freeware
Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...
Derek Yu
Derek Yu is an American independent video game designer, video game artist, and blogger.Blackeye Software label.
Plot
The introduction shows the Dungaga, an imperial industrialized race, conquering the more spiritual Lorian race. The protagonist, Mia, is the daughter of the Lorian priestess and an unknown father. Like the rest of her people, she is enslaved to do menial labor under the supervision of her half-brother Hume. As she sees her Dungaga stepfather Gar hit her mother, she manifests a light-based
magic
Magic or Magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
* Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic
* Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
that she uses to strike down Gar. At her mother's advice, she flees the village.
In her travels, Mia meets the enigmatic lizardlike Shulin, the slime-based Grodol warriors, a
familiar
In European folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars (sometimes referred to as familiar spirits) were believed to be supernatural entities that would assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic. According to r ...
baby dragon named Elanduru, and several Dungaga dissidents. It is revealed that the Dungaga are controlled by the three sons of the dark god
Baphomet
Baphomet is a deity allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar. that subsequently became incorporated into various occult and Western esoteric traditions. The name ''Baphomet'' appeared in trial transcripts for the Inquisition of the Knights ...
, who wish to summon him into the world. After defeating the three sons, Mia must rally the free people of the world and obtain the blessing of the five gods, in order to strike out into Baphomet's realm and defeat him.
Gameplay
''Eternal Daughter'' is considered a
metroidvania
Metroidvania is a sub-genre of platform video games focused on guided non-linearity and utility-gated exploration and progression. The term is a portmanteau of the names of the video game series ''Metroid'' and ''Castlevania'', with games in the ...
, where the player explores an open world, with certain areas unreachable until they acquire a useful skill or item. Its gameplay is based on a classic video game style: side-scrolling platform action, but with added features such as ''secondary weapons'' and ''growth elements'' that are otherwise common in the genre of role-playing games. Items found throughout the game increase the strength of the player character's weapon, or the player's maximum number of health points. Also, as the game progresses, the player gains new abilities that can be used to explore areas of the game that were previously unreachable, progressively "unlocking" new locations within the game world.
Music
A large part of the music was composed by Swedish video game composer David Saulesco. Like the game itself, the score uses a number of influences from famous video game soundtracks, most notably '' Final Fantasy VII''. ''Eternal Daughter'' was Saulesco's first video game soundtrack, produced when he was 16 years old. The soundtrack was released on Saulesco's
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...
under the
Creative Commons license
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...
Home of the Underdogs
Home of the Underdogs (often called HotU) is an abandonware archive founded by Sarinee Achavanuntakul, in October 1998.
Before shutting down the original version in 2009, the site provided reviews for over 5,300 games and offered downloads of so ...
praised ''Eternal Daughter'' for its well-designed and smoothly
animated characters
Character animation is a specialized area of the animation process, which involves bringing animated s to life. The role of a character animator is analogous to that of a film or stage actor and character animators are often said to be "actors wit ...
nonlinear gameplay
A video game with nonlinear gameplay presents players with challenges that can be completed in a number of different sequences. Each player may take on (or even encounter) only some of the challenges possible, and the same challenges may be played ...
.
1UP
In video games, a life is a play-turn that a player character has, defined as the period between start and end of play. Lives refer to a finite number of tries before the game ends with a game over. It is sometimes called a chance, a try, rest ...
highlighted the game's unique visual style and level of polish, not usually seen in freeware games. Both reviews commented on ''Eternal Daughter'''s "harsh-but-fair" difficulty level. In 2006, 1UP.com included ''Eternal Daughter'' in a list of the 101 best free games on the Internet.