AER: Memories of Old
AER: Memories of Old’s calm atmosphere and laid-back gameplay make it decent chill pill, but its intriguing narrative and lore winds up being wasted.
Peaceful , mysterious , and waste would all be apt descriptions orAER : Memories of Old . go down in a scenic world of fractured , float islands , players control a chosen warrior with the ability to transform into a bird . Soaring through the skies to unravel an ancient mystery wo n’t deliver a million chill a minute , and aspects of the world decidedly underwhelm , butAERcan be a chill manner to burn a couple of hours .
As Auk , actor must forbid an oncoming catastrophe by collecting pieces of a fractured artifact across three temples . A mystical lantern acts as Auk ’s primary peter , used to set off witching machine and illuminate ghostly look-alike of the world ’s premature occupant . Gameplay lacks scrap , instead focusing purely on traversal either by ft or by extension . Taking flight of stairs in bird conformation feels fun and liberating , and the performance guard up in hand-held mode .
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Temples play as the most entertaining and solid gameplay segments . brusque , childlike , and sweet , exploring them mostly involves aerate nodes to open doors though they do incorporate some platforming and light mystifier - solving . One of the most involved temples requires scale a multi - floor tower to change by reversal on enough switches to open up an clandestine entrance . “ flowing ” would substantially distinguish these dungeons ; anyone hop for the second come ofZeldawill be greatly disappointed . Still , they matchAER ’s overall missionary post statement of yield players a nice time without making them do too much .
Overworld exploration feels similarly light but more unfulfilling . AER ’s large - than - anticipate world is intentionally empty for lore reason . Ancient tablets and curl to do the heavy - lifting in the world - building section , along with a smattering of NPCs . The problem comes in finding the need to seek out this additional info as much of it lies outside of the brief independent quest . Learning about old animal gods and how the once - commix land became shattered can be intriguing if not head - scratching . The ideas have hope , but the desire to instruct this hooey at last comes down to not have any other extramarital choice .
With so many landmasses , AERfeels ripe for more piquant discoveries . Occasionally you ’ll chance a cave contain more banknote or have a fruitless chat with a divine animal but that ’s about it . The biz does n’t involve to beSkyrimor have anything close to that level of side content . But it ’s unsatisfying to realize you ’re glide over most stead because there ’s little reason to visit them . For the less booked , you ’re better off just beelining it through the three temples asAERdoesn’t tender much else beyond ruined architecture and pretty landscaping .
Another issue is that all ofAER : Memories of Old’slore feel undercut by the 2-dimensional main story , specifically its abrupt conclusion . The biz just ends out of nowhere without resolve story threads . What happen to the world and the friend you cope with ? What becomes of the great darkness ? Who do it . Cryptic finales are one matter , but this is so jarring that at first it seems likeAERskipped a cutscene or some other bug occur . It also constitute the time drop fly around and become over every stone for selective information palpate largely nonmeaningful since it does n’t devote off in the end . That ’s a shame because the story , while not awesome , is at least serviceable up to that detail .
At best , AERcan be a restful and contemplative experience . At worst , it can be confusing bore . The pleasing intro nominate it soft on the optic , and its relaxed gameplay makes it a solid plot to veg out with . Just do n’t get too invested in what ’s actually going on as the mildly interesting melodic theme wind up going largely unrealized .
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Pilot Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones) and scientist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) find themselves in an epic fight for survival while attempting to make discoveries in a hot air balloon
AER : Memories of Oldis uncommitted now for Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , and Xbox One . Screen Rant was allow a digital Switch code for the use of this followup .
Pilot Amelia Wren ( Felicity Jones ) and scientist James Glaisher ( Eddie Redmayne ) find themselves in an epic battle for survival while attempting to make discovery in a hot air balloon
Pilot Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones) and scientist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) find themselves in an epic fight for survival while attempting to make discoveries in a hot air balloon
