Quick Review: Effie

This guy’s back ain’t what it used to be, and he skipped leg day a lot lately, but he’ll be fine.

Lots of runes everywhere, hopefully I don't
have to collect some 10,000+ to become
young again.

A creation of Inverge Studios released on January 28th, 2020, Effie shows a grandpa telling a tale to his granddaughter. He tells the story of Galand, the strongest man in the realm, who also proved himself too lazy to help a villager with her cart. Unfortunately, this was a test by Melira the witch, who then cast a spell on Galand, stealing his years and youth, turning him into an old man. To retrieve his lost time, Galand hurries to the Temple of the Elders, where he’s told that he will need to prove that he has a pure and kind heart in order to see the spell reversed. He is then given a mystical weapon, the Runeshield, granting him abilities that will aid him on this quest.

As classic of action/platform games, several
rooms contain puzzles for Galand to solve.
Such as activating six switches in the right
order here so he can proceed.

This game homages several 3D action-adventure titles, both nostalgic and recent, as listed on the store page. It also plays similarly, with elements of platforming, puzzle and exploration. Galand has a wide array of moves as well, jumping and double jumping with Space, using the shield like a hoverboard with R, attacking with it using the Left and Right mouse buttons (for basic and strong attacks, respectively), or summoning a force field with Q. Some moves are learned later, such as the use of Left-Shift to do a dash that can be used to attack on the ground, or as an air dash after jumping in order to reach platforms located further away. Stronger moves can also be learned for both Left- and Right-click, a boomerang and an earthquake attack respectively.

Shield Bash!!

You can gather runes scattered around, beat enemies or smash crates in order to gain EXP, which allows Galand to level up and gain additional HP and stamina. Similarly, some rarer Relics can be found, though you may need to explore quite a bit to find them. You can travel around the map between chapters, finding mini-levels around the open world between chapters, with more EXP or relics to gather. Said relics contain more information about the world.

It may be a nitpick, but the game doesn’t really do much with its idea of being a tale told by a grandfather to a child; he only has two different lines for whenever Galand dies during a level, and limited lines for any video game-related stuff as well. The best we get is, for child-friendliness, every instance of wine being called grape juice (despite it very blatantly being wine, from being kept in barrels to the shape of the bottles, in the third chapter).

"I'm gonna keep at it till I can't walk in a
straight line anymore from drinking all
of that wi-... I mean, grape juice!"

I mean, it is story-consistent that Galand, on a
quest to prove that he has a pure heart, never
attacks Melira directly; still, that limits
quite a bit the options for boss battles.

Gameplay-wise, the game plays very well, and is somewhat fair with its checkpoints - the greatest annoyance about them is when you die in the open world, respawning at the entrance of the last level you finished. The puzzles are very varied, and the platforming is fair most of the time. Gathering EXP is a chore, not rewarding enough, and only worth it to survive longer in boss battles; so collecting the floating runes feels superfluous. The boss battles are a mixed bag; the first two are merely gauntlets of enemies, the next two are platforming challenges in which you activate switches to damage Melira. The final boss combines both.

Overall, a pretty good game, though its attempt to homage several famous platforming titles in one way or another is evident and, as a result, while it’s fun to play through, there’s little here that you haven’t seen before. However, if you’re itching for a fun throwback to those classics all bundled up together in one, this might be a nice way to indulge.