Eternal hope

Eternal Hope is decent, but that's about the strongest word I'd use to describe it. The best part of the game is its visual design as well as some of the music; it looks very pretty and sounds nice.
When it comes to the gameplay, it's a mixed bag. The main loop is 2D platforming and solving puzzles very similar to LIMBO, with some of them being instant-death and trial-by-error. Most of it is pushing objects to climb higher or phasing the environment in-and-out to make different things appear. A noticeable downside during the entire game is its controls. You move pretty slowly, and the way some of the jumping works doesn't feel fluid.
Later in the game you get into some puzzles with enemies and eventually a boss where you must move as quickly as you can; making a mistake means you restart a section. In my opinion, those sections were not as interesting and were a bit more frustrating as well. The boss in particular required a lot of standing still and waiting as well, which I'm not a fan of in general. Probably a fifth of my game time was dying and restarting sections.
The game has a pretty simple story which suddenly tries to fan out into something more complex in the latter half; but I don't think it nailed the landing, and the game is pretty short overall which makes the latter half seem even more rushed.
All in all, there's not much deeper to go into here. I think the game was OK; I wouldn't say it's bad by any means. But the developers definitely need more practice. Polish the gameplay, make things move more fluidly without throwing the player into too many chase or stop-and-go sections, and, if you want a story, try to build it from the beginning instead of throwing pieces in later on.

Got a review code for this game a few days ago and had no idea what to expect. I saw the art-style and thought I was in for another Hollow-Knight/Ori Metriovania type game. Surprisingly, Eternal Hope is just a simple 2-D puzzle game. One that's more in tune with PlayDead's: Limbo or Inside. And I thought that type of gameplay fit perfect for the story and mechanics in Eternal Hope.
Everything about the game is very simple. You move in four directions: Up, down, left, right. You can jump, and you have a few unique abilities. The most memorable being an ability that lets you access another realm, opening up puzzles that might have been hidden otherwise if you had the ability turned off. What makes the power exciting is that it runs on a time limit. So if you're standing on a monster that can only be seen in this "shadow realm," then you have to make a move before your ability depletes and the monster disappears. Just like everything else, it's a simple concept that gets stretched really far, and at times even had me scratching my head at how to progress in the game.
As for negatives, I actually experienced a few major bugs in the game. This can be seen on my livestream, but there was a moment where I would try to move past the checkpoint, and every time I took a few steps forward the game would freeze. I tried reloading my checkpoint, but the problem persisted until I rebooted the game. I also don't think the controls feel as responsive as they could.
Overall, Eternal Hope is a really short but good time. If you're looking for a challenging puzzle game with a nice story and world, I would definitely recommend checking it out! My only complaints are the bugs I experienced and how the controls felt overall!

MY RATING:

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 ✘9 / 10

Nice little puzzleplattformer with smooth music and lovely story.

The depths you'd go through for love ❀ What a touching, thrilling, puzzle platformer I experienced and I'd do it all again!