TL;DR: This is a good game. The story is engaging, the dialogue is well written and the characters are believable enough to suspend my disbelief. And yes, the sex scenes are pretty good too.
9.5/10 would recommend
Full review + criticisms:
As of version 0.2, I have only seen one actual sex scene (and I'm about 80% sure I didn't miss any others), and a few other softcore scenes, and they've all been very well-animated and shot.
If you played Caribdis's other game, Once in a Lifetime, you will notice the huge graphical improvements in Eternum. The lighting is great, and the models are incredible, especially their faces (my god, Luna has the prettiest computer-generated face I've ever seen, not even exaggerating.)
As for gameplay, this will be your run-of-the-mill visual novel. No RPG elements, no turn-based battles, and in my opinion that's for the best, since the game is heavily focused on the story, which as I've already stated, is of good quality. There's also the brand-new Gallery feature, which makes it much easier to rewatch the sex scenes you've unlocked, instead of having to scroll through 10 pages of save-files.
Eternum has a lot better cinematography and poses compared to Once in a Lifetime. The animation's quantity and quality has also greatly improved, not just in the sex scenes, but also in important story beats, which is used to great effect.
Going back to graphics, the environments in this game are extremely well-made. You can tell Caribdis spent a fuckton of time carefully selecting assets and placing them one by one until they could create these detailed worlds. (Or maybe they used pre-made scenes in which case I will sound very stupid but either anyway good job to whoever did the scene design). The premise of the story allows the game to believably take place in a huge array of different settings, so there's a little bit for everyone.
Now, for the writing: It's quite good. There's a lot less of the unexplained falling-in-love-with-the-protagonist type moments and the women are written more realistically, and usually not in a way that lets the MC get away with whatever borderline sex-criminal idea pops into his head. However, if you played Once in a Lifetime, you will notice that a lot of characters are almost spiritual successors to their counterparts in Once in a Lifetime. The group of women the protagonist initially finds himself in is almost the exact same structurally (A MILF mommy and two step-sisters, except that this time, the mommy is actually the protag's old babysitter, and the sisters are her daughters + a female childhood friend that wasn't in OiaLt). Of course, this doesn't automatically mean they're bad characters. I like them, in fact. The protagonist is almost the exact same person as the first game, though I can understand why that is, seen as there aren't many other character types that could fit as the man in a harem environment. And to be fair, not every character in Eternum can be paired with every other character in OiaLt, but I can try to explain it to the best of my ability.
Nancy: 65% Carla, but she's got a much more open and cool attitude.
Dalia: 90% Lauren, but she looks like Judie, and the other 10% is new.
Penelope: I honestly could not tell you, but she's like, 20% Rebecca I guess? Penelope is pretty much the hardest character to describe. She's cool, though.
Annie: 90% Judie, but with an extra helping of shyness and a bunch less confidence.
Luna: She's my favorite. Lauren was my favorite in OiaLt, so I guess that means I have a thing for brunettes, but I already knew that. Anyway, I digress. Luna is introverted, book smart and kind. So a little like Judie, I guess. But she has some other quirks that make her almost a wholly different character. Very cool, I like her.
Nova: So... picture uhh... I-Iris, I think? Uhhhh... but like... more uhh... wild, I guess...?
Alex: Tsundere-type, tattoos, kinda tomboy-ish but not really once you get to know her, that kinda character. I like her.
Eva (Bonus Character): (╹ڡ╹ )
There's also one more character slot in the Relationships screen, but they have yet to appear.
I also have a random statement to make: I think it's great that women that don't fit into the "ideal," hourglass, firm tits and round ass body type are no longer demonized by every single character, like they were in Once in a Lifetime. Of course, that's still mostly the case for the protagonist, since the hourglass figure is most players' preference. Still, there's a particular character that's super into a particular body-builder type girl, and that's nice step in the right direction.
Now, the criticisms. They are mostly minor QoL things that are probably easy to fix.
- I remember reading somewhere during the tutorial that text can be hidden by pressing H on PC, but as far as I know, there's no way to do it on Android, which is the platform I use. So if you could add it, that'd be nice.
- The Relationships menu could use some QoL improvements, though the most notable problem I can think of off the top of my head is that when I select one of the girls, then press return, it exits the menu entirely, instead of going back to the "Girl Select" screen, or whatever you wanna call it. That has made it very annoying to use in some occasions.
- Auto-forward speed is way too slow even when setting the slider to the max value, so it would be nice if that limit could be increased.
That's about it, I finished playing the content for 0.2 a couple days ago, so my memory isn't all that fresh.
Thanks for reading, and thank you for the game, Caribdis. I'll be patiently waiting for 0.3.