Norwegian magic festival, locked to Earth

Review

Played on: Xbox One
Released: 2017

Inspiration may very well be a tricky baseline to build a new game on, but done right, it can work out most favourable. For Earthlock: Festival Of Magic that inspiration comes in a strong form of the JRPG industry veteran, Final Fantasy. It's an ambitious series to follow, but this Norwegian developed title takes a far lower budget and small-scale approach to the basic formula. At times, it could've easily been a small Final Fantasy spin-off release.

The music, turn based battles, enemy design, main characters, environments and the text only dialogue: it's all so obviously old-school FF inspired. Something that could've gone wrong, luckily it's cleverly inspired and works out fantastic. Fans of FF, or JRPG's in general, need to raise their sights beyond Japan and take a close look at this short, but sweet RPG.



Earthlock quickly jumps into the story and introduces you to the main characters, after a fairly brief intro. They're all spread apart in a fantasy, coastal world. Along the way, they all become connected through the story. The game eases you into combat, with small battles featuring weak enemies. The introduction even throws you into a little boss fight towards the end too. From here, you're introduced to shops, healing items and the world map.

The difficulty curve quickly steps up though, especially when your left to freely roam it's world map. Nudging you towards the areas you're supposed to go in the story, as off beat exploring will brutally end you in difficult battles. I appreciated that all enemies were visible before engaging them into a battle scene.

Earthlock dares to go beyond it's inspiration material too, introducing some clever ideas of it's own. You're, for instance, rewarded for engaging more enemies than your own party, which actually can be up to four characters. Doing so, will reward you with extra XP. Two and two characters are also pitched together, cooperating will fill a super power ability, which the paired characters can activate and use to gain even more powerful attacks.



There's also a safe haven, frog island, where you can rest up, buy items, make new attack cards and perhaps the most interesting: grow plants. You can level these plants and use them to make potions and ammunition. If you throw a few hours into this garden, you can become a strong player with the best kind of ammo and items at your disposal!

I love the visual style of Earthlock. Looking like something from the PS2 era, only in sharp HD. The colour palette is colourful, with a soft pastel palette to it. The characters look cartoon inspired, reminding me of Beyond Good & Evil. There's a lot of environment variation too: with deserts, woodlands, creepy mansions, large castles and underground dungeon mazes. It's a pretty and visually satisfying title, with a comforting look to it. 



While it's obvious the game doesn't have the depth of a large RPG, like the mainline Final Fantasy series for instance, it doesn't matter, because it's a shorter, more casual experience it's aiming for. Sure, some of the boss battles could've been toned down a little, as they often require a big jump in player level and are ruthless, but it's a game that doesn't require too much grinding to hit that max level.

If there's a bigger issue to address here, it's the story. While it does it's job, it doesn't blow your mind in any way and feels kind of subtle. It just passes along without really standing out. Although a text based RPG requires you to engage yourself more through reading, they could've have thrown in more cutcenes to pull the player deeper into it's story.

For a shorter, back to basics, JRPG inspired title, with a warm, charming and colourful world to play turn based battles in, Earthlock is warmly recommended! The characters are cute and while the story doesn't blow any minds, it's refreshingly straightforward and right to the point without too many diversions along the way. There's enough depth for RPG fans to dig their teeth into some difficult battles too and absolutely worth the 30-40 hours it takes to complete.

Another great example of a strong indie title that deserves attention from an audience only looking for games being shipped out of Japan.


Update: Simply titled "Earthlock", a 2018 re-release of this game, has taken it's place and is the better version. Go for that when you want to play this!