Love Eternal PC review — The heart defies gravity

At first blush, Love Eternal seems like a linear precision platformer utilising a gravity mechanic similar to the one in VVVVVV (if you’ve never heard of that game, that’s going to be very confusing to read.) While this is true, the game is very much the type that wants to subvert expectations and have players interact with it as a piece of art above all else. It pulls this off with aplomb, weaving a tale that is surreal, comical, and fairly unique all at once. Some of its challenges might get on the nerves of anyone who doesn’t enjoy precision platformers, but this is an experience well worth undertaking overall.

Maya lives at home with her family. One night during dinner, the phone rings, so she gets up to answer it. Upon returning to the dinner table, her family is missing. Venturing outside shows that her house is a shell of what it should be, and she’s trapped in a strange world. The culprit? A banished goddess who has been abducting people and turning them into dog statues to try to deal with the hurt of loneliness and losing her beloved pet. The game seems light on story at first, but this changes in a big way as the plot carries on, with the dialogue in particular being praiseworthy.

The visuals, as you can see from the screenshots, are very reminiscent of certain cinematic platformers from the 90s, and they do a terrific job of giving the game an eerie, lo-fi atmosphere. The sound design is similarly evocative of the game’s bleak, odd atmosphere, with practically no voice acting, save for a single character toward the end of the game.

You’ll spend most of the two-ish hours that Love Eternal lasts making your way past hazards. Maya can’t do much, but she can jump and switch gravity upward or downward. Unlike VVVVVV, which didn’t have a jump button, you’ll often need to use jumps to position yourself to best survive all the death traps you come across. Areas are often lined with spikes and lasers, which will instantly kill Maya upon touching them, meaning you have to be incredibly careful with your trajectory and how you move. Thankfully, there’s a save point in pretty much every room, ensuring you don’t need to redo much.

And redo you will, because Love Eternal is a game that expects you to die constantly. The vast majority of its challenges can be overcome fairly expediently, as the game usually isn’t incredibly demanding. That being said, it’s far from easy too. Your mileage will vary based on how good you are at these types of games as well. Anyone who’s skilled at them will find the game to be even shorter than I did, but if you’re bad at them, the inverse will be true. The only challenge in the game that I thought was a bit much was the very first part of the final one, which is annoyingly demanding. This one has three segments, though, and I only found the first one to be a problem. The other two were easy enough to get past in one or two tries.

The only other real permutation is that there are red crystals that refill the gravity switching ability when touched, as Maya can only use it a single time before touching the ground otherwise. Thus, many of Love Eternal‘s challenges are predicated on chaining gravity and switching with touching crystals, which can get pretty tricky. One thing I really didn’t like all that much here, though, is that switching isn’t immediate, and it can be quite annoying to find the right time to switch, as being a smidge too early or late will typically kill Maya. I felt like I had to practice sections over and over just to get the timing for that specific one down, which wouldn’t be a problem if the switch occurred in a better manner.

But that’s not all you’ll find here. Partway through Love Eternal, an event occurs, and the game switches from a precision platformer to a sort of narrative adventure, complete with a window containing text commands. You’ll be able to check objects in rooms using a cursor (but don’t expect mouse support,) move to different areas, and talk to people. These don’t have much going on in the way of gameplay, as they’re more for pure narrative. But one character in particular is a very special combination of hilarious and terrifying that I’ve rarely seen in a game. She sort of reminds me of Power from Chainsaw Man, though.

This isn’t a small section of the game either, as it takes up a pretty decent chunk of the run time. Afterward, it goes back to the precision platforming, albeit in a bizarrely meta turn of events that I won’t spoil. All-in-all, Love Eternal‘s strong narrative focus very much makes it a brief one-and-done that will likely stick with you for a while. If you enjoy unsettling stories with excellent pixel artwork, this game is a good bet. As long as you don’t mind retrying some tricky precision platforming sections repeatedly.

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