Rusted ovens and old refrigerators - also being reclaimed by nature - are placed in cities and dungeons to encourage cooking, which fills up your heart meter. I found some of these fights to be extra challenging due to the disappointing scarcity of resources hidden around Eastward’s spaces. But, like the puzzles, they require a precision that can be hard to master the sheer simplicity is clever and deceiving. These boss fights are often simple in theory: dodging hits, stunning enemies, and taking a swing, for instance. John and Sam’s abilities are also key in some of Eastward’s more challenging boss fights, in moments where slapping enemies with the frying pan (later, John will also acquire a gun, flamethrower, and cog weapon, alongside different bombs) is simply not enough. Greenberg and New Dam City are both populated with quirky, welcoming residents Often, they require you to move with precision and clarity to successfully solve them - sometimes against a clock. Puzzles in Eastward aren’t mind-bending, but they are satisfying.
Using each character’s abilities - like John’s bombs or frying pan and Sam’s stun - is essential in solving the puzzles in Eastward’s dungeons and exterior environments. John and Sam can also be played independently from one another, and it’s here where Eastward innovates. For a large portion of the game, John and Sam travel one behind the other in sync you switch them from the first position to the second by pulling the trigger on your controller.
Sam has a supernatural ability that allows her to shoot energy bubbles that can stun enemies, useful in both fighting and solving the game’s environmental puzzles.Įastward is a single-player game, so you’ll be playing each character simultaneously. John, for his part, has a trusty frying pan he uses to wallop enemies - and also to cook elaborate meals made from ingredients found (and bought) throughout Eastward’s world. It’s a treacherous journey, but John and Sam are equipped for survival. It’s from here that John and Sam realize they must head east via train to the end of the world, hopping from city to city in search of an answer to their problem: a mysterious miasma that’s been swallowing up towns whole. Likewise, places like Whitewhale Bay and New Dam City are both populated with quirky, welcoming residents - what’s left of them, at least - struggling to survive in their doomed cities. Yes, the world is much more dangerous up there, but it’s also warm and lively, colored in shades of green, blue, pink, and yellow.
Whereas everything underground was colored in shades of brown, these new surroundings are vibrant and often dilapidated. Published by Stardew Valley publisher Chucklefish, Eastward pushes John and Sam to the surface of its world, forced out from underground into a landscape that’s been largely devastated. If you want to see the very best of the best for your platform(s) of choice, check out Polygon Essentials. When we award a game the Polygon Recommends badge, it’s because we believe the title is uniquely thought-provoking, entertaining, inventive, or fun - and worth fitting into your schedule. Polygon Recommends is our way of endorsing our favorite games. John cares for Sam, who is too young to do so herself despite her special powers, and they quickly become friends. Quiet John, who never speaks a word, takes in Sam, a naïve and strange little girl, as they quickly become inseparable. The game begins with John, the best miner in a post-apocalyptic underground town, digging up a white-haired child named Sam. Eastward’s world, spread across a variety of cities and biomes, also pays homage to the post-apocalyptic world of Studio Ghibli, the spirit of childhood adventure films like The Sandlot and The Goonies, and the ritualistic mystery of occult grimoires.īut more than anything else, Eastward is Eastward - a game where you play as a duo of connected characters. You’ll read a lot around the internet about The Legend of Zelda’s and EarthBound’s influence, and that’s all certainly there - after all, there is a character referred to as Mother, a playable in-game RPG called Earth Born, and a Zelda-esque pixel heart meter. Eastward is not subtle about its influences: Chinese developer Pixpil has lovingly pulled inspiration from all sorts of media and combined it into a pixel art role-playing game that’s still, somehow, unquestionably itself.
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