In EarthNight, thousands of dragons have ravaged Earth, leaving humanity on its last legs. You’re all that stand between them and our extinction. As far as auto-runners go, Cleaversoft’s platformer offers a decent take by stirring in roguelike progression and a hand-painted aesthetic. However, an uneven difficulty and an inescapable air of blandness trips this runner up at the finish line.
Saving mankind calls for players to plummet from space through five layers of atmosphere until they reach Earth, slaying any dragons soaring in between. Stages take place on a dragon’s back with players running atop them until they reach the end i.e. its head. Platforming generally feels good; it's especially satisfying to bounce off enemies in succession to reach higher areas. Plus, killing multiple foes without touching the ground grants health bonuses. While this provides even more incentive to sharpen your leaping skills, plain old health pickups would ultimately be preferred.
Players have a choice of two heroes: Stanley, a sword-wielder, and Sydney, a child gifted with otherworldly powers. Save yourself some headaches and stick with Sydney. Not only does she boast better platforming abilities, such as a double-jump, but she’s objectively better at dragon slaying. Finishing a stage requires you to stab the dragon’s skull to take it down. However, you have a limited window of time to do this. Take too long and the dragon bucks you off, causing you to miss crucial rewards. Stanley’s underpowered sword stab rarely takes a dragon down fast enough no matter how well you time it. Sydney’s attack, on the other hand, drops them like flies. This imbalance essentially removes the game’s choice since there’s only one viable option for success.
Power-ups can be hit and miss in terms of their usefulness. Double jump boots and shields stand among the better upgrades. One ability even turns the heroes into giants, allowing you to plow through platforms and enemies a la New Super Mario Bros. Collecting dragon eggs and other materials during runs allows you to upgrade these abilities further, making exploration a worthwhile venture. Unfortunately, other power-ups offer more novelty perks that, confusingly, feel like hindrances more often than not. For example, a potion that pixelates the game’s presentation actually makes it harder to discern the environment. It’d be great if all the abilities offered assistance since EarthNight’s difficulty will leave you wanting all the help you can get.
After surviving the tame first batch of levels, EarthNight quickly gets tough and not always in an enjoyable way. Sometimes it feels like the game literally throws too much at you. Some enemies fly in unexpectedly from behind to land cheap hits. Certain obstacles feel unavoidable if you missed, say, a pair of double jump boots. Worst of all, some segments feel nigh impossible to feasibly land the 5+ hits necessary heal up. Sometimes that’s simply due to a lack of consecutive enemies to strike. Other times there are so many hazards present that bouncing off a foe in pursuit of health sends you into the line of fire of another. It’s why health items would be better; trying to heal can actually be more trouble than it’s worth.
Since health remains consistent stage to stage, starting a level at less than 100% often feels like a death sentence. The final stage in particular is a maddening ordeal. You’ll eventually reach a point where you’re intentionally gliding past dragons to reach the end as quickly, and healthy, as possible. That feels like a cheap but unfortunately necessary strategy much of the time.
EarthNight’s roguelike progression means that even your ill-fated runs–of which there will be many– can still bear fruit. Collecting food and other trinkets converts it to water, the game’s currency, used to purchase additional upgrades. Gradually expanding your arsenal feels mildly rewarding but the game simply isn’t engaging enough to make repeated runs feel meaningful. The levels are competently designed overall but won’t blow anyone away. If you aren’t turned off by boredom, the aforementioned difficulty headaches will have you rage quitting before too long.
EarthNight has some good ideas and can be fun in spurts but it’s an average romp at best and an infuriating slog at worst. The hand-drawn presentation is only somewhat appealing (some designs are actually off-putting) and the limited chiptune soundtrack makes it a game best played alongside a podcast. Riding this dragon won’t hurt but expect to get bucked off sooner than later.
EarthNight is available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Steam, and Apple Arcade. Screen Rant was provided a digital Switch code for the purpose of this review.