[00:00] What's going on everybody, Mortem here, this time bringing you a look at Elta, the Fry All Gods, which is an interesting sort of beat-em-up Metroidvania by its own description,
[00:18] featuring, I would say, a very fluid combat system, an appealing art style, and of course some Metroidvania elements. Now this game first came onto my radar because a couple of weeks ago, Focus Entertainment
[00:30] reached out and asked if I wanted to take an early look at it, which I was hoping to do, but has actually since passed by. What I'm bringing you now is effectively a public demo that is freely available, and that is being done as a bit of advertising ahead of the game's
[00:46] official release date of February 2nd, 2027. And honestly, I enjoyed this demo enough that if I don't have anything going on in early February that I absolutely need to get done, then I will and Frank, check this one out and see if it holds up throughout the entire experience. But first,
[01:03] let's talk a little bit about the demo itself. The demo's progress will not transfer over to the full game, just so you are aware, and a big part of the reason why is apparently that the demo itself is a bit of a streamlined experience, aimed at, of course, showing you all of the
[01:18] different features that will be available, as opposed to something being like an absolute one for one. But let's talk a little bit about those features that are on display, starting with difficulty and navigation. So on the difficulty side of things, we've already got a few and they
[01:34] do pretty much what you'd expect. Easy increases your health, makes you take less damage, that kind of thing. The higher difficulty see you taking more damage, having reduced health, dealing less damage, etc. Now honestly, in my opinion, the more interesting thing here is the
[01:49] sort of navigational difficulty. You can choose between, I think it's either Adventure or Metroidvania, which basically determines whether or not you want waypoints to guide you on your merry way. So Metroidvanias tend to require a little more running around,
[02:04] especially in the vein of backtracking and finding new abilities to uncover new areas, etc. And because you're running through a lot of the same place, in this case a hostile planet that you are stuck on it can be a little bit confusing and so it looks like they added in this extra method in case you are just wanting to make sure you actually know where you going throughout the experience in terms of your main objectives
[02:25] But ultimately, what is this game actually about? Well, as the name would somewhat tell you, we're out to defy some gods. In particular, though, it looks like we are a member of a race that lost a battle centuries
[02:37] ago that has effectively forced them to flee their home planet, and after centuries, apparently, of training and getting ready to do something about it, they wind up sending you, your people's chosen champion,
[02:50] to collect the dragon god that was left behind. And your relationship with this creature is going to give you access to all sorts of abilities and everything to try to win back your people's home, I believe, is the ultimate goal.
[03:04] So some pretty interesting stuff narratively. They do set this up initially as a flashback where it shows your sort of stand-in character fighting off this invasion of these other people before ultimately failing and then a time skip ahead to your character being chosen
[03:20] to come down here and deal with all of this mess. In order to do that, we're naturally going to be making some progress. Some of that progress includes things like just gaining new abilities. Over the course of this particular demo, we gain access to things like a grappling hook
[03:34] as well as a glide mechanic. But those abilities are also then complemented by your skill trees as well as your abilities. So your abilities will charge in combat and you can activate them, of course.
[03:48] But you do have to have them equipped at the team. And then there are some modifiers you can attach them as well. Like, for instance, I found this fire modifier for one of them. Now, on the skill tree side of things, you get abilities that seem to be tied to your character as well as your draconic companion and a couple of others that were locked for the demo here.
[04:06] But most of these seem to include things like giving you extra abilities through button combos, as you would probably expect from this type of combat system. But it was interesting to see that stuff laid out. But we are still very early game here, and that is just the beginning of what we have on offer, it would seem.
[04:23] Because much of the rest of it comes down to exploration, and then, of course, the combat system itself. But the exploration is a very classic Metroidvania really you going to be moving through these areas in the demo a relatively linear piece but in the full release you have a little more freedom and one of the ways they
[04:42] show that off in the demo, actually, is that it will at least highlight what doors you can actually open versus what will be closed via some, like, yellow and red color based on what abilities you have and could you actually get the door open, but I thought that was a nice little quality of life
[04:59] touch, though I guess it does beg the question about what their colorblind settings are, though I did not check. But much of the exploration itself seems to be, I would say, finding upgrades and doing a fair bit of platforming, as you would expect, from the abilities we unlock, being a grapple
[05:15] and a glide, etc., a lot of moving from one platform to the next in as expeditious a manner as possible, though I will say they make the mistake in the prologue of giving you access you a double jump and a sort of dash that they then immediately take away when they
[05:31] switch characters on you, and thus that feels like a little bit of a downgrade straight away. But at least as far as this demo is concerned, that's about all that exploration has going on outside of, again, finding upgrades.
[05:43] That is usually just finding them tucked away in various corners, and finding enough of them will increase your health, etc. But then there is the combat itself, of course, which thus far feels like a very fluid system, I would say.
[05:58] It's pretty standard beat-em-up combat, it just again feels like it plays really well, and I think some of that is helped by the fact that they added a sound effect to your individual attacks that kind of make it sound like a gun is going off, except tied to your punches,
[06:11] which adds, I would say, the feeling of some impact there. But as any pro gamer might be able to tell you, the real trick is to avoid your health dropping down to zero while in fact taking your enemy's health down to zero.
[06:25] And if you follow that simple advice, you'll win every fight. In all seriousness, however, you've got your standard light and heavy attacks. You also have the ability to dodge and perfectly dodge out of the way. And that's important because sometimes enemies will have armor that you need to bypass.
[06:39] but if you can stun them by hitting them with a perfect dodge, your counterattack should immediately take their shields away, which is great to get some damage in and you can even bring in your I would say exploration tools to combat a little bit Things like the grapple can be used to hit enemies and take their shields away which is really convenient because one of the big things about combat seems to be
[07:00] interrupting enemy animations, and they specifically point out that there are a few ways to ignore this entirely, which is important because if you don't pay attention, enemies will kind of ignore what you are doing in terms of hitting them, involving thus seeing you get hit that much more, and so
[07:18] finding ways to quickly deplete their armor or get rid of their shields etc is a great way to punch through that stuff and I would say save yourself the headache of some of the attacks. Now hitting enemies and dealing damage increases your little meter which then allows you to utilize
[07:34] various skills and arts in order to turn the tide in your favor ideally and all of that then combined it would seem over the course of the game with these button combos that you would typically get from your unlocked skill trees. So when you bring all of that together, I think
[07:49] Outer Defy All Gods here was a surprisingly interesting little detour in my schedule, just to see what this game was all about, and whether it would be worth anybody's time, and I'm happy to say that this seems interesting, again, enough to keep an eye on, and I will likely
[08:06] take a look at it in February when it launches in full, February 2nd, to be specific, as there doesn't seem to be, at least as of yet, too much else going on around that date. And if that wasn't enough, it also looks like we have the price available for this one already. They have pre-orders
[08:21] up over on Steam for $30 US, so it also seems like it's going to be a relatively cheap title at that. And thus, I think if they can maintain the quality on display in this demo over the course of the entire game, it will likely be quite good. But as for today and this video, I do think that is
[08:37] pretty much everything I've got to say on this one. Hopefully you enjoyed all of that. If you did, by all means, like, comment, subscribe, all that YouTube jazz. But regardless of any of that, truly, just thank you so much for watching.
[08:50] I really do appreciate it. May you wander in wisdom, and have an amazing day.
[09:07] you