Elsie is an android with horns on her hat, and she is her people’s last hope, apparently. If she doesn’t grab a big gun, shoot some robo-owls, and defeat everything in her path, everyone is screwed. At least, that’s according to Knight Shift Games, the studio behind this bold and vibrant roguelite platformer – and they should know!
Launching this week on PC, PlayStation 5, and Switch after a lengthy period of time in development, Elsie is a platformer from the Mega Man School of Traversal and Combat. That is to say, it’s a mechanically inclined action-platformer with tight controls and big energy weapons.
Who is Elsie and why does she have a big gun?
Despite looking like she goes to secondary school with my son, Elsie is actually an android from another world. Everything takes place on the colourful, neon-infused world of Ekis. Therein, Elsie has been built to find the so-called Guardians – machines that once protected the planet from environmental disaster – while destroying the robotic army that has everyone on the back foot and scrambling for cover.
The world design of Ekis is bright and colourful, and on top of the Mega Man comparisons you can also feel the reverence towards the original Sonic games. I like the overall aesthetic; it was a shame, then, that the procedurally generated environments didn’t always feel elegantly constructed, with strange arrangements of scenery.
The enemy designs are quite fun, though, and each of the five biomes rocked new enemies (I think it’s five, although you only play through three at a time). I did see some repetition in this regard, with some recycled minions appearing throughout, but overall I like the different enemy types and there are some creative designs in there.
The creativity that underpins Elsie is even more apparent during the boss fights, and it took some time for me to get good enough to win my first one. That win was certainly helped by my build for that run; if you’re lucky you can put together a powerful weapon using the upgrades encountered along the way. Think boomerang bullets, ricocheting shotgun blasts, and there are even spells (that I often forgot to use).
Mega controls, man
The combat is built around a mixture of short-ranged gunplay and a parry system that requires very precise timing. Luckily for ol’ clumsy fingers here, there are accessibility options in this regard, and I was able to move a slider and make things more manageable. It didn’t help much against shielded enemies, however, and I found these pixelated bastards to be difficult to the point of frustrating as you had to parry and then tap again at the right moment to strip their shields.
On the other hand, I thought the platforming was great. Elsie sticks to walls as she slides down them, allowing her to blast freely as she slowly drops past her enemies. I also liked jumping and dashing between platforms and I looked forward to the one-hit challenge stages that popped up from time to time, where one had to hop here and there and take down little targets without falling off.
Overall, the control scheme required a lot of coordination thanks to its various moving parts, but practice makes perfect and I can see people having a good time with skill-based challenges and speed-running Elsie’s short but hazardous levels. It’s the kind of game that has been built with fighting fans and thrill seekers in mind, I think.
Audio-visual spectacle
A lot of effort went into promoting Elsie, in particular the cast of voice talent that worked on the game. If anything, the cast was under-utilised in this regard; nobody really seemed to have much to say and the VO was saved for short barks rather than the longer sections of dialogue, which were instead written. I did, however, appreciate how well integrated the soundtrack is to the action; the bouncy music fits the gameplay like a glove.
My personal assessment may sound a bit hot and cold, but there’s actually a lot to like about Elsie beyond its looks, and I’m glad I pushed through as I found the first couple of hours quite tough. Once I’d unlocked more of the content, seen more biomes, and tried a few of the upgrades, things started to click. That said, I was really dismayed when I lost all my progress when exiting the game to go take care of some domestic dadmin – a roguelite without auto-save?!
From an audio-visual perspective, this is a treat, especially for any Mega Man fans out there looking for a new experience. The controls are nuanced and the action is old-school and challenging, but for me, the roguelite aspects didn’t shine quite as brightly as the rest of the game, and one or two oddities hold Elsie back from greatness.
Elsie is out now on Steam PC (Lin, Win), PS5 and Switch, and I played the game via access provided by publisher Playtonic Friends and their PR friends – thanks for that!
