The World Begins With You
To present Duelists of Edenit is worth mentioning its predecessor One Step For Eden, but also to go back a little further in time when Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS followed one another. This time when Mega Man Battle Network made his appearance. Do you remember this atypical iteration of the franchise? We had already talked about it on the occasion of the release of the Legacy Collection on current consoles. Although niche, the million copies sold by the collection demonstrates real enthusiasm.
To put it simply, the Mega Man Battle Network took up the basic structure of the typical RPGs of the time and which abounded on Nintendo consoles, adding their own universe to it but, above all, by integrating innovative and terribly gripping gameplay. The one who will greatly inspire Moon Kang for his two games. Namely grid combat mixed with deck-building. The young game designer was familiar with the license and, by his own admission, it was the main source of inspiration for the gameplay.
Other inspirations are mentioned, starting with Slay The Spire, true reference and whose Rogue-lite elements were greatly used in the development of the solo part of One Step From Eden. On the chara design side, it's on the side of The World Ends With You that you have to look for. Great Smash Bros. also comes up several times in Moon Kang's speeches, particularly for defensive systems and the fact of building sufficiently well-oiled gameplay so that players have options to manage a situation.
These references above all contributed to the birth of One Step From Eden. However, as a result Duelists of Eden only consolidates the achievements, so, as it stands, the single-player content does not present a Rogue-lite “story” mode like its predecessor. This new opus focuses above all on the gameplay which gains in accuracy and richness, while great efforts seem to have been allocated to Online. This is evidenced by the presence of netcode rollback and the PvP mention clearly displayed.
Black Magic M-66
Let's get to the facts. Duelists of Eden is therefore a Versus Fighting game on a grid, like Mega Man Battle Network. The grid in question forms the land which is split into two distinct parts. Ours and that of the adversary. The principle is that we can only move on the 16 squares of our zone, the objective being to reduce the opponent's health to zero. To do this, each fighter has two signature attacks with no limit on use.
These attacks are going to be the true identity of the roster. The rest of their arsenal and their abilities will depend on the deck made. Indeed, despite the aforementioned unlimited shots, attacking will require playing your cards. These can be traps to place on the enemy's terrain to hinder movement, various boosts or all kinds of melee and ranged attacks. The magic of the game is that the duels depend on our deck.
The cards being attacks therefore, it will be possible to create synergies and rewarding combos, moreover with a good hundred cards available. Some will even require a level of experience to be unlocked, encouraging us to play the roster. That being said, let's admit that the richness of the gameplay and the human skills required can be scary. The best way to understand all the salt in this recipe is to try it.
Despite the few unrepresentative hours that we have so far spent on Duelists of Eden, there is still great satisfaction coming out of it. The gameplay already seems excellent, is quite addictive, and we have 15 playable characters, with faces from other games like Neera from Freedom Planet. For those on the side, it's a little thin despite the Gauntlet mode to face the AI in a chain, that said we're talking about a game at an unbeatable price, on the other hand we must salute the training part.
Tick, Tick… Boom!
The tutorial is clear and precise, once finished the basics of the gameplay are known and we realize that it is ultimately not rocket science… to understand. Because, once a fight has started, we discover a title requiring a good degree of investment. Between the plethora of cards to know, the combos to discover and the possibility of canceling animations, there is work to be done. And what about the importance of reflexes and dexterity to move, dodge enemy attacks and traps, with their specific patterns, while monitoring which cards we have in our hands, which ones will follow, etc.?
We didn't specify it, but the opponent's cards are also visible and each card costs mana. This also applies to dodging and parrying which are not free. So many elements to take into account cannot be done without problems. Fortunately, at low levels it is not yet total chaos on the playing field. Then, Duelists of Eden knows how to support the players. The tutorial is complete but not enough to improve.
To do this, you have to rely on the training section which will be your time room. Introduction to combos, display of frames and hitboxes, the range of good fighting game labs is there. Generally speaking, we feel that particular care was taken to ensure clarity. The screen distills the right amount of visual and audio information without falling into excessive overload, which is not too much in a game like Duelists of Eden.
The title is accessible, we have fun very quickly and the handling is intended to be intuitive, even if aiming for competition requires investment and requires specific skills. Not sure that the software is for everyone. However, whether you like Versus Fighting or deck-building, we can only invite you to discover this very enjoyable project which can be seen as a good alternative to the two main genres that make it up. Then the future should embellish it and bring back content, hopefully in any case. In the meantime, watch out for addiction.