Aerannis

TL;DR-
Gameplay: 6/10
Story and Characters: 5/10
Graphics: 7/10
Music & Sound: 7/10
Replay value: 3/10
Length: 2/10
A game where, if tentacled monsters control the media, and if media screws over women, even in a women-only place, then tentacles really are hazardous to women’s health: TRANS-itive Property/10

Ok, maybe the /10 joke was in poor taste, but as far as the game goes, I’m not exactly wrong.

-REVIEW-

You guys remember those Assassins Creed Chronicles games? They’re basically stealth games for the most part, except that they’re side scrollers, which kind of blew me away at the time. I’ve played a few stealth games before(notably MGS2), and I’m honestly not a fan of them, especially those ACC games. Having to sneak quietly around enemy forces, sometimes without being able to fight them, doesn’t exactly win me over when getting caught brings the heavenly host of bad guys down on me, and it certainly won’t help if you make it a side scroller. Those ACC games were boring, stupid, and pointless; they certainly aren’t doing the franchise any favors if the mainline games are practically open-world by comparison.

By comparison, Aerannis is practically an award winning title. Does it do as well if examined on its own? YES! Well, mostly.

Before I even get to talking about the game, I want to say this real fast: I believe that trans lives are human lives. If you take offense to this, then kindly stop reading the review and go away. Everyone else, keep going.

Let’s start with the story. Aerannis is basically a game that, behind the scenes, sought to show people, through the setting of a futuristic dystopia filled with women, nonsensical platforming in hub levels, and The Illuminati if they watched too many anime shows filled with tentacles, how transgender people have it rough with life in general(which they certainly do, from what I know). You play as Ceyda, an assassin for hire(NO, this game has nothing to do with ACC, thank goodness) who lives in a fictional province, Plovdiv, populated entirely by women. The plot kicks off when Ceyda is hired to find stolen power suits, only to stumble upon a conspiracy that basically reveals the supposedly peaceful and happy state of Plovdiv to be a media-based puppet show put together by the Illums. No, I didn’t make that name up. What follows is Ceyda being put on various assassination missions, largely depending on stealth mechanics, as she fights to figure out what these one eyed monsters are up to and how to reveal their BS to the public. Ultimately, the story is enjoyable and fits quite well with the gameplay style, being both fairly mysterious as to what’s going on, yet also fairly comedic as characters throw funny barbs around here and there. The dialogue itself is a winner simply because it fits with the high action game; discussions are quick and to the point, and a clear purpose is given to every mission.

On the downside, however…well, the story is great, but the background and setting are sorely lacking. For one, the worldbuilding is not really there. Sure, there are three notable locations: Plovdiv, the fairly generalized city with crazy tall buildings, Planina, a society of uniform women hoping to find a way to bring men back into the world, and the TERF Turf(I couldn’t make that up if I tried), or as I like to call it, the Republic of Misandria. The issue is, how was this whole province founded? Why exactly did they kick all the men out? What even happened to the men to begin with? More questions still bounce around my head with the characters in general, such as Ceyda’s whole background, not to mention if her gender change was willing or forcibly done, how the Ilums even snaked their way into society to begin with, and even how Ceyda got the power I won’t spoil in one of the endings. Actually, the other ending is pretty confusing as well, where’d that monstrosity come from? Basically, the story that we’re given is enjoyable, but I wish there’d been more lore as far as the province, the people, all that background stuff.

Ok, on to gameplay. As I said, Aerannis succeeds where ACC fails simply because the stealth and platforming blend incredibly well. The game keeps things fast, for starters. Yeah, you may have to wait around for guards to position themselves here and there, but as soon as an enemy has their back turn, it’s grab, kill, move on. Stealth kills are further emphasized by having regular shots deal less damage to “grab foes,” as I call them, especially those with armor. You also get a few tools to assist you: a noisemaker to distract foes, a proximity explosive, and a boomerang for the occasional out of reach button. The levels vary in length, but I feel the challenge scales very well, with easy levels to start, and more challenging locales toward the end. Finally, the metroidvania-esque layout gives good reason to explore everywhere and see what the world has to offer.

Of course, there are problems. For one, and maybe it’s just me, but I’m not a fan of the “you get spied, you get died” levels; it’s irritating enough without the knowledge that being caught means restarting the whole section of level you were on. I get the emphasis on stealth, and I know story reasons were given, but it’s such a downer knowing some levels can be as punishing as MGS2’s highest difficulty, regardless of how quickly the game over screen can be skipped. Also, while it isn’t a deal breaker, I’ve noticed the camera gets a bit janky and occasionally lags behind center position. Finally…look, I get it, there’s platforming, but why are some of the city zones a pain to navigate? Planina and TERF usually require a lot of jumping around and such for some reason, which can drag things a bit. Certainly doesn’t help that this ‘vania lacks, of all things, A MAP.

