The world of AER is split in floating islands, which reminded me of Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, and there’s more Zelda comparisons to come.
Luckily, your character can transform into a bird which allows you to travel between these islands with ease. When you transform, the music changes which is a nice touch. When you are inside a temple, you cannot fly which presumably is to force the platforming mechanic.
It’s not really that clear what you are supposed to be doing, so I resorted to a walkthrough to point me to the next island. Areas are named when you discover them, but the names aren’t shown on the map; so I had to rely on the shape of the islands. Most islands are optional, so despite being a decent sized world, you aren’t required to explore if you don’t want to. There doesn’t seem to be much going on on each island; the world generally feels a bit incomplete.
A key thing to know is that the lantern allows you to interact with the more mystical objects, as well as lighting up dark areas. The game does a poor job of telling you this, and I saw many questions and confusion on the Steam discussions about this.
The main aim is to visit three temples, collect a piece that forms a medallion. I guess that’s like the Triforce from Zelda.
When you are in the temples, it is often not clear where to go and is easy to get lost in some. I think the game could have done better at ensuring you know which door the switch has unlocked. If you leave the temple, your progress is reset, which is annoying when I got lost and left it by mistake.
The puzzles are often a little too simplistic. There’s some where you simply have to rotate a dial to match images on the wall. It often feels like busywork. I hit a switch, a door opens, I go through, I hit another switch. Nothing else to do; that’s it. Many corridors are overly long. It always feels a chore to navigate. The level design is no way near Zelda quality.
The collision detection seems a bit off in some areas. Sometimes it looks like you might be able to navigate over some rocks, but then you either partially fall through them, or get pushed away.
I get the impression the developers were trying to be a bit ambitious with this project. By making the world too big and each area too large, they just made the game world feel tedious to navigate, and the world feels lifeless. Then you get the collision problems when you venture off the proper path.
There’s no combat in the game, so when you reach the end of the game and it looks like you are about to face the evil threat; it just ends all anticlimactically.
The graphics use a low polygon look, but the overall look is very bold and colourful. It looks a lot more stylish than you’d expect from the lack of polygons.
Luckily the game only takes around 3 hours to get through, so it definitely doesn’t overstay its welcome.