Elva the Eco Dragon LadiesGamers

Elva the Eco Dragon Review

Game: Elva the Eco Dragon
Genre: Educational, Arcade, Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Xbox One/S/X )
Developers | Publishers: ISDEC Soluciones | Titan Deep Space Company
Age Rating: US E | EU 3
Price: US $12.99 | UK £11.69 | EU € 12,99
Release Date: September 16th, 2021

Review code used, with many thanks to Titan Deep Space Company

Independent educational game development studio Titan Deep Space Company have released the 3D action-adventure Elva the Eco Dragon on the Nintendo Switch. Are you ready to save the Earth?

Elva the Eco Dragon LadiesGamers
Menu screen

Eco Dragon

In our world, there are lots of people who are concerned about the environment and the impact on the planet that pollution and waste have on it. Elva is a little dragon that has come from another galaxy to help humanity saving the world. You must guide her in different scenarios with different tasks in order to clean areas and to teach you/us how to take care of the planet.

Elva the Eco Dragon LadiesGamers
Sandy beach

Elva is a little cute blue dragon who you control throughout the nine campaign levels in the game. There isn’t really a story in the game other than Elva wants to clean up the world. Nor are there any other NPC’s that take part in the game, there are a few hanging about on each level but from what I can see they only seem to be there for appearance sake. There is one NPC that is permanently on the bottom of the screen giving encouragement as you play, that is, if you have time to actually read what they are saying while you play.

Elva the Eco Dragon LadiesGamers
Eco books to find on each level

A Dragon who Collects Rubbish

Since Elva is on a mission to clean the Earth, that’s exactly what you do. On each level of the game, you are required to collect rubbish or garbage and recycle it in the recycling bins, collect compost as well as plant trees and change plastic bags to paper bags. You’ll find everything from household trash to toxic waste to space travel debris. The whole game revolves around cleaning up each level and being environmentally friendly. There is a tutorial but after playing it I didn’t feel it told me much about the game.

Elva the Eco Dragon LadiesGamers
Misson over before I really got started.

The levels are timed and you are meant to try to collect all the collectables on each level before the timer is up. This involves collecting general small items of rubbish such as tin cans and cardboard boxes and carrying them to the recycling stand.

Elva can only transport one item at a time to the recycle stand. As well as small items to recycle there are barrels scattered around the level and 50 books to collect as well. So there is quite a lot to collect, however, the problem I encountered was there isn’t any way to collect everything in a level before the timer runs out. All the rubbish is spread out across the level and it is just impossible to collect it all within the time frame.

Elva the Eco Dragon LadiesGamers
Recycling rubbish

A Dragon with Special Powers

As you play you unlock special skills for Elva called eco powers. Skills like Flight allowing Elva to fly and SuperTree allowing Elva to grow a tree instantly. I found that it is not always clear what the powers are meant to do. Or even how to activate them. For instance, the game kept saying I had the eco power Super Garden. But even when I appeared to have enough eco-energy nothing would happen when I would try to use the power. I did enjoy using the power of flight that Elva unlocks but even that turned into a disappointment as the little dragon froze in the air in one level and I had to turn the game off.

Elva the Eco Dragon LadiesGamers
Eco power of Flight

Aimed at Children

I like the message the game is trying to give and I admire the attempts of the developer in doing so. The game is aimed at children aged 6-12 years old. The game is really just a timed collectathon from start to finish.

There were also a few things in the game that didn’t make total sense to me. For example, radioactive or toxic waste that Elva collects in the game is still expected to be recycled or composted in the same way as normal recycling but surely recycling radioactive or toxic waste materials would be highly dangerous.

Elva the Eco Dragon LadiesGamers
Time is a ticking

Visuals and Controls

Visually the game is fine. It won’t knock your socks off in the looks department that’s for sure, but it gets the job done. The game is also hindered by the messy and cluttered user interface. On the Switch, it seems to take over the whole screen. There were times while playing the game I couldn’t see where I was going with information clogging my view on the screen.

Elva the Eco Dragon is controlled by the joy-cons, and you can use the touchscreen controls for the menus. The controls work well, for the most part, I did find the camera was very floaty and there isn’t a way to centre the camera behind Elva other than moving the camera manually using the R stick. Unfortunately, Elva also had a tendency to get stuck in the surroundings and sometimes clip through the scenery.

Elva the Eco Dragon LadiesGamers
At the recycle stand

Conclusion

Elva the Eco Dragon is primarily aimed at children. It is meant to help teach them about the environment and how to treat the planet better. I’m having such a difficult time deciding a score for the game. While I have looked at the game through a child’s eye, I can’t overlook the messy interface on the Switch. Nor the little dragon getting frozen in mid-flight or getting stuck in the scenery.

The game has an appropriate theme for today’s world and it is admirable that the developer is trying to teach children about looking after the earth, but I don’t think they have hit that mark correctly!

Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure  I'm not sure

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