Elta: Defy All Gods - Demo Review Summary

A beautiful watercolor Metroidvania with fluid traversal, satisfying combat, and excellent exploration, though combat depth and divisive art may disappoint some.

Praised Watercolor Art Style: Many reviewers adore the hand-painted, watercolor, and pastel art direction. The style is described as unique, recognizable, and visually stunning.

Satisfying Combat Feel: Combat is frequently highlighted as exceptional, with satisfying strikes, responsive controls, and impactful hit feedback. The game feel is consistently praised.

Excellent Exploration and Metroidvania: Exploration is praised as a true 3D metroidvania with clear maps, rewarding backtracking, and engaging traversal mechanics. The level design is considered top-notch.

Fluid Movement and Traversal: Movement mechanics such as jump, double jump, air dash, wall run, grapple, and glider are quick, responsive, and exhilarating to chain together.

Charming Dragon Companion: Elta, the small dragon, is both a cute character and a useful gameplay tool. The contrast with giant bosses is appreciated.

Visual and art style criticized: Many find the art direction weird or unappealing, with blurry textures and poor lighting. The brush effect is seen as stretched and ugly.

Combat lacks depth and variety: Combat is described as primitive with short combos, excessive hitstun, and easy enemies. Regular mobs pose no threat and can be defeated by spamming attacks.

Level design feels restrictive: Arbitrary invisible walls and unclear paths make the semi-open levels feel linear and confusing. Players often get lost or go in circles.

Camera and targeting issues: Camera angles are awkward, especially during combat, and target switching is slow. The camera struggles to follow bosses during leaps or falls.

Cumbersome saving interrupts gameplay: Saving triggers a cutscene and a loading screen, making it slow and disruptive. Players want quick saves without kneeling animations or reloading.

Deep combo-driven combat system: Combat features light and strong attacks, combos, skill gauges, jump attacks, and dragon attacks that chain smoothly. The system feels good and supports guard breaks and meter building.

Action-adventure Metroidvania genre: Reviews consistently identify the game as an action-adventure Metroidvania with 3D exploration. The map is clear and backtracking is rewarded, with abilities unlocked quickly to support progression.

Rich movement and traversal options: Traversal includes jump, double jump, air dash, wall run, grapple, and glider. Movement feels quick and responsive, enabling 3D platforming and opening new passages and treasures.

Challenging multi-phase boss fights: Boss fights feature giant bosses with multiple phases. A targeting system helps manage these encounters, including the demo boss The Chosen.

Progression through upgrades and unlocks: Players unlock new abilities quickly and can find upgrades like half-hearts, damage boosts, skills, and a talent tree. A Kinetica page tracks upgrades focused on damage, break damage, and utility.

Smooth performance praised: Several users report the demo runs perfectly smoothly on PC without any freezing or crashing. Performance is described as lightweight with zero stutter.

Saving requires loading screen: One user notes that saving the game triggers a loading screen, which may disrupt gameplay flow.

Positive purchase intent feedback: Multiple clusters express strong enthusiasm, including instant buy, mandatory purchase, pre-order consideration, and recommendations to others. This indicates broad positive sentiment toward the game.

Wait for full release: One cluster indicates a preference to wait until the game's full release rather than purchasing now. This suggests some players are cautious about early access or incomplete versions.

Metroidvania genre recommendation: A specific cluster explicitly recommends buying this as a metroidvania game. This highlights genre appeal as a motivating factor for purchase.

Game completion: 1.0h.

Session length: 1.0h.

Compared to God of War and Metroid Prime: Multiple reviewers describe the game as a blend of God of War and Metroid Prime, calling it a dream combination. The combat is specifically compared to God of War, including its PS2 era.

Story follows warrior monk Victus: The narrative centers on Victus, an elite warrior monk searching for his lost dragon god Elta on the icy planet Lerna. The protagonist is depicted as a large red robot, and he encounters a small green dragon named Elta.

3D metroidvania with Metroid Prime level design: The game is described as a 3D metroidvania, with level design specifically compared to Metroid Prime. This positions it within the exploration-focused action-adventure genre.

Demo covers prologue and boss fight: The demo includes the prologue and the beginning of the adventure, ending after a boss fight. It provides a substantial slice of early gameplay.

Developed by small Afterburner team: Afterburner Studios, a team of about fifteen people, developed the game. This highlights the indie scale behind the project.