Summary
As if there weren’t enough Soulslike games to go around,Enotria: The Last Songhas now graced the stage with yet another wild take on the genre’s increasingly familiar formula.Enotria: The Last Songis a Soulslike through and through, offering players challenging encounters, sluggish combat, and rewarding exploration. At the same time,Enotriaisn’t without defining features, and its elemental system is one of its most pronounced.
Enotria: The Last Song’s elemental system is undoubtedly one of the game’s best mechanics, but it also often proves to be one of the worst. It functions similarly toelemental affinity systems in games likePalworldandPokemon, with the added twist of providing both a buff and a debuff when players and enemies are inflicted with an elemental status effect. On the other side ofEnotria’s elemental system, however, is a glaring issue that isn’t usually found in Soulslike games, making the whole system a bit of a double-edged sword.
Enotria: The Last Song’s Elemental System Makes the Game Unique Among Soulslikes
The most obvious good aboutEnotria: The Last Song’s elemental system is that it makes the game unique among other Soulslikes. WhileEnotria’s elemental system is just one of the many RPG systems in the game, it is perhaps the most prominent one, as it is persistently made known how important it is that players take advantage of it. OtherSoulslike gamestend to rely on simplicity more than anything else, although they do tend to delve into more complex systems with different character classes.Enotria’s elemental system isn’t necessarily complex by any means, but it does make the game’s combat a little less than straightforward.
As players make their way throughEnotria’s colorful world, they must constantly be aware of each enemy’s innate elemental defense, as ignoring it can lead to a quick death. Since different weapons and skills inEnotriaare associated with certain elements, it requires players to be vigilant at all times, frequently changing their loadout to grant them an advantage in battle. This means that players can’t really find abuild inEnotriathat they like and stick with it, as its offering of three separate loadouts encourages them to create three unique builds that work in a variety of situations. Unfortunately, this is also where the bad ofEnotria: The Last Song’s elemental system rears its ugly head.
Enotria: The Last Song’s Elemental System Often Restricts Player Freedom
Enotria: The Last Song’s elemental systemis certainly one of its most defining features, and it truly heightens the overall gameplay experience. However, it can also be a bit restricting on player freedom due to the game’s heavy reliance on the system and how frequently it comes into play. SinceEnotria’s elemental system makes enemies with innate elemental defenses more difficult to subdue unless players weaponize the element the enemy is weak to, it prevents players from being able to use just any weapon or skill they enjoy using, thereby robbing them of agency.
Most Soulslike games — especially those bythe inventor of Soulslikes, FromSoftware— specialize in granting players the freedom to personalize their approach to gameplay. While there are usually weapons and armor in Soulslike games that are considered more powerful than others, there is generally still a considerable amount of balance implemented into each game’s combat mechanics to avoid punishing players for equipping and using the “wrong” item. InEnotria: The Last Song, however, it’s often “use this or die,” which constantly puts a wall in players' paths to prevent them from progressing until they obey the game.
All in all,Enotria: The Last Song’s elemental system is one of its best and worst features. It does add a new spark totraditional Soulslike combat, but that spark quickly fades once all the limitations are realized.
