One Step From Eden Review — Russell Troxel

Apr 4

Apr 4 One Step From Eden Review

As a teenager, I fell into the trap of Kingdom Hearts. My undeveloped brain was distracted from the nonsensical plot by all of the bright colors and recognizable characters. So when the first of many sequels, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories was released two years later, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Unfortunately, when I did start playing Chain of Memories, I found out it was a bizarre departure from the previous game with a completely overhauled combat system. Instead of attacking and using spells normally, now all of my actions were dictated by a deck of cards, something I found infuriatingly debilitating and unwieldy. Because of this new card-based system, my interest in Chain of Memories, and in the Kingdom Hearts series as a whole, died after only a few hours. But in the intervening years, I’ve grown fond of deck building games so when I learned about the release of One Step From Eden last week, I thought it would be time to revisit the real-time deck building action that killed my interest in an entire series.

One Step From Eden is a roguelite game in which players step into the shoes of one of nine playable characters, each of which have their own special style of techno-magic in the form of a deck of cards, and fight their way through waves of monsters, robots, and enemy wizards on their quest for Eden. As they make their way through enemies and obstacles, players gain new spell cards to add to their decks as well as magical artifacts that provide special passive benefits. Using these tools, players will battle across eight worlds, each made up of seven levels: six standard levels that follow one of seven themes and one boss fight level. Standard levels are mostly fights, sometimes with modifiers such as hostages needing rescuing or some third-party threat, but can also be roadside camps where players can restore health or shops where players can purchase items. Boss fights pit the player against the other playable characters not chosen at the beginning of the run, each with their own deck of spells. Whether the player wins or loses the run, they’ll unlock new spells, artifacts, and playable characters for future runs, earning more rewards the higher level their character was.

The first thing I noticed about One Step From Eden is that it explains very little. The game has a tutorial built into the first few levels the player goes through, but that only explains the basics of acquiring new spells and artifacts, managing the player’s deck of spells, and how to navigate the FTL: Faster Than Light-style progression map. The game never bothers to explain how players earn money, what to spend the money on, the demonic pacts the player can make, why the various playable characters seem to know each other, what’s going on in the world, what Eden is, or why anyone wants to go there. The game is playable without this information, but it puts the player at a notable disadvantage because they don’t know all of the tools at their disposal, but worse it makes the game feel shallow and empty. I never played this game for more than 90 minutes at a time because I never cared very much about anything that was happening. It was entertaining learning and using new spells, but beyond that I had no motivation to keep going because I didn’t know why anyone was doing anything.

For as empty as the world of One Step From Eden feels, I have to admit a significant portion of the core gameplay is cool. The variety, effects, uses, and visuals of the spells are genuinely impressive. My favorite aspects of the spells were the additional mechanics some spells would use for special effects. On the more tame end was the Trinity mechanic. Cards with Trinity, when cast, give the player one stack of Trinity, up to a limit of three stacks, unless the player already has three stacks of Trinity, in which case the spell casts differently, usually bigger and more powerful. It doesn’t take much management, as the stacks never go away until used, but it does provide a slow yet inevitable powerful effect. Much more interesting is the Flow mechanic. Flow is fascinating because, unlike Trinity, not every card that gives Flow will use Flow, and not every card that needs Flow for a bonus effect will give it. Additionally, every time the player casts a spell, a stack of Flow is consumed, so players have to cast mindfully or else focus on building a deck that churns out Flow faster than it can be used. Outside of battle, another great mechanic in One Step From Eden is that players are able to set a preference for what spell cards they can find after each fight. All spells belong to one of nine suits, each with their own specialty, such as Anima, which focuses on elemental attacks. Setting these preferences makes it much more likely that the player will find at least one card of this suit after each battle, allowing players to tailor their deck to their own tastes and play styles.

Though the spells and tools players have for building their deck are great, I could never get the most out of this advantage because the combat in One Step From Eden is far too hectic. To me, the appeal of deck builders is that players have the ability to craft finely tuned machines, but One Step From Eden disrupts that potential by forcing the player to be constantly moving to avoid damage and aim attacks. Because I was always darting around the battlefield, I could never get into a tactical mindset so I could never fully explore or execute on the deck I had made, instead I was just throwing spells when the time seemed good enough to not be a waste. This experience is certainly colored by my own less-than-ideal reflexes but relatively few people have razor-sharp reflexes so I don’t think I’ll be alone with this complaint.

I wish One Step From Eden had been a slower, turn-based game because it clearly has a lot of great ideas for cool spells and gameplay, but the hectic pace is a serious hindrance to player enjoyment. On top of that, I think there would have been a more effective draw to keep playing the game if there had been a more significant effort made to creating a story for the game. It’s fun, but it’s got enough limitations to make the $20 price tag just too much.