Earthlock: Festival of Magic

Earthlock from Snowcastle Games is an absolute nostalgic joy to play. Originally launched as "Earthlock: Festival of Magic" over a year ago, the game has undergone significant improvements with a sort of "Director's Cut" on PC and the Switch, as well as other consoles. Feeling at once both reverential for classic 16-bit JRPGs and novel due to its western stylized setting and systems, Earthlock is a grand start to an RPG trilogy, and well worth the meagre price of admission.

Overall, all the best aspects of Earthlock can be summed up in its music: hints of the ethereal, the playful and the deeply engrossing, with more profoundly moving melodies each time you listen. Earthlock is not a grand AAA release with next gen graphics, nor is it a strikingly original concept: it has rough edges and elements which could be improved. But, having said all that, I think it is a tremendous achievement and one that you can easily lose yourself in for hours on end, and one that you will certainly feel a burning curiosity to get to the end of once you commit.

Earthlock: Festival of Magic brings beautiful graphical elements into a well-developed turn-based RPG. Join a unique group of mysterious characters that will help you complete the adventure of a lifetime in the world of Umbra. Let’s discover what makes the game a great option for an entertaining fantasy title.

Nowadays, RPGs can be quite complex with massive open worlds and intricate systems that take days to learn. Earthlock brings us back to a time when such hogwash was nonexistent so let's find out just how magical this festival is.

You won't find much in Earthlock that you haven't seen in hundreds of other RPGs, but there is a charm here that you may just want to be a part of.

The main feature of the game would be its beautiful art. The dungeons and cities, as well as characters and monsters, are designed spectacularly, with dynamic colors and intricate attention to detail. With every new part of the map I explore, and with every load screen, I find myself gushing over the thought and ideas that came about thr creation of the game’s cartoonish yet vivaciously delicate design.

Unfortunately, its story isn’t on the same level. Your journey begins when a young man named Amon finds a mysterious artifact and begins to investigate it. Despite some interesting lore, however, the story is rarely compelling, between bland plot developments, villains whose motivations go unexplained, and protagonists with almost no character development. In fact, the characters are generic enough that you might remember them more for their roles in combat than for their personalities. It’s disappointing that Earthlock doesn’t live up to its potential in this regard, but at least it delivers ...