Legends of Ethernal

My first impression of Legends of Ethernal was that Lucid Dreams Studio had built something genuinely tender, the kind of small indie release that quietly earns your attention. The hand-drawn art reads early-animation-era vivid, all saturated greens and amber forests, and the score composed by William Gough wraps around every environment with that particular warmth that makes a game feel inhabited rather than merely illustrated. Then a flying creature tears through a house roof, two parents vanish, and the tone shifts into something considerably darker than the screenshots suggest. This is not the cozy Harvest Moon-adjacent outing the visuals imply. You play as Wilfred, a boy whose fishing trip home leads to an empty house and a world that immediately wants to kill him. The structure leans Metroidvania-lite: areas of the world of Arkanys are gated behind abilities and items you pick up as you progress, so you cycle back through earlier zones as your toolkit expands. Wilfred starts with a fishing rod as his primary weapon and gradually picks up additional melee options, each switchable on the fly, alongside a ranged attack and a dodge roll that carries a cooldown, meaning you cannot simply mash your way through enemy clusters. A four-color ether system, with red, blue, yellow, and green resources gathered from defeated enemies and destructible objects, feeds both consumables like potions and sap grenades and the special moves tied to your upgraded weapons. On paper it is tidy and purposeful. In practice, the ether economy occasionally runs dry at the worst possible moment, which some reviewers have noted can make certain difficulty spikes feel like a design flaw rather than a fair challenge. The combat is where the game earns its most divided reception, and I think it is worth being direct about this. Enemies in zones like the Jarken tree-people territories and the Bruwig frog tribes require you to read their patterns and respect their spacing rather than wade in swinging. Bosses demand memorised sequences and punish impatience sharply. Checkpoints are generous enough that you rarely lose significant progress, and the difficulty range is broad, from a Relaxed mode that assists with both damage and platforming to a Hardcore mode where death sends you back to the very beginning. One complication: the difficulty is locked in once you start, so choose carefully. Players who came expecting a narrative-paced side-scroller and found themselves grinding boss arenas for the majority of their playtime have been the loudest critics, and that frustration is legitimate. The story keeps moving you forward with its genuinely surprising dark turns, and friction that stalls that momentum costs the game something real. And yet the world of Arkanys has a quality I find hard to dismiss. The lore sets up Wilfred's journey as a prequel to a catastrophe called the Uncovering, so there is a sense throughout that you are watching a tragedy with the ending already written, which gives even minor scenes an odd weight. Wilfred's companion Sao, a spirit that provides both light and companionship, plays a quiet but meaningful role in the emotional texture of the story. The art holds up at every resolution, the soundtrack rewards a good pair of headphones, and the game understands when its world needs to breathe. It is a flawed thing, genuinely, but it is a flawed thing that was clearly made with care. If you have a high tolerance for pattern-learning boss encounters and can accept that the combat feel is functional rather than crisp, Legends of Ethernal has a story worth seeing through. If difficulty friction in a narrative game historically sends you to the exit, pick Relaxed mode before you start and keep your expectations calibrated. This is a first chapter with a cliffhanger, not a complete statement, and it shows.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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