Elderand Reviews

Fun and solid Metroidvania! Great art, good atmosphere and setting. I loved finding secrets and new gear.

I really wish I could recommend this game, because if there were some considerable tweaks to the gameplay, it could have been an incredible souls-vania. First off, the art and vibe is pretty cool. I'm a sucker for anything dark fantasy/medieval & souls-like so it really drew me in. But unfortunately, that's where the buck stops. I read several reviews of people complaining about your character's attacks being really slow. I recently beat Death's Gambit Afterlife, so I figured maybe it would be like that, larger more powerful weapons are slower and you have to make calculated attacks and not just hack and slash your way through. BOY WAS I WRONG, and boy were those reviews right. Your character's attacks are PAINFULLY slow. And all of the enemies, literally all of them, can attack twice as fast. So even if you block with shield and wait for an opening, the enemy will 100% always have the opportunity to hit you in the middle of your attack animation before your hit lands. It's honestly infuriating. To make things worse, once you're in mid combo, that thang is finishing, no dashing, jumping out or changing directions to cancel. And all of this combined with an incredibly short attack reach, I cannot tell you how many times I dashed in just to serve a 3-piece combo to mid-air while the enemy is an inch away from the reach of my attack. Blasphemous also had a fairly short attack reach, but that was balanced out by how fast you could spam attacks. A disclaimer, I've beaten quite a few souls-like games at this point, so this IS NOT a "git-gud" situation, the actual mechanics of attacking, dodging, parrying all of it, is just so slow it really ruins the fun. And I really gave the game an honest chance. I cleared 4-5 areas and beat 3 different boss fights, so I think that's enough to decide that it's just not for me. One other positive I will say, is that the game grants you a few classic abilities like double-jump and fast travel earlier in the game than you would expect in a souls-vania. After just the second and third boss at that. In hindsight, I feel like that may have been a mechanic to make the game more bearable earlier on. But the excitement of gaining those abilities was short lived once the absolute slog of gameplay continued as the following areas had enemy strength and HP scaling upward, while your character is still stuck attacking in slow-mo. It just completely deflated my excitement and made the game feel like a chore/work. I'm normally quite patient with games, and this one really has frustrated me enough to totally lose interest and I have no issue abandoning it. If the gameplay was balanced out more this would really have a shot at being something pretty great. I only suggest buying the game if you really love the visuals and have no other release you're looking forward to and you need a game to bridge the gap. TL:DR: Only recommend if you really really love the visuals, because the slow attacking/gameplay is punishing in all of the wrong ways. If the gameplay was balanced out more this would really have shot at being something pretty great.