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AereA Review

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A young playwright from the East Midlands once said, “If music be the food of love, play on”. I don’t know what happened to that young playwright, but AereA has taken this one step further and made a game all about music. The weapons are musical, the main base is a musical concert hall and you are searching for legendary instruments that you collect from killing big bosses.

Confused? Don’t be. It’s all very familiar, very pleasant and you’ve no doubt played something like this before.

AereA is a music-themed action RPG in which you play as one of Great Maestro Guido’s disciples, left to explore Aezir; a floating island that has been broken into pieces. Very much like dungeon action title, Diablo, where you grind through areas collecting coins (musical notes) and power ups, while killing a range of monsters, your mission is to find and return the nine primordial instruments to restore balance and peace to the world. You have to find your way through all parts of the scattered islands – complete quests, solve puzzles, defeat bosses and discover the truth behind Aezir.

You play as one of four different characters, all with different skills and classes – a tank, an archer etc. These characters can also be played in local co-op, which is nice, but it would have been nicer to have some online co-op, to really give it some edge. AereA plays like a game from the late nineties, or turn of the century, and in doing so breeds a comforting familiarity that is like having a cup of warm hot chocolate before bedtime. You have a home, which is like a music concert hall mixed with a magical university. Here you get your missions handed to you, upgrade the weapon instruments and buy skills, potions and power ups. But when you’re ready to go, you pop into an air ship and you’re off to one of the Islands for an adventure.

The areas you find yourself in are pretty much like every RPG of this type ever has. You walk around killing monsters, while unlocking the next area to progress through. Before rinsing and repeating. You’ll sometimes find switches, neatly placed as metronomes, all around the areas for you to activate. Occasionally you’ll have to drag a magical block slowly, and rather boringly, across various levels in order to find a pressure point. You’ll also happen across various creatures, from rats to lava-based giants, all waiting for you to take them out. To do so, you’ll need to utilise your attacks, with which you have a main attack button, a skill button that activates your desired special move and another to activate a powerup. These buffs might freeze your enemy, or poison them… or they might just give you extra health. There is loot to be found in chests and there are pots and traps scattered all over the kingdom which you’ll need to dodge. But how well does AereA actually play?

Well, taking the negative side first, the dungeon levels can feel pretty empty. In something like Diablo, you would find a huge amount of enemies thrown at you, with very little let-up in the action. In AereA though, most of the time, there will be a maximum of six enemies on the screen at once. Respawning is also an issue, whereby you’ve killed all the creatures, gone to operate a switch and hey ho… they’re back again. You will also spend a large amount of time going over the same area again and again, or just simply getting lost.

In the musical base meanwhile there are lots of boring ‘go and talk to this man on the other side of the building’ missions, sending you to and fro for no real reason. But then, on the positivity front, AereA is really fun to play and very addictive. Everything works well enough and all of the combat is fun to take part in. The boss battles are great and if you are playing local co-op will find it is a hoot. There is something to be said about old school games like this, those that are very relaxing to spend a hour in at a time, away from the realistic mayhem and psychological disturbance of modern gameplay. Levelling up is always satisfying to action in any RPG too, but this one has a great range of skills to buy and that alone keeps the interest up.

AereA has the look of an old school RPG but also has that Bastion-style sheen upgrade. The base you spend lots of the time in is great to look at with some nice attention to detail. Certain areas are better then others though, with the forest and desert worlds shining, whilst the lava area is a place I certainly won’t miss. Similarly, the character designs are neat and fun, but the creatures are a bit of a mixed bag. It’s a cute game, very retro but not ground breaking in any way.

Now, seeing as this is a musical game you would expect the soundtrack to be stunning right? Well, it’s good, but not very memorable I’m afraid. There’s a constant action theme that repeats and loops as you progress through, but there isn’t any light and dark to the score itself. It’s all one beat. But then, the effects are fine and dandy, working well within the game.

Overall I’ve very much enjoyed playing this addictive old school RPG. I like the world and the characters, as well as just switching my mind off and ploughing through things in a relaxing way. Taking that into account, you may well have found me giving AereA a slightly higher score than I have. But as it currently stands, the price is way too high for a game of this level and I don’t understand the thinking in putting it in a price band in which it is competing with bigger titles. It should really come in around the £15 mark, and when it does go this low, you should give it a try.

Gareth Brierley
Gareth Brierleyhttp://www.garethbrierley.co.uk
I am an actor and a writer. I act quite a bit on stage, a little bit on tv and never on tuesdays. I have had some of my writing published and have written for TV and stage. I have been playing games since they begun and don't seem to be getting any better.
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