Coming from Spanish studio Aeternum Game Studios, Aeterna Noctis first launched on PlayStation 5 last year, and has now made its way to Switch. Luckily — barring load times — the conversion to Nintendo’s hybrid wonder is solid, with a stable frame rate. Aeterna Noctis is a Metroidvania clearly inspired by the greats of the genre like Symphony of the Night and especially Hollow Knight, although it doesn't quite live up to those games that inspired it.
An entity known as Chaos created the world of Aeterna, and blessed the denizens of the land with free will. Eventually, factions formed between those who followed the light and the darkness, clashing to take control of Aeterna. Chaos, displeased with this, curses the leaders of each faction with immortality, destined to battle for the throne for all eternity to maintain equilibrium for Aeterna.
Fresh off of taking an L from the Queen of Light, you — the King of Darkness — wake up in a derelict town, realising you must ascend to the heavens once more to battle your nemesis. However, in order to get back to the heavens, he must first collect seven fragments of power belonging to the Shrine of the Kings. Not only that, you've lost the majority of your powers, (a shocking move for a Metroidvania, we know) and they are locked behind ten doors in the Temple of the Kings, the keys for which are scattered around the world. These doors offer platforming challenges, which upon completion give you power-ups, from game-changers like a dash or slightly more underwhelming ones like extra gem slots, although the majority of important power-ups — such as the double jump or the excellent teleport shot — are obtained from bosses.
Aeterna Noctis prides itself on being a difficult game. However, a fair bit of the game’s challenge comes from a place of tedium rather than excitement. The most prominent example of this tedium comes with each of the game’s 16 areas containing a form of enemy which shoots out a projectile upon death. These are not hard to dodge, but it just ends up with you walking off to the side and waiting until the projectile is gone. Tedium can sometimes bleed over to level design, too, such as scaling the massive Tower of Light with a massive screen-filling beam charging up intermittently. Again, not hard to dodge, but it’s another case of getting out of the way and twiddling your thumbs, wasting time until it’s safe to move again.
Other areas are better, though — the platforming challenges in particular. These feel like they would fit in any great hardcore platformer like Celeste with no issue. This isn't one of those games, of course, and the deaths can be far more frustrating when placed in the context of a Metroidvania with a health bar, but these platformer segments only continue to feel better and better as you gain more traversal powers over time, leading to some truly hardcore challenges that are satisfying to pull off.
As we alluded to earlier, Aeterna Noctis' inspirations are easy to spot. Right away you’ll be able to see the Hollow Knight influence, from the UI to the way your character moves. This reviewer has not played Hollow Knight past the first hour [The scandal! - Ed.], and even they were able to instantly see the influence. Things like defeating enemies to fill the circular icon on your UI which powers either your healing or other abilities, health icons rather than a bar, having to collect your soul from the enemy who last defeated you to get your full circle meter back, as well as an adaption of the charms system in the form of gems which you can equip on your suit to give you buffs like higher critical chance or the super useful auto-refill on your healing. Again, inspiration isn’t a bad thing, and these didn't all originate in Hollow Knight either; it does, however, leave the game open to unfavourable comparisons.
It does hold its own in the visuals department, though. It's a real looker from the get-go, opening with a gorgeous stained glass re-telling of the story of Aeterna — very reminiscent of the likes of The Wind Waker — you are then plunged into the game’s world where the hand-drawn art style really shines. While the initial environments are quite dark, later areas like the Infinite Bay and the Cosmos are absolutely stunning with their fantastic background art. The only real negative in the art department is that sometimes enemies across areas can look very similar.
On Switch, the game runs pretty much flawlessly, with the only issue being load times. Loading screens are very plentiful and when times can be anywhere from 7-15 seconds, it really starts to grate. Sometimes, death will send you back to another area if you are fresh into a new environment, meaning another load screen to add to the frustration of failure. We also encountered a fair few glitches throughout our time with the game. From multiple hard crashes, to some weird ones like not being able to move to the side unless jumping or being teleported out of a boss room as the fight continues. While not unplayable — and certainly patchable — it was frequent enough to become an annoyance.
