SquareEnix introduces a new HD-2D action-adventure game with an early Switch 2 demo.
What Is It? This demo was released exclusively on the Switch 2, the full game releases in 2026.
The name of this game is 1) 100% Zelda coded and 2) a bit silly. At least Zelda earned The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past by having a few games under its belt by then. Jumping straight into a game with a subtitle is mildly annoying. That’s the end of my rant on the name of this game.
The demo shows off a variety of gameplay. I don’t know for sure, but it seems like it is a custom made section for the demo, intended to show off a variety of gameplay rather than simply the first hour or two of the game.
You start out with some brief plot about needing to save the world as Elliot, and you are given a fairy companion to tag along. From there, you leave the castle and get started. You get to equip two weapons, mapped to the X and Y buttons on Switch 2. The demo starts with sword, bombs, and bow + arrow, and you can unlock a chained metal bludgeoning device as well. You have a shield at all times, it does not take up an equipment slot and can even be used to parry.
You also have fairy powers. You control the fairy with the right analog stick, she can deal minor damage, pick up dropped items, and cross a gap so you can warp if you equip that particular ability. The fairy is a bit too chatty at times, I suspect that gets toned down before the final release.
There is an overworld and dungeons, with enemies waiting at every turn in both. The dungeons are built around trying to find your way out. This involved finding the right path to drop/climb to the right spot to get the right key to open the door to get to the next area to do it all again to reach the final room and then leave. There are also trial dungeons which are focused on a particular aspect of the game and reward you with an extra HP slot when completed. One of these was combat-focused, another used your run/glide ability, while a third makes sure you know how to use your shield.
That’s about it. There is very light puzzling in the way of hitting a button to trigger something then needing to go jump on a lily pad to cross a gap. Ah yes, the jump button. It’s here which suggests a bit of a fun vertical aspect to the game, but it’s only ever used here to jump on lily pads. This occurs as you try to progress through dungeons and also in the final boss fight.
The game uses Square’s recent HD-2D art style. It looks as nice as any other of their entries with this style.
The Best Part: The game feels familiar. It borrows from many 2D action-adventure tropes, you’ve probably seen just about all of this before in some form or another. See an off-colored wall? Put a bomb there and find a treasure hiding. Slash with your sword or stay ranged with bow + arrow. And so on. This feels like a blend of a lot of familiar games and that can be a great thing.
The Worst Part: You get to equip ability boosts via a system called Magicite. This is a fun idea. You can equip a stone which chains your bow + arrow attacks to hit surrounding enemies, you can expand the reach of your sword, etc… You get a limited number of stones you can equip, with the stronger stones costing more of your capacity points to equip. This is all fine, except that you might run out of arrows at some point, in which case equipping a box + arrow Magicite will be pointless for a brief period as you swap out for another weapon. You’ll be in menus changing your Magicite loadout to account for this. To the game’s credit, you can define some present Magicite loadouts and swap these in a sub-menu using the RZ button. However, this still seems like it will get annoying and cumbersome to maintain throughout the game. I do not want to have to swap weapons and Magitice on a regular basis, and having unique weapons with specific uses seems to suggest we will need to be swapping frequently. I’m concerned what this will look like as the game expands.
The Verdict: I’m excited to see how this turns out because its floor seems to be a generic 2D Zelda clone, and that’s something I am probably going to be interested in. The ceiling is much higher if they can manage to make it unique. There are some hints of this with a dedicated jump button, fairy powers, Magicite system, and others, but it isn’t fleshed out enough in this demo to say how it will all work out. For example, I loved seeing a main button (B) as the jump button, then I almost never used it during the demo. It should play a bigger role with some legit platforming sections, and especially in boss fights.
Elsewhere, the fairy is fun but currently is not adding anything terribly unique. The “move the fairy across a gap to warp over there” is fun, but it’s not much different than a classic Zelda hookshot. The warp ability can be used twice when fully charged, then you have to wait for the cooldown. I found myself waiting because there were sections where you needed to make more than two jumps within a small time window. This is bad design to make players wait for a cooldown when they have to make these warps to progress.
And that’s the rub when you are openly pulling from so many known classics; you have to find a way to forge a unique identity. The Adventures of Elliot demo has planted some seeds of hope here, but it is not fully realized in this early demo. This is one I will be keeping my eye on but is far from an instant-buy as I thought it may be when I heard of a new 2D action-adventure game from Square.
How to Play: Switch 2* (Debut Demo only), full game across every current gen console
*console played on for this review
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