Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: Eliosi’s Hunt, game review, TDZ Games

Advance, Die Frequently, Repeat: We Review 'Eliosi's Hunt'

Eliosi's Hunt is a drop down action game where you take on the obvious role of Eliosi, a bounty hunter who is going off on different missions in what feels like a platformer at times to shoot up enemies along the way and claim the person he's after at the end. There are five different levels as you'll work through different contracts you pick up from different bars and locations. Simply put: pick a bounty, go to a level, clear it out, get the main guy at the end, you're done.

The controls are pretty basic as you move with the left stick, aim with the right stick, and use the right trigger button to fire. You can hold it down for a slow fire or tap it for rapid fire, which depends on your personal style. There are additional weapons in the game, but they only last for short periods of time and sometimes that isn't long enough to figure out how to best utilize them. You also have a dash feature, which builds up over time and can help out with the boss battles a lot, so best not to use it all as soon as you get a little speed going. If you beat the level in a certain amount of time you'll receive credits to upgrade Eliosi, so spend the credits wisely.

There's a checkpoint system in the game that operates a little like Shovel Knight, where you can use it to rematerialize upon death, or you can destroy it and pick up a bonus to your speed for a while. Trust me, you'll want to keep the checkpoints as there are places in these maps that become impossible to navigate without dying a few times. There are times you have zero camera control and you just have to wing it and hope you don't die, which are some of the worst experiences I had playing this.

One of the weirdest aspects of Eliosi's Hunt that kinda works well are the cutscenes, which have zero dialog and are done through a series of motions. It feels like everyone has telepathic abilities and you're being left out of the conversation. But somehow this is a much better storytelling device than throwing in tons of dialog where characters don't normally speak like regular people would. Once you get into the gameplay, the world has a unique look to it that feels like it's in space somewhere, with a lot of changes as you go to make it feel like an epic adventure, even with the game being only five levels deep.

But that's kinda where the graphics stop being great and start just being "okay" in the main game. There were moments I couldn't tell what I was walking on and where I was supposed to go because of the design. At one point I couldn't tell if a path I was taking was blocked off, or if I had to jump down into a pit. Turns out it was the pit, which was only a few feet down, but there was no way to tell based off the way it was designed. Moments like this became frequent and frustrating—I almost turned off the game a couple times because of it.

Overall, Eliosi's Hunt is an alright game, but it's got issues with the format and can be glitchy at times. There are areas I couldn't complete without getting myself killed and needing to start over, which is annoying as hell. I cannot recommend this game because there are just so many problems that need to be ironed out of it, even the ending is lukewarm. If you're into platformers you might dig it, but that's a big "might."

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