A remarkable ARPG perfectly balanced between depth and accessibility | Review - Last Epoch

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✨Overview Last Epoch is an action role-playing game (ARPG) developed by Eleventh Hour Games. This indie title features a pretty cool time-traveling mechanic, allowing players to explore different eras and alter the course of history. The game features a deep character customization, with a variety of classes and skill trees to choose from, as well as a robust crafting system. Players can embark on quests, battle hordes of enemies, and collect powerful loot as they unravel the mysteries of the world of Eterra — past, present, and future. Last Epoch was released on February 22, 2024, after nearly five years in Early Access. Over the past weekend, I played a lot of Last Epoch, and I am loving it! I have played my fair share of ARPGs over the years, and now it seems that the genre is as strong as ever. I’ve tried the gritty indie Grim Dawn, the ultra-complicated and hardcore Path of Exile, the aged classic Diablo II, and the modern casual experiences in Diablo III and IV. I even tried mobile titles like Diablo Immortal, Torchlight Infinite, and Raziel. So, believe me when I tell you, Last Epoch is the real deal. Even though I love ARPGs, I actively avoided this game for the past five years since it was still in Early Access, and I guess my wait is finally paying off. 🟩Pros +Compelling time-traveling story elements and mechanic +Deep character customization, skill trees, and crafting system +Stunning AAA-like visuals for an indie title +Accessible respec system +Smooth progression and leveling +Offline mode possible

🟥Cons -Controller support is a bit buggy -Online mode is borderline unenjoyable due to server overloads (as of writing) ⭐️Score: 9/10

📖Story and Premise The story begins with a seemingly straightforward and clichéd premise: a world created by a long-forgotten God, now governed by her descendants who are embroiled in a war amongst themselves. However, the story quickly takes a more complex and deep turn as the players find themselves thrust into the midst of this conflict, and are tasked with saving time itself from The Void by traveling through different moments of time in the world of Eterra. Along the way, they will face dark empires, wrathful gods, and untouched wilds, uncovering secrets and unraveling the mysteries of the world. The time travel angle, which isn’t used very much in games, is pulled off very well in Last Epoch. It allows you to travel back and forth through multiple time periods, and it is compellingly integrated into the story where characters will recognize you and your powers, and your ability to affect the future. It’s also fun to travel around the same world, seeing places in different states, depending on the timeline. Last Epoch also features themes of multiverses and multiple worlds alongside its time travel elements. 🎨Visuals and Art Last Epoch is stunningly good for an indie game. The game features a detailed and vibrant art style that brings the world of Eterra in a believable and immersive way. The environments are well crafted, from lush forests to icy wastelands, each with its own unique atmosphere and charm. The orchestral soundtrack is also amazingly made that you wouldn’t even think that it’s an indie title with how good it is produced and sounds. The character and enemy designs are equally impressive, with a variety of creatures and monsters that are both menacing, not only in the looks but also in how they sound. The spell effects and animations are also top-notch, adding to the overall spectacle of the game just like what you would expect from an ARPG game. It seems to draw heavy inspiration from Diablo III and Diablo IV in its menu design, including the mini-map, HUD placement, sound bites, and general aesthetic all throughout the game. Despite being an indie game, it can hold its own against AAA titles like Diablo IV in terms of visuals, voice acting, and overall in-game presentation. However, not all dialogue is voice-acted in the game. 🎮Gameplay Now to the gameplay, Last Epoch is a typical ARPG game from the outset. Choose a character class, kill some monsters, progress through the story, unlock new skills, loot powerful gear, rinse and repeat. However what makes this game special aside from the unique time travel aspect is with how it handles its ARPG mechanics, and all the other little things. There are five classes — Mage · Rogue · Primalist · Acolyte · Sentinel — which underwhelmed me at first, but the game does a great job of informing the player that each of these five classes can actually split into three more as they progress, resulting in 15 classes in total, which covers most bases as far as typical ARPG classes go. Personally, my favorite class in ARPGs is mage, and if possible, a sword-wielding mage, which aligns perfectly with the game’s Spellblade specialization — although I’ve tried other classes and builds as well. All five classes have predetermined character models, and you will not be able to customize their appearance aside from their clothes/armor. ⏫Progression As you play more, skills will unlock for your character and every single skills will have their own deep skill trees, which feels like a super-expanded version of Diablo III’s rune system or Diablo IV’s nodes system — although not as overly complicated as Path of Exile’s rotating skill tree of epic proportions. The progression of Last Epoch feels smooth, and leveling up takes just the right amount for my tastes; it doesn’t feel grindy compared to most ARPGs. Last Epoch also features a fun and accessible respec system, which is not as unforgiving and restrictive as Path of Exile and not as basic as Diablo. With only a minor setback, you can easily respec everything except the character class master specialization, which seems fair enough. The crafting system also plays a significant role in progression, as players can craft powerful items to enhance their abilities. It’s a little bit harder to understand than the rest of the mechanics, considering how deep it is and highly customizable with how you can modify the item’s affixes, reroll them, or perhaps create new ones.

