The Eternal Castle: Remastered

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The Eternal Castle: Remastered is a single player and multiplayer arcade platformer game with horror, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, dark fantasy and others themes. It was developed by playsaurus and was released on January 5, 2019. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and positive reviews from players.

The Eternal Castle: Remastered is a remake of the original "Eternal Castle" from 1987, with additional game mechanics, sophisticated sound design, polished 2-bit CGA animated graphics, and modernized game design. Numerous outlets have questioned the title's "lost game" backstory as almost no corroborating accounts have been found to verify the title's development backstory.

The Eternal Castle: Remastered screenshot

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84%

Audience ScoreBased on 443 reviews

graphics94 positive mentions

stability9 negative mentions

Unique and impressive visual style using CGA 4-color palette with superb pixel art and fluid rotoscoped animation, creating a mesmerizing and atmospheric experience.
Faithful homage to classic cinematic platformers like Prince of Persia, Another World, and Flashback, with challenging but satisfying gameplay and well-crafted level design.
Excellent soundtrack and sound design that perfectly complements the retro-futuristic and dystopian atmosphere, enhancing immersion.

Gameplay is hampered by intentionally clunky, sluggish, and delayed controls which can lead to frustration, especially in platforming and combat sections.
The limited color palette and busy graphics sometimes reduce readability, causing difficulty in distinguishing characters, enemies, traps, and environment elements.
Technical issues such as bugs, inconsistent frame rates, crashes, and a confusing (or unreadable) font in text-heavy sections detract from the overall experience.

