Eternal Daughter

Eternal Daughter is a 2002 freeware action-platformer created by Derek Yu, combining exploration, combat, platforming, and a surprisingly substantial adventure. The game follows a young heroine through a sprawling world filled with enemies, secrets, bosses, and obstacles, drawing inspiration from classic console action games while adding its own distinctive style. Its challenging gameplay rewards patience and careful movement, especially when confronting bosses that seem to have taken your continued existence personally. The pixel-art presentation has plenty of charm, but the real attraction is how much game is packed into a freeware release. It is an impressive early example of the creativity that would become a hallmark of indie PC development.

“Eternal Daughter is an epic platform game that took myself and my friend Jon two years to make and nearly destroyed our immortal souls. It's an homage to some of our favorite games from our preteen years, like Super Metroid and Castlevania: SOTN.” - Derek Yu

Review by Game Hippo:

“Eternal Daughter is a platform adventure which borrows a few ideas from Metroid and Castlevania. Your goal is to stop the Dungaga from enslaving your people. Eternal Daughter features several large bosses, weapons, and powerups. Eternal Daughter is more challenging than many similar freeware games, but the enemies are predictable enough to make this game beatable for those with patience. The graphics in Eternal Daughter are great and vary throughout the game.“