In Last Epoch, the main endgame centers around the Monolith of Fate, offering players the chance to explore alternate timelines and echoes of events. Each timeline has its own quest, echoes, and boss to defeat, rewarding players with permanent Blessings that enhance their character's power or improve loot drops. This mode is already accessible early in the game's story, which is nice as you don't need to beat the campaign to access it.

Additionally, there are the dungeons, that offer another endgame activity, each with its own mechanics, bosses, and rewards, and an Arena mode that provides a wave survival gameplay where players face endless waves of enemies, testing their skills and endurance. ⚔️Combat The skill system allows for a great deal of customization in combat, with players able to mix and match skills from different trees to create powerful combinations. The combat itself is fast-paced, satisfying, with impactful animations and effects that make each encounter feel dynamic and exciting. It does not feature ragdolls though, a complex physics system for destructible environments, or kinematic-based combat. (All underrated features that I always appreciate when playing Diablo). However, what they have is sufficient to showcase the characters' power without feeling as stiff as Diablo II or Path of Exile.

📜Personal Favorite Features Aside from the usual ARPG goodness, Last Epoch also includes innovations that push the genre in a positive direction. One of my personal favorites is how you could push mobs slowly while moving, so you don't get stuck or get your movement pathing affected by enemies compared to other ARPGs. Mana use is also more forgiving, allow a negative value, basically giving you one additional cast at the trade off of having a negative mana value.

Another favorite of mine is the additional of a customizable loot filter, something that even Diablo IV has failed to implement with its millions of AAA budget. Not to mention the abundance of stash space (over a hundred) and character slots (25)

🕹Controller Support The game is optimally designed for mouse and keyboard controls, but there is support for controllers, although it needs more work and refinement. It’s not as intuitive as I expected, especially compared to other ARPGs with controller support, and it sometimes bugs out, requiring me to re-initialize the controls by switching to keyboard/mouse and then back to the controller. 📊Technical Performance In terms of technical performance, Last Epoch is solid overall. The game runs smoothly on most systems, with minimal lag or stuttering. It runs on my RTX 3080 PC, GTX 1650 Laptop, and Steam Deck (with visibility issues with how small the texts are). There are some very rare crashes and sudden FPS drops in effects-heavy scenes, but overall, the experience is stable and smooth. However, there is a "suffering from success" situation currently, as the game’s servers are overloaded from the release up to the present. Therefore, a lot of my experience was actually in offline mode to ensure I had zero disconnects, lags, and queue times. Regarding the much-welcomed offline functionality, I may sound ungrateful for saying this, but the game also needs peer-to-peer co-op for offline mode players/characters. If you find online mode is too restrictive, especially if you want to play the game on-the-go or at your own leisure without dependency on server latency, still want multiplayer, it would be nice to still be able to play co-op casually with friends or people in a peer-to-peer setup. ⚖️Conclusion Last Epoch is not without its flaws; controller support is buggy, optimization can still be improved, and servers are currently overloaded. But even with these current issues, Last Epoch is already a remarkable action RPG that successfully combines a compelling story with a ‘deep enough but not too deep’ gameplay mechanics that strike the perfect balance between depth and accessibility. For ARPG fans who have explored too many titles looking for that addicting fix, Last Epoch offers a refreshing and fulfilling experience that ticks all the right boxes.

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