Love Eternal Review
Love Eternal blends surreal psychological horror with gravity-switching precision platforming.
Love Eternal. Credit: brlka / Ysbryd Games
Developer brlka (Toby Alden) built precision platformer Love Eternal as an evolution of their earlier masocore platformer Love, with a satisfying gravity-switching gameplay hook layered with a surreal, unsettling, psychological horror narrative. I’ve been eagerly anticipating this game since I first played it at PAX West in 2024.
You can see a lot of Super Meat Boy, Celeste, and VVVVVV in the game’s design. To escape the strange castle where you’re trapped, you must survive rooms packed with spikes and few safe places to land. You’re able to jump and reverse gravity once before you touch the ground again, unless you shatter one of the floating red orbs that resets the ability. This makes the precision platforming a devious puzzle that requires perfect timing and understanding of the game’s gravity, inertia, and momentum. Of course, touching a spike means instant death.
Love Eternal. Credit: brlka / Ysbryd Games
The difficulty has increased quickly; sometimes I have a hard time perfecting the timing needed to exploit the gravity-switching physics. Every screen has a checkpoint, and you restart immediately on death, so I’ve been throwing myself into spiky death traps over and over until I succeed. Finishing a difficult room leaves me with sweaty palms and a deep sense of satisfaction after I stop holding my breath.
The presentation elevates the great gameplay. The pixel art is striking, with fluid animation and a moody palette that perfectly complements the game’s unsettling tone. Paired with sharp sound design and sparse writing, it creates a creeping sense of surreal horror and dread that’s unusual for a game in this genre. When I interviewed Toby at PAX, they spoke about their inspirations behind the game, and I could absolutely feel them as I played. Silent Hill, Twin Peaks, and more.
Love Eternal. Credit: brlka / Ysbryd Games
I haven’t finished the game yet, but I’m loving it so far. Movement and physics feel great, the puzzle design is clever, and I’m determined to see the rest of the story. This is another home run for Ysbryd Games, and I can’t recommend the game highly enough. Now I’m off to miscalculate more jumps and throw myself into spikes.
Love Eternal is available now on Steam, PlayStation 4/5, and Nintendo Switch.
