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-] 

Mega Man: Battle & Chase (PS1) Retro Review

MEGA MAY races on, quite literally, with our next retro review featuring Capcom's super fighting robot. But this time, he's Capcom's super racing robot with Mega Man: Battle & Chase on the original PlayStation.

Road Rage with the Blue Bomber

I remember back in the days of gaming magazines being the go-to source for news and announcements about games, and growing unbearably excited towards a little preview--it was maybe 1/8th of the page--of a newly unveiled racing game featuring the Blue Bomber. This game was Mega Man: Battle & Chase, and immediately upon seeing it in incredibly brief preview form, I was beyond hyped. I loved Mario Kart and other mascot racing games--still do--and I loved Mega Man--again, still do. It was a perfect storm for a game for a much younger me to be excited about.

Of course, my excitement would eventually turn into disappointment when Mega Man: Battle & Chase never released on the original PlayStation--at least here in North America. It had a final build--final PREVIEW build for magazines, at that--but it never saw a release here, instead releasing only in Europe and Japan. North Americans would finally get the chance to get behind the driver's seat as the Blue Bomber only when the Mega Man X Collection launched, with Battle & Chase as a bonus game included. 

You can bet your last Energy Tank that I jumped on that collection quickly, as a Mega Man X fan and as someone who waited YEARS to finally play Mega Man: Battle & Chase. Was my wait worth it? Well, yes! But, how is the game today? Is it still worth tracking down and playing? Mega May continues with my look at Mega Man: Battle & Chase.

Grand Prix is the main mode of Mega Man: Battle & Chase, and it's a series of races that can--apart from the final two races--be chosen in any order. It starts off with selecting between one of ten characters to race as. Each character, whether they be Mega Man, Proto Man, Roll, Bass, or one of several Robot Masters throughout the series, has their own reason for entering the Grand Prix and going after the multi-million Zenny prize. It's worth playing through the Grand Prix as different characters, at least once thru, just to see the epilogue for a given character. 

Mega Man leads the pack in his Rush Roadster.

Each character possesses their own vehicle, and in typical Mega Man-inspired fashion, beating other racers allows you to take one part of four from their vehicle: either a wing, an engine, a set of tires, and after all three previous parts are eventually taken through racing and winning against an opponent multiple times, the body of their vehicle entirely.

Oh, Quick Man, always so dramatic and not slow with the theatrics.

The body of each characters' vehicles is where their specific power lies. When racing against opponents like Ice Man, you'll contend with him dropping chunks of ice on the track and potentially blasting you with a freezing shot of energy, temporarily stopping your ability to steer. Through taking the body of Ice Man's vehicle upon racing and winning against him a fourth and final time, you can equip the vehicle's body part to use Ice Man's exclusive ability for yourself. 

Each character in Mega Man: Battle & Chase has two unique abilities. One is used normally, while the second needs the energy meter at the top of the screen to fully charge to use. Whereas Mega Man can pelt enemies and obstructions with normal shots of his Mega Buster, when the energy meter is fully charged, he can let loose and launch a charged shot, able to spin out opponents with a direct hit. Meanwhile, Proto Man can toggle where his famous shield rests, either on the front or rear of his vehicle to deflect attacks, while his Proto Strike can be used as a semi-homing shot on nearby racers ahead of him. 

Take your newly won parts and mix and match them as needed to give an edge on different tracks.

The other parts of vehicles apart from the body: wings, engines, and tires, are just as important, as they give different abilities as well, albeit passive ones. From Guts Man's Press Tires that prohibit slowing down over dirt and other off-road ground, to Quick Man's Dash Engine that gives great acceleration for a trade-off of average max speed, each part has its own pros and cons. Combining these parts into a chimera-like vehicle might look silly in aesthetics, but they're generally majorly helpful put into practice and use. 

Each opponent you face has their own home track with different obstacles and hazards to contend with. Roll's Streets track is the simplest with gentle corners and little in the way of obstacles, Quick Man's Ridge track is full of twists, turns, canyons, and water to race over, and Napalm Man's Arms Factory track is home to plenty of de-acceleration zones that slow you down upon riding over them as well as conveyor belts pushing your vehicle left, right, forwards, and backwards. Shortcuts aren't generally an option in these tracks, save for a select few of the 12+ tracks available. Either way, most are short and sweet, and that's good as these are all five-lap races.   

Time to drop some Bass on our opponents and drop the pretense--we've got a race to win!

