Aerannis

Nice 16bit graphics, nice puzzles, interesting story inside...

잠오는 듯한 주인공의 눈이 내눈을 닮아.. 끄고 한숨잤다

The story and setting are good but the mechanics and layout feel sloppy and unfinished. Unfortunately, it is way too easy to lose track of where you need to go since there's no map or objective marker. In addition, I've softlocked myself in the radio tower. The enemy AI can also be glitchy. I've had enemies constanly go up and down stairs or even stand in place when they would normally patrol.

Aerannis is yet another of literally thousands of 2D retro pixel platformers infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of all video games everywhere. This shovelware platformer has at least had some effort put into it, it's not just a copy+paste of a platformer template from GameMaker Studio or Construct 2, but all that means is a lot of work went into a poor game concept for an old, dead format, when they could have saved a lot of time and done what most amateur developers do and copy + paste a template. Anyway this one has a metroidvania style and some kind of cyberpunk/cthulu theme, but this is all lost in the craptastic technical execution. Controls are clunky and restrained, somewhat unresponsive feeling, so that's a killer even if you can look past the glaring technical defects. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. There's no options to change the resolution for the game or customise the graphics settings. There's no way for gamers to ensure this is running at the native resolution of their displays... there's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. There's no way for gamers to try improve the low quality graphics. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game. Aerannis is relatively cheap at $1 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend.

I have put in 9 1/2 hours into this game and just wow. I didn't expect quite the high level of quality I got. So a quick breakdown of [h1] Positives [/h1] -A pretty deep well thought out story -Very high quality Pixel art -The game runs really well -Pretty imaginative and original boss designs with their own mechanics etc. -Surprisingly deep Stealth gameplay and mechanics -Pretty great soundtrack [h1] Negatives [/h1] -No cloud save (at least it's not listed) -The controls can sometimes be finicky especially when the game needs you to be in just the right spot for certain actions to automatically happen, Allowing a manual options to for example go into crawling position by holding a certain button could have helped this (but it's only in a few spots it becomes a problem) -It would be nice to have a visual display of the controls in the options menu to show the default bindings. [h1]Overall[/h1] Very much worth the price tag and much more. Quality and content wise you're getting a lot of value compared to what you'd expect for the really low price.

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This one may be relatively short (~7-9 hours), but it's quite a fun and enjoyable trans cyberpunk pseudo-metroidvania experience. Soundtrack: Great overall, perfectly scratching the synthwavy cyberpunk itch! Bandcamp link: https://effoharkay.bandcamp.com/album/aerannis-ost/ Linux support: Haven't tested yet ;-; In a bit of a personal note, Aerannis (everything about it) inspired me to create [TRANSHUMANIST], a cyberpunk Drum & Bass project set to build a silent city controlled by a secretive corporation and follow a young autistic transfeminine hacker disowned by her parents and her journey to uncover the horrors done by the corporate in the name of security, progress and "human evolution". https://linktr.ee/transhumanistic/ TLDR: Not a metroidvania, not for everyone, but if you're a trans cyberpunk fanatic like me then it'll be a short but great adventure right up your alley!! :3

The gameplay is pretty okay, but where the game really shines is through it's tongue-in-cheek jokes poking fun at trans exclusionary radical feminists, and it's serious message about trans liberation. Looks beautiful, and definitely worth the $5 price tag