Elsie Review (PlayStation 5)

by Jim Smale · Published September 17, 2024 · Updated September 16, 2024

Elsie Review, Elsie is a technicolor, hyperkinetic, rogue-like action platformer filled with procedurally generated levels, an army of robots to blast through, and a wide scope of items & weaponry to make each run unique. Master countless magitek weapons and abilities in order to embrace the chaos.

Elsie Review Pros:

Decent pixel art graphics.
1.72GB download size.
Platinum trophy.
Accessibility options – enemy and player outline color sliders so you can make your own color, level BG saturation, level background, screenshake, font size slider, Colourblind assistant, and invincibility.
Own in-game achievements that pop up on the screen when earned.
Action roguelike gameplay.
Opening tutorial section.
2D game World with 3D backdrops.
You have a weapon and then two abilities with cooldowns.
Enemy health bars are shown.
Game settings – display FPS, show enemy corpses, stick to walls, parry window slider, and in-game achievements pop up.
You can remap the controls.
The game moves at a very fast speed.
Handy restart option in the menu.
You can shoot, use abilities, wall jump, and slide down walls, dash, and air dash.
Hidden rooms and routes.
Treasure chests can be found.
The main hub is all under construction and as you progress in the game, you unlock new buildings for levels, etc.
The game plays out on a room-by-room basis.
Many different room types house different styles like wave-based or arena modes.
Earn exp on a run and level up to pick one of the power-ups or new buffs and abilities.
When clearing a section you get a reward chest.
Find keys for higher-level chests.
Self-contained sequences like shooting ranges.
In-game character interactions, you can fast forward and skip them.
Energy is used for weapons, and just holding your gun trigger will eventually drain the energy and slow down your attack rate.
You see any stat increases and decreases on items and pickups before deciding upon collecting them.
Big bright locations.
Levels and locations of enemies and loot are randomized every run/life.
Rescue characters for new abilities.
Find blueprints to craft new weapons.
Find scrap to buy permanent unlocks both for your character and the game world.
Breakable objects covering the world and scrap piles.
Find these spinning circles and jump on them to make the game more vertical.
The game can be addictive once you get into the flow.
Dash avoids damage to you and does damage to enemies.
Many items and buffs to find.

Elsie Review Cons:

The game does not do a good job of telling you everything your character can do in one go instead it tells you over new runs. This makes for frustrating runs until you know what can be done.
It takes a while to learn how the game moves as it is fast and the wall sliding is slow.
Characters will say random lines but there is no voice work for the actual text showing on the screen.
The screens are very busy.
Had it where I got stuck in a tutorial loop and it wouldn’t open the door to let me carry on.
Regardless of the slider, parrying is hard to pull off.
Many of the arena fights are just claustrophobic parry tests.
Text can pop up over other text making them impossible to read.
You have been so weak for so long, hardly any health pickups.