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CONSOLE: PC DEVELOPER: Holy Priest PUBLISHER: Holy Priest
RELEASE DATE (NA): June 18, 2015 GENRE: Action-RPG
// review by Meow

Senia playing this lately...

I'm not even sure how this game got into my Steam library, but I imagine it went something like "oh, let me open up Steam. Hey, this thing on the home page looks mildly interesting. It's free? Well, may as well install it and try it out some time." and then I forgot about it, only occasionally noticing it in my library being like "Eternal Senia? I don't recall purchasing that..."

First thing that struck me about this game is the clear taste of RPG maker this game gives off to me. If you've played/tested as many RPG maker games as I have, you'll know what I'm talking about. RPG maker has a very distinct feel to it. Only thing is, this game runs on a custom battle system which naturally means it'll have clunky moments. This game plays on a bump-system like Ys or a Roguelike, you walk along and you bump into an enemy to exchange blows. It isn't quite as free as Ys, but it's not as limited as a classic Roguelike in movement either. You also slowly gain special moves that give you new movements and also grant you immunity to enemies directly thwacking you in return, making them highly useful against more powerful foes. These moves can also be used to solve puzzles in the game for more loot to help you on your quest.

Just what is the quest? Well, you play as titular Senia, a mopey attention-starved purple-haired anime girl that is fiercely determined to be with her adopted sister Magela, rescuing her from the Tower of Eternity, a place rumored to hold a mysterious force known as Eternity that is said to be able to grant the user wishes ...if they can withstand the power and not be consumed by it. Sounds legit. Along the way, you'll be graced with flashbacks showing Senia's childhood, as well as Magela's past and motivation for why she pursued this fabled power herself. You'll also encounter a few other weirdoes like a fairy and a devilman. There are three different endings you can discover along the way depending on how you play the game, so results may vary.

The game takes place in three real dungeon locations (plus the tutorial dungeon) and features a few different things to do in addition to just pushing through in each dungeon. First, you'll encounter are these "king" "boss" monsters. I put "king" and "boss" because of these things aren't really king-like, and none of them really seem to be boss-like either. They're basically just oversized versions of regular foes roaming around that literally just stand in place. The only way they'll damage you is if you normal attack them, so they're more like damage sponges you just have to wail on until they keel over and grant you a boost to your exp and drop you an item needed to craft the area's best gear. Which brings me to the next objective in an area: satisfying these three NPCs at the end of each dungeon. One is a sheep that wants you to craft the area's best gear, which you do by farming items off of enemies and collecting special items off of boss and "boss" monsters. The second is a slime that will grant you books of evasion and a MP regen boost for killing certain amounts of the types of foes found in the dungeons, and the third grants you a rare item for finding all the chests in the dungeons that you can use to craft the best armor and weapon in the game. The game hammers in the fact that these three quest-bearers have no bearing on the ending, but the prizes they give are mighty nice. Finally, there's an "optional" area in each dungeon that has an actual boss at the end of it which grant you some of the items required for crafting the best gear in each area. I say "optional" because you're required to at least visit the area each time, but the second dungeon actually needs you to beat it to continue on.

At the end of each dungeon is a big boss which you can choose to fight on easy, normal, and hard difficulties. I don't know what the differences are between them since I always chose hard, but all of these bosses (including the previously mentioned ones in the "optional" areas) are all represented by huge fat RPG maker battle sprites, and thus have no animation. It's a bit glaring, but the creator had to make do with what they had. Each boss has its own quirks, but all of the big ones have a thing where they summon objects that grant them invincibility until the player smashes said objects. Thankfully, these objects are summoned only after the player has hit a certain damage threshold, so it's not unpredictable. After you defeat these bosses, you're put into the next dungeon and are unable to return, so be sure to complete everything before you move on if you want to be in top shape for the oncoming dangers.

To get to some of the flaws of this game, this game wasn't written by a native English speaker (I don't think). As shown below, the game sometimes stumbles with its grammar, but it's also somehow endearing. The game's custom system also has some flaws to it, such as sprites sometimes jumping around trying to figure out where the actual entity is before correctly placing the sprite, and there even some weird issues like dying to the final boss can actually crash the game. Amidst these flaws, though, I still enjoyed myself (though probably only because the game is free).

To finish this, the creator of the game, though not very experienced with making games, shows some real heart in their project here. They seem to take an interest in interaction with players, having surveys to complete and encouraging following them on Facebook. There's even a bonus room where the dev talks about the monsters found in the game and the ideas they wanted to present. There seem to be rumors of a sequel on the horizon, too, so perhaps we'll see some improvement. It's free, it's on Steam, so give it a whirl if you feel like living the life of a clingy anime-girl in a monster-infested world.


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