Eternal Daughter (PC) Windows

This is a classic freeware Metroidvania platformer developed by the people responsible for Spelunky, Aquaria, and (most recently) UFO 50.

The player is cast as Mia, a young girl born into slavery under the Dungaga race. When her mother is about to get hurt in a temple, she interferes and discovers her powers. Mia has to escape the bonds of her oppressors, find the leader behind this evil and explore her abilities.

Mia can jump, crouch, swim and slide back, and she has 3 different means of attack: a swing for melee combat, a ranged attack and a special weapon when it's available. During her quest she can extend or replenish her health, acquire special weapons and enhance her weapon power. The level path is not linear and there are often entirely different regions to explore in any order. The story unfolds through in-game sequences, when Mia meets characters or defeats bosses.

This game is known for being notoriously difficult and saving is done from save points just like most other Metroidvania titles.

Here's a quote from Derek Yu about the game:

"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.

Even though the gameplay is familiar, the world, the characters, and the story are all our own. The game also marks my first teaming up with Swedish music virtuoso, David Saulesco, who produced an original soundtrack for the game. We've been happy together ever since."

Things to Note:

This game has been paired with dgVoodoo for better Windows 10/11 support and to change the display options use dgVoodooCpl.exe. The game requires the Arial Narrow Bold font, and it's included in case you don't have it installed (which is highly unlikely since it's so common, but it's there just in case)

The music in this game is all MIDI based. I've included the installers for my recommended MIDI playback apps VirtualMIDISynth and MIDIMapper in the download. You're welcome to use different apps but I've always found those the best for modern Windows. A highly accurate soundfont based on classic Microsoft GS Wavetable is included and will be the most period accurate sound for a game using MIDI from 2002. If you would like to try a different soundfont with the game I've uploaded all the ones I've collected and used to MEGA in this folder. (You might would like to try some of these soundfonts with the other MIDI featured games on the repo like the MS-DOS and PC-98 games)

Some important info about VirtualMIDISynth and MIDIMapper can be found on their pages here and here.

The game can use a controller but for some reason there isn't a button mapped to continue the text when talking to an NPC. Using a button mapper app such as AntiMicroX to map based on the keyboard controls would be a better option instead.

A Wayback Archive backup of an old but good full walkthrough of the game can be found here (some images in the page are missing)

And lastly to play the game just launch Eternal Daughter.exe