Introduction

Usually I try to be at least objective in my reviews; give details about the game and all before I give my opinion in the Overall section. It will be very hard to do that in the case of Eternal Eyes. See, games like this one are the bread and butter of the "bad game" challenges my friends and I issue each other. This isn't a game I would wish upon my best friend.

The Story

The story can be summed up like this: There is an Evil Goddess that Bad Guy is trying to revive. One of the few remaining children of the lost / destroyed people of Cucurotheatro (aka Eternal Eyes) is destined to stop them using the mysterious power of controlling puppets to do so.

The Characters

Luke, doesn't remember his parents because they died when he was very young. He is the (wait for it) destined member of the Eternal Eyes who is going to save the world!

Elena, his sister who can't use puppet even though she's an Eternal Eyes as well. She's also often left behind to tend the house while Luke is off saving the world. Personally, I think she got gene pool gypped.

Vorless, the bad guy who is trying to revive the Goddess of Destruction.

Game Play

Eternal Eyes is a fusion of your typical field map strategy game and Pokemon. Luke takes the puppets that he's training out into the field and they battle along with him. The premise isn't a bad one, but it falls flat on execution.

Luke starts with two pretty generic puppets. As you defeat monsters they will drop treasure chests that contain items, armor, and jewels. The jewels are what's used to train the puppets. They come in six colors with four types making for a total of 24 possible jewels that can be received. Depending upon where the puppet is in its evolution the jewel will increase its stats, teach it a spell, or cause it to evolve into a different type of puppet. In addition to that, the more of a certain type of jewel that is given to the puppet -- in combination with its level -- will unlock more powerful spells.

The battles themselves aren't challenging in any way. It's the same exact thing over and over again with no change in strategy even though the monsters and your puppets may change. In fact, I'm playing the game right now. No, really, I am. I have all of my puppets set to Auto and I just have to hit a couple buttons when it comes around to Luke's turn. I don't need to pay attention to what the monsters and puppets doing because nothing that requires active thought it happening.

In order to train your puppets you have to give them those pesky jewels. As far as I am in the game there is only one dungeon where the monsters drop enough jewels to make it worth my while to go there. In the later dungeons (after the third one) the monsters drop mostly armor and items. The armor could be useful if I had more than one human in my party, but I don't. So now I'm carrying around enough swords for an army and have no use for them except to sell them.

Overall

I'm sure this game had potential when it was still in the planning stages. With dozens of spell combinations this could have been a really interesting magic system (like Persona 2) and they did nothing with it. It's possible to get through the game with only using a handful of spells and nothing else. Not getting jewels in suitable quantities so that you can develop your puppets is also annoying, but not frustrating. It would be frustrating if you actually needed your puppets developed and couldn't get the jewels.

The towns that you can visit are kind of a waste. You'll likely find just as good or better armor during battle instead of getting jewels. And wandering around lost in the town when there's really only two or three places you want to go is a waste. At least the villagers in Final Fantasy games give info and items if you talk to them. I think the developers at some point also realized how stupid their town layout was and so they added the menu option to just go to the place you want to without walking there.

Despite all this I can think of one good thing about Eternal Eyes. I can see it being fun for a younger player (maybe 7) who isn't old enough to understand the strategy involved in Tactics but would like to play this style of game. For the rest of us Eternal Eyes is a waste of time and should only be used for "bad game" challenges.

I'm not sure if it's telling or not that Eternal Eyes isn't listed on Crave's webpage. (Another turkey that they can lay claim to, Blaster Master, is also missing from the list of games). I only paid $4 for the copy that I found and I'm still not sure it's worth even that...

Reviewed by Greenbeans on September 9th, 2002