dull summit
I want to preface this review by stating that I am a huge fan of the previous demo, and that this critical review comes from a place of love and desire, a love for the liminal space genre, and a desire to see this game reach its full potential.
The scenery is vastly the same, the architecture is also very cookie cutter. I can appreciate the attempt at textural variety (i.e. wallpapers, lighting, etc) but when there's never anything interesting to see, and never anything interesting happening, the monotony and sameness really permeates; after the first dozen houses, you'll be speedrunning through every subsequent one after that.
There's a day and night cycle but its purpose and usefulness are unclear. Having played through the demo twice in different ways, I still haven't noticed if anything special happens at night, nothing ever seems to change.
And that's what Eternal Suburbia's mantra seems to be. Sameness everywhere, all the time.
Do you know what made the last demo so enticing? Every room felt different, interesting things bwere introduced throughout your journey (cloud room, turning smiley faces, etc) mysterious sounds were heard, it goes on. But it didn't need to work that hard to entertain you because every room felt distinct from one another, so even though it was so easy to get lost, there was always this sense of progression.
Eternal Suburbia seems to have none of those things. Remember, everything looks the same. Houses are basically identical. The same music always plays, the day/night doesn't amount to anything.
It's about the density of activity and entertainment. Again, the previous demo didn't need to work hard to achieve this because every room was already distinct. Eternal Suburbia is so vast and largely the same that it needs to work harder on establishing the same levels of intrigue.
And maybe there are interesting things in the game, but I've played it twice; the first time, a bee line to the end. The second time, I intentionally went out of the way to see what I could find. If there's interesting things, they haven't thrown themselves at me yet.
That's why Eternal Suburbia needs a higher density of entertaining things, to compensate for the vast sameness. It's fun to be a little scared and unnerved. This demo didn't do that, sadly. I just became bored.
I want to leave with a few ideas I had that could really spruce up the game. It's because Eternal Suburbia as a concept is romantic and enthralling, I want to explore this world with my heart racing. Maybe that was never the intention of this zone, but if it has another purpose, I've yet to find it. Eternal Suburbia breeds dreamy ideas, and it's inspired me to share my own, my own vision of what I thought this demo would have in store for me.
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If the music glitched out on occasion, mm, great vibes. Maybe even skipped a little on repeat.
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A speaker malfunctions as you walk past one.
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The music is sporadically and rarely broken up by garbled human words.
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Night comes with a moon to track how long it (the cycle) lasts.
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A chance for night to just be black, no stars.
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Looking out the window of any house can show a different environment, but it's normal when you leave.
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Looking out the window of a house can show the opposite time of day, but it's normal when you leave.
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Inexplicable door closing sounds behind you as you're exploring homes.
- My phone is lagging too much so I have to cut my idea here lol.
median plank
severe root