• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

secret best Zelda-like Elliot Quest coming to Switch this week, 10/19

maxcriden

Member
Update: PR from PlayEveryWare:

We are so excited to announce that Elliot Quest is AVAILABLE NOW for Nintendo Switch, in North America, Europe, and Japan.

Quick-links

Our brand new trailer for Nintendo Switch
Nintendo eShop Page

Since we first started our console journey with Wii U, we've always felt that Elliot Quest was the most at home on Nintendo systems. It's been a long road getting here, including the work in rebuilding the original HTML5 game in C++. And to celebrate, we've made a few additions to the game, including a fast teleport system and an easy mode!

A Nintendo 3DS patch is also releasing today, which includes the same content updates!

Thanks!
Thomas @playeveryware

-

I mentioned this in another thread, but one of my favorite games of all time, Elliot Quest, is coming to Switch this week and for fans of Zelda-likes, especially Zelda II-esque games, I can't recommend this game highly enough. $10 is a steal.

It's also available on PC, 3DS, Wii U, PS4 and XB1.

PREVIEW_SCREENSHOT1_147943.png

Info from Jonneh's thread about this week's eShop releases:

After Elliot's wife disappears, he falls sick and attempts to take his own life--only to discovers that he can't die. Plagued by nightmares and growing weaker by the day, Elliot seeks out a local Sage, who tells him that he's the victim of a rare curse. A demon called a Satar is slowly consuming Elliot's vitality. If Elliot can't find a cure to the curse before it's too late, he too will become a Satar. His only hope is to ask for the help of one of the island's Guardians, who have kept the Satar from taking over Urele.

Explore a vibrant open-world filled with hidden secrets and mysterious Guardians that can help cure Elliot's curse of immortality. Throughout this adventure you'll collect countless abilities and spells, quest through 5 dungeons and defeat 16 unique bosses along your way to unlocking multiple endings.


Here's a post I wrote on the game not long ago, in a thread about favorite game maps:

I really, really like the map in Elliot Quest.

953545F2C06B9AE797F70C9D5A86C7AFF496E499


Screen-Shot-2014-06-10-at-10.52.00-PM.png


When you encounter an exclamation point, that means there's an area there.

tumblr_neosux7TSb1s8ouhxo4_500.gif


tumblr_nlksa4b9eK1tliyz4o5_r2_1280.gif


tumblr_neosux7TSb1s8ouhxo3_500.gif


get


You don't get the sense of it too well in this pic, but traversing across it is reminiscent of Golden Sun for me, but really it's more like a modern Zelda II. Gah. It's so good. Traversing it just feels great with so many hidden secrets and areas. Here's part of my GOTY write-up for it:

Here's why this is such a terrific game. I've only played bits and pieces of Zelda II but if ever someone wanted to see how a Zelda game would work as a 2D sidescroller, Elliot Quest is their game. So, everything about this game is a wondrously emblematic of a lucid world brought to life. The character and enemy design is unique but has that unmistakable je ne sais quoi of the Zelda genre. The action is tight and thoughtful and responsive. The puzzles are bewitching but never frustrating. The music is delightful and memorably grand. The most important thing is game feel, though, and just playing EQ feels terrific. You become Elliot. This is what I want from a game. To be transported into a world, to be the character--to be the "Link" into their world, if you will. EQ offers and delivers this in spades. It's the best Zelda game Nintendo never published, and I can't recommend it heartily enough.

PC OT: Elliot Quest [OT] 1080pff. 60 frames per whatever. Who cares, play this game instead.

Wii U OT: Elliot Quest Wii U |OT| Elliot's Bizarre Adventure
 
I was planning on taking a break from the eShop this week, but for $10, I think I'm gonna' grab this on Thursday. I adore Zelda II. One of my favorite games.
 

Lutherian

Member
It is a very, very nice game but the Wii U version had some big problems (and I won't speak of the early Steam version where you couldn't buy bombs. AT ALL) :

- The morale meter was glitched so you never knew if you're going for neutral, good or bad ending
- Tons of freeze during gameplay, witch could make your character fall flat during a jump.

I really hope that the Switch version uses the last PC update, witch uses a completly new engine.

Oh, and while you play, try to count how many "hommage" there's to Nintendo soundtracks in Eliot Quest... soundtrack.

Anyway, I'll double... no, triple dip (yep, I liked the game this much).

Beware tho with your skill points : you can't upgrade everything to the max.
 

maxcriden

Member
Ctrl + F: "Procedurally Generated"

"No Results"

Yessssss. Straight onto the wish list.

It's all handcrafted level design, yep.

