Elements: Soul of Fire Demo

Role-playing games gamble a lot on the story and the characters that are part of it, because there’s usually not much else going on. Cutscenes, dialog and the usual running around quests are the usual in the genre, but no one is upset if the end result is worth it. Naturally, sturdy combat mechanics and many ways to improve your character are always expected, but rarely required for an RPG to get recognition.

Elements: Soul of Fire is a rather big indie project that spent quite a few years in development, given the huge amount of content it features. However, the game was made using RPG Maker, so don’t expect a lot of quality on the technical side of things. Most of the effort went into the story and the characters, on the other hand, so you should be able to get lost in the game world and all of its intricacies.

To begin with, it is worth noting that the story includes a lot of dialog and cutscenes which cannot be skipped, which makes it a tad difficult to replay the adventure without getting annoyed. As far as the story itself is concerned, it’s not too brilliant either, given the fact that it’s the same spiel about a gang of kids destined to save the world and defeat the supreme evil once and for all.

Even if it contains a lot of side quests and dialog, the writing is a bit childish and it has the tendency to drag for too long, even when there’s nothing left to say. When the game switches from exploration mode to combat, the classic turn-based mechanics take over and every character gets his or her turn to make a move. In this regard, there aren’t many things to criticize, except maybe the fact that the confrontation get repetitive after a while.

Because the game world is large, it holds a lot of interesting locations and many nice places you can visit. The limitations of the engine make it difficult to feel the difference between the areas, but the level design is quite good and you can at least trick yourself into thinking that you are in another world. A nice acoustic soundtrack plays in the background, which can take your mind off things.

In the end, Elements: Soul of Fire is not mature or complex enough to satisfy gamers who grew accustomed to titles like PlaneScape: Torment or Baldur’s Gate 2, but it’s at least fun to enjoy if you do not have high expectations. Thus, beginners and casual gamers might have a blast with it.