Aero's Quest

“Press said that Aero's Quest is where Super Meat Boy meets Megaman.” Press needs to go work on its referencing.

While it’s true that this platform game might bear the frustrating tight windows from such harder games, it wields neither the finesse nor scaling of either of those games. This challenge has no grace; rather, it’s cobbled together with some tricky parts, admittedly, but certainly not with a cohesive whole in mind.

Like a lot of its peers in the flat, drawn, side-scrolling genre, Aero's Quest isn’t necessarily a looker. Simple illustrations and coloring with some minor effects and obviously off-the-rack sound effects pave the way for a plain adventure where gameplay is king. Prioritizing isn’t always necessarily a bad thing, but at the cost of a pleasant presentation, it certainly can be a lesser aspect. Some sort of story setup is equally disappointing and doesn’t get past the age-old trope of a kidnapped relationship in need of rescue.

Furthering its ho-hum state, Aero's Quest isn’t an immediate hit on its core mechanisms. Jump over enemies, avoid death traps, get to the goal in time, save the caged person and repeat. That routine is the same everywhere. To differentiate itself a little, platform elements can count on some clever level design twists. Progression is torn away from the normal linear, left to right progression. Instead, a use of power-ups will require the character to jump higher, move faster and use similar advantages to get over an obstacle quickly, obtain a key or other item and then immediately return to another part of the level to continue. With the additional time mechanism in place, there is a certain sense of urgency involved into nailing the wanted beats swiftly. Trying too long to figure out an obstacle pattern will most likely not leave enough time to cross the finish line. Of course, nothing stops a retry from happening after that, but there is an honorable attempt to press matters regardless. That’s where the good times stop rolling.

Aero's Quest suffers from imprecise handling, making any above quality immediately less desirable. Now, controls are responsive enough, swaying either which side in a loose manner. The issue, however, is that this looseness lingers just a split second too much, making the character often slip in or out of a tight spot at the wrong time. Since all obstacles in the game offer little leeway, the slight sliding effect makes it hard to get the necessary timing right. With millimeter precision, instantly killing foes and little time to get everything done, this small imperfection essentially brings down the whole deck of cards. Aero's Quest is tirelessly frustrating, destroying its own pace over and over, early on in the game.

Making matters worse, it’s evident Aero's Quest has no idea how difficulty works. In this platform effort, the general idea is just to put sensitive obstacles in a room and let that be the challenge. Things kill, so don’t get killed; that should do it, right? Naturally, the result is a completely random difficulty curve, where one level is seemingly impossible and the next is a breeze. Few points in the game, if at all, use the loose control scheme or any sort of flow to get the job done. In fact, since switches easily flip on and off, it’s more likely that getting all lights to flare up will require some finicky jumping around. Somehow, there’s a speed run mode in this game, which would imply there to be some sort of “groove, “but there really isn’t. After 140 deaths on the first area’s conclusion, the will to see any more of this sloppy mess is low. Any subsequent stages once more throwing the curve into a roller coaster seal the deal to close this chapter forever.

Aero's Quest doesn’t go much further than basic game design for its puzzle platform elements and since it doesn’t perfect each aspect, the sum of its parts turns out to be below average. More so than other issues, it’s the game’s slightly slipping handling that makes retrying each random level so infuriating. It certainly isn’t the worst game ever made, there are even clever level design touches, but it’s ultimately not enough to stay interesting for longer than a few minutes.

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed (@Daavpuke)