It is a very, very nice game but the Wii U version had some big problems (and I won't speak of the early Steam version where you couldn't buy bombs. AT ALL) :

- The morale meter was glitched so you never knew if you're going for neutral, good or bad ending
- Tons of freeze during gameplay, witch could make your character fall flat during a jump.

I really hope that the Switch version uses the last PC update, witch uses a completly new engine.

Oh, and while you play, try to count how many "hommage" there's to Nintendo soundtracks in Eliot Quest... soundtrack.

Anyway, I'll double... no, triple dip (yep, I liked the game this much).

Beware tho with your skill points : you can't upgrade everything to the max.

There were definitely some serious glitches) problems with the Wii U version initially but I was under the impression they'd mostly or entirely been worked out with a series of patches. I was one of the players reporting lots of glitches on Miiverse at the time and it seemed like every patch would fix one issue and create another. It did seem to improve a lot after the patches. As to the music, I didn't personally notice any strong homages or rip-offs of Nintendo music, but I'll admit to being pretty tone deaf on that front.

Good tip on the skill points - it's tough not being able to max all stats, though it does make every stat decision more meaningful. I definitely would have wanted to know that going in though.
 

Blackie

Member
FUuuuu ok now I have to purchase this game too? Looks good. Only 10$, damn. Switch is getting so many games I wanna play, *grumble grumble*...
 

Airola

Member
This game is really really good even with some of the glitches it used to have (I remember one that teleported the player way further where the player shouldn't yet be and it was possible to get stuck).

It has so damn little hand-holding that it felt really fun to play.

It's underappreciated modern classic.
 
I may get this thanks to this topic, and I was only planning to get Spelunker this week. I also just got Flame in the Flood. Argh. At least I'm done with Dig 2 and Golf Story.
 

HylianTom

Banned
Thanks for the heads-up. (It also reminds me a bit of old-school Icarus.)

This and Thimbleweed Park might be the last two games I play before Mario blots-out the Sun on the 27th..
 

tebunker

Banned
Biggest issue I had with it originally was how easy it was to get lost and not be able to figure out what to do next even intuitively.

My wife made a lot of progress and just quit out of frustration. So those maps help a lot. Wish I had them earlier.

It is a fine game otherwise and worth playing.
 

Axass

Member
Don't sleep on it guys, Elliot Quest is amazing, it's basically what Shovel Knight was for action platformers, but for adventure platformers and Zelda II-like games instead.
 
This is one of those threads where I knew who started it without looking :) I must give this a try sometime just on the basis of criden's enthusiasm.
 

_Isaac

Member
Well I am definitely interested now. Does the game have a good story? The premise in the OP seems really touching.
 

Axass

Member
Well I am definitely interested now. Does the game have a good story? The premise in the OP seems really touching.

I'll be honest and brutal: no, absolutely not. The story is pretty much an afterthought, but the world is extremely cohesive and has nice lore to it. The morality system is also very shallow.

The gameplay, the feeling of adventure and dicovery are where it's at.
 
I’ll admit - I grew up around pixels and love them , but these last few switch games (little Barbarian dx and this) are just too ‘ugly’ for me to bite
 
I must be in the minority that didn't like this game much at all. I think it does the Metroidvania style gating all wrong. There were so many times when I crawled through a gauntlet of enemies and spikes only to be greeted by a hard block where I either don't have the right tool to proceed or the required number of crystals. It would have been better if the gating happened first, rather than after all that work.

To compound the issue, there would be a save stone right before the block, so now you can't just die and return, you have to make the return trip back through the gauntlet of enemies and spikes. And IIRC, when you die and get restored, you only have half health, and the enemies respawn. There were times where I thought I had screwed up my save, because it was too hard to make the return trip - I recall being really frustrated with these rock shooting giant worms that could kill me in 2 hits.

Played on the Wii U. Maybe it's fixed now, but you also couldn't get bombs anywhere, except by returning to the cave. It just seemed like a lot of unnecessary tedium to replenish my bombs.
 

maxcriden

Member
Well I am definitely interested now. Does the game have a good story? The premise in the OP seems really touching.

I'll be honest and brutal: no, absolutely not. The story is pretty much an afterthought, but the world is extremely cohesive and has nice lore to it. The morality system is also very shallow.

The gameplay, the feeling of adventure and dicovery are where it's at.

Seconding Axass on this. The story and morality system to me are not the draws for this game. As he said, the gameplay and adventuring are where it's at.
 
Got fairly far into this on Wii U but read I was approaching a part with a major bug needing a patch.

Never got back into it but should do so now on Switch.
 

sloppyjoe_gamer

Gold Member
I'm trying to finish Golf Story before Mario comes next week and consumes my soul for months lol.....this will have to wait, unfortunately. It looks good though! Will check out the reviews, and GAF feedback.
 
Top Bottom