Aaru's Awakening
Review
The quality hand-made style is not enough
by Ingvi Snædal
reviewed on PC
Ragequitting (cntd)
The human mind takes time to absorb information, decode it, analyse it, and send commands to muscles on how to react. This is something people that rear-end cars in front of them simply as a result of not giving themselves enough distance to react fail to realise, and it is a problem the designers of Aaru’s Awakening seem to have failed to take factor in. The game will sometimes throw you half way across the map, only to land in a complex puzzle with no time to analyse your surroundings before being impaled on spikes. As breakable elements are not easily distinguishable from other walls, some puzzles will have you dying over and over again just trying to see that last piece that will get you out of this endless loop of death and rebirth by allowing you to at least attempt a reasoned reaction next time around. Perhaps a patch that introduced a difficulty setting that added more checkpoints, preferably after every puzzle, would help to quiet the growls of the less patient players.
Careless Controls
As soon as the aforementioned dash ability kicks in, you’ll thank the digital gods Lumenox added an option to change the dash to be based on movement rather than the cursor and I took advantage of that. The game played much better afterwards. It is such a natural thing for us to assume that an in-air dash follows the character’s direction that the option of dashing towards the cursor should be the secondary option, if an option at all. An attempt to play the game with a controller lead me to deem it fruitless as it’s almost impossible to operate the game with the precision and reflexes required and, in addition, the menu interface is broken when using one. Not assigning a default button to go back makes it unusable as you’ll have to reach for the Esc key to go back anyway if you don’t want to toggle through all the options to get to the cancel button.
Following you on screen is a counter that tells you how much time you have spent on the level. The game also tells you, indiscreetly, how many times you have died so far. Upon completing a level, your time gets added into the global leaderboards and you will be awarded a bronze, silver, or gold star for your performance. The time goals for the silver and gold stars are so far-fetched that you would have to complete the level without dying once, having studied the map, memorised all the puzzles and traps, and keep a rabbits foot between your teeth for good luck in hopes of making them. For a person to want to do this, the game has to be fun to play and present a fair, well balanced challenge. Aaru’s Awakening fits neither of those categories. What drove me forward was the story. I simply wanted to learn what happened next. The game was standing in my way.
Aaru’s Resurrection?
As an Icelander, I’m always proud to see my countrymen appear on the radar of the international gaming press, as Lumenox certainly did with Aaru’s Awakening’s concept. It is therefore with an especially heavy heart that I have typed every word above. Aaru’s Awakening could have used a couple of more months in the oven to tweak and test the controls and pace of the game. Who knows, if it’s well supported, those tweaks might be coming and they might actually improve the experience. Until then, I’ll wait patiently for the first comic to arrive.
4.6
fun score
Pros
Intriguing story, gorgeous visuals and pleasant score.
Cons
Extreme difficulty curve, bad pacing, unintuitive controls.
