Eternity: The Last Unicorn | PS4 Review

May 9, 2019 Alyssa White

Just seeing the title of this game had my inner child squealing (every woman secretly loves unicorns). Watching the trailer for Void Studios’ Eternity: The Last Unicorn cemented my excitement. The footage looked epic, and its RPG gameplay was like a siren call. Sadly, though, the game itself isn’t as magical as I was led to believe. Let’s examine how it fell so short.

Do You Believe in Magic?

Before talking about the many negative aspects of this game, props do need to be given to the writers. The story of Eternity is fascinating and felt like a mixture of God of War and The Lord of the Rings, pulling from Norse mythology while also being original in its own right. You start off playing as an elf named Aurehen, who is tasked with saving the titular mystical creature. As you encounter the many denizens and enemies of the world, you’re given lore and backstories on them. These were wonderful additions that really made me care about/despise the characters populating this world. The animations during loading screens were also beautifully drawn and added an extra dimension to the narrative.

Not Everything Is as It Seems

Now onto the myriad issues with Eternity. First off, the toughest enemy in this game isn’t even one of the many creatures you’ll encounter; it’s the fixed camera. So many times it obscured threats, had me stuck on surfaces, and made it difficult to see what I needed to do to solve certain time-sensitive puzzles. This makes the game a chore to play, and greatly hinders the experience. The game also froze on me on a few occasions.

This is clearly inspired by Dark Souls, but the clunky combat and poor dodge maneuver didn’t give me the same satisfaction that the Souls games did. I also noticed that I would die while still having half of my health bar. This was super frustrating and led me to have to backtrack through a lot of the same enemies and landscapes due to the minimal checkpoints and manual saves placed in the game. It felt like a grind, and not the good kind. The visuals and audio also take a hit. The graphics look like they belong in an earlier title, and it’s somewhat strange that there is absolutely no voice acting. Everything must be read through subtitles, which could be irritating for some players.

Eternity: The Last Unicorn Final Verdict

I wanted to love this game, but I just couldn’t. Despite the story being a marvel and the handsome illustrations during loading screens, the fixed camera, clunky combat, and performance issues let this down tremendously. Eternity: The Last Unicorn is hard to recommend, even if you are craving a game in the vein of Dark Souls.

This review is based on a PS4 copy provided by Evolve PR for coverage purposes and is also available on Windows and Xbox One.