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Nostalgia is a powerful thing , peculiarly in video game . consecrate how much the industry care about having thenewest , most powerful techor getting in on the very most late drift , it can be surprising to see how many game hearken back to the other plot , the 1 that defined peoples ' childhood . Effieis nothing if not a nostalgia railway locomotive . It wears its inspirations proudly on its arm , taking influences from definitive 3D platformers likeRatchet & ClankandJak & Daxter . The love the developers had for those milestones is matched inch for in by their love forEffie , and even if the biz strike quite a bit inadequate of experience up to its heroes , the essence and creativity put into it makes it a hard game to really dislike .
Effieputs the player in the shoe of a young humans name Galand , who is turned one-time by an evil enchantress . for unwrap the bane he must cleanse the three Gems of Evil and then defeat the enchantress herself . It ’s a bit of a threadbare premise , another of the many fantasy secret plan that tax the player with hunting down a fistful of charming quartz glass . The conceitedness of the game is that it is all in the form of a write up being tell by Galand to the title grapheme , a young daughter nominate Effie . This storytelling style has a clear influence on the gameplay ; as you risk through the plot , Galand isconstantly narrate everything that happensto Effie . This is a quaint musical theme that sets up some cunning moment ; for case , whenever the player respawns after death , the narrator will commonly be inclined to cover up for whatever error led to their demise , claiming that it did n’t actually take place or pick their fumble on Galand ’s magically - induced age . unluckily , the charm wear off fast , and the player will swiftly grow tired of the narrator enigmatically proclaiming that " Galand feel an impulse within him " after they open a chest .
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The meat of the gameplay is just what you ’d have a bun in the oven ; platforming , exploration , and combat . The main draw of the gameplay is the champion ’s signature puppet ; a magical shield call Runestone . This is the only weapon Galand wields , but that ’s far from a bad thing . It has a salmagundi of uses , and as you work up through the game , more special abilities are added to Runestone ’s arsenal . Some help with traversal , like a special hyphen that essay invaluable throughout the game ’s platforming challenge , while others , like the ability to fling your shield in a rope around you and strike all enemies in orbit , are simply powerful combat tools .
Combat inEffieis only okay . At the start of the game you could perform a light attack with your shield or a heavy one , and you could of row also block . Blocking with your shield does n’t work the manner you anticipate ; it bring forth an invulnerable dome of thaumaturgy around Galand ’s soundbox that protects him from trauma at the cost of some of his energy every clip it is hit . Galand is fast as long as he has the shield up . trounce enemy with the shield is satisfying enough , but fighting is ultimately clunky , and too shallow for its own good . Even as you bring in access to herculean particular moves , you ’re never really call to strategize in any meaningful room . Your energy pool never seems to decrease fast enough for it to be a literal concern , even when you get the strongest blast . This means that by the closing of the game there ’s not really anything stopping you from just wipe out everything in your route . The enemies are n’t particularly varied , either ; by the sentence you get about halfway through the game you ’ve already fought everything the game will ever throw at you . There are a couple of large ogre that are imperviable to your unaccented attacks , but this is as challenging as the biz try out to get . There are no feeble points to overwork , no onrush figure to memorize . The combat arrangement is n’t bad , per se , it just palpate needless . The potency offered by Galand ’s wizard shield is never in full bring in .
The stronger aspect of the gameplay inEffieis its platforming . It ’s not phenomenal , but it ’s sure as shooting not unfit . The controls are reactive enough , and challenging without being frustrating . Effieis far from a hard secret plan , but it ’s not a cakewalk either . The game relies heavily on thing like bottomless pit and pools of lava to parent the stake in platforming challenges , but death is forgiving , and points where the biz autosaves are relatively plentiful . The player is bank at one of these with nothing but a repetitious remark from the narrator to punish them for them for their unsuccessful person . In increase to platforming gauntlet and armed combat challenge , Effiealso offers a fewpuzzles to card the player ’s brain . These puzzles are , for the most part , incredibly easy , but they can still amuse for the few seconds it takes the player to compute them out . give how brief and unobtrusive they are , it ’d be hard to say anything bad about them , specially because the idea behind some of them are reasonably creative . Still , the game would lose little in the means of challenge if they were removed .
If there ’s one thingEffietruly excel at it ’s the environment . The metropolis that Galand must travel to look gimmicky from a length , and that ’s no coincidence ; they are gimmicky . Each city is theme after a rum define trait , like windmills , lumber , or even grape juice . While that might feel like lazy worldbuilding , the beauty ofEffie’sworld is n’t in the overarching lore , but in the detail . The environs of each city are beautifully detail , fill with little touch that make the cities experience like factual places , not just backdrops for blow platforms to jump on . It ’s always a delight to turn a box or give a door and see what delicious Modern setting you’llget to explore next . This creativeness translate to gameplay , too ; there are quite a little of unequaled challenges offered by the context , like a river of grape vine juice in Vineyard City that Galand must interbreed by spring across barrels . alas , the magic ofEffie’slevel design does not extend to its overworld . The cities are placed in the scarlet champaign of Oblena , a land that is as fairly as it is empty . A few small-scale distraction are disperse around for the role player to divert themselves with if they so opt but if one were to just hop on one ’s shield and magically channel-surf their means to the next city , they would n’t lose much .
at long last the plight ofEffie’sprotagonist is a rather fitting metaphor for the secret plan as a whole . It ’s a new title , in the beginning released for PS4 about half a yr ago and only now seeing a microcomputer release . But its reliance on the yesteryear now makes it seem older than it is . And , like a untested human beings on the spur of the moment cursed with sometime old age , it can get stiff and incompetent from time to time . But just like its fairly honest-to-goodness champion , who never block up smile and who flashes a thumbs - up at the concept of grape juice , Effiehas charm for days . It ’s a blemished game , sure . It ’s very little , beatable in only three to five hour , and there was little variety in terms of gameplay and combat . in the end it mat more like a generous demo than a full biz . But it has heart . And if that ’s something you ’re looking for , you could do a lot worse than pick upEffie .
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Effieis available for PlayStation 4 and releases on Steam on January 28 . A Steam code was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this review .
