I have been playing and reviewing games for many years now, and it takes a lot these days for me to be impressed with anything. However, Ariana and the Elder Codex most certainly is a game that has fallen into the impressing me camp.
Hyde, the developers, are probably a team you’ve never heard of. Their most well-known game to date would be the 2022 Digimon Survive game. With Ariana and the Elder Codex, they have crafted a gorgeous-looking game with excellent combat mechanics that other more well-known companies should take a leaf from.
The game is not without some issues, but the overriding feeling of playing the game is one of a well-made, high production experience where the faults fall a little by the wayside.
Firing up the game, the worst of the issues hits you from the beginning. Somehow, the story, although quite simple, is delivered in such a convoluted and boring narrative that you start to get impatient. In short, you play as a librarian called Ariana. Her library contains seven important pieces of work called the Codices, but these books have been attacked and altered by someone, and Ariana is tasked to enter and repair them.
The narrative, as explained the above, and conversations in the game about other subjects yarn on for far too long that they border on drivel. I’m one of those gamers who never skips cinematics, but this game’s utterly benign narrative had me hovering over the skip button within minutes.
An example occurs about halfway into the game, where Ariana and her companions have a discussion to mention the blindly obvious point to anyone with a pulse, that the more Codices she repairs, the stronger she will become. I’ve managed to come to that realization and word it in one sentence, but here it will take minutes for the characters to go over what we already know.
One of the other issues the game has is that the RPG character-building elements seem off. There are four elemental Codices to repair (and three other types afterward), and obviously, when mentioning elements, some enemies are weaker to some elements than others. It’s hard to know what enemies are weak to what, as well as which elements to use with your magical powers are worth using your valuable upgrade materials for or not.
The same applies to the items you can equip, for example, a cloak to reduce fall damage or water attacks. The chances of you coming across falls or enemies with specific water attacks are rare, so it feels a little pointless. Yes, I understand equipping such items when entering a water world is beneficial, but the items are so unique for that one world, and you have six others to get through. So, I chose to upgrade my neutral stats and items instead.
As well as the items, the menus you need to navigate, although not the worst I’ve ever experienced, aren’t exactly great either. The game’s UI in the menu system is odd because sometimes some menus can only be accessed at certain points in the game. When you do get to the right menus, it’s not hugely clear where to go in order to do what you would like to do either. It took me a few hours to become comfortable with the menus and UI, and they did make sense eventually but just didn’t feel intuitive.
The difficulty in Ariana and the Elder Codex is also a little off as well. I started playing the game on normal difficulty and found it well balanced throughout until the first boss. This boss, although perfectly readable, was destroying me far quicker than the enemies before. I had no trouble with the combat up to this point, even with mini-boss fights, and found the combat balance excellent until that point.
I attempted the first boss ten times on normal difficulty and at best only got through 1/8 of its health. I lowered the difficulty down to easy then beat it on my first go with only a tiny amount of my own health gone. The difference in the two settings was huge and not balanced at all.
So, the narrative, RPG elements and some balancing issues aside, what was it about Ariana and the Elder Codex that impressed me? Everything else!
The graphics are superb! I played the game on the Switch 2 with 60 fps. There are two modes, with either performance on or off, but the game doesn’t explain what turning it off actually does. I assume it meant better fidelity, but the fidelity on performance mode looked spectacular anyway, so I left it there.
So yes, the fidelity at 60 fps on the Switch 2 was magnificent. It’s the details that really stick out. The swing of a sword or the launch of a spell had excellent and extremely smooth particle effects that, even down to a few pixels, were clear to see.
The HDR effects helped with the clarity, and it’s these kinds of details that separate the good from the bad. The artwork of the attacks, enemies, spells, and backgrounds were all silky smooth and stunning to look at.
Even with a lot of action on the screen at once, it was easy to discern what was going on, react to it, and play the game well. The game also didn’t falter, slow down, chug or have any performance issues no matter what was happening on-screen.
On top of that, the artwork was fantastic. I loved the character models, designs, fonts, and the overall presentation. I normally need glasses to read some game text on the screen but not here. Everything was perfectly proportioned and easy to see and read but also not offensive in size either.
Another element of the game I enjoyed was the audio. The voice acting was great (even if the dialogue was really boring most of the time) and clear, and the music was melodic and perfectly attuned to the game’s setting. The audio during combat was also excellent. The only thing not quite brilliant in the audio were some of the environmental effects, like fire. That particular effect, for example, felt a little too unreal and designed.
The rest of the game is basically a hack and slash, 2D side-scrolling adventure game. You don’t necessarily need certain items to complete a map from start to finish. This is because you can actually attack the Codices in any order you so wish.
The maps have tears in them, where if you find these tears and activate them, you are then locked in a small area like a challenge room to complete tasks. Most of these challenges entail defeating enemies within a time limit, but there are a few platforming missions as well.
The platforming is great, accurate and intuitive, and it is also necessary to get to the end of the levels too. You can unlock save points in each level, and normally, a very convenient save point will pop up just before an end of level boss fight.
The boss fights were, for me, the highlights of the game, and aside from the wildly varied difficulty, were fun to play. They were also challenging even on the easiest levels as even there you still need to read and learn their attack patterns to overcome them.
Each level also has its own unique story to follow and is the most enjoyable narrative aspect of the game than any conversations the main characters have.
It’s the combat that was the most fun though. There is a little too much in the way of choice of elemental spells that you could build to your heart’s desire, so I tended to stick to my basic attacks and build them up.
Ariana is kitted out with a sword and basic (neutral) spells. These spells include ranged attacks, as well as the ability to heal herself on the spot. There are health items to pick up, but healing yourself on the fly, mid-battle with no need for resources is a welcome change to anything I’ve played in a long time.
You can set one of your spells to recover a lot of health in one go, but there is a cooldown time before you can heal again. Other spells also have cooldown times, but they are all generally really short anyway. Furthermore, you can upgrade each spell to be quicker or more effective.
The game’s length will, of course, depend on the difficulty in which you set it, as well as how much of the world you wish to explore, aside from just getting to the end of level boss fights. Playing the game on the easiest setting is going to take around 12 to 15 hours to complete, but I am a bit of a slow gamer, though, as I like to enjoy sections and learn as I go rather than rush to the end.
You can also revisit the tear sections of a level to get better times and scores, which means you can pad out your playtime some more that way.
This brings me, though, to the game’s price point. Currently on the official website, the price is £39.99 in the UK. I feel that even though this game is superb, a real looker and great fun to play, it’s a little overpriced. Not by much, but I would have thought it would have a lower price point. That said, I’d still highly recommend playing it at some point.
Ariana and the Elder Codex, overall, does have a few glaring issues but none where it really counts in the gameplay. The combat really was fun to play, and the way the game looks, works and performs puts the efforts of a lot of bigger developers to shame. This will undoubtedly be a game that becomes a “hidden gem” on some people’s lists in the future. As soon as you can afford it, though, play this game as it’s quite simply impressive.
Developer: Hyde
Publisher: Idea Factory
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PS5, PC
Release Date: 24th March 2026
Gaming Respawn’s copy of Ariana and the Elder Codex was provided by the publisher.