Conclusion
Aeterna Noctis has a lot of potential; however, it feels like the developer got a bit too ambitious. A game that was shorter and had more focus has the potential to be something fantastic. but it ends up being a bit of a slog for a lot of its runtime due to its sometimes-tedious difficulty, despite some great platforming segments. Long loads and some frustrating design choices mean Aeterna Noctis is a derivative but sporadically satisfying game that some players may absolutely fall in love with. It has clearly had a lot of love put into it, but we didn't quite vibe with it.
Comments 26
I'm always very tempted by metroidvanias with good art, but given the review, I'll force myself to resist. Things like long loading times annoy me a little bit but if I like the game I'll deal with it (I can pull out a book or another game while waiting!). However I have almost no tolerance for games which crash; I know not all games will run well on Switch, but I consider actually running to be the bare minimum.
A Shame. I always hold out hope for the next Hollow Knight or Yoku's Island Express...
Steam opinions on this game seem quite passionately divided. Critics find a long list of things they don't like and defenders say it's one of the greatest games in the genre.
EDIT: Funny how the comments after mine prove my point
Hi. I signed up to leave a comment here, and am not affiliated with the developer (though, you won't believe me).
I played this game on steam deck, and absolutely loved it. I was addicted to it like I was Hollow Knight and SOTN. I'm a metroidvania nerd, and found this to be a masterclass in the genre.
This review is scant... at best. Kind of insulting to the readers and the developer. I don't care if you didn't like the game, but you didn't review as such. It's a few paragraphs, most of which compare it to Hollow Knight (which you only played an hour of!?). You don't even cover some of the most basic parts of the game.
For instance:
1). What mode did you play, Scott? Aeterna (Exploratory- Metroidvania - Easier) or Noctis (Hardcore platforming- Much harder - celeste like). Huge difference in the two. It is like two different games.
2). A skill tree that covers three branching paths (something hollow knight doesn't have), and can be reset anytime when at a throne.
3). Some of the amazingly unique gameplay mechanics - teleport arrows. Even basic game play descriptions. He moves (and looks) like Marth from smash brothers, floaty and responsive.
4). The combat!!!! Different weapons. Sickle, Spear, Katana, Shuirken. The epic boss fights, and the satisfaction upon beating them.
5). The bonkers level design especially towards the end (one area in particular is pretty unforgettable, and worth mentioning in a spoiler-free way).
6). Quests / side quests / mini quests / hunts - collectibles that actually mean something in game.
7). Dialog and references in the game.
8). length of the game 40 or so hours, depending.
Again, basic stuff.
Play the game more than an hour. For god sakes, play Hollow knight for more than an hour if you're going to compare other games to it.
I urge any fan of the genre to give it a go. It's really good.
Why you would ever assign a Metroidvania to a player who didn't last longer than 1 hour in Hollow Knight is beyond me.
For what it's worth, the PS5 version is lovely. If you have a PS5 and are at all interested in this game, give it a chance over there. It's a shame that it's a mess on Switch, but the core game had a lot of quality on a platform that runs it well.
Now don't get me wrong, the game might very well be average but is that really the best screenshot you could take? Surely you could take a couple better ones to show us what the game actually looks like. The only actual clear screenshot is the talent tree.
Edit: the screenshots have been updated now.
@sfjtdr I believe you and I agree with you. I've heard nothing but good things about this game, and based on this scant review alone I was expecting a 7 or an 8, and was a little blindsided by a 5, when the review hardly covers any reason to give it such a poor review. Long load times? I guess Breath of the Wild deserves a 5. Deadly columns that you need to step out of the way of? Sonic the Hedgehog's Marble Zone would like a word with you.
@sfjtdr uh can we get you to write up a proper review please?
Maybe the author thinks the difficulty is too much but that’s not the reason he gave this game a five. Those praising the game after playing it on a 4x more powerful PC than the Switch (because that’s what the Steam Deck is) are missing the point entirely. How this game plays on other platforms is irrelevant. “Loading screens are very plentiful and when times can be anywhere from 7-15 seconds, it really starts to grate” — for this alone the game deserves no more than a 5. People need to know what are they spending their hard-earned money on imo. It’s not like you get a loading time here and there, but much, much more frequent.
