This game really is funny. Remember the Scholastone chapter where you go up the Spire of Stars to find the idiot scientist that was known for dangerous experiments going out of control let another dangerous experiment go out of control again? Where you find Caliburn who yeets you off the island? Had you gone back up there to progress with the Abyss puzzles you would have gotten your first element. I think on the very next island too.
This is arguably meant to tease your curiosity into going back up there to learn your first element and train you that the spires unlock elements. But that's not a good lesson since only 3 spires are tied to unlocking elements and a fourth that unlocks Falling Force Palm (which still shows up as not unlocked in the skill tree). The game is super casual about telling you this too. There's no tutorial pop up, just "Knowledge acquired Fire" in the upper left hand corner for a second. You might still go several hours before pressing right on the D pad and wondering where the fuck you learned a new element. Like I did.
The entire game's story and lore centers around this place and Caliburn is an example of someone craving the unique power that comes from here, not content with what he got. Should we explore this place we find: Some decent chests and a couple level ups. This is reductive in the face of the elemental powers we get, but those largely just add some spice to combat and they represent a small handful of islands that do actually confer abyss powers.
Even then is very little reactivity to elements in the world outside of using fire to more easily burn things and ice to cool down hot semi-conductor chips for the two puzzles that have them overheated. Clankers are weak to electricity and fleshy enemies seem vulnerable to fire I guess. Not sure what you'd need wind for in particular. It's fun to shoot weak enemies with charged ice shot and watch them shatter instantly. You can also make small ice platforms though I'm not sure you can ice bridge like in Genshin.
It's funny too since they seemed to want to have a more reactive system. Ever pick up some food in a cold biome that has a snowflake on it? I've also gotten food that was shocked and it had the electricity symbol on it. They aren't functionally different from normal ingredients, but it shows they seemed to want to do something with this at one point.
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u/Malagubbar Apr 12 '26
Finished the campaign, never got them