Ariana And The Elder Codex Review

I will admit I am not the best with Metroidvania games. I generally lose on platforming and having to backtrack. I will also admit I had a grand time with the demo of Ariana and the Elder Codex. Will this be the game that gets me into Metroidvanias?

Game Name: Ariana and the Elder Codex
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch
Reviewed On: PlayStation 5
Developer(s): Idea Factory, Compile Heart, HYDE Inc.
Publisher(s): Idea Factory International
Release Date: March 24th, 2026
Price: $29.99

Ariana and the Elder Codex has you in the shoes of Ariana, who is a librarian in the most important library in the world. It has the Elder Codex, the books that house the spirit of the Seven Heroes, and their spirits make Magic possible. One night, an entity comes to disturb these books, and it corrupts them enough that they no longer allow the use of magic. Ariana luckily has a special innate ability to repair codices. It is your goal now to fix these books and restore magic to the world.

Repairing The Elder Codex

Ariana and The Elder Codex is all about repairing the books. To repair the books, Ariana has to go inside them and defeat a bunch of monsters and retell the stories that are inside them. Each of the codices has a story you can follow, and you generally fully repair the title by defeating the book’s final boss, which is usually tied to the resolution. Repairing these books requires platforming and using traversal abilities. You get a new traversal ability from each codex. You may not be able to 100% repair a book on the first time you go into the codex.

There is a huge emphasis on combat with the spells you can accumulate in this game. You start with some basic spells in all the elements, but as you repair more and more codices, you will gather more spells you can utilize. You get six spell slots you can change outside of combat. I generally always had the sword magic equipped, so it’s more like five spell slots and the sword. The spells are arranged by element. You have the innate magic from Ariana on one page, you can switch, and then the four elements of Water, Wind, Earth, and Fire.

There are a lot of things you can do in combat. Some spells will use crowd control and make enemies unable to move. Others will do a large area of effect attack that covers a lot of mobs. There is even a beam attack with water that looks like a Kamehameha wave. Each spell has a casting time and a cooldown time. You can start the cast, and then move and cast another spell in case you want to combine attacks. The one I generally tend to favor is the wind spell that gathers enemies in one place, and the fire spread that puts every enemy on fire and slowly drains their health. Then I will finish it off with a massive earth beam that attacks directly underneath them, bypassing any armored enemies.

To repair a codex, Ariana needs to repair each rift inside the book.  Each rift is shown as a purple eye icon somewhere on the page of the codex. When you get close to the rift, Ariana can initiate her ability to repair the rift. It requires a mob fight or a race to repair them. You have to beat the enemies within a certain amount of time, or reach a place on the page before the countdown ends. You will get grades depending on how fast you repair the rift. If you do it relatively fast, you can get an A rank. Getting an A rank also increases your base stats. This gives a lot of incentive to go back to fix them faster if you get a B or C rank.

There are some repair points that are optional in the codex. You generally only need to repair 80% of the codex for it to become functional. Getting to 100% requires some backtracking after you unlock more traversal abilities. There are repair points hidden past rock barriers, or until you obtain the air dash with the double jump. This is usually easy to see with just a glance at the full map.

The World of the Library

Outside of restoring the codices, Ariana and the Elder Codex will have you talking to characters inside the library as well as reading codices throughout the world. As you repair certain codices, more and more readable material becomes available for you to look at. I spent a good chunk of time just going through the material, since it is the only way you really get to look at the lore of the world this library is in. Ariana gets to learn about the seven heroes and how they shaped reality the way it is now, but it also has characters and moments that you can only understand as you read through these optional codices. There is a good chunk of extra codices that explain this world, but they are all bite-sized to get only the important parts.

The art of Ariana and the Elder Codex is heavily inspired by Vanillaware with the hand-drawn artbook aesthetic. It looks solid, and each page of a codex is magical. The bosses and the characters are all well-designed. Using a storybook aesthetic with this particular art style was an amazing decision. It emphasized moments well, and we do get to see the art of different facial expressions of characters. I wish there were more artwork from this game out there to see. A shame there isn’t a plus edition of this game, simply because the art book would be a must-own in my opinion. Note that there is a digital art book for owners of the digital deluxe edition of the game.

Standard Edition

I was sent a physical version of Ariana and the Elder Codex alongside some press goodies. Even though there isn’t a plus edition of the game. Idea Factory International did a lot with the main game case. It not only has reverse cover art, but it also comes with a bookmark that resembles the quill that Ariana uses to repair the codices. Maybe down the line, we will get a limited edition or a plus edition of the game that can include the artbook that I would want, but for now lets go into what you actually get with the game.

The original cover art is Ariana and the rest of the cast, that plays an important part in the game. You will see some of these characters more than others, of course, in the game, depending on how much you upgrade your kit or craft items.

The art of the reverse cover art is my favorite one personally. It shows Ariana writing in a codex with her quill. It also has a better contrast for the back cover. It shows a lot more of Ariana’s personality with her teacup in her hand, with a smile on her face as she is using her magic. Now is for the fun part, the press media kit!

The press kit comes with an additional bookmark that resembles one of the windows from the game. There is a postcard that shows the Virellis family. It also has a card of Ariana. The team definitely loves Ariana’s design, and I can’t blame them. The final item in the press kit was a file folder. I will admit I don’t use folders much anymore, but I might make an exception for this one. It looks and feels phenomenal.

Ariana And The Elder Codex

Honestly, Ariana and the Elder Codex is a solid video game. It uses the Metroidvania mechanics well, and the combat feels fluid. If I got stuck on a boss, I generally just had to change my magic setup and then re-fought it with a much better sense of what spells I needed to use. Its worth noting that elements all get affected by spells’ cooldowns. If you use a water spell, all your water spells go on cooldown. So it is wise to diversify your lineup. This may not get me into the metroidvania genre, but as someone who isn’t usually into those games, this is a solid time.

Ariana and the Elder Codex will be released on March 24th, 2026, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch. It will be released on April 29th, 2026, for PC.

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Review Disclosure Statement: Ariana and the Elder Codex was provided to us by Idea Factory International for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.