There are a couple of instances within Etaine: Magic Survivor where the (solo?) developer TEMagicGames asks people to show understanding of their programming skills. The indie-loving part of the one writing this review respects the honesty. The more critical side of him, however, would simply prefer if a bit more work was done here to smooth out the rough edges, because while at its best this arena shooter, survival roguelite can be quite an enjoyable and even addictive time muncher, it’s sadly a case of great potential crushed under the weight of many flaws. Yes, the visuals have that ultra-low budget feel. Clean anime sprites fight heavily pixelated enemies that look as if they jumped in from another title altogether, and the design of menus plus the user interface all scream ‘amateur.’ Freeware and super-indie afficionados won’t mind all these. In fact, they are part of the charm of it all. The real problems lie elsewhere.
After playing more than 20 hours, it’s clear that there are three separate games, or to be more precise, three different kinds of experiences to be had in Etaine: Magic Survivor, the first being perfect casual food. A…bouncy anime heroine is thrown into an arena and monsters start coming toward her from all angles. She does the necessary killing with her starter ability, usually a projectile-spitting spell, and as she gains more levels, she gets to pick a new one from a random assortment of abilities. As the death toll increases, level-ups occur quite often, so before long you are in control of a witch that spits ice spears left and right, has enchanted axes flying around her, spawns a frozen mist that paralyzes those that get too close, and many, many, many more abilities.
The one controlling the action just needs to move the main character around to avoid damage, get those mana-replenishing gems, and enjoy the chaos. Defeated? No worries! Go spend that hard-earned gold to upgrade stats in true roguelite fashion. Rinse and repeat, with players being able to unlock a plethora of spells and supplementary abilities, as well as more cuties to have fun with, each one having their own unique specialties and weaknesses. It’s simple, relatively easy pick-up-and-play fun. An hour or so of essentially doing the same thing over and over, and it all starts to get too easy, repetitive, and boring. This is the time to move on to the second “game” at hand.
Apart from the ‘Advanced,’ which basically doubles the challenge of the three standard maps, and Boss Rush and Endless modes which are self-explanatory, there are a series of Difficulty Levels available. These start with simple changes like making enemies sturdier, and continue with adding more elite units, or something more…interesting. This is probably where Etaine: Magic Survivor is at its best as this is the spot that requires a deeper knowledge of the abilities, their pros and cons and, more importantly, how they can work synergistically to create an even more impressive mess. Things can get quite hard as more levels are unlocked, with the final ones constantly keeping the cute witches on the edge of life and death. The thing is that, while fun and all, during one’s experience with that section it becomes crystal clear that this isn’t exactly that finely balanced – leading to the final part: the Challenges.
The Challenges mode is where the true hardcore players will test their might. Unlike Difficulty Levels where things just get harder and harder, each of the available Challenges poses a very unique…err, challenge. This one over here? It strips away all health, and gives an almost worthless time-freezing ability, as well 10 resurrections. That one? Oh, it leaves you with only two spell slots, and so on and so forth. Theoretically this could be the most enjoyable part, as it forces players to push their tactical thinking to the limit. Unfortunately, this is too demanding – and not in a good way.
First of all, Challenges cannot really be beaten with all characters, and the vast majority of spells and supplementary skills become somewhat useless, so you’ll have to enter an aggravating loop of trial-and-error in order to find the correct ingredients for success, with pretty much every other path leading to certain defeat…and lots of wasted minutes.
Now, Challenges can be fun, mainly because there’s a certain joy in finally finding what needs to be done. It’s like solving a puzzle, basically. As mentioned earlier, this needs some work in terms of balance, as some characters are way better than others, and many spells, especially AoE ones, tend to be much more useful than almost every other type of magic, thus luck takes a major part since each level-up will offer a bunch of randomised powers to choose from. By far the worst part about the mode, though, is that it disables all purchased enhancements, defeating the purpose of the meta-progression inherent in roguelites. Again, there’s tons of fun to be had here, but be prepared for plenty of irritating moments as well.
