AER – Memories of Old

The first time you fly in this game gives you exactly the feeling that you would expect in real life. They absolutely nailed it, it's great. The game itself is rather simple although there is no objective marker or reminder anywhere so you do actually need to pay attention to what is being said. Luckily you can get hints on your objective when talking to people so you're never completely lost. The music is nice and the way it changes when you take flight is very well done. Could've been a bit more bombastic near the finale to make it feel a bit more epic. I finished this in about 2 hours. A quarter of that time was spent enjoying the flying mechanic. I finished with 50% achievements. There is some exploring you can do but the only reward is a funny/interesting little island or a bit of extra lore. There are no hidden skills/perks anywhere. So if you don't care about that you can probably finish in 90 mins. It's basically Abzu with flying. Very relaxing, just go sight-seeing sometimes instead of chasing the next objective. Great to play with kids as well.

A beautiful little game. The story unfolds as you explore floating fragments of the world and ancient temples. Flying from island to island is inspiring yet soothing. Note, however, that there is not much to do besides exploring the lands and learning about what happened to it.

Aer - Memories of old is a game where you can transform into a bird and explore a world of little floating islands. The controls are not perfect but once you get the hang of it you can appreciate the kind of freedom a bird has, or why transforming into a bird is cooler than just flying with your own body. The mechanics for this part are really well done. There's an unfortunate glitch though if you try to explore beyond bounds which can kill your game and turn it into a white screen of death though, so that must be penalized. The rest of the game is mostly forgettable. We have soothing sounds for the comfortable exploring experience, but also low poly graphics that stress the PC more than they should and that take way too long to get charming, the animals are cute but for a lot of other things in the environment it screams unpolished job. And then there's the story and the action, or the actual game. We have a story about Gods and spirit animals and faith and some great event that we can't really trace back to, only read in broken parts, so it's very easily forgettable, and we have puzzle mechanics to complete our mission as the chosen shapeshifter, but the puzzles are all done in human form so the controls are underwhelming and the results uninteresting. At least they're fairly short, so it's not a major downside. The major downside is how the game tries to have this enemy in the story that does absolutely nothing because your only threats are the glitch and the PC struggling with the graphics. It's not only poor writing, the entire game experience works against that. It's a serious conflict, the kind that makes you wonder why the game exists as it is. -1 for game breaking glitch, -1 for performance issues (aka having to disable graphic settings to have a decent enough experience), -1 for poor concept overall.

This is such a beautiful game that feels so nice to play and explore through. The non-punishing design is super relaxing and the story is quite invocative if you pay attention to the surroundings. I played it over multiple sessions with long enough in between that I don't remember the early parts so well and nothing is written down for you to follow, so it might be easy to get lost if you come back to it and don't remember what to do next. Other than that it's easy enough to follow along.

Loved playing this game. It's a puzzle solving experience with great music and environments. Soaring around exploring as an eagle is always fun. Played it alone and with my 11 yr old daughter. Wish there were more unique games like this. Thank you to the developers.