Game:

The Legend of Zelda (1986)

Category:

Review

Duration: 12:21

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Check out my full letsplay of Elli: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBCG90t2Pb8&list=PLcKfuX62QpbzAIkED7ZWClccPwU8-hYoy

Looking for platformers to play on the my switch I ran into this game called Elli. It being 20 euros did make me hesitate initially, but I’ll talk more about price later
The game is a classic third person platformer that weirdly reminded me of oldschool The Legend of Zelda games.
The entire games takes place during 1 ingame day. It’s Elli’s birthday and all the Time Crystals have been stolen. Without them there will be no tomorrow thus it’s up to you to recover them before the day ends.
As you progress through this adventure you move through a pretty decent variety in environmental design. From a desert to a super dark dungeon where you can barely see to even a volcano. Every environment has it’s own specific puzzle mechanic that you will utilize in many different ways. These mechanics range from color coded switches to levers or even bombs to blow things up.
Puzzling however is not the only form of gameplay. Elli being a platformer also has it’s fair share of jumping running and dodging hazards. The maps are filled with moving platforms, disappearing blocks and fires in need of evading. While all this is fairly smooth, the switch does show it’s lack of responsiveness at times as there will be moments with you yelling “BUT I JUMPED” at your screen.
Performance wise the game seems to run at a fairly stable 30 fps. There are however some areas where the fps seems to drop down quite a bit. These being few and far between makes the experience totally enjoyable and after a while even a self proclaimed PC Masterrace snob like me learns to deal perfectly fine with a 30 fps cap.
Graphically the game is nothing too spectacular. While the saturated colors and artwork are absolutely fine, the resolution seems to suffer quite a bit. This is further amplified by the complete lack of any anti-aliasing causing very rough looking outlines on objects / characters. The same can be said for both the handheld as well as the docked version.
Sound wise Elli delivers as expected but does not exceed it. The soundtracks are subtle and the sound effects are okay. Combine these 2 and there’s just about enough attention to sound design to keep me immersed but not impressed.
One big gripe with the sound is the lack of voiceacting. This considering there is a very small amount of dialogue in this game. Elli uses the Nintendo classic weird noises for voiceacting. An artistic decision I have never understood. However, as I mentioned there is very little dialogue, thus the issue does not bother me too much in this specific game.
All in all I beat the game in somewhere about 7 hours spread across 2 sessions. Having played about 75% on handheld and 25% on docked mode I’m quite convinced that the experience is pretty much identical.
The game can become slightly repetitive but does mix it up just enough for me to stick through to the end.


To keep your interested the game deploys a shop feature. In this shop you have the option to buy cosmetics for your character. You buy these cosmetics with either general coins (found everywhere) or hatcoins (found in hard to reach places) which are, as the name says, used to buy hats. While I found the idea interesting I quickly lost interest after buying my desired cosmetics and having no reason to equip anything else. Perhaps the game could have employed a perks system where each cosmetic gives you a minor boon. In it’s current implementation it feels like an interesting idea that unfortunately did not get to it’s full potential.
Personally I find the game to be just about worth it’s asking price. If you are looking for a decent puzzle platformer that will last you at the very least about 5 hours, then this is totally worth picking it. The way the game’s structured allows for short sessions with decent progress thus making it a good “on the go” game.
If for the 20 euro price you are expecting a game that will blow you away with new features or gameplay mechanics then you will be left disappointed and I unfortunately have to recommend you leave this game for a sale.


Eventide by mezhdunami. https://soundcloud.com/mezhdunami
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
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Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/GDT7XS30tTs

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