That said, the aesthetics are well done. I’m a sucker for pixel art, and it all looks great here, especially the few close-ups of Ceyda. I do wish the color purple hadn’t been used QUITE so much, as it tends to stale up the backgrounds a bit. Music and sound are lively and good as well; I rather enjoy the variety in the tunes; some are lively and others more mysterious.

I don’t usually dig the idea of games used for causes that risk political ire, but I stand behind this one; the action is fun, it looks and sounds great, and putting its message behind a solidly morbid and dystopian setting gives me the idea that I’m enjoying a game rather than sitting through a forced lecture. Props to the dev for experimenting with this one. Thanks for reading!

Apart from having interesting environmental art, Aerannis offers metroidvania type experience with an in-depth story. You can choose between different approaches on how to solve a pizzle (mission), which makes the experience more dynamic. While there are some missing mechanics, it contains different equipment and upgrades throughout the game. Recommend it if you like pixel and metrodvania type games, as it is easily enjoyable.

So I finished playing Aerannis
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 *

In Aerannis, you take on the role of Ceyda Farhi, a transgener woman and assassin with cybernetic legs. The world is a cyberpunk near future in which most of the world has been destroyed, the implication is by forever wars, and the few remaining humans live in a toxically-TERFy Matriarchal society, wherein most AMABs take HRT and elect to live as trans women. These are called "Snowflakes." AFAB women rule the roost in Plovdiv, and the implied commentary on the Patriarchy of IRL modern society is entertaining.

Ceyda, however, is not one of these "Snowflakes" as she reminds others during the story. She was already a woman before the revolution.

Very quickly, the plotline becomes a conspiracy story of lovecraftian tone, wherein the Matriarchs have been infiltrated by God-beings who live forever and have enslaved an unwitting humanity.

The game has a very Promethean-message that may be appreciated by other Magick practitioners.

Gameplay is about 6-8hrs, and is a 2D, 8bit-stylised scrolling shooter with heavy stealth elements. Boss battles were frustratingly difficult in the "Nintendo Hard!" style of ages past, but the unlimited lives give you plenty of time to figure out your strategy and get gud. The story is quick and loud in iit's message, and has two possible endings, neither especially "good" or "bad" but both good sci-fi horror noir endings the story deserved.

Aerannis is a game I will definitely replay
4/5 🌟

despite the interesting, and at times wonderfully bonkers, world building, i can't recommend this game largely due to the bonkers controls and a few design elements that feel tacked on and could have been fleshed out better.

I finally got around to completing this game after buying it like 5 years ago, and I cannot recommend this. It was mainly a protest buy back during GG to support to devs and their creative vision. As a game itself, there are a lot of fundamentals wrong with it.

The controls are super clunky and hard to move your character or do actions.
It is very difficult to find where the next mission is due to no map or markers.
The story is hard to follow and grasp, starting off with a trans woman assassin and ending with killing off alien shapeshifters and awakening Satan to allow humanity to control it's own destiny.
Lack of rebindable keys and self damage made for a LOT of unnecessary deaths.

The only good part was finding Vivian James, though she was in TERF Turf which was super weird to me.

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

Positives

Negatives

Overall

This game is truly a gem. At face value this looks like an amazing, dystopian-futuristic, megaman style platformer but it truly is so much more to than just run-and-shoot adventure.

It is also more than a game that is inclusive to trans and queer like many reviewers have already mentioned. One of the biggest points and topics of discussion this game brings up (that is often missed) to me is its story about how the world of Aerannis came to be. That is when it really hit me: This is a game about western society. This is a game about us.

This is a game that takes place in a world where men and males no longer have a place in society. The remaining males have either been seemingly forced out of existence have undergone sex changes to become female. This is the only way that males function in the society of Aerannis. These men are forced to live in the fringes and outskirts of society and are called "snowflakes." They are harassed and treated poorly. I could not help but think of parallels to "snowflakes" in the real world, where people get called a "snowflake" for being over sensitive or over virtue signaling, and the term is generally used by the political-right as an insult.

In this world the patriarchy was destroyed by women and women reigns supreme over everything and everyone. Some of the female leaders actually look like pixel versions of some popular feminists that you might recognize (the leader looks like Anita and you may see some familiar looking super heavy looking females with awfully brightly colored hair). It seems to me that a world of radical feminism is what the author was trying to portray, and all the harassment, insults, and unfair treatment that the player will witness is not there for inclusiveness alone. The harassment and the insults are directed at all of us players, not as males or females but as human people. Aerannis is the kind of world we will create if we continue to destroy the men of western society, and mindlessly spread the ideals of radical feminism.

