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Earthlock

Earthlock is an indie developed, adventure RPG inspired by the classic 3D RPGs of the late 90's, with a fresh take on turn based combat and character progression.

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Mostly Positive

1 Steam reviews

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Steam User 3958STEAMRecommended

I have mixed feelings on EARTHLOCK, so it’s best I just describe my experience and let you decide if it’s for you.

Storywise, it’s nothing new. The world is threatened by an ancient evil and set off to fight it, picking up friends along the way. The final team comprises six characters, all with different backgrounds, races, roles, and abilities they apply on the overhead map as well as during the battles.

The battles are engaged by running into the monsters who are all visible in the world – there’s no random encounters here. While the enemies are generally grouped in packs of 2-4, it is possible to kite them around, pull them apart, and engage them in smaller numbers – or larger if you want to clear them out quicker in groups of 8-10 – or just avoid them altogether. A lot of effort has gone into giving you complete control over how you want to play. When killed, the monsters stay gone while you remain in the area, but respawn after you transition to another zone.

During combat, each of your characters has two stances they can flip between that affects what abilities they have access to. The characters also operate in pairs, allowing them to build bonds with one another that unlocks additional perks, as well as sharing a power meter that, when activated, opens up a special ability tree that bolsters a number of their standard moves, often allowing them to affect the entire group instead of a single target. The gameplay is quite slick as a whole, with fast transitions between combat and exploration along with quick battle animations that’ll get you inputting your next round of attacks within a few seconds of the last one going off. The levelling system’s also quite unique. On top of the standard stat gains, you also get points that allow you to slot cards that give additional stat boosts and abilities onto a board, allowing you to build your team however you want.

That said, the game isn’t great at explaining its systems. I was halfway through the game before I figured out the pairing system, and I had to work out most of the buffs/debuffs based off the small icons that appear above the characters’ heads (some of which I still don’t know exactly what they do) since there doesn’t seem to be any in-game windows that allow you to analyse status icons. This could be a positive or negative depending on how you like to play, and while I found it frustrating in places, I can’t deny I got some thrill from the discovery aspect this created.

When not fighting, exploration is split between the overhead map and the dungeons littered about it. There’s been an effort to make the world seem big, with alien words and races a plenty, but this wasn’t enough to disguise the fact that it’s really quite empty. There’s only two towns in the whole world, and while the land is split into four elemental zones, they all felt identical beyond the colour scheme. Each has one low-end dungeon, one side quest hub, one late-game dungeon you return for, a bridge dungeon used to move between the areas, and a whole lot of emptiness between. Sure, they’ve dotted a few collectibles around to break up the monster packs, but these are identical in every area and not hard to find. In contrast, the towns/dungeons, while on the small side, did have a lot more detail in their appearance, along with a number of extra puzzles, and I generally found them interesting and fun to work through.

For those who like to challenge themselves, there’s only one difficulty setting, and it’s kind of on the low side. Despite the characters having two stances, one is obviously superior and once you realise it you’ll be going into every fight just spamming the same abilities. I was very quickly grouping the monsters up into as big a pack I could make and aoe’ing them down. The handful of wipes I had across my playtime resulted mostly from being too lazy to single-target down the one monster that can kill you if left alone. A couple of bosses also caught me off-guard with some of their counter abilities, but should you die to a boss, a handy helper NPC pops up at the nearest save point to give you a hint on how to beat it, though I never actually spoke to him so I can’t say how detailed that is.

My biggest gripe, however, comes from the storytelling. The speed of the gameplay bleeds over into the story, and while the cast has variety in its makeup, they’re not that well developed as you whiz around the world. The initial quest is to save an uncle kidnapped by the country’s military organisation, yet while chasing them down, you stumble across a soldier from that same military who is just happily invited into the party, no questions asked. When said uncle is found locked in a prison and literally dying from an illness, our heroic protagonist and nephew is content to just go off on a quest to recover a stolen artifact from the nearby museum for another member of the group, seemingly unconcerned with the seriousness of the timeframe at play here. Later on, you stumble on the wreckage of a crashed military flagship, a result of sabotage and betrayal, a storybeat that’s resolved 10 minutes later after collecting five pieces of scrap scattered around the area so that the scavenger of YOUR party can repair the ship and they can fly off home – something the engineers on this ship apparently couldn’t do themselves. The last recruit is a revived ancient robot that joins with zero fanfare and just starts interacting with old tech in the world with not a single party member even commenting “Wow. Isn’t that something?” I'm not looking for non-stop bickering here, but some friction, caution, or just excitement for what's being found wouldn’t have gone amiss once in a while. The whole plot plays like a collection of bullet points turned into quests that you go through one by one, and while I enjoyed the gameplay and wanted to love the world, by the end I was ultimately left feeling hollow and lacking any memorable moments.

All told, I’d say EARTHLOCK is a decent enough RPG for the price, but one better suited to younger gamers looking to break into the RPG scene, where the quick gameplay and forgiving difficulty can keep them engaged while their heightened imaginations can fill in the gaps in the story and characterisation.

Mar 2, 2026·30h·Verified

LANGUAGE	AUDIO	SUBTITLES	INTERFACE
English	—	Y	Y
Arabic	—	Y	Y
Chinese (Simplified)	—	—	Y
French	—	Y	Y
German	—	Y	Y
Italian	—	Y	Y
Japanese	—	Y	Y
Norwegian	—	Y	Y
Polish	—	Y	Y
Portuguese (Brazil)	—	Y	Y
Portuguese (Portugal)	—	—	Y
Russian	—	Y	Y
Spanish (Spain)	—	Y	Y