Not long after I launch the demo of Eternights, I'm slipped some advice by doltish sideman Chani. "To get girls online you have to be more than a smartass," he says. "You have to be serious." It's not the kind of topic I expect to give much thought to when feral mutants are running amok and humankind's spiritual fate hangs in the balance. But in a game where fighting to save the world with a phantasmal sword is only as important as finding love with a silver tongue, keeping your fictional Tinder profile looking sharp seems as good an idea as any.
A self-styled dating action RPG, Eternights isn't exactly a subtle adventure into the randy unknown. You're introduced to your self-named character as they try to hook up through a dating app, porn is the subject of at least three jokes within the first 90 minutes, and even the cosmic deity responsible for guiding your journey from lonely heart to charismatic heartthrob communes through flirty texts.
After a fitful start that ricochets between beautifully animated 2D cinematics—which rival TV anime for production value—and somewhat heavy-handed exposition peppered with innuendo, it settles into a balance of monster-bashing melee combat and post-mission romancing.
At the center of that fighting is a dodge. Roll away from an incoming blow at just the right moment and time will slow down, letting you wail on surrounding enemies without taking damage. You're given a lot of leeway, and with enemy attacks broadcast by a bright red flash, little precision is needed. Smack enemies enough times and you'll also get to perform a more powerful strike, or activate an insta-kill finisher dishing after out enough damage.
More powerful, stamina-hungry attacks spruce things up a bit, letting you throw a projectile shockwave, launch a flurry of strikes directly in front of you, and summon a circle of swords to whizz around your body, cutting any mutants that come within their tight radius. Showstopping elemental attacks are essential for breaking down the protective shields of tougher foes by performing a series of quick-time events.
Faint hints of the soulslike playbook occasionally come through. Bosses appear fairly frequently and demand you learn their attack patterns or suffer a big hit to your health bar, and the Game Over typeface that pops up in the center of the screen in block red serif letters when you die smacks of FromSoftware's death taunts. But the fighting doesn't come close to matching the delicate, rhythmic back-and-forth of that genre's stalwarts. Things here feel a little more rudimentary, and I usually found myself simply tapping the attack button while waiting for my stamina gauge to refill, ready to queue up the next bout of QTEs. Fun, sure, but nothing overly exciting.
As straightforward as that may be, it doesn't half look pretty. Special attacks are flurries of sparkling sword swings and energized punches, with all the souped-up glam you'd expect of an anime action film. Enemies, too, are handsome patchwork body-horror mutants that riff on familiar horror staples—twisted limbs, long black fringes—with the basic melee enemies echoing the demonic Japanese salarymen I most recently encountered in Ghostwire: Tokyo. At times, those foes disperse to make room for brief puzzle segments that involve lighting up blocks in the right order to open a path forward. They're simple enough and a welcome change of pace, offering exactly the kind of intuitive puzzle design I can see being taken in more complex directions later.
Beyond all that action lies the romance—not that I saw much of it budding during this preview. As well as erotic confidant Chani, you're joined by a few other hormonal and dubiously proportioned teenagers, including popstar sensation Yuna whose love life has been stunted by invasive paparazzi.
Chatting with your buddies between missions doesn't just serve to turn them from pals to potential love interests. Get close enough, and you'll unlock new skills to use in battle. Yuna could already be called on to heal me mid-fight, and after exchanging a few sweet nothings to improve our relationship with her, I earn a new elemental attack and combo finisher to add to my arsenal (only for the demo to hastily end, before I had an opportunity to test them).
Even when you're not meaning to schmooze, selecting certain dialogue options can increase your Social Stats—four passive skills that you'll need to plump up if you want to take any relationship to the next level. They add a dose of roleplaying to each interaction, as your character is gradually molded through their interactions, though some of the dialogue choices didn't seem to neatly tally with their resulting skill bump. Upon noting the impending doom of our situation, for instance, I was granted +1 to my Acceptance, leaving me surprised that this kind of candid fatalism was considered an attractive demonstration of level-headedness.
By the time I reach the end of the demo, it feels like the many components of Eternights have only just fallen into place. There are a few dud jokes here and there, and the strangely drawn-out opening doesn't make for the best introduction to the world and characters. But consider the glitzy real-time combat and the effort to dovetail its dialogue-driven dating and action-adventure portions, and Eternights looks like more than just the horny Persona clone it could so easily have been. Well, it's actually just as horny as many had suspected, but has a little more to chew on besides.
Eternights will be available on Steam and Epic from September 21.
