Time to review a game about soaring through the air in search of the power to save a fractured civilization. Developed by Forgotten Key, let’s take a quick look at AER: Memories of Old. 

AER is an exploration-based story-driven game in which players are tasked with finding keys to access temples and retrieve three pieces of an ancient artifact that will be used to save a fractured world. In this game, the player is a shifter, granted the ability to switch between her human form and bird form, allowing for free flight from island to island around this world floating in the sky. As players go through the game they’ll learn more about the world, its dark past, and her role in it all.

First off, AER nails three important aspects of this kind of game. The graphics are unique and beautiful, offering an original aesthetic to the game. The atmosphere is incredible, with the sound effects and music being a delight to the ears. And the flight is excellent, with seamless transitions and near-perfect controls really granting a freeing feeling of soaring through the clouds.

That being said, the game does have two major flaws- the story and the gameplay. The story kind of unique, kind of original, but honestly the game would have been better off with more ambiguity. Everything is explained in way too much detail and unfortunately that detail is both predictable and a touch cliche. 

The gameplay feels uninspired, sort of like an afterthought. There are some incredibly simple puzzles, but aside from that you mostly just fly around until you get to the next goal. And when the story isn’t interesting, the reward for reaching your destination sometimes isn’t worth the effort it took to get there. The other aspects of the game lift up these shortcomings, but not enough to save the entire package.

Overall, AER is good enough for me to recommend it to  fans of atmospheric exploration games, but if that’s not your thing I’d say hold off, which is why it gets a 6.5 out of 10. The puzzles are simple and the story isn’t anything stunning, but it’s still quite a unique experience to be had. 

Honestly I hope Forgotten Key takes the transformation and flight mechanics and uses them to make something even better in the future. Either way, I’m excited to see what the studio develops next. I hope you enjoyed the review, if you did, please consider subscribing for more. And until next time, have a mighty nifty day today!