Actual game review:
Story - There is a lot going on in the story of this game, and while the dialogue is engaging and gritty with a very "real" feel to it, I found following the story kind of confusing at times. The dialogue text only stays on the screen for a few seconds so if you're not a fast reader then you will likely miss something important since all this games story is through dialogue or short cut scenes with text. I only wish the game would let you press next instead of it going to the next text bubble on its own.

Gameplay - your character feels kinda slow and floaty in a bad way at first. You do get some power ups which make certain aspects of gameplay more fun and allow access to new areas. There are combat missions where you basically go into a building Cowboy Bebop style and kill everyone, and there are some stealth type missions and both are fairly fun. I think the gameplay would have been a lot more fun with some Bananza Bros (genesis) style shoot-outs where you could shoot from a corner and then hide back into it, but overall its good. There was just one helicopter chase sequence that gave me a lot of trouble due to the types of powerups I had at the time I kept jumping off walls back into the helicopter... The dev should take a look at this because it was a frustrating experience but otherwise the gameplay was good. Probably a 7/10 by itself.

Music: Sooo good. If you like 80's style trance wave music at all you're in for a treat. This is one of those games I would play again for the sound track alone. Not only is the music great but it fits the games scenery and storyline really well. It really makes me wonder whether the music was made for the game or vice versa!

The good: Great game. It is such a unique experience that I think any gamer would be happy to play this one all the way through. Took me about 7.5hrs to complete the game once. I would say it is worth playing for just the narrative and story alone.

The bad: The run and shooty gameplay might be too bland for some.

Overall: 8/10 - Definitely worth playing!

Aerannis is a game with a message. Or rather, the game IS a message.
Let's back it up.
I was introduced to this game in passing during a Twitch stream. The pitch was, and I kid you not, "it has a transgender protagonist."
I wish I could say that was reductive, but in truth, Aerannis is a game with a transgender protagonist. And that's mostly it.

The game's narrative is the core focus. It's a very linear experience and the story hinges on some very specific ideas.
Some of you, I'm sure, read "transgender protagonist" and, like I did, had something of a cynical reaction.
This game having been on sale for $0.50, I decided to see for myself. Almost immediately the developer's sociopolitical biases are made clear. And if you don't get it in the first half hour, a lategame cameo by Vivian James and a not-so-subtle jab at /adgd/ should paint the picture well enough. Also one of the main antagonists resembles notoriously-combative feminist Chanty "Big Red" Binx.

So what IS the narrative?
In the year 2XXX, Ceyda is a paid assassin fulfilling hits as instructed by her friend Elsa. They live in a very purple world known as Plovdiv, and we learn that Plovdiv is the only surviving civilization on Earth. On top of this, men no longer exist. Apparently, men are forced to undergo sexual reassignment, and then are outcast as "snowflakes."
Would you believe me if I said most of what I understand from this plot comes from the Kickstarter and Steam store descriptions?
The game itself does a very poor job bringing its world to life--characters are more frequently lost in wink-wink-nudge-nudge monologues about humanity.
Plot elements are introduced by the characters just stating that it's there. Along the way it's revealed that Plovdiv is run by shapeshifting aliens. I couldn't tell you how Ceyda learns this to save my life. She just suddenly understands that it's real and we've immediately moved past any phase of disbelief in this fantastical revelation.

The game has two endings. The one I got involved awakening Satan (yes, Satan) whose role is to imbue humanity with knowledge so that they will realize the existence of Illums (a phrase which is literally used for the first time mere moments before this ending), allowing them the freedom to choose their own path knowing the truth.
I get it. Ja feel. I vibe with that. But it felt more like I was being preached to than having a story built around this concept.

I don't know what the other ending is. I'm not playing it again to find out.

Suffice to say, the story-centric game is very clumsy about its story. Dialogue is poor, characters are paper-thin, the world feels more like window dressing and the villains are little more than an allegory for the thing ektomarch doesn't like very much in real life.
But that's not the only thing that's clumsy about Aerannis.

Let's talk about how the game actually plays.
Not very well.

When the brief credits rolled, I was honestly surprised to learn that this game had playtesters. Ceyda controls poorly, and key mechanics do not function intuitively. Simple things are completely overlooked.
Text boxes appear in three fashions. In a fixed timer which counts down in the corner, with an invisible timer and the option to manually skip, or they will stay on screen forever until you close it. Why is it so inconsistent?
When interacting with these textboxes, or other menus, Ceyda's character controls are still functional. Meaning that you can and will see her jump and move around when using this interface.

