There’s clearly a conspiracy going on somewhere to make the job of the librarian seem exceptionally awesome. You’ve got the incredible television series with Rebecca Romijn that recently got a revival (and I’m holding off judgement until season two). You’ve got the presence of librarians within The Magicians, another exceptional TV show. Also, actual librarians get to be surrounded by books, in silence, and occasionally help people find books or recommend books for them to watch! You get higher up, you delegate the actual shelving and sorting to teenagers getting community service credits for high school.

Now, Idea Factory has decided that we need a moe librarian to stan, because Ariana and the Elder Codex has arrived to give action adventure vibes with a mild metroidvania undertone. How many great games are starring CPAs? NONE. Checkmate, librarians.

And you know her word is good!

Ariana is a librarian in a world where magic is real, or at least it was, until some kind of unknown force has corrupted the codices that make up the seven important tentpoles of magic. Ariana is uniquely able to travel into each codex to see where the story has become damaged and to engage in combat with a very special kind of baddie that’s looking to ruin a good book (oh, and also destroy magic forever). Traveling between the elements of fire, water, earth and more, Ariana also discovers that some nameless, benevolent force is watching over her, invested in her progress and what it will mean for her to restore magic to the world. Is the damage to these sacred tomes connected to her vanished parents? Will Ariana understand the true power of a good book? Does anyone else remember The Pagemaster and sort of see a parallel?

Ariana and the Elder Codex takes place across seven different books that Ariana can inhabit. Through the power of magic, she can see the story within, be a part of it, and also identify where there are missing places or rips throughout. Ariana must engage with this rifts and perform some sort of task, usually combat based, to achieve the balance necessary to repair the damage. Though the books should ideally be repaired to 100%, you simply need to cross an arbitrary threshold (which usually comes about after a boss fight) to officially restore that sort of magic and be allowed to move onto the next one. Though there isn’t a set order to restore the books, you can see the difficulty levels of each and use that as a guide for where to go next.

You didn’t make all the cookies disappear by “magic,” you ate them, fess up.

Ariana herself uses a spiffy skilltree of unlockable spells that you “buy” from the magical cat lady who can appear at each rest area. There isn’t mana persay, but each spell that you use has a cooldown timer that prevents you from mass stacking the same attack over and over. While that should be a caveat, you can assign three spells at once between the respective buttons (X, Y, A) and have a further three in place if you hold the ZR button. This means, effectively, you can have six offensive and defensive moves (with one of them being your traditional melee attack) to juggle at lightning speed. These spells can be upgraded through further purchase, so don’t worry if you find ones that you like and get attached: you can improve them to go toe-to-toe with other bosses down the line.

The combat of Ariana is the majority of your interaction with the game, so it’s both good and bad in its execution. On the one hand, it’s clear the developers wanted to craft a complex and intricate engagement with fights, allowing players to care about elemental weakness, chaining combos and breaking through a sort of magical “barrier” meter that can leave an enemy reeling and vulnerable to the next couple attacks. Which, when you’re on the middle difficulty levels, this works relatively well. If you go to the max difficulty, you need to focus significantly more on dodging and timing in order to merely survive, whereas the easy difficulty just wants you to mash buttons as fast as possible. If you just want to enjoy the power fantasy, go to easy and call it a day. Otherwise, be ready to be invested in figuring out combinations for forward momentum.

The time honored tradition of solving a problem by lighting it on fire.

And there are some real advantages to simply going to easy mode. From my perspective, it feels like the game wants you to experience so much of what it’s saying and doing in a timely fashion that the protracted combat is almost an annoyance Compile Heart titles tend to focus on the looks first and the execution second, and that’s less of the case here than in others. Sure, Ariana is adorable and the voice work is top notch, but you don’t spend the entirety of the cutscenes wondering if this librarian is going to accidentally flash thigh or something. Instead, you get really brought into the greater details of the magical world, of Ariana’s relationships and the mysterious circumstances surrounding her vanishing parents, the benevolent specter watching over her and the super not obvious connection therein.

Also, Ariana and the Elder Codex does some marvelous storytelling with the codices themselves. Each tome contains a bit of dramatics to encapsulate something that makes the literary dive worth doing outside of the whole “save all of magic” schtick. From tales of family members selflessly sacrificing themselves to parallels about trusting other people and not being a xenophobe, you get some fairly solid novellas that develop as Ariana vets the damage and slowly puts things back together. This could have been an afterthought of the overall game, but there’s full voice casting given to these shades of stories gone by, letting you get invested in their survival as much as Ariana is feeling herself. It’s the detail of making the codices substantial instead of perfunctory that keep you engaged with the overall experience.

I love when my books watch me do my Thundercats impersonation.

When things are good, Ariana is really good and keeps you positively locked in. You get some great customization from the combat, the leveling is straightforward, there’s plenty to find in terms of secrets and treasures and the metroidvania element is present but not oppressive. You constantly see things that you can’t reach just yet, and unlocking new abilities and techniques through time and purchase compel a player to want to come back, but you don’t have to most of the time. If you’re merely looking to get through the story, you can leave plenty unrealized and never go back with little consequence. It’s a novel approach to have a metroidvania game be mostly optional, and allows the player to breathe and decide how they most want to enjoy the adventure. 

But the problem comes from the classic fallacy of Compile Heart, which is the coding. I’m playing Ariana and the Elder Codex on my Nintendo Switch, and it is an absolute chore to keep the game moving. Your settings have a ton of toggles for the graphics and elements, but the most important one is  “prioritize frame rate.” If you want the game to play even remotely smoothly on the Switch, this toggle needs to be on, which negates everything else. The result is a much rougher form of the game that borders on beta. The sprites look wonky, the animation drops a lot of in-between moments, and the fluid nature simply disappears. However, if you keep on the better looking game, you’re essentially swimming. Everything is slowed down and it feels painstaking to simply move.

And yet here I am, telling you my mother’s maiden name and my first pet for no reason.

I don’t understand how this keeps happening. If they make a visual novel, Idea Factory and Compile Heart can knock it out of the park every time. Mugen Souls was fairly smooth, but that’s also a port from the PlayStation 3. Anything Neptunia is a chore, and the less we say about Fairy Fencer F, the better. Ariana and the Elder Codex is still one of the less damaging titles, but you still see it struggling. If the only way for it to come to the Switch is to have players decide between it playing okay or looking okay, maybe just don’t release it on the Switch? At least Switch 2 owners have the benefit of better looks and playback, but the OG owners are cursed with a unicorn-blood-drinking existence.

With that small diatribe out of the way, Ariana and the Elder Codex is a competent and enjoyable adventure that scratches some good itches. The combat is chunky, the worlds are a good size for exploration, the voice work is fantastic and the visuals (when they’re smooth) are pleasing. This one feels good; not necessarily the best in its field, but still one worth mentioning if you’re looking for a metroidvania that’s lower stakes than others. It’s significantly easier than Constance or Silksong, and it’s got the design and soundtrack to make it sparkle. If you’re already down with this style of game, you’ll find a great story within. Just maybe make sure your machine is better than average to actually make it a pleasant ride.

Ariana and the Elder Codex is available now on Steam, PlayStation 4/5, and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

A Copy of Ariana and the Elder Codex was provided by the publisher.