Based on the (as yet) unfinished v0.4
My usual disclaimers when writing reviews on here are that A. I am here for the "plot" not the plot and B. I am very picky with visual novels and think broadly they can be very subpar. So, take both of those into consideration for my review when thinking about this game.
Pros
- Easily some of the hottest character models on the site – Caribdis doesn’t use the sort of photo-realistic renders that you see in many other RenPy games on F95 but frankly I’d argue it still contains hotter girls than 95% of the ones which do. Of course, part of that is because the girls don’t have to look like exactly like real people, but also they are quite simply exquisitely designed from blonde bombshell Penelope (easy favourite), to the punk and tatted Alex and the petite and innocent Annie. They all look different and are all HOT as FUCK.
- Characterisation is excellent too – On top of being hot the girls all also feel like (broadly) unique and different people with interesting and fun characters. It is consistently good fun learning more about each one as they each have varying levels of walls up between them and MC and watching them each open up at varying speeds is highly enjoyable
- Exceptional writing – In his previous game, Caribdis himself said that he started it as a hobby and from the start the writing was a little wobbly but gradually grew into a game that everyone loves. Now he has taken all the experience from that and is pouring it into this. Eternum is genuinely stellar in terms of writing right out of the gate. The character dialogue is always entertaining, the moment-to-moment scenes are engaging, the pacing is smashing and the broader plot is exciting and intriguing. It’s simply great. Like before as well, the tone is pretty fucking on-point as it occasionally dips into more horror and thriller territory with absolute ease.
- Sexy fucking sex – Holy shit… The sex in Eternum is so… Fucking… Hot… My dude, I cannot express this enough. Normally I like games which incorporate a lot more elements of domination and submission to really get into the sexy times, and while Eternum has elements of this (and hopefully will have more down the line) it’s unquestionably a bit more vanilla. Despite this, every single sex scene feels, fucking INTENSE. I’ve played a fair few games on here where they just throw a few high quality renders or animations at you and that’s supposed to be enough, but Eternum does more than that. You basically can FEEL the characters need to rip each other’s clothes off and fuck each other. Like… Godamn it’s just so good!
- Fantasy fuel – The setting of Eternum is honestly an absolute classic. It’s a mix of slice-of-life and then massively over-the-top fantasy and sci-fi and whatever, but because of the very basic premise it actually all makes a lot of sense. I’ll come back to this in the main text body.
- Sense of humour – Again, Caribdis really has a pretty great sense of comedic timing and leans into a few sillier, more outrageous scenes. It keeps the tone largely pretty light, even when things actually get a bit darker, and keeps things from getting too bogged down.
Mehs
- Sexy times are somewhat formulaic – I’m absolutely nit-picking here as this is not always true, but for the most part it really does feel a tiny bit like you go through the same motions with each girl. First you fancy each other, then you get a blowjob/handjob, then you will likely get a scene with it being more intense, and then sex and then (if it follows the same pattern as his other game) a few threesomes/moresomes. Again, this is absolutely a nit-pick and not even a real negative, but the fact that every relationship appears to go through the same sexy steps does somewhat take away from the immersion (because it makes it more clear that the full sex scenes are being "saved" for later in the game)
- Choices make sense but are fairly obvious – As it was in his last game, the choices of Eternum tend to fall under two categories: progress a relationship or don’t. If you want to roleplay as only focusing on a few girls, fair enough, but there’s not exactly branching story-lines or arcs beyond “get the girl” or “don’t”. The choices always make sense so, so it doesn’t feel like you’re having to choose between “being a good guy” and “being completely and illogically bat-shit mental”, but it’s also usually pretty obvious which the right choice is to progress the relationship of a particular girl. Again, this is not a negative for me, because on the upside it means there will almost definitely be a full harem ending where you get every single girl, which is basically what I’m here for anyway.
- Protag rules, everyone else drools – Another nit to pick is that it feels pretty much like there are two classes of people in Eternum. The good guy team (you and your harem) who are all wonderful, lovely, loving, zany people, and then there is everyone else. Everyone else falls under one category: massive cunt. There’s not exactly any subtlety or shades of grey in the conflict here, you guys are the goodies, everyone else is the baddies. This also means that sometimes some scenes with the goodies arguing with the baddies can actually even just feel a bit mean, because it’s like “well, these guys suck, so you can be as much of a dick to them as you like”.
