Earthlock

Earthlock is an unpretentious RPG that, unfortunately, fails to leave any sort of mark. The biggest fault lies in the story, which is basically non-existent, with paper-thin characters and a severe lack of tension and thematic purpose. So, even though its combat system is dynamic and engaging, it’s not complex enough to save the game all on its own.

It’s a little difficult to write a plot summary for Earthlock because its narrative lacks focus at the beginning. We could say that the protagonist is a young scavenger named Amon, and that he goes to find some medicine for his shark-faced uncle Benjo, but on the way, he comes across a hogbunny named Gnart, who makes him go somewhere else, where he finds someone else, and so on. When he finally returns to his uncle, Amon finds out that Benjo was abducted due to a precious stone they found while searching the nearby ruins.

One of the narrative’s main problems is that, five hours in, we still don’t know anything about the characters: it’s not that they’re mysterious – they wish – but just capable of redefining the concept of “bland.” Someone says Amon is impulsive, and maybe they’re right. Who knows? Dialogue is mainly utilitarian here, robbing the characters of a chance to show they’re alive: they are mostly silent in the game, and when they finally decide to speak, it’s just to say where they need to go or what they must do next. “We must go to the High Owl at the House of the Owl Tide, but I understand if you wish to see Benjo first,” a character says to Amon when they arrive at a big city, without a hint of personality. In other words, party interaction usually boils down to either exposition or instructions.

So, near the end, we’re not a single step closer to getting to know these people. And even calling them that is doing them a favor, as they never even attempt to evolve beyond their (silent) tropes: there’s the bookish coward type, the strong female warrior, the impulsive, immature boy, and so on. The game opens with Ive, a young female officer, as she defies her father’s orders to stay put while her colleagues go on a mission. And this troubled relationship with her father functions as a microcosm of the game’s big narrative problems: it’s introduced and then utterly ignored. Development is a foreign concept to Earthlock: characters never go through any sort of arc, while themes are a rare find in a game that has nothing to say. After going through a dungeon – the usual sewer level –, this is the party interaction we unlock at the end:

Ive: “Taika says this is it. This is where they took the core.“

Gnart: “Can we hurry up. The stench sits inside my nostrils now. I’ll need to smell Lysrose spice to get this stink off me.”

Amon: “Stop moaning, Gnart. Just think of it as a long-lasting fart.“

Gnart: “Ewww!“

Ive: “It was me. Sorry.“

A fart joke. That’ it: after a whole dungeon, the party’s only interaction amounts to a fart joke. Earthlock doesn’t seem to care much about its characters, as it’s not difficult to find a lack of polish regarding them everywhere in the game. Taika, Ive’s wolf-like pet,  for example, usually just growls in her dialogue, but if we’re controlling Taika as the main avatar, she says the same thing as her other companions, suddenly making her a very eloquent animal. When arriving at the final area, Taika says “Grrrrrr!” and after being complimented at the end, she says “Awooooooo!” But, if we’re controlling her when we get near a docked airship, the wolf will say, “I wonder what happened to this MonoScout. Heard one got hit bad by lightning some moonruns ago” – the very same thing any other character says if they are the chosen avatar.

The villains, meanwhile, are random monsters that speak villainous things like “Silence! Insolent fools! Gobking will teach you! Warriors of the King, attack!” The main antagonist, for example, wants to awaken an ancient dark power… just because. There is nothing in Earthlock’s story that’s engaging or interesting: despite the game emulating the JRPGs of old, the story here is just a poor pretext for the gameplay.

The game’s combat system works well enough, though. We control four characters with four skills, which change alongside that character’s “stance” during battle. Amon, for example, has four melee skills in his default stance and four ranged ones in his optional stance. Changing stances takes a turn, however, but it allows us to shift or strategy midbattle without losing too much: battles here can be quite dynamic, with stances allowing us to adapt in the fly to our enemies – instead of what happens in Final Fantasy IX, for example, where we either prepare for a boss battle beforehand or perish horribly.

The exception is some of the late boss encounters, in which Taika is not just recommended, but required to win, as she can cast the necessary elemental protection on other party members. And if we weren’t using the tiger too much and left her underleveled… well, that’s just too bad. And to make matters worse, Taika’s necessary elemental skills are also acquired by analyzing enemies – she’s basically a blue mage tiger – so, if we got to the later parts of the game with an overleveled Taika but without those skills… well, that’s just too bad.

Character progression is a bit different in Earthlock. Characters get experience points and level up as usual, but skills and significant stat changes are unlocked by what the game calls Talent Points, which are acquired by leveling up or by bonding with other party members. Bonding means that we must put two characters to fight alongside in battle, and since the bond level only goes to level 5, the game eventually encourages us to change the members of our party – this makes the prospect of an underleveled Taika less likely, but it’s still an irksome problem.

Speaking of problems, let’s go to the game’s side activities. Ranged attacks need ammo to function, and we craft ammo with the plants we cultivate in our garden. So, to have enough ammo, we must waste time watering some plants and waiting for them to become ready for harvesting. By the end of the game, a player usually has ten to fifteen plants to keep watering and harvesting, making ranged attacks a cumbersome option. Sidequests, meanwhile, are basically fetch-quests and have no story tied to them, being the worst thing the genre has to offer. We can also buy treasure maps, but the rewards are irrelevant.

Presentation-wise, Earthlock is decent enough. The art style pops up by using bold, vibrant colors, although the scenery quickly grows repetitive: there’s the desert area, the swamp area, and the frozen area, with only two cities in the entire game. The absence of character portraits during cutscenes is also felt, since they could have given some personality to characters that badly need that. Finally, the soundtrack, albeit repetitive, is much more memorable than anything else in the game.

In Earthlock, we find an unremarkable game, with an underwhelming story and a somewhat decent combat system. But if we were expecting something better crafted or even – imagine – memorable… well, that’s just too bad.

May 20, 2025.

Review originally published on November 08, 2019.