Each time you beat the initial set of racers, Dr. Wily rears his bald head in. Two final races are unlocked, one after the other. If those are successfully beaten and the credits roll, you're tasked with playing through Grand Prix mode again as the same character, taking on the initial set of racers over again to unlock the Wily races. If you want all of the parts in Mega Man: Battle & Chase, you'll need to finish Grand Prix mode and do this process as a given character no less than four times. The aspect that stinks about this is that parts don't carry over between playthroughs with different characters, so if you want to start a new save file as say, Spring Man, after playing a file as say, Shadow Man, then you have to start all over. 

As for the gameplay itself, I initially found myself not really jiving with the steering or controls. My intuition with racing games, especially kart or mascot racers like Battle & Chase, is to drift around turns. Battle & Chase pretty much lacks a conventional drift option, so my intuition then told me to brake around corners to take them more sharply. This proved not the answer nor helpful either. Instead, it turned out that simply taking most corners at full speed was smarter than slowing down. The only time this was not the go-to solution was when going too fast would result in me slipping or sliding straight off the course, like on Ice Man's track and those dastardly chasms that litter parts of the track. By my second or third race, I started getting into a better groove, coming to terms with the controls and steering, and doing better in races. 

Some vehicle parts do better and worse on certain road--whether uphill, downhill, dirt, water, etc.

Another aspect of a lot of kart and mascot racing games is that of items. Mega Man: Battle & Chase goes a different route with these much like it does with driving and drifting. Items are not handled by racing over panels or through item boxes like other mascot racing games. Instead, there's a bit of a creative touch to items. By defeating Mega Man enemies like well-known Mega Man minions like Metools, sprinkled and scattered along the track, a counter ticks down. Once it hits zero, your racer of choice gets an item through a roulette. Now, this counter generally starts at 10, but certain items used on yourself for a positive outcome or items used on you by your opponents for a negative outcome, can make the counter to get an item shorter or longer respectively. It's a clever and innovative approach to items, and it works rather well in theory and practice.

Quick, Quick Man! Cross that finish line, as Guts Man's breathing down your neck.

At any rate, the items range in offensive and defensive capabilities. Some affect your opponents while others assist you. From helpful invincibility that speeds you up a la Mario Kart star power, to items that temporarily stop your opponent from attacking or strikes them all with a halting bolt of lightning, the items are quite useful. 

And there's some strategy in item usage, too. While you might want to hold on to a particular item, you can only hold onto one item at a time, and if you do so, any enemies you defeat won't tick down the counter. It's wasted effort there. So, there's indeed strategy in when to use an item and when to hold onto it. 

Outside of the Grand Prix mode and the 48 parts available to mix and match your ride with, there is a Versus Mode as well, available for two players to race each other and any CPU opponents you might like as well. Tracks not seen in the Grand Prix mode are available here, as are characters like Dr. Wily and the super-difficult-to-unlock Duo of Mega Man 8 fame. These two are unplayable within the Grand Prix mode.

Mega Man: Battle & Chase presents a simple graphical package. The visuals are suitably colorful, crisp, and character and vehicle models are well done, all said. Meanwhile, the tracks--the playground upon you race on--are less of an appealing part of the package. They're really low-resolution and multiple parts of tracks see routine clipping as an issue. Nothing game-breaking or fun-destroying, but prominent all the same. 

It is, however, especially cool that the game is split up between three views. The map of the track sits in the bottom-right corner, while the main racing takes place on the upper half. The lower-left corner generally shows your rival as well as any special action in the race. This is especially nifty when you drop a bomb on the track, and when your rival approaches it, you can see it detonate and send your rival flying into the air.  

Here, we get a secondary view of Ice Man, who is obviously stunned Shadow Man is beating him so badly.

The audio got a downgrade when compared to the Japanese original version. Now, don't get me wrong--the music and sound effects are fantastic. Heck, Roll's theme here will be familiar to anyone who played Marvel vs. Capcom. The downgrade comes from a lack of commentary that plays during races in the Japanese version that simply isn't present in the English release. No doubt the budget and cost would have risen from translating all the spoken dialogue and voicing it, but it can still be disappointing, if even slightly.

Mega Man: Battle & Chase is without a doubt one of the more overlooked entries in the Blue Bomber's storied series of games. Of course, not releasing in a major part of the world would do such a thing, and that is unfortunate, too. Battle & Chase is brimming with charm, is a unique and more importantly, fun take on the mascot racing game, and I'm sure if more people got to play it, they'd find a lot to like about the game, too.

[SPC Says: B-] 

The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales (Multi) Prologue Demo Trailer

Ahead of its release next month, the Zelda and Ys-like HD-2D game, The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales has a brand-new demo--this time for everyone--now available. This Prologue allows players to begin the opening of the game and carry over their save to the full release of the game when it launches on all current platforms June 18, 2026. For now, enjoy this trailer from Square Enix.