REMAKE OF 1987 GAME ETERNAL CASTLE COMING TO SWITCH

The 80s were when video games really became a medium. As you may recall, the 70s was the time of games like Pong and The Oregon Trail—games that still were figuring out newfangled concepts like ‘graphics’ and ‘gameplay,’ admittedly mostly due to a lack of computing strength. It wasn’t until the 80s when we saw titles like Contra and Super Mario Bros. 2. By this time developers realized that games could be more than just a snake getting longer or some green text on a screen. Bright colors and faster gameplay and better audio all contributed to some of the classic games we know and love. And in 1987, The Eternal Castle became one of those classic titles. 

Or did it? None of the above paragraph is important because the game we’re here for never actually existed. The Eternal Castle: Remastered is a retro game that is not actually a remaster at all. The Eternal Castle: Remasted is an homage to games like Another World that not only seeks to capitalize on the aesthetic and feeling of late 80s video games, but also the mythology behind them too. Leonard Menchiari, one of the developers behind the ‘remake,’ used whimsical tales of childhood nostalgia to create a false history about their retro game. “Eventually that floppy got thrown out, so he never got to play that game again. Such an easy thing to fix, but he was too young at the time to know what to do. He kept thinking about it ever since.” 

Until users went looking through the game files and found dates that didn’t add up (for instance, a file from Prince of Persia that would not exist until 1989”), people believed The Eternal Castle: Remastered was a real game. Ah, but what does it matter? Plenty of games use that beautiful retro atmosphere, why not create some lore about it too? The Eternal Castle: Remastered gives players the feeling of playing a classic game, with all the advances of modern game design. The visuals are fluid and the colors vibrant. Certainly this is not a game that would function on a commodore 64, but then, nobody plays games on their commodore 64 nowadays. 

So what is The Eternal Castle about? It’s a post-apocalyptic game about a planet devastated by war. You play as a soldier who must fight his way through the ruins in order to rescue someone. It doesn’t get too in-depth with the story, but that’s what makes these types of games so interesting. You can play The Eternal Castle: Remastered on Steam by visiting the page here, or you can pre-purchase a copy for the Switch by going here.