Eastward, an indie adventure game with RPG trappings is Nintendo Switch-bound. Announced earlier today in the Indie World broadcast, Pixpil Games had previously announced the game back in April for PC and Mac, but Chucklefish is now publishing the game on Nintendo's platform.
As you can see from the original trailer above, it has a gorgeous pixel style inspired by Japanese animation of the 1990s. You control miner John and must guide a strange girl named Sam through a post-apocalyptic world that's teetering on the edge of total meltdown (it seems the apocalypse is just the prelude to the end rather the actual apocalypse, then).
According to the official blurb, it's a "wonderfully weird world, exploring bustling towns, curious campsites and shady forests". As apocalypses go, this one's sounding more and more appealing! It looks to our eyes like somebody threw The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Earthbound and Thimbleweed Park in a blender and produced a delicious, pixelised, retro-flavoured smoothie. Here are some more details from the blurb followed by some screenshots:
- Discover the wonderfully weird world of Eastward. Jump aboard the cross-country railway which spans this decaying continent, stopping off to explore its bustling towns, curious campsites and shady forests.
- Fend off peculiar monsters and ferocious bosses with your weapon of choice – be it a gun, flamethrower or your trusty ol’ frying pan.
- Switch between controlling John and Sam to solve environmental puzzles and fight your way through formidable dungeons, separating to unlock hidden paths or sticking together as you traverse a perilous landscape.
There's no official date yet, but we're told it's scheduled to land 'early 2020', so we'll be keeping 'em peeled. We'll leave you with the original announcement trailer from April:
Had enough of pixel graphics? Like the look of this? Share your thoughts with a wee comment in the usual place.
Comments 31
This game looks really excellent. Probably the one I'm most interested in from the Indie showcase.
Is it bad that I wish that this was a turn-based RPG? I would really love a post-apocalyptic pixel art turn-based RPG
Really like the looks of this! This going on the list of games I’m gonna buy.
Man how I really wish The Minish Cap was on Switch...
This looks AWESOME.
omg this looks incredible D:
Looks beautiful.
This was the game that caught my attention on the showcase. Let's see how Chucklefish delivers it on Switch.
Looks gorgeous
Very interested in this, looks absolutely gorgeous!
Fantastic. And thank god it’s not turn based!
The graphics remind me of Secret of Evermore. It looks great
Coming from a retro EarthBound and Secret of Evermore player, can't wait to play this though I would get this regardless if it was a turn based or action adventure style RPG.
The only game that really got my interest.
By the sound of it, I was disappointed that it was going to be yet another pixel art game, but that trailer looked so good!
Going on the wish list
Those are some beautiful pixels
Besides Tourist, this is the most interesting game.
@SlimFreakinFast I wouldn't mind one but honestly the pixel art here is very much a top notch above the average outings in the style and so wonderfully animated I'm willing to give it a chance.
I don’t know why people give pixel art a bad rap.
Earlier today I booted up one the gba Metroid games via emulator, and for the first few minutes I just sat there appreciating the graphics (as I could actually see them, blown up nice and large and bright)
@NinjaWaddleDee I think your reaction is in part because we've kind of reached the limit of what people can do with "conventional" pixel art these days that just making a game "retro-styled" very much isn't enough anymore these days so increasingly newer pixel art games really need to go a notch above in term of presentation.
Be it art style, animation, additional effects to support the pixel artwork/etc or also stuff like world design and visuals(look at the sheer amount of clutter here in the presentation that nonetheless always feel cohesive).
In this case, this game succeed on indeed going for that "notch above" with very fluid animation and a lot of personality to it's characters both in the animation of their sprites but also in the clear artistic design that went to make every character have a clear characterisation even as something made with "pixel" art.
There's a lot of pixel art that limit itself to the limits of classic titles in the medium and you can see here from the fluidity and sheer amount of animation for the character(be it in their emoting or limbs flailling as they speak) that this game didn't let itself be restricted to these limits.
The world design is itself also surprisingly well rendered with a lot of personality and you can bet a lot of time must have been spent on concept artwork phase to sure they would nail down the specific visuals of everything before actually bringing it to production. It's not just that it's well-rendered but you can see they spent a lot of time researching and experimenting with what they'd like their visuals to be like.
And specifically, I bet their concept artist must have had a huge library of fully rendered anime/manga set in similar post-apocalypse styles to guide the art direction rather than rotely only looking at past pixel art games for references.
I'd say it visually reminds me of the Mana or Chrono Trigger series but honestly.... that's just nostalgia speaking because this is clearly a work above either of these two since it didn't limit itself to the same kind of restrictions they had to deal with as SNES titles back in the days.
So it'll be very much a case of game we could truly think of as "2020s pixel art" rather than the " '90s pixel art" of these older titles.
@Ludovsky You hit the nail on the head. It's not necessarily the artstyle. Just the glut of very average games with that artstyle.
You do know it's Clint Eastwood, not Eastward, right?
Looks good. I'll keep an eye out on this one
@SlimFreakinFast 100% with you.
I hope we get a release date for CrossCode as well. Being looking forward to one and now this one is announced. Both are good 16-Bit retro style RPGs.
This game looks absolutely wonderful. I avoid lengthy RPGs these days because of my limited game time, but I don't think I can pass this one up.
Now I wish someone remastered Chrono Trigger in this style as well.
Reminds me of Metropolis.
@SlimFreakinFast haven’t played it but cosmic star heroine appears to be what you might be looking for
Lovely news! Been keeping my eye on this one!
Been looking forward to this for a while, so I'm ecstatic that it's coming to Switch now. The pixel art in this game is honestly some of the best and most stylized I've ever seen, and I'll have to strive to have mine live up to it from now on.
Looks pretty cool.
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