questions it brings up. Eastward may still charm players because so much else works despite its narrative sloppiness, especially if they exit the adventure early, but too much of what is effective is abandoned in favor of a mystery the game isn’t interested in committing to.
And so, I give Eastward for Xbox One…
An OKAY rating. Eastward’s world could have told so many stories and yet it invests in one it’s afraid to make definitive statements on. In New Dam City you’ll be charmed by the effervescent inventor Alva, you’ll slowly come to understand the complicated mafioso Lee. You’ll wonder about the way the robots are treated in this world, and ponder the histories of the intricately designed spaces you explore. You’ll find moments where combat suddenly shines as a place like Monkollywood changes the rules to surprisingly strong effect, and you’ll find puzzles that ask you to buckle down and consider the order of operations to successfully clear them. You want the best for Sam because of her earnestness and big heart, and when the music kicks in, a scene with characters you already were invested in surges with even greater energy. Even the game’s efforts to yank that away from you do their job well, but it starts accruing a debt it’s not able to pay off. The game demands your patience at times as it lays the groundwork for the different communities you find yourself in, but when it lurches back to the broader concerns of miasma and other such mysteries, it suddenly is reticent to share details or spend much time exploring things. You walk away with a small bundle of ideas you can piece together into a workable explanation, but it contains large holes that you can only fill flimsily with conjecture. The game didn’t need to stoke your imagination with loose ends when it already showed it could have a deft hand in crafting a world and multiple unique societies to inhabit it, and when you add in the battles that are mostly unengaging pan flailing, your investment can only be propped up by the excellence of the work elsewhere that was ultimately not leading to something fulfilling.
This is why an editor might have been able to save it. An outside perspective that points out where the plot progression feels lethargic or where questions should at least be left with a little more meat on the bone to make some informed guesses. Eastward drops elements too readily which leads to that sense that things are incomplete, especially since it spends its time focusing in so deeply on them before it drops them for something new. Eastward isn’t totally lost underneath its missteps, there being emotional and effective moments all along the way, but it’s definitely the kind of game you like more on the other side of it since the plodding process of growing attached to the characters and world mostly gets in the way. It ends up hard to recommend Eastward because it needs to hit you the right way despite the inevitable misses, but it’s not a totally lost cause because there’s enough apparent talent front and center despite the points where it goes awry.