graphics
227 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
41%
56%
3%
The game's graphics stand out as its strongest feature, praised for a unique and striking 2-bit CGA-inspired art style with fluid animations that create a rich, atmospheric, and nostalgic experience reminiscent of classic 80s and 90s cinematic platformers. However, this minimalist palette and low resolution sometimes hinder visual clarity, making it difficult to discern important gameplay elements and causing occasional strain or confusion. Overall, while the visuals are widely admired for their artistic boldness and originality, they can also present accessibility challenges that may not appeal to all players.
- “The eternal castle remastered uses the classic CGA style of graphics as its own advantage, creating a world so beautiful and yet so terrifying at the same time. The pixel art and animation are fluid and really beautiful, creating some gorgeous scenery even with the CGA limitation of 3 colors.”
- “The artwork in this is magnificent; it's 1987 turned up to 11 and along with the animation, are probably its biggest drawpoints.”
- “The graphics and animations are beautifully done and prove that you do not need tons of graphics power to have a pleasing visual experience.”
- “Unfortunately, the art style can also be one of its main weaknesses: Eternal Castle has a shockingly limited color palette (you will not see more than 4 colors on the screen at once), which severely cripples the readability of the environment, worsened by frequent dark scenes, high contrast and harsh lighting.”
- “The CGA style graphics are so muddy — integral ladders barely look like ladders, for example. It is also hard to tell what weapons you've picked up, even though the game shows a small graphical popup when picking up a gun; this popup image is of such low quality, that you'll barely be able to tell between the different pistols, shotguns, or assault rifles in this game, until you pick them up, and see the different amounts of ammunition in your HUD.”
- “The graphics make it hard to distinguish yourself from the enemies at times, especially if there are many on screen, which leads to button mashing the attack button to survive, completely throwing away the combat element which is intended to be used.”
gameplay
165 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
27%
63%
10%
The gameplay of the game is a deliberate homage to classic cinematic platformers like Prince of Persia, Another World, and Flashback, featuring slow, methodical pacing, platforming, and combat with a retro feel. While it captures the atmosphere and style of these older games with smooth animations and varied mechanics, many reviewers find the controls clunky, combat repetitive or boring, and some mechanics unexplained or frustrating, especially in boss fights. Despite these flaws, the gameplay is generally regarded as fitting for the game's artistic vision and short length, offering a nostalgic yet challenging experience that may appeal mostly to fans of the genre.
- “The gameplay draws inspiration from such classics as "Prince of Persia" and "Another World" among others, and the mechanics work amazingly well (the blend of animation, action, puzzles is nearly perfect).”
- “Gameplay flows from relaxed platforming segments to quick and visceral action, with very intuitive controls and well-crafted levels.”
- “Mechanically, it's similar to old cinematic platformers like Prince of Persia, Flashback, or especially Another World, though it definitely carves out an identity all its own.”
- “The parkour is quite nice, but the combat is boring; it's either spamming without knowing what's going on, or the bosses just spam the same mechanic repeatedly. The final boss is extremely artificially difficult due to an annoying sphere mechanic.”
- “Game mechanics go unexplained, and certain boss fights suddenly introduce new mechanics with no time to figure out what's happening, whereas other games usually provide a preview to avoid blindsiding the player.”
- “The gameplay controls exhibit an incredibly cumbersome nature, and despite the appreciation for the art style, the game fails to deliver satisfactory visual clarity.”
music
86 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
64%
33%
3%
The game's music, predominantly an acclaimed synthwave soundtrack, is widely praised for its atmospheric and nostalgic 80s-inspired electronic style that perfectly complements the cyberpunk art direction. While some note the soundtrack is more ambient during gameplay and not as prominent as in trailers, most agree the music significantly enhances the overall mood and immersion. Despite occasional criticisms of gameplay and controls, the soundtrack consistently stands out as a major highlight.
- “That it's worth playing the game just to listen to the gorgeous electronic music.”
- “The beautiful animation combined with an absolutely stellar soundtrack makes this one of the only platformers I have actually enjoyed.”
- “The synth-heavy soundtrack instantly places you in the cinematic era of the supposed (but in reality non-existent) original game, though with fantastic production.”
- “The combat mechanics in the game are rather average, accompanied by an absence of a noteworthy soundtrack, at least from what I have experienced thus far.”
- “The trailer has a pulse-pounding synthwave style soundtrack, but you don't really hear this, (at least I didn't, with default settings) within the first 45 minutes of play.”
- “Too many bleak and empty maps, without music.”
story
79 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
73%
5%
The story is minimalistic, cryptic, and largely conveyed through atmosphere, environment, and subtle clues rather than explicit narrative, encouraging players to piece together the lore themselves. Though short and somewhat obscure, it offers an engaging, retro-inspired sci-fi setting with replay value through additional content and new perspectives. Some players find the sparse storytelling and unreadable intro text challenging, but the story’s terse delivery is praised for enhancing immersion and mystery.
- “The story of The Eternal Castle is expertly told through notes and environments that you really start to piece together and see the beauty in this chaotic world.”
- “Honestly, the way the story is absolutely amazing, no words just pure environment.”
- “The game tells its story by encouraging the player to keep exploring and having the player think on their own for what happens next, and you know, that just feels great to experience.”
- “The game's main story only lasts about 2.5 hours, which means I've seen a third of it already.”
- “The story is not explained very well... though it is explained.”
- “The story - if you can call it that - is so obscure and disjointed, it might as well be nonexistent.”
atmosphere
50 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
60%
34%
6%
The game is widely praised for its unique, immersive, and striking atmosphere, marked by distinctive pixel art, a haunting post-apocalyptic cyberpunk aesthetic, and an evocative soundtrack that together create a tense, eerie, and captivating world. Despite some criticism of controls and gameplay, the atmosphere and visual design consistently stand out as the game's strongest and most memorable features.
