Eastward Demo Impressions (Steam)

This year’s Game Awards were last weekend and Steam had a games festival. This was a temporary release of early demos for upcoming games that were featured. I played some of the games that are going to release on the Switch, here is my impression of the Eastward demo.

A Sight For Sore Eyes

This is an action adventure game with gorgeous pixel art. The visuals make me think of a game boy advance game (with a much better resolution) but the lighting gave it a much softer tone. In this demo after checking out the shops, Sam and John head out to clear some monsters from the sawmill.

Attached at the Hip

The two characters have different abilities, you can swap between them, and separate them to stand on switches. They interact with certain things differently too. John can’t kill the split colour plants, but Sam can. So you use their abilities to reach each other and work together.

John uses weapons, the frying pan is melee but the charged attack can be used to hit split colour things, which if hit when on a raft will push the raft. He also has a gun that uses ammo which was needed for the boss fight. While Sam has a bubble attack that can stop certain enemies to be finished up by John. I didn’t realize some things on my first try as the game’s pop-ups don’t tell you everything but you can find out information through the menus.

Cook’em and Cooking

While I try not to compare games too much but when you have a 2D action game with heart containers and bombs it’s a bit hard. I do really like switching between characters to use their abilities, and what so far is light puzzle solving. There’s also a lot of exploring you can do, even in town to find another heart container, and talk to townsfolk. The game has some humorous snippets of dialogue. As one robotic shop keeper has a short fuse then asks them to be mindful that he may be “short” with them.

I found the plant enemies near immediately repawning (or regrowing) to be a bit annoying so I later ignored them. Another thing I found when replaying the demo is you can buy ingredients. With which you can cook food at least in the house near the forest. If made with good ingredients like spices you can get timed buffs as well.

This game looks gorgeous and seems pretty fun to play. It wasn’t something I was super keen on back when it was announced for Switch. Now I’ve played it for myself, it’s definitely on my to get list. Eastward is set to release in 2020.