I’m a bit torn, readers. Eagle Island has rather a lot going for it. It seems beautiful, for one, with a wealthy palette absolutely enlivening some traditional game environments. Everything sounds nice, and on paper its design is timeless, as you discover an island stage by stage, unlocking extra powers with every defeated boss. And its novel weapon needs to be an enormous draw – as an alternative of leaping on heads or hacking or bashing monsters, you throw an owl at them, both as is or after upgrading it with magical feathers.
But I don’t prefer it. I’m nonetheless enjoying it after two days, however not as a result of I’m hooked. It’s as a result of it by no means fairly stops annoying me.
It’s not, I wish to emphasise, due to what it’s. “A retro-inspired platformer with pixel art graphics” is a type of descriptions that does a whole lot of games a disservice just because it could actually apply to so many, usually weaker, games. Eagle Island captures most of what such a platformer ought to. Young Quill is shipwrecked on an island along with his two owl associates, one in every of whom is instantly seized by the large eagle that terrorises the realm. A neighborhood rando implores you to get to some magical totems and soak up their energy earlier than the eagle does, so naturally you run off to discover and filter out a sequence of areas from their rightful monster inhabitants. I very practically referred to as these areas ‘caves’ since they’re all separated from the overworld by doorways, however every is basically a definite stage with an environmental theme. You have your watery one, a foresty one, a mine one, and later they combine up a bit extra. But even earlier than then, regardless of being conventional video game stage themes, they’re beautiful.
The water stage, often probably the most boring, is extra of a shoreline one, with hermit crabs, shallow rock swimming pools, and odd spike-spitting anemone issues lurking in dank caverns. Then the subsequent few screens can be gentle and someway breezy outside ones, with tiny waterfalls and distant, closely eroded cliffs. The desert equally alternates between dusty mines and heat orange vistas. They’re all livened up with little animations and vegetation. A tiny mole burrows up out of the earth, little birds take flight, and dandelion clocks scatter as you run previous. Loads of affection has gone into the ambiance, a lot of it simply missed. It’s a terrific instance of why neither ‘retro’ or ‘pixel art’ must be simplistic.
At the top of every stage, in fact, you decide up a brand new energy. Initially it appeared that this may result in a Metroidvania state of affairs, however past the impediment blocking you from the subsequent stage, that’s not the case. Powers are centred in your weapon, and that is the place Eagle Island stands out. Your first unlockable is a falconry glove, and, sure, the concept is you level and instruct your owl Koji to assault, however I’m calling it what it’s: you fling your little good friend into enemies to kill them. Just straight up feck a hen at a charging boar. What else are associates for, if not bodily hurling into the face of something that dares threaten you?
The unlockables, naturally, imbue your hen with elemental assaults. Rather than straight injury upgrades (most monsters are simply puffed with a single dose of owl, two at most), particular assaults ship Koji via a number of enemies with a lightning cost, or freeze them in mid-air, shattering them on the bottom.
It… sounds extra helpful than it’s. While enemies generally line up carefully sufficient for a lightning shot to be price it, and the fireball clears out the occasional awkward nook or cluster, the overwhelming majority of your preventing can be carried out with the essential birdstrike. There are only a few issues that can’t be solved with uncooked strigine fury. Power assaults price mana, which isn’t scarce, because it spills out of free treasure chests generally, and drips out of enemies in the event you splat two or extra of them in double time. But the fight is constructed round fast use of the essential owl assault, as one of many first tutorial suggestions is about chaining kills to exploit the wildlife of valuable well being blobs.
The downside is that the timing of doing that’s interrupted through the use of energy assaults, particularly as all of them use the identical button, and you need to manually swap between them by scrolling via the lot. Koji can launch in any of the eight authorities sanctioned instructions, and aiming is a case of holding a button and pushing the thumbstick or keys that manner (I’d extremely advocate a controller, as I struggled with the keyboard sufficient to make the swap very early on). While you’re doing this you maintain nonetheless, even in mid-air, which is a key technique of defeating many enemies, and generally surviving their space assaults. But energy assaults typically disrupt any rhythm you’ve gotten into, to the purpose the place it’s simply simpler and extra comfy to not use them. And in fact, in the event you do hearth them off in succession, you burn via your mana and may’t use them for some time anyway.
All that is carefully tied in with why I used to be pissed off with Eagle Island. Chaining assaults, and timing and transferring and holding place in all the suitable methods, needs to be an entertaining problem. To some extent it’s, and a whole lot of it feels practically proper. But it’s too straightforward to barely miss a shot, or for Koji to take an prompt longer than you anticipated coming again, or for an angle to go a bit flawed. If Koji misses or spangs right into a wall (it’s onerous to not surprise at what level Koji stops obeying out of loyalty, and turns into too concussed to kind any sort of psychological resistance) they’re unavailable for a number of moments, leaving you not solely helpless however unable to defy gravity and momentum as you have been anticipating to, and possibly costing you well being. It feels just a bit bit off. Just a little bit too unreliable. It sort of renders a whole lot of the gadgets a legal responsibility.
Levels, I ought to add, are randomised every time you die or retry, and that is one thing Eagle Island does notably effectively. It’s uncommon {that a} display felt really unfair, though I very a lot hope the devs can change the beginning of the second stage in order that the quick tutorial there isn’t repeated each time, and navigation was straightforward and pure. Had I solely performed any given stage as soon as, I’d haven’t any purpose to doubt it was laid out by hand. The bosses, too, often the bane of my existence, and trebly so in a game with out saves or checkpoints, have been very best for me. They are threatening, and I felt I used to be one foolish slip up away from a restart, however managed to see them off much more simply than the degrees that preceded them, usually on my first flip. The reduction after they have been put down was a triumphant launch of stress, slightly than a remaining expulsion of hatred. That labored for me.
But additionally topic to the randomisation are the contents of treasure chests, about half of that are unlocked, stuffed with cash or mana, and half are opened with mentioned cash, and comprise gadgets. These might be binned or match into 4 stock slots, and there are two or three outlets on a stage providing a narrower choice too. Most of this stuff are ineffective. Or slightly, so area of interest of their use that they’re not price eager about, and most expire after a (usually lengthy, of their defence) time restrict. Being capable of push off right into a leap when hanging off a ledge isn’t ever one thing I used after I had it, or missed after I misplaced it. Firing an owl downwards, launching myself, about 5 pixels greater was totally pointless. Adding a secondary impact to an influence assault sounds good, nevertheless it runs into the identical issues. There are a number of gadgets that enhance the best way Koji strikes… however in doing so that they disrupt the patterns of transferring and attacking I used to be used to, getting me into extra hassle than they saved me from. Even in the event you do get used to utilizing the gadgets, they’ll vanish after time, or whenever you die, and also you’re again to studying the outdated limits.
Eagle Island guarantees rather a lot, however whether or not it ever really delivers I can’t say, as a result of after two days with it I’m plain carried out. I used to be by no means fairly having fun with it as a lot as I wished to, and it by no means fairly got here collectively even throughout the transient window when the plot took a flip and it appeared prefer it was about to essentially open up. Even the promise of extra methods to brutalise my dutiful owl isn’t sufficient to pull me via one other afternoon of more and more grating close to misses.
