Elementallis (Multi) Review

Taking another detour from reviewing Mega Man games for MEGA MAY, we turn to a Zelda-like indie game that released towards the end of last month: Elementallis. Here is the SPC review!

The elements come together for one highly capable Zelda clone.

In the world of Elementallis, the elements that hold the world together are breaking apart, and it's our protagonist's guilt-driven duty to restore them. The story of Elementallis and the motivation behind the custom-named hero (who can be selected as male, female, or non-binary--a nice option to see) are essentially all to do with the sins of their parents. The protagonist's parents set off the chain of events that have sent the elements wild and is seeking to right their wrongs. It's an intriguing premise, though not greatly helped by the overabundance of chatty characters with a lot of words but little of value to say, segments of dialogue, and interruptions to the gameplay. Still, it's a worthwhile tale, all in all.

After the initial bits of story, you're thrust into this Zelda-like adventure's world. Elementallis does a pretty good job of indirectly and organically guiding you to your next objective or area you're supposed to go. This is done by presenting you with roadblocks in the form of gates that require certain elements to destroy, remove, push out of the way, etc. 

Every adventure starts somewhere, and in Elementallis, the journey proper begins in this forest habitat.

Each main environmental zone, or biome, in the world of Elementallis has its own problem due to the elements being out of wack. For example, the first main zone you go to, that of a volcanic mining area, sees little in the way of lava flow due to the volcanoes at the top of the mountains slumbering. This proves to be a problem for the town below which uses the lava to assist in crafting and forging weapons and armor. Thus, our hero needs to make their way to the zone's temple to restore the element to its rightful glory.

That's basically the structure to Elementallis. You head to a new zone--be it a lava mountain, forest, beach, and so forth--listen to the plight of the people in the zone, make your way to the temple, solve puzzles and beat the bosses inside, and restore the element to hopefully bring back life or at the very least a sense of normalcy or calm to the area.

There are times where the camera will zoom out to impressive effect to present a nice sense of scale, 
as seen here with this glimpse at this icy temple we're about to embark into.

Temples in Elementallis are the dungeons of the game. These house plenty of puzzles to solve, whether that be pushing blocks onto buttons to weigh them down, for example, a multitude of enemies to defeat, copious amounts of keys to unlock doors, and of course, hazards and obstacles alike all over. 

Oh, come ON! Even Indiana Jones only had to deal with ONE rolling boulder!

The first phase of each temple involves reaching where the dungeon "item" slumbers. In this Zelda-like's case, this always comes in the form of a new elemental magic. There are eight total to collect in Elementallis, thus there being eight temples to travel to, through, and complete. Each elemental magic is guarded by the temple's midboss, and then you progress forward to the room housing the magic itself. 

Elementallis once again follows an indirect, organic manner of teaching the player how to use a new elemental magic by making entrances into the room housing the magic one-way. The only manner of exiting the room is to use the just-learned magic to form an escape route. For instance, with the fire elemental magic, you use it to launch fireballs to light two braziers, thus opening the locked door in true Zelda-like fashion. This then allows you to reach the temple's big key through solving puzzles and making progress with your new magic, and then facing the temple's boss.

Each elemental magic serves a dual purpose. The Water magic not only serves as a shield, 
but it also allows you to walk over bodies of water.

Again, in true Zelda-like fashion, Elementallis' bosses generally involve using the magic you earned from its boss's temple to use the power against it. Still, even with this knowledge in tow and in the back of your mind, these encounters can still idle between difficult and obnoxious. Thankfully, there are ways to mitigate the challenge through having potions of various types in your possession, such as those that temporarily boost your attack or defense, or serve as a one-time "pick me up" upon losing all your hearts.

Between the constantly moving conveyors and the shocking shots of electricity that stun you, 
I was admittedly not a fan of this particular boss battle.

With each elemental magic earned, new areas of the overworld open up for exploration. The fire element can burn obstructing thorns, the nature element can be used to grow climbable vines on specially marked spots of ground to scale to reach new areas, and the ice magic can freeze the ground in front of you--making certain otherwise immovable objects able to be slid across the ice. By the end of the game, you have eight elements to utilize, but it's never hard to cycle through them thanks to a radial menu that can be brought up at any time during gameplay. This slows the action around your character as you make an elemental selection. 

Overworld exploration isn't just useful for finding out where to go next and how to progress. Instead, it's also for discovering a bounty of treasure in the world as well. From health-increasing Heart Pieces (collecting four bestows a new heart to your health) and Mana Shards (the rule of four applies here, though these extend your Mana/magic gauge), to Gold aplenty, Potion slots, and Wallet upgrades, there is plenty to find that makes exploring Elementallis' world worthwhile. 

The Wind magic allows the ability to dash across certain gaps, like this one for a Heart Piece.

While using the elements and having them serve as items is a clever concept, Elementallis doesn't do that much with the concept. Puzzles tend to always devolve into the same things. If you see a brazier, light it with the fire magic. If you see a patch of soft dirt ground, use the nature magic to plant a seed that turns into a vine. If you see a destructible wall, use the earth magic to destroy it a la bombs in Zelda. There's very little thinking outside of the box throughout the game. One item or magic seemingly always just has the same uses each time, so you pretty much by the end of the game are continuing to go through the motions with the game's puzzles.

I would have liked to have seen more interactions between elemental magic. The game does little to encourage using multiple elements on enemies, and instead you basically rely on only one at a time. Thus, by the time the game does require you to use two elements to solve a puzzle, I was flummoxed initially because the game hadn't really taught me until this moment to even think about combining elements. And this is in the final temple of the game where this happens. Thus, when I had to look up the solution, I was more annoyed than anything else. Again, had the puzzle design and game encouraged combining elemental magic ahead of time and in a consistent basis, this solution would have been more natural to me.

That notwithstanding, Elementallis' world is absolutely dense with secrets. There's definitely a lot to do outside of following along the main story path, whether that be collecting the previously discussed Heart and Mana Shards, increasing your Wallet capacity, upgrading your sword and armor, adding slots to your inventory to hold more Potions (these Potions are a must in the unlockable Hero mode, where enemies don't drop hearts and you take double damage from attacks), and completing various side quests, including an optional dungeon. 

Looks like these Snowmen brought snowballs to a Nature magic fight.

Also optionally, there's a Bestiary that you can complete. By defeating new enemies, their page gets added to said Bestiary, and through defeating a given enemy a specific number of times, their entry fills out more and more until it's fully complete. This is not only needed for achievement purposes, but it's also just fun to fill out for lore reason, too.

Overall, Elementallis was an enjoyable journey for me. It doesn't reach anywhere near the same highs of the Zelda series it's inspired by, but it does bring some new ideas to the table. While I would have liked less chatty interruptions in the game, more required elemental interactions, and a greater use for these elements for solving puzzles instead of the same rote solutions, I did like exploring the overworld for secrets, how organic exploration in general was, and the simple visual charm of the game. Elementallis may not have absolutely floored me in its 15-20 hour adventure, but it did impress all the same.

[SPC Says: B-]