Aery – Path of Corruption Review

We by no means doubted it for a second. It regarded like December may go by with no single EpiXR Video games sport – a Lifetime of Fly, Homicide Diaries or Paper Flight maybe. However we needn’t have frightened, as they’ve snuck in with a last-minute Aery. 

For the uninitiated, EpiXR Video games are a small impartial studio that concentrate on – successfully – a single sport, launched each month. That sport is a flight sim that’s so laid again that you can go to sleep and get up with 1000G in your again pocket, questioning who put it there. In a few of these video games, you’re flying round landscapes as a fly, in others a spirit, and in Aery video games you play a macaw. These video games have completely different names and ranging tales, however they share environments between them (sometimes shockingly so) and so they largely play the identical manner.

There’s a touch of cynicism and sarcasm in each sentence we wrote there, however Aery – Path of Corruption calls for extra respect than most. For one, it’s, no doubt, the best-looking of any EpiXR title. We don’t know who they’ve employed, or which intern is making the remainder of the group look dangerous, however Aery – Path of Corruption seems to be somewhat splendid. And so they’ve not simply taken an airbrush to the already current library of ranges they hold wheeling out: these are modelled anew, and so they look fab. 

The standard comes from the element and the composition. Within the very first stage, you possibly can fly right into a shopping center and examine every particular person store. In earlier Aerys, EpiXR would have shrugged and scattered some polygons about like bird-seed. In Aery – Path of Corruption you possibly can glide right into a music store and see each final harp and harmonica, lovingly recreated. Our favorite second was once we flew into the photocopying room of an workplace and located some scattered sheets with somebody’s bum printed on them. We don’t typically touch upon the care and a focus in one in every of these video games, however there’s loads.

By way of composition, there’s the odd stage that feels cleverly put collectively. A spooky manor with a maze in its grounds feels artfully constructed, with forethought on how the participant may discover and swoop round it. Canvassing the grounds after which shifting up by way of the mansion, with the spooky goings-on getting extra intense as you climb is spectacular. We want extra of the EpiXR video games sculpted the expertise like this. 

The story although? Fuhgeddaboutit. Whereas there’s been a sudden zhuzhing of the graphics, the story has by some means gotten worse. The ‘Path of Corruption’ refers to a personality referred to as Jack, who needs to construct a home (don’t purchase any magic beans, Jack!). Jack wants cash to construct the home, so begins to fantasise about promoting medicine and robbing banks to make ends meet. 

And, after all, when he fantasises about this stuff, his creativeness turns into a parrot that flies round these fantasies. So, Jack will get to fly round a Breaking Dangerous-style meth lab and the vaults of a financial institution. 

Most individuals resolve to reside with their dad and mom or get caught within the renting loop, somewhat than deciding that – hey – they’re going to construct their very own home and commit heinous crimes to pay it off. However Jack’s completely different, so we’ll run with it. However we couldn’t escape a sense that’s even stronger than in different Aerys: the extent themes got here first, and the story is tying itself in knots to excuse them. We go to an apocalypse stage as a result of Jack worries about what the world would appear like if everybody took what they needed. We go to a Fifth Factor-style future stage as a result of, um, he’s frightened about his future? And the much less stated concerning the judgmental ultimate line of the story, the higher.

It’s totally garbage. However we suspect that folks don’t purchase an Aery sport for the storyline. The enjoyment of those video games is within the blissful floating about, and on this regard Aery – Path of Corruption doesn’t disappoint. We’d vote for Aery’s strategy over, say Paper Planes, as a result of it leans into the no-friction serenity of the gameplay, somewhat than including different mechanics on high. You merely level to the following feather on the horizon after which float in direction of it. 

There’s some amendments although, as Aery – Path of Corruption has a cycle of two completely different stage aims. On the odd ranges, you have got an enormous variety of feathers to seek out in an open world surroundings, greater than we’ve seen in every other Aery sport (as much as fifty-five); on the even ranges, the feathers seem in a sequence. Discover the primary feather and the second feather materialises, and so forth. 

We’d have appreciated some tutorial textual content that really stated one thing like that. We assumed that each stage can be a mahoosive collectathon, having performed the primary stage, however the second solely reveals one feather at a time. We duly floated round the entire stage, questioning the place the feathers had gone, losing fifteen minutes on a fruitless treasure hunt. We assumed it was a bug. 

There’s frustration available within the greater, open world ranges too. With as much as fifty-five feathers to be discovered, and the target demanding you discover each final one (no feather will get left behind!), there’s ample alternative to be left with only one. There’s no trace system or Crackdown-style audio pulse to level to the place they’re, so you possibly can wager that – no less than as soon as within the sport – you’ll be painfully canvassing the world for one final feather. They’re properly highlighted, with large sparkly thrives, however that doesn’t essentially assist when the final feather is tucked around the again of a warehouse. We’d argue that it’s about time that EpiXR produced a mechanic that helped in these conditions. 

Flying excessive up into the air and surveying Aery – Path of Corruption, significantly towards the opposite EpiXR Video games, we are able to say with confidence that it’s one in every of their greatest. It doesn’t knock Aery – Vikings off its perch (there’s extra potential for frustration right here), but it surely’s essentially the most lavish and graphically detailed of all of the Aerys, and it even takes a few dangers that work. Simply be ready for one of many worst tales that we’ve been uncovered to on Xbox. 

You should buy Aery – Path of Corruption from the Xbox Retailer