Eternal Senia

[kane_magus]

*Placeholder post so that I don't forget to talk about Eternal Senia at some point real soon-like. It's just too late to do it tonight, though.*

Eternal Senia is a pretty interesting game. Made by mostly one guy in RPG Maker, it doesn't really play much like a typical RPG Maker game, in that it is an ARPG. Though not entirely unheard of with RPG Maker, it is somewhat rare. No random battles or turn-based combat or anything like that. You walk into an enemy and automatically attack it. Later on you get special attacks on the Q, W, E, and R keys.

The story as a whole is kind of bland, but the endings (there are three of them, all fairly easy to get) are all of the "bittersweet at best, none of them truly happy" variety, which somewhat makes up for it. A lot of the English text was written by someone for whom English is obviously not their first language, but it's not bad enough to mar understanding of the story.

The game is really easy (which was the intention by the creator). I finished the game, all endings, and all of the optional "side-quests" given by the same three NPCs you meet at the end of each section prior to the boss, in a little over five hours total (though I did give up and just look up the locations of a few of the chests in the final area). Also, somewhat embarrassingly, I completely neglected to use the system for upgrading the special attacks, so all of those remained at level 1 for the entirety of my playthrough of the game. For some unknown, dumb reason, I didn't even realize you could upgrade stuff until after I'd finished the game and went to the "bonus room" and did the speed mini-game thing which awarded another 1000 SP, at which point I realized that I'd never used that stuff, which was when I found the upgrade mechanic and felt really stupid. Even though there's a frickin' screenshot of the skill upgrade screen right there on Steam. I had over 75,000 unused SP by the end of the game. Using that, I was able to upgrade each of the four skills from level 1 to level 25. >_>; With that said, however, even before upgrading the skills at all, I was still able to kill pretty much all non-boss enemies in one or two hits with even just regular attacks, let alone the specials, which is why I never noticed it or felt a need for it even after I found it. I think the only time I ever died legit was when I tried to fight the Demon Lord boss on hard mode, after which I didn't bother using hard mode anymore. So, yeah, the game is super easy.

On the whole, the game is pretty good, especially for a free game made by mostly just the one guy. As such, I would recommend it, if you've got a few hours to kill. As noted in the comments below, the game is apparently "inspired by" Ragnarok Online, which I didn't know about until after I'd already finished it and was looking at the Steam forums, because I've never played RO (given that it is a MMO game, and I generally loathe MMO games, with one exception, though I played through even that one entirely solo and was glad to be able to do so since I otherwise wouldn't have played that one either, but I digress). He also makes mention of the Mana games in the dev commentary stuff in the bonus room, and it's easy to see the inspiration there. Though, for what it's worth, I do find it a trifle odd that apparent "fan-games" like this are able to make it onto Steam, even if they're free like this one. But at the same time, I don't have a problem with it, either, as long as they aren't shit-tier quality games like a lot of them tend to be, which this one is not.

Comments

[dmjewelle.livejournal.com]

The characters look like the swordsman and acolyte from Ragnarok Online. The game feels like Ragnarok Online the ARPG.
But it's free, so I guess it's okay.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it says in the store page for the store:

Heroine Senia has both her name and the outlook from "Ygnizem Seniar" in Ragnarok Online.

Senia's sister, Magaleta, also originates from a foe "Magaleta" in lighthalzen dungeon of Ragnarok Online.

Ragnarok Online is, to this day, still my favorite game of all time.
EtneralSenia is a non-profit making game solely based on my enthusiasm for RO and gaming developing.
I wish Eternal Senia can bring up the memory of classic
MMORPG Ragnarok Online to all players who participated."

There are a few threads on the Steam forums pointing out the same resemblance as well.

Apparently, the game is made by one guy in RPG Maker, and most of the sprites are default sprites from that. The only ones that look custom are the main character and the sister.

As for me, I know nothing of Ragnarok Online as I've never played it.

[dmjewelle.livejournal.com]

Oh! I didn't look at the description for long because it was written in Chinese (which I can't read), and you lose nothing by not playing RO, it's the mother of all stat-rolling grindfests.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

Too late to edit the previous comment now, and I only just saw this...

"store page for the store" -> "store page for the game" >_< Blurgh.