Eternal Palace Sakura Review – The Rogue-lite That Kills You Before You Start

With a title as relatively generic as Eternal Palace Sakura, and having a Japanese theme, which 66% of games these days somehow have, despite being as Japanese as Samsung. I was pleased that this ‘ever-changing’ hack-and-slash rogue-lite was very much on brand, and a game I’d suggest you try (there’s a demo on Steam).

You play a cat-like ninja named Retla who explores the titular Eternal Palace. However, this isn’t an Assassin’s Creed: Shadows type experience of learning the corridors and which room to bypass, as Eternal Palace Sakura is an arena-based game where you can’t hide, just fight. And that’s kind of the point.

Armed with dual blades that can be fused with elemental attacks, Retla can perform a light and heavy attack, trigger up to four different arts (based on AP available), and shift to the Over Tension mode, which has an ultimate called the Over Arts. After accumulating enough in the gauge, triggering Over Tension improves damage and bonuses temporarily.

Combat: Blades, Arts, And Over Tension

In initial battles, there’s never really scope to do this as the bread and butter attacks are sufficient to keep you going. For epic and super epic battles, you will be utilising lower-level enemies to build up combos so you can fall back on these skills, as there’s no way you can beat the higher-level enemies without them.

Eternal Palace Sakura is a procedurally generated arena game, so every single run is completely different from the last. The locations remain the same (beating a boss in an area unlocks new places to explore – it’s not all tatami mats), but the maps and what enemies you fight will change. Naturally, certain types of enemies are locked to specific locations.

Like any decent rogue-like, you can plan out where you wish to go; opting for single battles, epics, super and boss battles, ‘home’ is a vendor option, events to unlock HP and EC (the latter serves as currency), and a bonfire location to replenish health. All expectations of the genre, except for the Mugen Depth.

Procedural Arenas And The Mugen Depth

Retla doesn’t have limited action points for moving around the maps, but each time she acts, the Mugen Depth increases along with a negative effect such as enemies hitting harder, less treasure, and other factors to make an already challenging game harder. Events can undo the effects, at the cost of HP.

And, to touch upon the comment about challenge, because the game is procedurally generated, you can literally start a new run with the first battle being a super epic one. These battles are already difficult, and without having any arts or special attributes – or even an opportunity to level up HP and attack power – these can end your run as soon as you begin, which can feel very unfair.

A note on fairness: unless I’m missing something, Eternal Palace Sakura doesn’t allow you any permanent stat upgrades that I can see. There are Sakura Trials such as dealing 10,000 damage in one hit, or your first death (easy!), but the starting skill set you have is always ranked C and requires some battles to level them up – and again, at random. This shouldn’t put you off; just be mindful of the progress.

That said, I did think the game would forever be based in the palace, and with the super elite battles and oni that pop up and kill you in two hits, it seems like you’re forever imprisoned. It does get better as you learn the moves and how the arts benefit you. I started with a fire focus, but later found the dark arts were my go-to (when they presented themselves).

Presentation: Bland Maps, Brilliant Animation

Eternal Palace Sakura is quite deceiving in its presentation, too, as it’s very accessible and you’ll be button-mashing in seconds. This won’t get you far, so I would have said to learn how to dodge, as that’s a game-changer for progress; however, there’s a shield where you can suck up damage and do a burst to send back the crowds. Add that to your combos and Over Tension/Over Arts, and there’s a lot of (Mugen) depth to be had here.

And, while we’re on presentation, the maps are a bit bland, but the actual character animation of Retla and her enemies is great. I’m not into the big-boobed cat-ear heroines, but I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy myself playing as Retla, as the action is fast-paced and very responsive. Just be aware that it’s going to take quite a few runs before you can fly.