Game Review: Aery – Little Bird Adventures

Aery: Little Bird Adventures
Developer: EpiXR Games UG
Publisher: EpiXR Games UG
Release Date: 16 Oct, 2020
Genre: Exploration
Platform: Switch
RRP: $14.50 AUS

 

Aery is a peaceful exploration game from the perspective of a little bird who decided to discover the world. Calm down from the hassle of your daily life, experience the feeling of flying, and immerse yourself into beautiful and atmospheric landscapes.

I started playing more indie Switch games the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. I don’t remember what finally got me into indie games, but I do remember that I told my husband that I loved one of the first ones I tried, AER: Memories of Old so much, and he recommended Aery to me.

That might have been a mistake.

I think the basic story of Aery is you take on the role of a little bird in a dreamscape and travel through different themed stages collecting white feathers until you reach the end and… possibly wake up? (Although that may have been one of the sequels, Broken Memories – the games are unfortunately  interchangeable.)

I loved AER so much that I was looking for another game with awesome flight dynamics. And while Aery is eye-catching and simple, designed for a relaxing experience, it’s also repetitive in both the visual and audio department, and although you can flap your wings, it doesn’t affect the flying at all. You can’t do anything cool like a loop the loop or banking, and you can’t speed up or slow down which makes looking for those feathers difficult sometimes since the landscapes as so heavily stylised.

The soundtrack is repetitive and as far as I can remember, it’s exactly the same in the sequels as well.  There is no voice over or any emotion connected with the music. I’m pretty sure it’s the exact same song for every level in a single game, but I may just be misremembering. It certainly wasn’t great.

I actually made the mistake of buying the next two games in this series at the same time, thinking they might be somewhat improved, but alas, I was wrong. It looks like the devs have found a formula they can easily copy and are throwing the sequels out as fast as they can. Every time I look at the Nintendo e-store, there’s a new game.

• Little Bird Adventures – October 2020
• Sky Castle – October 2020
• Broken Memories – November 2020
• A Journey Beyond Time – February 2021
• Calm Mind – July 2021
• Dreamscape – January 2022
• Calm Mind 2 – March 2022
• A New Frontier – May 2022
• Last Day on Earth – October 2022
• Vikings – July 2022

I may not have been so disappointed with the first game if I literally hadn’t just finished AER, which has the best flight mechanics in a bird game I’ve ever played, but I do think that the first game in this series, at least, might be considered relaxing or cozy since all you do if fly around a collect feathers.

It’s a shame the sequels are all literally just repackaged versions of the first game though, because in my opinion there is a lot of room for improvement to make the next games in this series better. Improving the visuals, soundtrack, and flight mechanics being top priorities. Since the game focuses so much on aesthetic, I would also have loved to change my bird’s skin at will.

All video games are purchased by myself or gifted from a friend.

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