Eastward's action isn't quite as nuanced as Zelda's - tiny, pixel-high bugs and big, poison-spewing boars will take one whole heart apiece if either Sam or John crash into them, with no high-pitched warning sting to tell you when to be extra wary - but the broad strokes of its real-time combat will feel instantly familiar. This isn't a game that pulls its punches when it comes to venturing out alone, and the creatures and monsters of Eastward are all vicious heart munchers, taking down less careful players with surprising ease. You feel invested in this perilous world, and your resolve to protect this daft and endearing mix of humans and robots only grows stronger in the face of outside hostility. Even the smallest character gets their own bespoke animations in Eastward, and it makes you want to talk to everyone you meet just to see what happens. Everyone is so well-observed in this game, both in terms of their frequently funny dialogue and the way they move and express themselves. And honestly, hats off to Pixpil's stunning animation team. It takes a while to get going, sure, but only because it does such a good job of placing you right at the heart of Sam and John's community, its story and NPCs getting as much air time as John's kitchen equipment. But it's worth persevering with Eastward. While some will no doubt appreciate its gentle, methodical pacing, I suspect others may find it too much of a slow burner to carry on - and indeed, there were frequent moments where I felt like giving the story a good whack with John's trusty frying pan to get it moving. Eastward's towns and cities are packed with loads of tiny details, and they're constantly changing as the story moves forward, too, encouraging you to seek out new dialogue with your favourite pals at every turn.
EASTWARD GENRES HOW TO
Over the course of three hours, you'll first learn to swing John's trusty frying pan, before combining his iron-clad left hooks with some light environmental puzzles - the usual switch flipping, wire connecting, wall bombing and platform altering fare you'll have seen dozens of times before - then, once you've fought off your first boss, you get to play with Sam's energy beam powers, and then there's another couple of dungeons teaching you how to use Sam and John's abilities in tandem, one when they're together and another when they're apart on the same map. Instead of hurrying you along to get to 'the good stuff', Eastward takes its own sweet time introducing its various systems, giving each element its own dungeon to make sure you absolutely know how it all works. It's one of the more luxurious openings to a game I've seen in a while. And it's just as well, because Sam's desire to know about this fabled place with a real blue sky and proper green grass ends up getting John into all sorts of trouble during the game's extensive introduction, causing them to become exiled from their home and thrown out into the world above. Sam's boundless energy provides a welcome contrast to John's gruff, silent schtick, but thanks to Pixpil's detailed and expressive animations you really get the sense this tough old digger cares deeply about his spirited and curious ward.
You play as Sam and John, an unlikely duo who begin their journey in an underground mining community who have been taught to fear the outside world.
As you busy yourself with the minutiae of their everyday lives, Eastward makes every person (and robot) count in this deadly post-apocalypse, and the result is an affecting, detail-rich tale that owes as much to the action of top-down Zelda games as it does to the role-playing intimacy of Earthbound. This is still a game that's ultimately about saving the world from a mysterious and all-consuming miasma, but it's also one that makes damn sure you know what you're doing it all for - and that's its striking cast of NPCs. In this impressive debut from Shanghai developers Pixpil, these humdrum slices of life are placed front and centre, forming much of the narrative backbone that drives the game forward. These are the stories most adventure RPGs would stuff into their ever-growing sidequest menus - distractions meant to provide extra flavour to the world you're meant to be saving, or which hold bountiful supplies of EXP to level up your skills and weapons. Wrangling flying pigs, saving a nerdy kid from the school bullies, cooking up exquisite dishes to appease a local casino boss whose slot machines you accidentally rinsed with your trusted lucky coin. It's slow to start, but once Eastward gets going, this handsome post-apocalypse roars to life like nothing else, marrying top-down action with an exquisite cast of characters whose stories really make you care about the world you're trying to save.
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