Entropy Early Access Review — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:08] This time bringing you my early access impressions for Entropy. An interesting little JRPG inspired title from the makers of Dread Delusion, which is title would have certainly told you, this game has just entered into early

[00:21] access. Now, this isn't the first time I have talked about it. I initially covered the demo for it back in the last Steam Nextfest. However, that was only after a lot of people had recommended the title to me as it had completely

[00:34] And I told everyone I would check back we are. Now, I am a couple days late. Technically, that was on the 18th, but I've been busy preparing videos for later this week ahead of Gamescom and

[00:48] around to it. But let's talk about what this game is, the scope of its early access period, uh you know, what to expect, all that jazz. So, Entropy is, as the graphics would certainly tell you, a retro inpired title that takes a

[01:03] lot of inspiration from old school JRPGs. Like, structurally speaking, that is how it is all set up. It's also doing a few fun unique things, like for instance, injuries that can see characters missing limbs until they go

[01:16] to the doctor, magic that can backfire on you, mercenary companions that might just bite the dust if they die in combat, and a handful of other things. But before we get too much further into the video, I do want to talk a good bit

[01:29] about what the early access period is and entails. So early access is uh kind of all over the board in terms of where games are when they release into it. But in the case of this particular game, according to the Steam page, they claim

[01:43] that the game is fully funded. It is getting released one way or another. they are only in early access in order to gather feedback from people and see about implementing that feedback, which in my opinion is usually the best actual

[01:55] use of early access. If you're depending on it for actual sales, that's obviously in terms of the content that is available right this second, it's basically all of Act One. Now, this is probably going to be a game that is on

[02:08] the shorter side. So act one is like maybe fiveish hours of content on average and they plan to spend about a year in early access patching it up along the way. Now each major patch is going to add the game's other acts to

[02:21] it. That is going to be act two and act three. Act three will be split up a showing the finale until the game actually releases. In between those two major updates, they plan on releasing a bunch of minor things and just kind of

[02:35] to the feedback they've received and everything that needs to get done. Overall, act one is apparently going to be about a quarter of the full game. It is two towns, three dungeons, and a whole bunch of side content along with,

[02:49] you know, all the usual things to explore and get up to in a world map. So, not exactly nothing, but not crazy amounts of content either. relatively easy to get through overall, at least as of right now. Now, with that said, let's

[03:02] talk a bit more about the game itself. So, I have mentioned a good bit of this in my prior video about the demo. Not too much of that has changed, but I Anyway, one thing that has changed is you now have access to the easy and hard

[03:15] difficulties that were not available in the demo. This is important because, as I mentioned, some characters can die. And to facilitate that as a gameplay mechanic, it goes a little bit farther. When you die in combat, you do not get a

[03:28] traditional game over, but rather the game loads you up as if you had simply lost that battle and made it to safety. This means that the characters that got knocked out can potentially take injuries or die. Your main player

[03:40] character will be safe. They are not capable of actually being killed, but they can still be in a bad situation. And so, the difficulty of this game is going to be important. The real big thing honestly is the difference between

[03:52] easy and normal being that you are allowed to manually save on normal whereas you are not allowed to manually save on normal and hard because of again the way the perma death is going to work. Now on normal you actually get

[04:04] some bonuses here and there to sort of smooth out really bad runs of luck. They have not said it works in the opposite direction. That is to say punishing you just rather if you're rolling consistently terribly the game should

[04:16] step in at some point. hard mode. However, that just doesn't really happen. Keeping it moving, uh, Entropy has an interesting story setup in the sense that we are living in a world that is sort of like midapocalypse. The Steam

[04:29] page actually refers to it as a post-apocalyptic game in their own words, but I don't really buy that. The intro cinematic kind of describes the world as just slowly sliding into death and decay because the world just doesn't

[04:44] seem to be capable of continuing to support life at scale. And so people are dying off and just doing their best. So again, I would kind of describe that as mid-apocalypse, like it's in the process of happening. Either way, however, it

[04:56] looks like the arts are still alive and well as as a member of a theater troop who gets inadvertently pulled into and manages to survive an attack on your little town by demons. These demons kill and raise the whole village. They kill

[05:10] you, in fact, only for you to get resurrected by some mysterious power and sent off to warn the surrounding peoples and get about your journey. Along the way, we're going to pick up a whole host of people to join our party. And while

[05:23] one or two of these seem to be like set in stone characters that can still absolutely die, a lot of them are also just uh you know, random people you can pick up or hire at various places. And because of that sort of uh more

[05:37] dying won't be a huge deal and they've kind of leaned into that mechanic. Now, before we talk too much about combat, I will also say that uh gameplay and straightforward. On the progression side of things, as your character levels up,

[05:52] makes you more effective in combat. And then at certain levels, you can also pick up perks, which are helpful. and then your equipment on top of that kind of determines how you can attack and how well you'll do more generally. If you've

[06:06] ever played a JRPG before, you likely understand how the world map and locations and your world map where you will travel around, find hidden locations, get up the side quest, that kind of thing in an appropriately gloomy

[06:19] manner, as the both name and vibe of the game would certainly require of you. But with that out of the way, there's also of course combat. as many a JRPG happens to be. This is a turn-based tactics title which works pretty much how you

[06:32] would expect with a couple of caveats I wanted to mention and talk about here. So, while your typical uh turn-based initiative order that then is based on the like stats of your character and the recovery time of your actions is all

[06:45] present and well and good, the more important stuff I would say is managing your party formation. Characters in the back row can attack with melee weapons, but they are also protected by the characters in front of them. None of

[06:57] it's something you just need to be aware of more generally. As well as the of more generally. As well as the targeting systems. So, the game allows you to target specific body parts on enemies. And this can be uh like special

[07:11] ones. Some monsters have specific body parts that attacking or targeting them that ability away from that particular enemy. Now, on the flip side, this can

[07:23] also happen to you. If your characters get KO'ed and they don't happen to die when the battle ends, you can instead potentially have an injury. These chopped off and they will have naturally effects then on that character's

[07:36] doctor to have it all patched up. Now, there's also slightly more boring stuff like armor and resistances and how all of that stuff stacks up against each other. One of my other favorite mechanics is the spells misfire system.

[07:50] it, but there's a chance in doing so that you might uh regret that decision as it can come back and hit you in a lot of cases. Now, this is something that you will actually mitigate. So, it's not like this will be a gigantic worry

[08:03] unless the character just hasn't done all of that stuff. But overall, if you're into this kind of game, it seems fun enough. And more than anything, um, I just dig a lot of what this game is trying to do. I'm really into the retro

[08:16] graphics, the way they are clearly taking some inspiration from other games, but also keeping their sort of signature strange art style that was very on display in Dread Delusion. And for all of those reasons, combined with

[08:29] the fact that the game is also only $10 in its current early access form, my impressions of this one has been that it's a lot of fun. Now, as with every early access game, unless you really want to be involved in that development

[08:42] process and provide feedback, then you should probably hold off until the game actually releases, which is when I will be touching base with it again to review it. And if everything holds and it's only a year that that happens, then

[08:55] we'll be talking about this game around this time next year when I review it in that's pretty much going to do it. If you've been playing this one or you just by all means, let me know all about it down in the comment section below, which

[09:09] naturally means to like, comment, subscribe, all that YouTube jazz. But regardless of any of that, truly just thank you so much for watching. I really do appreciate it. May you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day.