Aeterna Noctis is a delightfully difficult Metroidvania that pushes the boundaries of difficult platforming and combat in a way that keeps the game fun and exhilarating. This hand-drawn action platformer is perfect for those who wanted just a bit more from similar games in the Metroidvania genre, albeit less charming. If you're looking for a solid indie GOTY that effectively utilizes your PS5, look no further than Aeterna Noctis. Good luck, you'll most definitely need it.
The first game I played on my shiny new PS5 (on release day, no less) was not Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales or Astro’s Playroom. I played Hollow Knight, which was part of PS+ for the month of November 2020! My knowledge of Hollow Knight was limited; I knew it was fun, hard, and charming. I sat down…and played through the entire thing in about a week. While I couldn’t beat Godhome (the boss rush DLC), I loved the gameplay but sorely desired a game that upped the difficulty juuust a bit more with a more forgiving character-creation and varied combat system. Even more, I wanted Hollow Knight to utilize my brand spanking new DualSense controller. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when our head honcho Nathan reached out to me and asked me to review this hand-drawn Metroidvania called Aeterna Noctis on the PS5. How could I say no to a Metroidvania that checked the boxes I so dearly wanted checked?
Let’s get this out of the way now: Aeterna Noctis is hard. So hard, in fact, that I’ve bragged to our head honcho Nathan Stevens several times over the past few days about how many hours I’ve spent on a certain boss or platforming section. But boy, it’s a hell of a lot of fun, and every time I complete a grueling level I legitimately feel like I am a better player. Every time I encounter a section where I feel like I’m too frustrated to play, the path forward just clicks and I end up progressing.
Aeterna Noctis has you play as the King of Darkness, an entity in an eternal conflict with his female counterpart, the Queen of Light. As a part of this eternal conflict, the King and Queen interchangeably fall to the world of mortals and repeat their ascension, or so you’re told. The world of Aeterna is comprised of 16 unique, hand drawn biomes that span from gothic medieval to futuristic.
The gameplay of Aeterna Noctis is not unlike other modern Metroidvanias. You start in a huge open world and are tasked with exploring, and explore you go…until you can’t explore anymore. Then, you make your way back and go the other direction until you acquire something that lets you explore portions of the world you once weren’t able. Rinse and repeat, with a smattering of boss battles along the way. Aeterna Noctis takes this one step further, though: The path from point A, to B, all the way to P (because there are 16 unique areas…get it?) is rife with some of the most difficult, yet innovative, platforming I’ve ever encountered.
When I initially (and frantically) described the platforming of Aeterna Noctis to Nathan, I described it as such: Imagine a game that was built entirely around the White Palace in Hollow Knight, an endgame platforming slog that tested your platforming skills and gaming patience. That’s Aeterna Noctis, and it turns it up to 11 from the very beginning where you’re taught to pogo-jump off floating orbs by slashing downward, and it only gets more difficult from there. However, as you acquire additional abilities, your traversal skills are frequently tested in more and more innovative ways. By the halfway point, I was double jumping, wall jumping, teleporting, and dashing through hallways of hazards that would instantly kill me. It was exhilarating and fluid, but so SO difficult.
The difficulty of Aeterna Noctis is absolutely one worth driving home: This is not your average Metroidvania, but it’s not the “annoying” difficult like some of the “Souls” games are sometimes criticized as being. If Hollow Knight was too difficult for you, then maybe Aeterna Noctis may not be your cup of tea. Aeternum Game Studios have included several gameplay levers to make the game more accessible, such as changing the game’s difficulty at the cost of losing access to unlocking trophies/achievements. I’ve yet to change the difficulty yet, but I’ve thought about it a good fifty-leven times.
If you’re not down to lose access to obtaining achievements, the King of Darkness’ skills (passive AND active) can be changed at a save point. Acquiring skills is incredibly easy at first–all you have to do is kill enemies and obtain the experience that they drop. However, as you level up, the amount of experience you need to collect increases at exponential levels. You can then use the skill points you acquired and spend them on any of the three skill trees that level up the King of Darkness’ melee, ranged, and magic abilities. I found that whenever I had difficulty on certain bosses, resetting my skill tree and going all-in on one of the three trees was the easiest answer to some of my woes. Thankfully, the developers added a cap to the number of skill points you can naturally obtain, so you won’t become overpowered and breeze through the combat portions of the game.
It’s also worth noting that some of the combat of Aeterna Noctis feels stiff, especially at first. Until you start unlocking other abilities, the melee sword ability will feel less fluid and more unforgiving than other Metroidvanias. However, you shouldn’t be getting this game for the combat. You should be getting it for the platforming alone.
Aeternum Game Studios have done an incredible job on the worldbuilding front. At first glance, the worlds of Aeterna Noctis and Hollow Knight look near identical. Some of the desolate world and characters feel like spitting images of each other, albeit humanoid for the case of Aeterna Noctis. However, once you start exploring more of the world, you find yourself in beautifully designed biomes that become less grim/desolate and more fantastical/futuristic yet deadly. If I could critique Aeterna on one facet of its worldbuilding, I would say that I wished that the world and characters needed some more memorability, such as some charm or humor. One of my favorite things about Hollow Knight was how it sprinkled in dry humor and charm throughout the desolateness…for Aeterna, it’s mainly desolate.
At time of writing, if you’re looking to play Aeterna Noctis on a Sony console, it’s currently only available on the PS5. I’m happy to share that Aeterna Noctis utilizes the PS5’s DualSense controller in a minimal yet tasteful fashion. The controller’s LED changes color depending on which projectile you have, the speaker emits sound effects, and the controller vibrates when you execute abilities. It’s just enough to immerse you in the incredibly difficult gameplay that Aeterna Noctis has to offer.
Aeterna Noctis is a delightfully difficult Metroidvania that pushes the boundaries of difficult platforming and combat in a way that keeps the game fun and exhilarating. This hand-drawn action platformer is perfect for those who wanted just a bit more from similar games in the Metroidvania genre, albeit less charming. If you’re looking for a solid indie GOTY that effectively utilizes your PS5, look no further than Aeterna Noctis. Good luck, you’ll most definitely need it.