Edit, a letter
Only at the beginning and have fought one boss but this doesnt feel like a 5/10 game with a 7/10 being a fairer score. Im torn between this and Ghost Song at the moment and both so far feel like standout metroidvanias.
@Ara There was still load times on steam deck 5-10 seconds.
I suppose I'm more patient. If you like a game those load times become much less affecting.
Also from his review:
"On Switch, the game runs pretty much flawlessly, with the only issue being load times."
If you think that alone deserves a 5, I can't help you, or your patience.
@Ara No one is saying he shouldn't mention Switch performance, and also he never mentions that load times are Switch specific.
Everyone has their own opinions, and maybe 7 second load times aren't your thing, but as @sfjtdr said, he doesn't even go into any reasons on how this game sets itself apart from other Metroidvanias. The reviewer mentions two brief moments of tedium, doesn't even touch upon the combat or skill trees, and awards it a 5/10. It is a complete disservice to the developer and the players.
And, sidenote, imagine the outcry if he awarded a 5/10 for Breath of the Wild's load times alone, every time you die or fast travel. Come on.
@Chimp9000
Ha.
I think Steam covers the good, and the bad (there are some frustrating elements) rather pragmatically.
@Vash0125
Just keep going. It's the gift that keeps on giving. It's long. I don't disagree with that.
Also, just play on Aeterna. Noctis mode is SO brutal unless you absolutely cannot live without pixel perfect crazy platforming. Aeterna mode is about as hard as Hollow Knight, and has hard platforming moments too.
I bought this for Steam and was enjoying it for a while, but the difficulty became absolutely brutal. The tedious platforming is not a lie; there are numerous areas with spikes or other dangerous surfaces that 'kill' you on touch if your movements are not completely precise. The game is gorgeous, the areas are diverse (albeit a bit too densely detailed in some spots) and has a lot of content, you can reset the skill trees at any save point and respec whenever you want, so the game has a lot going for it. On Steam Deck the loading is pretty tolerable.
I'd say the game is worth a 7 at best if we care about scoring. Not the best, but worth your time.
Hmm, if they can patch out the crashing and bugs, I will pick this up for sure.
@sfjtdr Im definitely feeling Aeterna Noctis and plan on sticking with the default difficulty setting unless it gets ridiculous. My main worry is not the difficulty but some reviews have mentioned the game crashing and the PS5 had problems with saves being corrupted which I got my fingers crossed doesnt happen.
@Key19 I do need to get around to Hollow Knight, loved the little bit I played of it but burnt myself out on Metroidvanias when I picked it up after playing the 5 Metroid's, SOTN and Circle of the Moon in a row (COTM probably being the reason I burnt out)
@Switch_Pro The screenshots are placed at random out of the ten I submitted.
@sfjtdr I played on Aeterna. For what it's worth I loved the teleport arrows and the final areas, found some of the bosses (mainly ones revolving around the ranged shot) a bit tedious however.
@Vash0125
Props to you, bud. Noctis mode is no joke.
I love Metroidvania games, if you want a game that is very much like Hollow Knight then try 8 Doors: Arun's Afterlife Adventure.
I can't believe a Metroidvania review by someone who hasn't beaten Hollow Knight or at least played more than an hour.
So I'll probably get this on sale.
@SMcCrae95 Okay, that's a very strange way to implement screenshots for a website. Surely you'd want to display the ones the author finds most useful.
@Freek I thought I was going to love 8 Doors but it just hasn't clicked for me.
@Key19
That's a shame.
I adored it.
I absolutely loved 3000th Duel too but I know others hate it for its difficulty, same with Blasphemous.
Everyone has different tastes I suppose.
I was looking forward to this, shame it reviewed this bad,
I don't own the game. I've not played it. I do know however, that the screenshots are absymal and don't do the game justice. The reviewer should have compared the game to games that they'd played, not once they've dabbled with.
The loading screens will literally make you VERY irritated, it's best to get this game on PS or PC, it makes wonders! trust me, you do not want to waste your time with this on NS version, this game was poorly optimized for the switch, I've seen huge games load faster than this on the switch, other than that it's a pretty good metroidvania!
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