Ariana is really into Books
Ariana is a librarian at a very special library which houses the powerful Seven Hero Codices, the source of all of the world’s magic. Tragedy strikes when they are altered by a malevolent force, causing magic to vanish from the world. Ariana is tasked with delving into the codices themselves to restore them to their former glory, all while learning about the mysteries of her parents’ disappearance and the library itself.
While the initial hook isn’t bad, there really isn’t enough meat in the story to ever get engrossed in it.
MSRP: $29.99
Price I’d pay: $19.99
Platforms: PC, PS4/5, NSW
Length: 11~ hours
The thought of having to go inside legendary codices, experiencing the tale within and restoring them seems interesting enough, the game doesn’t do much in terms of the characters or overall plot. The handful of characters that form the main cast aren’t very interesting and aren’t developed much throughout the course of the story. The plot itself is uninteresting, and I was able to sniff out the main antagonist the first time I met them, and this was definitely not because I’m particularly insightful, rather it was just painfully predictable.
As a metroidvania, the story and characters aren’t the main reasons why I play games in this genre, but it certainly helps to keep the interest up during the playthrough to have some level of intrigue.
The story presented is far too predictable and uninteresting to be the driving force of the game, thankfully it isn’t.
For me, the main draws for the genre have also been about exploration and combat. Both of which are handled fairly well here.
Each of the codices are gateways to a separate level, featuring different locales, enemies and a boss at the end.
I don’t mind the stage-based levels, as this cuts down on excessive backtracking/getting lost.
As I progressed through the different stages, I was able to unlock new mobility options that allowed me to access areas like a double jump and a stomp attack that breaks certain types of floors. It’s all by the book, staples of the genre but they’re staples for a good reason, they just work and are satisfying to unlock.
Revisiting previously cleared stages with new moves to complete every stage was fun and convenient, with quick travel to rest points and the upgrade materials earned to power up spells and increase my max HP was enough incentive for me to 100% the whole game before the credits rolled.
Exploring the stages to 100% and completing all the sub objectives was fun and it gave me access to a lot of upgrade materials to upgrade my spells.
As for the combat, the controls are a little bit on the clunky side compared to some other games in the genre like Silksong, and the Ender series. I often found myself casting spells on the wrong side due to the way the input worked alongside movement and platforming felt quite stiff, especially before double jump is unlocked.
Having said that, it’s not terrible and the real fun was in mixing and matching different types of magic spells together. For example, one of my favorite combos was a gathering of enemies using blackhole magic, followed by a wheel of fire and a big pillar of water. While all this was going on, I was still free to swing in with my sword swings, annihilating an entire group of enemies before they could even move.
This was just one example, and I often liked to mix things up, sometimes using familiar magic to summon autonomous allies to dish out some support damage while I zoned out enemies with magic that had a lot of push-back effects and more.
Add to that, accessories that have some unique effects, I was spending a good amount of time messing around with different spell combinations and having a good time.
Welcome to the Kill Box.
While I like the flexibility of the spell system, one major issue I had was how difficult it was to see anything on the screen with all these spell effects going off at the same time. After all, it’s not just myself that can cast big AoE spells, the enemies could as well. Discerning which was mine and which was the enemy’s was not something I did by seeing, but instead by taking damage.
As far as the difficulty goes, I found it to be utterly trivial on Normal and bumped it up to Hard mode which was still too easy. That remained true until the final boss, which was such a bump up in difficulty that it left me utterly shocked, eventually dropping the difficulty back down to normal to beat it.
In my defense, the final boss loved spamming attacks and with the visibility issue, I was mostly getting hit by attacks I couldn’t see and since the game decided that something like .2 seconds was enough of an invincibility window before being able to take damage again, I was getting multi-hit to death constantly which was quite annoying.
All the bosses except for the final boss required one try, I have no idea what they were thinking with this drastic difficulty bump at the end.
Ariana and the Elder Codex is a decent metroidvania and one fans of the genre who are desperate for another game to play might enjoy. However, due to its predictable story, uninteresting characters and some notable flaws with visibility/unbalanced difficulty, it’s also one that’s harder to recommend than some others in the genre.
Fun Tidbit: I ended up wanting to check this game out due to a recommendation of someone who also raised interest in Loop 8, which ended up being one of the worst games I’ve ever played. While this game isn’t nearly as bad as that one, I will stop taking recommendations from this person in general.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
