A gentle walking (flying?) sim. We play as Auk, a shapeshifter who can take a bird form, who lives in a world of shattered, floating islands. She undertakes a pilgrimage across the sky to find ancient temples in order to find a way of pushing back an encroaching dark force. Most of the gameplay is wrapped up in flying around and enjoying the sights, with some extremely light puzzle solving in the temples themselves. Lovely low-poly visuals and great aesthetic design are the main draws here as the narrative is very understated and the gameplay has no real challenges to speak of.

After exiting the tutorial cave I was almost immediately overwhelmed by there being so much stuff to look at and almost no way to make sense of it all. The text box shadowing isn't strong enough so any special terms that get written in non-white are actually harder to read than the normal text. There's signs marking the paths within the village, but they're just "magic rune" font (like in a zelda) and you can't click them to read what they actually say (the opposite of a zelda). If there had been like, little markers on the map of where to go I probably could have muddled through, but with no guidance at all I think this one isn't for me.

An adventure, platform, and puzzle game all in one. I really liked the open world. You're thrown into it after learning the basics. Little push to the direction of your objectives. It really wants you to explore on your own. There's no fighting or fear of fall damage. It made the experience laid back. You can wander around inside caves and old buildings, then outside you transform seamlessly into a bird to fly. It's pretty cool.

It was a short experience. I kind of wish it was a bit longer. But I'm glad none of it felt like filler. The low poly art style is fantastic with the whimsy world and the music/audio is really wonderful. I would recommend it if you want a chill experience.

In AER: Memories of Old, you play as Auk, a pilgrim from the People of the Sky, who can shift into the form of a bird through her Spirit Animal (please note this is the term the game uses). Auk explores the world as it is now, learning about the past and the Great Divide.

This game is more of a guided exploration with the occasional puzzle/platforming experience rather than a game in either of these genres. I've seen many people call this a walking sim, and I'd agree - if that doesn't appeal to you, this isn't the game for you!

I played this on the Nintendo Switch, and the controls worked well. However, I did have some trouble with the graphics and cut scenes which ended up freezing and jumping around a little - so not ideal.

It's very easy to impress me with games similar to GRIS and JOURNEY, but I just wasn't a fan of this one. This has way more gameplay than the game it took all of its inspiration from, but sadly most of it feels extremely dull. The "lore" and the atmosphere didn't do much for me either, and while it was never frustrating to play, I felt absolutely nothing at all while playing this. But despite all of this, I do think that the team that worked on this has the potential to drop an absolute banger and I would love to see a new, polished game from them that's similar to AER.

Price: 2 bucks

The mechanic that carries this game is clearly the flying. So why there's dungeons at all in this game is a big question. Took me 15 minutes to complete half of the first one. Saved, quit, came back, puts me at the start of the dungeon again. Gotta redo it. Great.

Traversing the overworld is amazing, gorgeous. Why the game forces you into confusing dungeons is a mystery.

The other dungeons aren't so bad, i actually quite enjoyed them. More flying would be better though. The story is not too captivating, i got the jist of it and didn't care too much. A cute game that i would recommend if you chase that serene feeling in games like i do.