The indie space has been fertile ground for classical JRPGs for quite some time now, but mostly in the form of creative if relatively simplistic RPG Maker projects. French developer Midgar Studio is looking to change all of that with their decidedly bigger-budget offering, Edge of Eternity.
As implied by their name itself, Studio Midgar has lofty goals with the JRPG genre and with Edge of Eternity itself, to the point that it may very well stretch the boundaries of what is generally regarded as “indie” overall. The production values are incredible to the point that hardware limitations ultimately forced me to pass the review baton to Danreb, and legendary composer Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Xenogears) was called in to help make the soundtrack something truly special.
Edge of Eternity follows Daryon, a young military recruit training to fight back against an alien civilization that betrayed his people after years of working together, eventually unleashing a plague called the Corrosion on a world woefully unprepared to deal with it. Make no mistake, Edge of Eternity is dark, featuring themes of genocide, biological warfare, other horrors of war, and even human sacrifice in just its opening hours.
The gameplay is also well beyond what you usually expect from an indie JRPG, with an interesting hybrid positional-ATB battle system in place of the generic “press A until everything’s dead” fare that plagues a lot of indie titles. The implementation can occasionally slow combat down to a crawl, but even at its worst, it remains more interesting than the alternative we’ve all grown accustomed to.
Edge of Eternity launched on Steam earlier this month, with console ports coming in the near future. A review is forthcoming, which will be handled by Executive Editor Danreb Victorio. It is worth nothing, however, that because of PC limitations we very realistically might not see one until the release of its console counterparts.
The indie space has been fertile ground for classical JRPGs for quite some time now, but mostly in the form of creative if relatively simplistic RPG Maker projects. French developer Midgar Studio is looking to change all of that with…
The indie space has been fertile ground for classical JRPGs for quite some time now, but mostly in the form of creative if relatively simplistic RPG Maker projects. French developer Midgar Studio is looking to change all of that with their decidedly bigger-budget offering, Edge of Eternity.
As implied by their name itself, Studio Midgar has lofty goals with the JRPG genre and with Edge of Eternity itself, to the point that it may very well stretch the boundaries of what is generally regarded as “indie” overall. The production values are incredible to the point that hardware limitations ultimately forced me to pass the review baton to Danreb, and legendary composer Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Xenogears) was called in to help make the soundtrack something truly special.
Edge of Eternity follows Daryon, a young military recruit training to fight back against an alien civilization that betrayed his people after years of working together, eventually unleashing a plague called the Corrosion on a world woefully unprepared to deal with it. Make no mistake, Edge of Eternity is dark, featuring themes of genocide, biological warfare, other horrors of war, and even human sacrifice in just its opening hours.
The gameplay is also well beyond what you usually expect from an indie JRPG, with an interesting hybrid positional-ATB battle system in place of the generic “press A until everything’s dead” fare that plagues a lot of indie titles. The implementation can occasionally slow combat down to a crawl, but even at its worst, it remains more interesting than the alternative we’ve all grown accustomed to.
Edge of Eternity launched on Steam earlier this month, with console ports coming in the near future. A review is forthcoming, which will be handled by Executive Editor Danreb Victorio. It is worth nothing, however, that because of PC limitations we very realistically might not see one until the release of its console counterparts.
by Patrick Mifflin
