Eversoul review - "Top-notch animations for fans of shiny things"

Stop me if you've heard this before: you're the Chosen One, plucked from your regular and mundane world then thrust into a fantasy one where you're somehow the only person who can save it from total annihilation. All of a sudden, all these waifus turn to you for guidance, as you're the prophesied leader of this organisation that you've only just heard about because you have amnesia/are reincarnated/are not from around here.

Eversoul's narrative is nothing to write home about, but you really are the Chosen One here (a Savior this time around) and you're tasked with leading these "Souls" into battle. It's everything you can expect from an idle gacha JRPG, but is it a worthy addition to the already saturated market, or is it just another one of those titles that will come and go over time?

Table of contents:

• Eversoul visuals
• Eversoul gameplay
• Eversoul verdict

EVERSOUL VISUALS

Given that Eversoul is crafted by the minds behind Kakao Games (of Guardian Tales fame, which I absolutely loved), I had a lot of expectations going into this game. Thankfully, as someone who's easily distracted by shiny things, I was immediately enthralled by the stunning visuals of Eversoul.

Not only is the character art for every Soul you pull from the gacha meticulously crafted, but the animations here are just superb - it's so beautiful that the Skip button on the upper right corner of the screen during animations almost looks disrespectful. Dynamic animations are on full display each time you perform a skill in battle - plus, dialogue delivered during story scenes is also animated rather than just having your average text box with the character's profile on the side.

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It's obvious that a lot of effort went into every part of the game despite its idle nature. It's also pretty evident with the way the characters move during combat and with how their chibi versions during story dungeons behave on screen. You can set your Souls to hang out on your main menu as well, and even these are animated each time you interact with them.

THE GAMEPLAY OF EVERSOUL

Battles are your standard idle affair. You hop from stage to stage auto-fighting enemies, with a pool of resources you can gather even when you're logged off. These AFK goodies can help you level up your characters, with five of them being the staples that you can Level Sync to help your other lower-level Souls.

Gacha rates are pretty generous, I'd say, as they should be - and this is mainly because you'll need a lot of fodder to progress. There are Relics, Keepsakes and other what-have-yous you can equip your characters, which you can upgrade as necessary as well. While all these things may seem overwhelming at first glance, you always have the option to auto-equip your gear, so the simplicity still stays true to the idle nature of the game.

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That said, there are tons of other game modes you can dive into if you're looking to be more involved. You can't farm for specific items in dungeons here, but you do have various dungeon challenges depending on how active you want to be. You can, for instance, physically move your characters across an actual location and explore areas while you stumble upon foes lingering around you, or you can just spam "Next Stage" on your battles to go from one match to the next. Even the Arena is very uninvolved - it's automated, and you can even skip to the end just to get it over with.

All of these things contribute to the needs of idle gamers who're looking to progress without much effort, but if you want to get to know your Souls more, you can bond with them over Evertalk, explore your Town, build buildings there to boost resource collection, and go on side-quests to discover their personal stories (these little bits are what I love the most).

WHAT'S THE APPEAL?

The gameplay itself, to be honest, is nothing too engaging, as it doesn't particularly stand out from other titles in its genre. What makes the game shine, in my opinion, are the visuals - watching the animations is truly breathtaking, and each time one of my characters performs a skill (which you can turn off, by the way), it's always an "ooh, shiny" moment. I do feel a little torn - the visuals are what's keeping me hooked on the game at the moment, but what happens when the initial shine dulls and the gameplay isn't compelling enough to make me want to stay?

Luckily, I didn't feel like I needed to scale a huge paywall to get ahead at the moment, as the idle rewards are generous enough. I've been playing the game every day for a week now (the login bonuses are fab) and my main team is already at Level 90. I've also got a pretty decent lineup with a good combination of classes. The thing is, I'm not entirely sure I can foresee myself sticking to the game after its initial appeal wears off, but for now, it definitely has enough going for it that I might just stick around a bit more.