Aaru's Awakening Reviews
Beautiful and creative, but controls and design issues often drag it from challenging to frustrating.
Despite some good ideas and a cool art style, Aaru's Awakening falls short of being a dream platformer.
If you can retrain your brain to these unorthodox controls, Aaru's Awakening offers some fun platforming moments
Aaru's Awakening is gorgeous to behold and a chore to play.
A fine game which presents a grueling challenge, Aaru's Awakening is perfect for the player who thinks 2D platform games today just aren't difficult enough.
I loved the art style of Aaru's Awakening, I loved the story premise it had, and I loved teleporting. I did not love the rest of the gameplay decisions along the way.
Aaru's Awakening is a beautiful frolic into a world of nightmares and imbalance: championed by its hand-drawn art style, compulsive level of difficulty and thrilling sense of achievement.
Lumenox's first game is a treat for the eyes, but a clunky and often frustrating teleportation system weighs down the experience.
[M]any could say I just suck at the game, and I would agree with you, but I know my way around a platformer, and Aaru's Awakening has the makings of a good one, but is bogged down by poorly implemented controls and some choice level design. Only the hardcore of players will get into it, and even then they will have controller breaking thoughts while playing it.
There are already a ton of platformers to choose from on both of Sony's current home consoles, but the good news is that Aaru's Awakening is free to anyone with PlayStation Plus for the time being. If you fancy something artsy and with some challenging gameplay, then we think that you should consider giving it a shot. Everyone else will want to pass on this one.
Aaru's Awakening is a phenomenal piece of art, and a solidly built game to boot. With numerous levels across the domains of each entity, and fierce challenges standing between players and the goal.
As challenging and frustrating I found some of the stages in Aaru's Awakening, I felt a sense of accomplishment seeing my name listed on the top ten. Bosses slow down the relatively fast-paced stages, too slow for my likening, but still provide a unique take on platforming encounters.
Even though Aaru's Awakening does suffer from control issues, there is actually a good game to be found, especially with the beautiful stylised graphics. The controls do get better as you play but it definitely needs to be fine-tuned but once you bypass the inconsistencies, the level design, puzzles and story does create a relatively enjoyable arcade experience.
Lumenox states on Aaru's Awakening's Steam Store page that it's "a hand-drawn, fast-paced 2D action platformer." The issue here is that there isn't a whole lot of action to speak of, outside of the occasional enemy elimination through warping, and its trial-and-error nature causes it to be anything but fast paced.
Aaru's Awakening is a tragic example of failure to translate a strong creative vision into an enjoyable final product. Lackluster controls and a lack of polish prevent what is otherwise a game with a strong, unique identity from reaching the heights it should have.
Aaru's Awakening is a great example of how looks can deceive. Its gorgeous world and beautifully detailed environments are absolutely breathtaking, but the core gameplay that lies within leaves much to be desired.
Aaru's Awakening is a competent if unspectacular game, that with a little more time in the oven could have been much better as an overall experience.
All of this will likely be tremendously appealing to a particular sort of player, and Aaru's Awakening clearly deserves a certain recognition for putting its own twist on the unforgiving 2D platformer. But if you are going to enter this world, know that the extrinsic rewards are few. The challenge is really all there is. The gods give only what they will, and are unconcerned with whether mortals find it sufficient.
Aaru's Awakening has a serious difficulty curve, but when you combine the twitch-based controls, the confusing art style or the camera zoom, you end up with an experience that, once completed, doesn't offer a feeling of joy or accomplishment. You just feel like you've finally completed a tedious task.
Aaru's Awakening employs difficulty in ways unconsidered and illsuited to its design, leading to a game which does little but frustrate at every step.