Cons
- Inconsistencies within the world of Eternum – So, the story of Eternum is that it contains a massive virtual reality MMO where people can do anything and everything within reason. However, it feels like there are some inconsistencies with the rules of this. It happened more than once that I’d think “wow that doesn’t make sense to me if this was a video game, surely they could design that differently” or some rule will be mentioned and I’ll find myself thinking “surely there’s all these things they could do to get around that?” HOWEVER, it is worth saying that these inconsistencies might actually be intentional… I’ll come back to this below as I’m, again, not even sure this really qualifies as a negative.
I was a big fan of Caribdis’ previous game but I’ve held off on reviewing
Eternum for a few versions, just to give it a chance to breath and see what direction it would be taking.
So, to start off with, it seems pretty obvious that Caribdis does not miss… If I were to come out here and say the game sucked, it would either be because I was being contrarian or apparently the only one of a million billion people who didn’t like it.
The setting of
Eternum did make me raise an eyebrow a little bit at first. Basically, the setting is
Ready Player One, but in an h-game. Let's not split hairs about this... That's what it is... From the start, that really could not be more clear. Everyone plays a virtual-reality MMORPG, the company in charge of it basically owns the world, there is a quest made by the mysterious founder of the company to find things in the game which will allow you to inherit the whole thing. Yeah… The plot is
Ready Player One.
Now, on one hand, the similarities are so extreme that it honestly at first felt less like a homage and more like a rip-off, however there are a few twists to the formula that eventually start appearing that change the direction of the story and make it distinct enough to get a pass.
The other thing there is that, let's be real here, an h-game set in the world of
Ready Player One? That sounds fucking amazing! I bet everyone else is kicking themselves they didn’t think about doing that first. It allows for the standard slice-of-life, school stuff to happen and then they get into a video game where you are in Hogwarts or Cyberpunk and you get to have crazy sexy stuff going on there too and it all makes consistent sense with the story. It’s just an ideal setting for mixing dozens of different sexy fantasies.
It also helps that Caribdis’ writing is really just excellent. I never skip dialogue in his game (which says something on its own), the plot moves along at a decent clip, there’s intrigue and excitement and but then all of this is just a vessel to deliver plenty of steamy scenes to keep my monke-brain happy. It has that sweet-spot of being porn with plot, but the plot actually makes sense and isn’t totally ludicrous.
I did mention in my cons here something that sort of becomes more apparent from chapter 3 onwards, and so this will be a bit of a minor spoiler:
basically it is becoming significantly more uncertain whether the game of Eternum, that all the characters play, is even a video game or whether it is in fact something totally different. There are hints and suggestions of magic in the real world, of hard rules of the game being broken, of the possibility that it is all some kind of magical or alternative dimensional existence. This in itself is somewhat inconsistent and frankly, I’m not sure how much I like the idea of it. By adding in the extra layers of magic/supernatural, I think it somewhat takes away from the already fun premise of a huge virtual MMO and starts making it feel more uncertain, like there’s not really any rules and anything that happens which doesn’t fit can be sort of hand-waved away. It does start to make the core premise feel that tiniest bit shakier. But, having said this, maybe it will all make much more sense down the line.
The actual sexy stuff of
Eternum is also honestly absolutely top tier. I’ve already said as much, but I’ve no idea how very few other games manage to match this level of sexy intensity and chemistry between characters. It also has dirty talk and descriptions of the events on top of the super high-quality animations, but they aren’t egregious or over-the-top. It just exists to suck my soul out through my dick. Amazing fucking work.
I think it also really helps here that while I've previously thought Caribdis was a bit of a boob guy, I actually think he's more cultured than that... See, Caribdis is a true man of wisdom and is a tummy/hips guy. All of his girls are varying levels of curvy and well-endowed, but they all have amazing "breeding" hips and waists... It's just... MWAH!
Really, it basically goes without saying that
Eternum is good. This glowing recommendation from me is just another in a fucking sea of them…
But what do you want me to say for fucks sake? It’s quite simply good! Give it a go!
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