After finishing a pair of lengthy games with Harvestella and Fire Emblem Engage, I needed breather of sorts. This blog post will be the first of many that are focused on much shorter games.

I knew very little about AER: Memories of Old going into it, other than it looked similar to adventure / exploration games I had played before like Abzu, Journey, and Sea of Solitude...which turned out to be very accurate. Much like the aforementioned games, you explore a dreamlike world, but this time you can also transform into a bird and fly around.

As you explore the world, you'll find different ruins that you can explore to progress the story. AER has a decent number of puzzles in it compared to other games I've played in this genre and they help keep things interesting. The ruins were fun and all, but they had surprisingly lengthy load times (both in and out of the ruins) and from what I can tell, the puzzles would reset if you left before completing the entire thing. The latter was especially annoying because (at least) one of the ruins had multiple entrances and I mistakenly left and was forced to re-do a number of puzzles.

The ruins are mostly dark and shackle the game's wonderful art direction that's able to shine once you're back on the surface. Flying around in the overworld area was an enjoyable (and relaxing) activity in between exploring the ruins. The game also has a wonderful and atmospheric soundtrack that perfectly complements the art direction.

The problem with AER though is once you look past the graphics and sound, there's not much going on to separate it from the pack. This is a by-the-numbers adventure / exploration game that's certainly enjoyable, but also a mostly forgettable experience. It's not a bad game by any means, it's just...average. It's a relatively short game though and took me less than 3 hours to complete (if that's your jam), but I'd highly recommend trying some of the more well known games in the genre first.

Played On: Xbox One
Completion Date: 2/4/23
Time: 2 hours 47 minutes
Rating: 5/10