John and Sam aren’t the only charmed-filled standouts though. It’s heartwarming, you know John loves her even though he never speaks, and it just works. Sam looks up to John as a father, and he’s willing to protect her like she’s his own.
Once the game kicks off, their parental relationship is already established. She’s outspoken spunky and energetic, and she clearly looks up to John. John is a silent protagonist, a tall cipher for the player to project themselves onto, while Same is the complete opposite. The dynamic of John and Sam as characters is one of Eastward’s more intriguing elements. It’s fun if a bit unevenly paced, and the memorable characters make even the slow bits worth visiting. It’s a massive story with many moving parts that don’t all fit into place until the curtains close.
Through a series of events I won’t spoil here, John and Sam fly the coop and head on a journey to, you guessed it, the East! Along the way, they see new cities, make strange friends, and get caught up in a battle to save the world and discover the nature of Sam’s mysterious abilities.
The main differentiator is that nobody digs up a mech, and John’s discovery of Sam occurs in an opening animation rather than in the game proper. Early hours take a slow burn style of teaching you about this stylish post-apocalyptic world, and the thing is, everyone in this town is kind of a dick, save for a few of the other diggers who seem to be genuine friends to John.įrom the tyrannical mayor justifying his shitty behavior as a means of protecting people to the assortment of diggers living in squalor, the opening hours of Eastward are weirdly identical to that of anime Gurren Lagan.
Potcrock is full of diggers, people that uncover things long buried, but John is so damn good he dug up a whole ass person. John is a digger, and Sam is a little girl that he dug up. Watch our full Review in 3 Minutes for Eastward.Eastward stars two playable characters, John and Sam, residents of the subterranean town of Potcrock Isle. If you don’t mind long dialogue sequences, can get through the slow early game, and find satisfaction in the passable combat and puzzles, you’ll find Eastward to be an incredible experience overflowing with heartfelt whimsy and terrible tragedy.Įastward is available September 16 on PC, Mac, and Nintendo Switch for $24.99. Notably, making characters who are implied to be mentally disabled ugly feels below a game that otherwise humanizes its characters. However, the art deals in caricature, and at times this feels lazy. The environments are varied and dense with detail, and the over-the-top characters are memorable in appearance and personality alike. Vibrant and well-animated pixel art brings the charming world to life. You go to a place, watch a cutscene, find a dungeon, fight some enemies, and do some puzzles.Įastward truly shines in its story and presentation. Together, they travel across a post-apocalyptic world, helping out the people they meet along the way. It’s an action adventure in the style of Zelda from Pixpil where you play as Sam, a little girl who was found glowing in a cave, and John, the silent digger who found her.