Eldritch Law

Hello
I wasn't sure about giving a review to Eldritch Law since it's just little more than a Chapter... or a prologue, so just a short demo. But it was made in 2018 (already three years ago) and it's still longer than some complete games I reviewed, so why not? This is also a third chapter of the Legacy series made by Nightblade, so go and play Demon Legacy and Phantom Legacy (or read my reviews!) because these were really good games and are also linked to Eldritch Law (there is a characters that appears in the games but I will not spoil!).

In this demo we play as Albion, a lone hero and elite fighter as he wades through a battlefield where human soldiers are fighting a losing battle against monstrous creatures.
This game doesn't use Rm2k3 like the predecessors, nor he uses the same visual style and charsets/battlers (standard rm2k3 style with some Rtp and edits in Demon Legacy, and Romancing SaGa 3 edirs in Phantom Legacy), but opted for a new style (and great pixel art) and the classical use of front view battles with no charsets.



Speaking about battles, there are no random encounters, but every combat is mandatory, including a couple of boss fights. The run took me 33 minutes to complete (it was a little more since the first time I was ), and there is one save spot at half point. And it's not a simple saving spot, it's a spectacular one! Well all parts of the game looks good: graphics are simple and they recall some old jrpgs, but they are colorful and well represent a creepy setting.
Mapping is good, and there are a lot of details, like fighters dueling, bloody bodies (don't worry, violence is just in some pixel, and it's not detailed), dead soldiers falling from above and moving backgrounds... great atmosphere indeed!
Facesets uses some particular realistic ones that are in the same style of those of Phantom Legacy, while I guess that most resources, monsters and charsets are instead custom made. I am not sure, but in any case, these are very good!

Now, the gameplay: even if we play as a single character, Albion has various abilities and it's possible to learn how to use them against the nameless goons, but if you want to complete the game and defeat the final boss you have to master them! Oh yes, there are no shops or upgrades available (anyway Albion is quite strong!), it's also not possible to grind since there are no optional encounters and this is a linear path. So you have to learn how to use the eldritch powers, but it can be done, so play and have fun! (the difficulty is in my opinion perfectly balanced, unlike Demon Legacy, but ok that was the first game!).

Since this is a demo I cannot judge an incomplete story (that also included other playable characters from the pictures I saw in a develpment site), but if you played Demon Legacy & Phantom Legacy you will clearly recognize some locations and characters (that weren't really central to the story, still it's a link to the past games, that are clearly set in the same universe).



Final Verdict
Compared to the two Legacy games this feels like a more coherent game for what concerns the graphic style and use of resources (maybe also the lack of battlers creates less dissonance among the sprites used). There are some powerful scenes (I especially liked the white tree, that appears also at the end of Phantom Legacy) and atmosphere, writing is also good and left me wanting for more.
Gameplay is simple (being a sort of prologue with just one character we can't expect much) but still not boring and rather fun, combat is fast and furious!

Ok, I will say here only once: Nightblade started promising with Demon Legacy, improved a lot with Phantom Legacy, and this game would have been even better from what I perceived playing this short demo (it still took almost an hour considering I was killed and it won't take you less than 30 minutes! But it will be 30 minutes of non stop action, some good dialogues and lots of fun!).
It's good, very good. Gets 4/5 from me! Wish it was a complete game, still a really good demo!