I love Bandcamp, but the number of game OSTs that I end up purchasing on there instead of on the site where I purchased the game is becoming ridiculous. Granted, it's $8 on BC instead of $6 on GOG, but as I'm sure everyone knows, you get to choose your choice of format on BC, instead of being stuck with an .mp3 version. An .mp3 version wouldn't even be a major issue except that it doesn't specify bitrate; while I could *easily argue most people can't tell the difference between a 320kbps .mp3 versus a usually 2.5–3.5x higher bitrate FLAC, or a 256kbps AAC version (not unless they know what they're listening for,) a 128kbps versus 320kbps is a noticeable difference to most. * * * * * Five Stars for the Soundtrack itself regardless, as it fits the game perfectly.
It's not perfect, but neither were the games of yesteryear, so I consider this a solid Metroidvania. But, I'm actually only writing a review to give people a heads-up that the soundtrack—which is one of the highlights of the game.—is available to download on Bandcamp for "Name Your Price," which means potentially free, though if you pay $1+ it gets added to your Bandcamp library. Enjoy.
It's not perfect, but neither were the games of yesteryear, so I consider this a solid Metroidvania. But, I'm actually only writing a review to give people a heads-up that the soundtrack—which is one of the highlights of the game.—is available to download on Bandcamp for "Name Your Price," which means potentially free, though if you pay $1+ it gets added to your Bandcamp library. Enjoy.
For the people who do/did enjoy this game, I just thought I'd throw out a heads-up that, even though the soundtrack isn't on GOG, for whatever reason, it is on Bandcamp for 7 SEK... which, come to find out is the equivalent of $0.75 USD ... after tax. Kind of a no-brainer. And I wasn't planning on giving my opinion on the game, since unlike everyone else on the planet, I have zero desire to do reviews plus, I'm not too far into the game, but fuck it, I'm here so... I "demoed" the game and bought it outright because a) It was $1.50, b) The flight kinda reminded me of the general physics that the old Star Fox for SNES had, and c) It's basically my new meditative escape from, another game with floating islands, Furi, a game which has been handing me my ass over and over and over yet again. AER's controls are playing well with me, using an XBOX gamepad and having tried the m+k setup (even if the jump is just a hair off... loose kinda, but still fine,) the story seems slow but serviceable so far, and the physics are fully enjoyable. I deducted a star because in an open world like this and with islands of all sizes everywhere, it seems criminal to populate them with as little as they did; more interactive sites and characters would have filled out the world nicely in my less-than-humble opinion. I'd say that the deducted star was also for the lack of voice acting, but honestly, even if they'd nailed the voice work, it may have been out of place in a game that's this serene. AER is basic as hell in just about every sense possible, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, and it certainly doesn't make it a bad game overall, it just feels like there's a lot of wasted potential. (Also, concerning one person's complaint about the sensitivity of the controls, there's literally four sensitivity sliders that you can adjust in the Settings section.)
So, this is a legit OST release, if a bit confusing. It comes bundled with .mp3 and .wav files, but the .mp3 files come in at 256kbps, which is more commonly seen in Apple's AAC format, their equivalent of .mp3 320kbps (*arguably better quality, but that's another topic,) and 274kbps... which is completely arbitrary, and leads me to believe it was a VBR conversion. The .wav files are both 2116kbps, which is fully standard for shooting an uncompressed chunk of music out a DAW at a standard standard sample rate. The upside of this is you can always convert the .wav to 320kbps, or FLAC, or whatever whatever. The actual files' quality, outside the often incorrect metadata, was confirmed with various, reliable audio utilities in Studio One, and Reaper, and again in Ukllrich Decker's nifty little program, "Fakin' The Funk?". So, rejoice fellow purists, one soundtrack out of three isn't terrible. The other two, as mentioned elsewhere, are on Bandcamp though, which means they're available in any quality you desire. Oh, and you get a solid quality .jpg cover... and a ghatdam .psd... the latter being the unofficial (unofficial as in, I just made up the loose equivalency,) image equivalent of a .wav file–quality.
