Hello and welcome to another review of another game made for the IGMC 2022 contest!
This time it's a game by Ronove, the author of The Morning Star (look here for my opinion) and the classic Star Stealing Prince, that I am going to review one of the next weeks!

Life Eternal is a 20-30 minutes adventure made with RPG Maker MZ, with no combat or puzzles, just a sort of mix between visual novel and walking simulator.
We play as the Necromancer that wakes up inside a castle after a battle that ended with the death of his master, the Sorcerer. He promised to revive his lord, and as the last servant alive he has three days to complete a complex ritual that will restore the Socerer body and soul. After all he needs a full resurrections, since doesn't want to create just a mindless skeleton, of course!


The game has also collectibles: notes and skeleton friends like Isabella! Gotta catch em all!

The game is a malinconic quest in which we wanders the empty ruined halls of the castle and the forest outside, scattered with the unnamed tombs of the heroes that fought the Sorcerer's horde of undeads. Yes, in this game we're the bad guys of the story, but each story has more than one side, and the Nocromancer will soon face an important choice for his future...

Being a walking simulator, the game is all about going around, exploring, interacting and looking for the items and components needed to perform the ritual. But there are also optional collectibles like skeletons and notes. You can save anytime and anywhere, but do not worry, there is no chance to die. Anyway saving the game is useful if you want to see both the two endings, yes there is more than one epilogue possible! But of course I am not going to spoil them, play and see by yourself!

Visually the game is really well done: there is a great attention to the details, many interactions available (even those not important for the story like with the scarecrow, for example!), maps are simply perfect. While I noticed the use of some classic Rpgmaker assets, there are also many custom sprites, like Ronove's animated portraits or the different ending slides used to illustrate the epilogues, that uses the classical awesome art style that is a trademark of this developer. But everything contributes to the atmosphere of lonelyness and melacholy, from the use of light and shadows to the music, and all is of great quality. I also liked those cutscenes, the flashbacks seen when the Necromancer sleeps, that give an idea of what happened before. All is very stilish and there is a great attention to every minimal detail, including the custom menus that include an inventory, but also a journal to keep note of what you are supposed to do. Only problem I had is that I kept pressing Shift to run, but sometimes during dialogues, it opens the config/option screen. Yeah I should have set "always dash" but I did not want, so uhm ok.


Yes! Of course. And my gift is this review! Jokes aside, this part of the game is where you must do an important choice... mind this!

Final Verdict
Great atmosphere and story fort sure. This is a simple story-driven game, but that demonstrate the great narrative talent and great art style of this developer. Clearly if you want a real long and more complex adventure you should probably (since I still have to try it!) play the Star Stealing Prince, but this one is another little masterpiece. A self contained complete original story and setting, that has all needed to be enjoyable. In my opinion, this was simple but good, immersive and captivating.