Etheria: Restart starts with the unthinkable happening — a seemingly endless “snowfall” of Cryosnow and Snowglow. While a harsh winter is a hazard all unto itself, the entire globe found itself victim to these storms. Not only that, but those who were exposed to this apocalyptic tempest soon found themselves losing their memories and entering a coma until they eventually perished. As a result, the United Government established shelters, and some time later, Etheria. Etheria contained an alternate digital world in which the United Government started the process of Etherization. Etherization allowed humans to “clone” themselves into Etheria itself, returning to some semblance of normality.
Etheria: Restart
Developer: XD Games
Price: Free to Play
Platform: Mobile (Google Play, Apple Store), Windows (Game-Specific Launcher, Steam version not live yet; Reviewed on Windows Game-Specific Launcher)
While humanity was saved, this miracle of technology also brought with it changes like the creation of Animuses — completely digital beings who lived alongside humanity. Change is not always welcome — anti-Etheria groups like R.C.S. make themselves known and manipulate Animuses with Genesis, causing them to go berserk. Genesis has an unknown origin but spreads from Animuses to infect technology, and if not cured soon enough, turns the infected into monsters. There is one way to combat this: Hyperlinkers.
You’ll play as a Hyperlinker, who acts as a bridge between multiple organizations and governments. Hyperlinkers also live in both worlds: the dangerous Cryosnow-filled real world and Etheria’s digital haven. Hyperlinkers can also protect Animuses from corruption by Genesis.
Etheria: Restart is a game that attempts to be many things, and succeeds at a surprising amount of those, but is ultimately held back by its gacha, F2P nature. With front-runners in the F2P space like Marvel Rivals and Honkai Star Rail leading the way, it does not reflect well on Etheria: Restart to be using F2P tactics from years, if not decades, ago. For my review, I started at launch at the same time as everyone else, and this made it very apparent that Etheria: Restart was determined not to let me rush through the story, as I found myself out of stamina fairly quickly. I was able to finish what there is of the story in under ten days, but that required following an unnatural playstyle of checking in every 12 hours.
Hoyoverse’s Honkai Star Rail, for instance, is glad you’re even playing the game and provides you with as much stamina as you can handle. This does trail off at a certain point, but even at that point, you can mop up achievements, or dive into a generous amount of extra content, or go into the Simulated Universe just for the heck of it if you’re really craving some turn-based fun. As a veteran Honkai Star Rail player, though there are dailies and weeklies to take care of, I am not playing on a strange schedule that may affect my personal life, work life, or sleep. I cannot say the same for Etheria: Restart. While Etheria: Restart does have an option for you to take care of fights in the background once you’ve proven your efficiency at them, it does not let you auto-complete a majority of fights, meaning you’ll have a window or your phone screen on this game auto-fighting. Bizarrely, Etheria: Restart does have a feature to automatically simulate and complete fights, as evidenced by the main campaign’s ability to instantly defeat enemies, but chooses not to implement that in other places.
I would not take such an issue with this if F2P games hadn’t moved forward, but there’s also the fact that Etheria: Restart has Esports ambitions as well. With some players seemingly having access to the game much earlier than others, it makes me a bit uneasy, as the top three players will receive cash prizes. While there is very little information on how this will work, I can’t say I understand or agree with Etheria: Restart asking players to get ready for a cash prize tournament by July 20th, when they are artificially slowing down players’ progression through the story mode. Even in Honkai Star Rail, though I would hit story barriers because a boss was too hard, all I had to do was commit to a bit of unit improvement, and there was plenty to do otherwise.
Etheria: Restart is a gacha game, so hunting for characters is the name of the game. There is a pity pull system and a ‘wish’ system for certain characters, but unfortunately, there are restrictions on who can be wished for. What this ultimately means is characters of the Constant and Disorder elements are at a premium, and in the current roster, extremely powerful. While there are some more powerful characters newer players easily have access to, like Sania, Lian, and Gray, in the world of living gacha games, that can change in an instant. On the other hand, you could invest your resources into a new character, or a character you just like, only for them to not have what it takes in PVE or PVP.
I found the story surprisingly consistent and good, though the game does sometimes take a moment to remind you it’s an anime to its detriment. As the story comes to its current conclusion, it illustrates a multi-level conspiracy of exploitation, transhumanism, and an existential question. There are also sub-stories for characters, detailing their lives before this current moment in time, that I found fairly engaging. I also want to thank the team at XD for including a skip button for the story, something Honkai Star Rail wouldn’t let you do until recently, and even then only with caveats.
Improving your characters is more or less what players are here for, and there’s a bevy of options to do so. Leveling characters up and ranking them to six stars, equipping and leveling shells, leveling prowess, and finding and leveling modules (equipment) are all what you’ll need to do to succeed in Etheria: Restart. Unfortunately, the lack of quality of life features regarding this and the sheer amount of cross-referencing you’ll have to do to go from zero to hero is daunting. Most perplexingly, there is no overall “power level” for you to quickly see if you’re able to confidently take on a PVP opponent, for instance. This is compounded by the star system, where a level one two-star character is much weaker than a level one six-star character, but at a glance, you could accidentally consider them equal. Having to sit at a pre-fight screen and determine whether you can actually take on this enemy, or worse, thinking you could take on an enemy and finding out you can’t — wasting both time and resources isn’t my definition of fun. It’s also important to keep in mind that you’re expected to do this dozens, if not hundreds, of times in a play session. I also could not find any sort of “enemy analysis” as games like these sometimes provide, so that if I really did want to nail down why the enemy wiped the floor with me, I can better prepare with different characters, equipment, or just come back when I’m stronger.
The game is very pretty, and takes on a modern/future aesthetic, and I didn’t mind. There are plenty of characters to collect, and the gender ratio and variety in body types and aesthetics fare much better than in a HoYoverse production. While it’s pretty obvious this game takes inspiration from others in the genre, including Honkai Star Rail, another interesting pull is the stealth system from Persona 5. These inspirations don’t detract from the game, but made me double-take as someone who’s familiar with both. Etheria: Restart may want to be a bit more careful with its translation and cribbing from other sources, as one mini-game says “Dragon Balls” verbatim.
While I have mentioned the monetization before, there is plenty to spend both in-game currency and actual currency on, though there are some freebies and rewards to work through over time as a newer player. As I played through the current story, character skins even popped up for purchase with real-world currency. It is hard to say if these purchases are worth it, but I was able to get to the end of the story without any purchases as of writing.
Etheria: Restart may be a “Restart” for the humans in its virtual world, but it is standard fare in the world of gacha games. The story’s consistency and interesting subject matter do a serviceable job of capturing the player’s attention. There is plenty here to do if you need a game to just occupy your time, but I question just how fun that is, ultimately. In the world of gacha games, some games respect your time more, and in general, there are video games that provide more fun without the temptation to spend real money. If you are used to or prepared to reference prydwen.gg every time you play, this may be a game for you.
The Final Word
While Etheria: Restart has solid worldbuilding and aesthetic appeal, its outdated free-to-play mechanics, tedious progression systems, and heavy reliance on gacha tropes hold it back from being a standout. It’s competent, but ultimately fails to respect the player’s time in meaningful ways.
MonsterVine Rating: 2.5 out of 5 – Mediocre