Elderand - A Dark and Gritty Metroidvania Experience

Elderand is a game that throws you into the dark and immersive world, thereby providing you an intense metroidvania experience with focus on exploration and combat. Calling it a labor of love is not an understatement – Elderand has well crafted level design, offense and challenging enemies, and a dark story.

The first thing that anyone who gets a chance to play Elderand will most likely notice is the art style used while developing the game. The pixel art of the game is top-notch with detailed environment and creatures that even give off a sense of despair and mystery.

From the eerie forest to the creepy dungeons all areas seem to be active and menacing, therefore compelling the players to go through every corner. Let’s talk about the lighting and color which is used quite effectively in here and creates even more despair in the already dark gaming environment. Essentially, the structure of gameplay in Elderand is made up of exploration and combat.

I always enjoyed the huge number of different monsters available in every level of the facility each with their own approach to killing you. Players engage in action that is refreshing, tactical, and intuitive rather than being action-oriented and thus hack-and-slash. This is especially true in the later and most difficult boss fights which are the end-point of such a strategy based game. This is because, the element that stands out in Elderand as one of the game’s strongest assets is in how it’s progressed.

There are numerous weapons, items, and abilities that you will come across in your adventure that will allow you to define your playing style. Regardless of what, the player enjoys a great number of opportunities for the character creation and, thus, the choice of preferred fighting style – with the sword or with the magic, or, maybe, with both at once.

Clearly the story – although it often makes one wonder how it got there in the first place – is very much part of the world. Flashbacks are used to throw lore in the player’s way and forcing them to figure out the storyline on their own. This makes the game even more interesting in terms of gameplay as it adds prof-aided depth to the game’s universe.

All in all, Elderand proves to be worthy of the audience’s attention of the Metroidvania genre lovers. Combined with difficult play throughs, eerie setting, and extensive customization, it is one hell of a title that is engaging from beginning to the end.