- “Each area has its own unique atmosphere and aesthetic, with impressive and memorable scenery.”
- “The atmosphere is very intense, vague, and dreadful; a post-apocalypse done right, blending old and new elements reinforced by a retro art style with impressive graphical details.”
- “Fantastic game, the atmosphere is what makes it stand apart, with spot-on art direction, animation, color palettes, and soundtrack all complementing each other.”
- “Clunky controls with no feeling of inertia, cheap animation compared to its role models, very frantic pacing, and eye-tearing screen scrolling effect eats away the atmosphere.”
- “The atmosphere is very intense, vague and dreadful, a post-apocalypse done right, but it feels like a mishmash of old and new, reinforced by a retro art style with really impressive bouts of graphical stuff.”
- “It gives the game an eerie alien atmosphere that very much fits its post-apocalyptic feel.”
replayability
15 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
27%
53%
20%
The game offers solid replayability through multiple modes, character choices, hidden upgrades, and different story perspectives, encouraging players to explore various areas and endings. While its short length makes initial playthroughs brief, post-game content like NG+ and alternative modes extend its appeal for those seeking challenges or completion. However, some players find replay value limited due to mild difficulty, pricing concerns, and mixed impressions on controls and graphics.
- “The 3 main environments are well done and you can do them in any order, which helps with the replayability, since each area has some upgrades that boost your character's stats.”
- “The game also has a lot of replay value with New Game+, which is basically iron man mode; the 'duel' mode, which focuses on one on one combat; and the 'sacrifice' mode, which is like an entire extra game.”
- “Modern features are mostly there for replayability; they're non-intrusive and do not compromise core gameplay: New Game+, 2 playable characters, hidden upgrades, speedrunning-conscious shortcuts, and multiple endings.”
- “Tl;dr: awful controls and combat, amazing soundtrack, meh graphics at times (pretty beautiful pixels for most of it), minor bugs around, not really replayable despite the game pushing it.”
- “This isn't so much an issue with the gameplay so much as it is with the investment--$10 for a 2 hour game is unfortunately too much, especially when the game has limited to no replay value save for speedrun bragging rights.”
- “The keyboard controls served me well throughout the playthrough and there are some genuinely interesting setpieces and secrets to find, but the distracting graphic design, lack of replay value, mild difficulty, and the length of the game coupled with the $10 price tag leave me saying "no, I wouldn't pay full price for this."”
stability
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from numerous bugs and frequent glitches, including screen issues and erratic controls, which significantly impact the gameplay experience. Stability problems such as crashes and clunky mechanics make it feel unfinished and frustrating despite its enjoyable core and aesthetic appeal.
- “There are tons of bugs and screen glitches, like literally half of my screen was covered in black until I realized I needed to restart the game.”
- “Also had to alt-f4 three times because the game is buggy as hell.”
- “In my continuing playtime, I encountered a couple of weird glitches where my character suddenly popped to another edge of the screen when trying to pull myself up, and there were some 'connecting' text boxes where there was nothing to connect.”
humor
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's humor is clever and self-aware, playfully subverting expectations around the concept of a "remaster." Its witty references to a 1987 "remake" and mysterious game files add a unique and entertaining layer, making the experience both varied and amusing.
- “It's funny that this game bills itself as "remastered"—not because it's an original game masquerading as a remaster, which is true—but because it inverts what a remaster is supposed to do.”
- “Besides: the story about a "remake" of a game from 1987, discussions about mysterious gamefiles are clever and funny ways to make this game interesting.”
- “Unique, packed with some good variety and even humorous in some ways.”
emotional
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game evokes a strong sense of nostalgia through its beautiful animation and art design, creating an emotionally impactful experience. However, some players find the emotional tone unsettling or unwholesome, with at least one reporting physical discomfort after a short playtime.
- “Game made me feel nostalgia for something that did not even exist in the past.”
- “Some beautiful animation and art design at work here, really impressive but unfortunately I had to refund after 20 odd minutes as it made me feel a bit ill.”
optimization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
67%
The game's optimization is poor, causing significant lag in large open areas despite low stated system requirements. Users suggest that the game would run smoothly with higher RAM and could greatly improve with targeted performance enhancements.
- “The game seems to lag extremely bad in large open areas, due to poor optimization.”
- “This game could easily become one of the best indie games out there with a few simple optimizations.”
grinding
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is generally seen as tedious and clunky, with visuals that are unappealing. However, new gameplay features help mitigate some of the monotony found in the original version.
monetization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users criticize the monetization for misleading advertising, as the game is presented as a remaster or remake but is actually a first-time release. Additionally, concerns are raised about it being a low-effort cash grab made with Gamemaker Studio.

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65%Critics’ scoreBased on 1 critic reviews

The Eternal Castle Remastered - Review
Gameinformer.com
65%

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2h Median play time

2h Average play time

2-2h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 1 analyzed playthroughs

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The Eternal Castle: Remastered is a arcade platformer game with horror, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, dark fantasy and others themes.

The Eternal Castle: Remastered is available on Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac OS, PlayStation 4 and others.

On average players spend around 2 hours playing The Eternal Castle: Remastered.

The Eternal Castle: Remastered was released on January 5, 2019.

The Eternal Castle: Remastered was developed by playsaurus.

The Eternal Castle: Remastered has received mostly positive reviews from players and mostly positive reviews from critics. Most players liked this game for its graphics but disliked it for its stability.

The Eternal Castle: Remastered is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.

Similar games include Owlboy, Hyper Light Drifter, The Way, LUNARK, Tormented Souls and others.

The Eternal Castle: Remastered

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