Ever since it launched in 2017, the Nintendo Switch has received countless games thanks to its immense popularity and low barrier to development and publishing, allowing players to experience all sorts of titles from the widely popular to the deeply idiosyncratic. And there’s few games as idiosyncratic as Meringue Interactive’s About An Elf, an endearingly bizarre visual novel that plays by its own rules and worth experiencing for lovers of the strange.
About An Elf is about an elf named Dam, a (possibly self-proclaimed) princess on a quest to rid the land of monsters and create a peaceful elftopia for everyone, aided by her protégé Roland the BraveCat (yes, his name’s written like that). Or so she tells us anyway, as the game actually plays out through an overly elaborate yarn she’s spinning to the (mostly) disinterested elf Dido; one that may or may not be true depending on the moment.
Whatever the case, Dam’s adventures see her and Roland travelling around, chatting to people, interacting with objects and fighting monsters in self-contained dungeons. Doing so is very straightforward, since you only have to read text, touch moving objects on the map screen, and choose from a handful of options. Fighting monsters (usually) consists of casting a certain kind of elemental magic, which is hinted at through stock footage that’ll suggest which element to use. The monster dies instantly if you get it right, and you’ll die instantly if you get it wrong, but you’re allowed to start over immediately so it’s no big deal.
This lets the story take center stage without being encumbered by mechanical guffery, which is good because it’s a fun time. The writing style deftly mixes flowery poeticism with casual flippancy, as if Dam’s trying to bring a grand scale to the adventure that’s constantly undercut by her overexcitement or everyone else’s general indifference. It makes up new words on the spot but with their meanings quite easy to understand (like “automagic”), throws in casual references to famous works for its magic attack names, and bookends each area with short poems that meander between goofy and haunting.
It’s a deeply silly game that’s at once sincere and tongue-in-cheek, and it helps that there’s a surprising amount of variety going on. You’ll meet plenty of strange characters, while the dungeons feature arcs that develop the characters and play around with the mechanics (like one dungeon where Roland fights everyone and wins automagically). That unpredictability, combined with an overall snappy pacing, gives the comedy a punchy chaotic rhythm where you never know what’ll happen next but that it’ll always be fun to find out.
The presentation does a lot to help with that. The characters are rendered in a glossy or artificial way against very surreal backgrounds full of random clutter, like you’re playing with toys in your back garden. The art style and especially the very limited animation can be initially off-putting, but there’s a lot of specific expressions for the characters that are very well conveyed, making the game that much more charming. Same goes for Samuel Barahona’s music, which mashes together string quartets, synths, reggaeton rhythms and even record scratches to create a compellingly odd soundscape.
