3 minute read
aer
Seek out AER’s fauna for a major dose of cuteness (and achievements)
Publisher DAeDAlic entertAinment / DeVeloPer Forgotten Key / forMat XBoX one / release Date out now / Cost £13.49
AER – Memories Of Old
high-flying ExplorAtion in A world of forgottEn gods Zoe Delahunty-light
As soon as we flap our wings, the simplicity of our quest suddenly makes sense. Find the temple. Solve the puzzle. Move onto the next. You’d think that the last section would be a chore. Actually, it’s an utter joy. See, there’s no horse to cajole into a gallop, or even a glider to hang from. To get from one island to the next, we just turn into a bird.
Set in a land where gods have been forgotten and a threat called the Void has begun to wake, AER’s main selling point isn’t the story. Instead it’s Auk. She’s our eyes into the world and is able to transform into a mystic hawklike creature, using her feathered shape to complete her pilgrimage. But things don’t go exactly to plan…
When things inevitably start to go wrong and the Void awakens, there are three temples we seek out to find guidance. To get there we’re given simple directions and have to solve a puzzle to reveal the path to our destination. It’s very much a good thing that the journeying to the temples is easy as there’s this exuberant, dizzying glee that comes from flying at full speed or circling over an island to scout it out. Even better is the beacon of light that guides you to your next location, visible from the horizon and a good excuse to do a bit of exploring now that you know you’re near.
Unfortunately, the puzzles that await us in each temple don’t reach the same soaring heights. Instead
right glide peacefully over islands or flap your wings to speed up: how you traverse AEr’s landscape is up to you.
short cut
What is it?
Part flying simulation, part exploration, with a few puzzles thrown in for good measure.
What’s it like?
Bewitching when soaring through the air but a little too easy and over far too fast.
Who’s it for?
Someone who wants to relax for a while, lovingly staring at the pleasant scenery around them.
of being challenging brainteasers, they’re straightforward and, consequently, a little dull. However, they will make you explore every last inch of the temples to find the next section to solve, which makes you collide with the transparent phantoms that tell AER’s backstory. These frozen tableaus flesh out the history of the land, adding the perspective of ordinary people to this tale of gods, spirits and shapeshifters. This goes a long way to making us care about the world and the ruins we explore.
High and flighty
Even though AER perfectly embodies what it must feel like to soar among the clouds, when it comes to the lore and story you’re embroiled in everything it gets quite... bewildering. Gods, spirit animals, priestesses, the God King, the Creator, the Dreamer, as well as the confusing Caretaker concept – we find it difficult to grasp exactly what each one’s function is. As a result, understanding where we fit into everything is confusing, especially as at every opportunity characters decided to lecture us on ancient history and their past.
Yet AER’s biggest disappointment is that after the puzzles, the exploration, and the mystical gods we meet, we’re faced with a sudden ending. There’s no final complex puzzle, no great revelation. The screen simply cuts to black after a bit of jumping and one final cutscene. While some could construe this as intentional ambiguity, AER cheats itself out of a finale that could have been a fitting culmination of all the flying and exploration skills we built up over the course of playing.
It’s a shame, as if you skimp on the exploration and just follow the story you only have about three hours’ worth of play. AER’s world is so beautiful that we’d happily take more. For now we’ll have to content ourselves with staring at the birds wheeling through the sky. n
oXM VerDiCt
A beautiful but unchallenging exploration game that’s a little on the brief side.
7
