Double the fun
Time and Eternity focuses on two lead females inhabiting the same body, Toki and Towa. In addition to having vastly different personalities, each girl behaves and progresses differently in combat. While either follow a similar skill progression, the player can decide to build each character as they seem fit. The feisty Towa feels a bit better suited for attacking up close and focusing on sword skills while the charismatic Toki has a natural affinity towards spellcasting. How they progress is solely up to the player although it’s not surprising to have either girl be proficient at everything by the story’s end.
More than just in combat, Time and Eternity‘s dual protagonists each have wildly differing opinions on everything from their upcoming marriage to even daily life and responding to the usual assortment of side quests from the mundane city folk. Both Towa and Toki fall into the usual assortment of anime tropes. Toki remains blissfully aware of life outside of the castle and maintains that spunky air-headed persona throughout most of the game. Towa on the other hand is more of the risktaker and quite forward about her feelings (most of the time). No matter your taste, either personality in Time and Eternity should make for great ‘waifu’ material
NOT
Shallow gameplay
Let’s face it. The heart of any good role-playing game comes down to its story first and gameplay second. When one lacks, the other certainly needs to be memorable enough to make up for the downfall of the other. Time and Eternity is a case where both parts are equally shallow but still have their own fair bits of character to them. Strategic play-making in combat can largely be forgotten about and instead just brute forced through with mindless melee assaults and an inventory full of potions to chug or simply spamming whatever element spell the enemy is currently weakest to. Following the traditional conventions of battle rarely leads to a sense of accomplishment. Time and Eternity certainly rewards taking the easy way out whenever possible.
There’s also another feature to battle with in Time and Eternity also comes from one of its unique mechanics: switching between Toki and Towa. At each successful level up, whichever heroine is in the lead swaps out for the lady in waiting. As some quests and events can only be triggered by one of the two ladies, it leads to a fair bit of frustration to having to spend another twenty minutes to grind out another level just to grab an event point on the field. As either lady also has a different skill and ability set, there have been times where I would switch to one of the ladies that I haven’t focused enough on and find that all of her current skills are tuned into the exact same element as the enemies I’ve been fighting (thus reducing my combat potential to nearly nothing). Later on there’s an item to reverse these changes, but early on it tends to be somewhat of a headache.
Lacking design
While the characters look simply gorgeous in Time and Eternity, most anything else just feels cheap and lackluster by comparison. The average field map consists of textures that simply detract from the beauty of the game along with graphics that resemble the generic textures of a PlayStation 2 title. Traversing through town maps is only limited to a static screen and navigating around with a basic crosshair, fairly common for roleplaying games that don’t care to shell out the resources for a proper town. What could have been a great chance of Imageepoch to bring out a true sense of style by making everything in Time and Eternity drawn by hand feels only half-finished with its less than appealing textures of nearly EVERYTHING besides the animated characters.
One dimensional characters
Each character in Time and Eternity feels like they were created with only a single personality in mind. Every time the main character opens his dragon mouth, a pool of innuendo and perverted thoughts spill out with any regard to the women he talks about. One of the earlier antagonists, Ricardo, seems to exist only to get into Toki’s metaphorical pants, typically leading to drawing the wrath of her soon-to-be husband. Each encounter with Ricardo only leads to him finding more creative ways to express his undying lust for the girl, and while mildly amusing the first time or two, makes Toki feel like little more than an object to every male lead. There’s also the usual pool of anime archetypes filling out the roster of Toki’s girl friends: large chested airhead with glasses, tsundere younger girl that hates every male (that slowly opens up to them), flat chested lolita that has fallen in love with the enemy.
VERDICT
Time and Eternity could easily be a front runner as one of the more stylish role-playing games on the market with its hand-drawn style. Sadly, that style is overshadowed with its one-dimensional characters and combat that just doesn’t quite hold its own in the days of the modern action RPG. While it tries to aim for new conventions in story telling, it largely feels unpolished and a part of something that could have easily been more. Time and Eternity certainly isn’t the worst roleplaying game on the PS3, but it might not be accessible to the players only trying it out for the anime design.
[Editor’s Note: Time and Eternity was reviewed on the PS3 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]