Aeterna Noctis – Spotlight
At first glance, Aeterna Noctis appears to be nothing more than a typical Metroidvania, but there is something refreshingly familiar about its desire to return to Castlevania. No effort is spared in creating an admirable homage to the vampyric genre while also infusing it with just enough modernity to keep it fresh. Aeterna Noctis will not disappoint you if the prospect of that excites you.
In this storey, two warriors, the King of Darkness and Queen of Light, are locked in a battle and death cycle before being resurrected to face each other once more. A roguelike could have benefited from the cyclical myth at the core of Aeterna Noctis, giving players a reason to keep coming back to fight. Aeterna Noctis, on the other hand, delves deeper into that narrative while also incorporating it into the gameplay. People and places you meet all influence the storey, making it a more narratively-driven example than other examples.
Aeterna Noctis, on the other hand, is stunningly beautiful. For those who haven’t played Castlevania, there are haunted graveyards and almost Final Fantasy-like landscapes to be found here. While you’re battling demons and giants in the background, Aeternum Game Studios knows how to make you feel both important and small. The King of Darkness, the main character, is a bit of a dud, a personality vacuum when everyone else seems to be full of it, but we guess immortality will do that to you, if there is any criticism.
Those who have played any of the many Metroidvanias that have been influenced by Dark Souls will be familiar with the game’s structure. In each of the sixteen zones, the King of Darkness begins with the game’s “bonfire” (a throne) and then sets out on a journey to find the world’s crystal while also unlocking the King’s abilities, such as double jumps and wall-kicks. While travelling, you will be injured, which will deplete your health pips, and you will die, which will bring you back to the nearest throne in the game. It’s possible to return to the spot where you died and reclaim the XP you lost.
Despite its familiarity, there is no sense of injustice in this design. The difficulty of returning to your body is rarely compounded when you die multiple times in a row in Aeterna Noctis. As a result of the generous death, Aeterna Noctis can be a little more savage in its gameplay, presenting you with more difficult challenges. For the most part, you’ll have to be on your toes for the majority of this Metroidvania – finger in the air.
Platforming and boss fights provide the bulk of the challenge, with little to no emphasis on combat. Because of its complexity, certain aspects of platforming may not appeal to everyone. When there were a lot of smaller, disappearing platforms, we fell in and out of love. Megaman-like precision is required, where the character model is actually larger than many of the platforms that you are aiming for, and we felt a latency to the jumping that took some adjustment to get used to – this is purely subjective.
Bosses are as ridiculous and overblown as you might expect. They also use pattern recognition to ensure that you die incessantly until you develop muscle memory for their tactics. As a result, we have a problem with the design of the boss fights because they tend to drag on for far too long, making it far too easy to be defeated by attrition rather than outfighting.
With the exception of a nearly imperceptible lag spike, Aeterna Noctis runs smoothly. There is a fluidity to your melee, ranged, and blink attacks in this game, as there is in the best of its kind. It’s initially simple and you wonder if you’ll grow tired of it, but the abilities layer on at the right time to enrich the proceedings and keep things fresh.
However, there is a skill tree that allows for some optimisation and builds, but we are a little ambivalent about this: it’s mainly a percentage increase on DPS and critical hits. When it comes to unlockable abilities, it never stray too far into the territory of what you can do. Still, the game’s sprawling nature and frequent unlocks make it a valuable metronomic progression.
There were a few mishaps that we should take note of. The more we progressed in the game, the more bugs we discovered. They were particularly aggravating because they arrived right before a major unlock. A few did occur before the project was completed, but they were extremely rare. It was significant enough to merit a mention.
We were satisfied with Aeterna Noctis at the end. Your attention is immediately drawn to the intricate details of this world that may be somewhat familiar, but that doesn’t take away from its inherent beauty. Even though the Xbox’s Metroidvanias are flooding the market with new ideas, we had an appetite for a game like this: one that understands what makes the genre great and then delivers on that promise.
Anyone who grew up playing or wishing for 2D Castlevania games will be pleased to know that Aeterna Noctis has answered the call.