Ceyda can shoot her gun, throw three different bomb types, and dash. The dashing is the only fun I had the whole game because going fast is fun and it has a cool visual effect. Being stealth-minded, the combat in this game is simply not given much thought. Fair enough, but most of the latter half of the game won't even require stealth so... maybe there should've been more care put into it.

Ceyda learns two key functions: ledge grabbing and wall jumping. Neither of these work well. Ceyda will sometimes grab ledges automatically. Sometimes she won't. This can and will get you into trouble because this is ostensibly a stealth game and those require a bit of mechanical finesse.
Wall jumping is clunky and unreliable, doubly-so in the presence of ledges which you may or may not grab onto.
Much of my playtime was struggling with these two mechanics as I navigated the world.

Speaking of the world navigation, it's kind of bad.
Let's get one thing clear: Aerannis LOOKS good. Not the character sprites, frankly. But the environments are very pretty.
However, the visual information they convey as a function of gameplay leaves something to be desired. It's difficult to discern which objects are platforms, which ones have ledges and where, and even whether or not something is even there. On multiple occasions, you will find tiles which are visually identical, but you can stand on one and not the other.

To call this game a Metroidvania as many have is being very, very generous. A Metroidvania is made distinct through its expansive, connected map and utilization of character upgrades to access new areas, often involving a continous back-and-forth between locales which naturally promotes one to learn the layout of the map like a second home.

Ceyda only has a limited amount of new skills to learn, and the one time you return to a previous location, you do need a skill you didn't have before--but that skill leads you immediately to a door locked behind a story trigger; just why?
If you came to this game because you enjoy Metroidvanias, you have been lied to.

Furthermore, even knowing where to go is a trial in and of itself. The overworld map is large, which means a lot of travel time in-between mission locations. A lot. Most of the time you will be given directions like "it's the house east of here," and left to your own devices. Getting to where you need to be doesn't feel like I'm learning this city, but more like I'm stumbling around until I find the glowing arrow that wasn't there before.
The maps function better as wallpapers than video game levels.

As you might imagine, the game does feature a small variety of boss fights. They're all visually and mechanically distinct, however much like everything else, they are sub-par at best. Although I very much like the designs of the bosses, the fights themselves leave something to be desired, either being too simple or too clunky to be any fun.

The one true success of Aerannis is the soundtrack. I recommend you check it out on YouTube. It's pretty good.

As for the game itself, I cannot recommend it. Not even for fifty cents. Go buy a gumball. The promised flavor fades all too quickly until you are left with a limp, unsatisfying imitation of what you bought.
So it's very much the same experience, but it'll save you six hours.

Oh, and ektomarch, if you're reading this...
Regarding the /agdg/ joke; people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Boring game with a nonsensical plot. The controls are terrible and make the game stiff and unenjoyable. The visuals and audio are reminisce of early 90’s. I’d avoid unless you like this sort of thing a lot.

I really wanted to like this game. It is cute and seemed to have my sense of snark. I downloaded it and couldn't get past the first boss of the game. Not because it's hard mind you but because the game crashes. Since there's not much activity since it's release, I don't expect it to be fixed. That is really unfortunate because I thought this game looked like it had a lot of potential. If you have a Mac OS machine, don't bother. It doesn't work well on it.

Aerannis hasn't gotten much exposure, so I'm gonna make this review a long one. Scroll down for TL;DR version.

Right off the bat, I'll start by saying that I played Aerannis with a controller and on Windows 7 on the normal difficulty. I experienced no bugs/glitches/softlocks or anything of the sort in my entire playthrough. The one thing I thought may have been a graphical glitch was likely just a trippy special effect for one of the boss fights, and didn't mess with my gameplay at all.

I must admit, I knew about Aerannis for a long while, and was pretty interested in the concept of it, but I was put off by the mixed Steam reviews and how it hadn't really "caught on". Eventually I was swayed by Steam e-mailing me about the game going on sale, and I told myself "Eh, I've spent more than a few dollars on games I didn't enjoy." Turned out to be worth it to me, in this case.

Aerannis has a mix of stealth missions and run-and-gun missions. Most of the time, "stealth" means "don't let anybody see you", but it can occasionally also mean "don't shoot people or cameras". Run-and-gun missions usually have stealth opportunities in them, but often it's just not practical, or straight-up impossible (i.e. boss fights). If you dislike stealth or run-and-gun, I wouldn't recommend Aerannis. I enjoy both styles of gameplay, to the point that Aerannis kept me hooked long enough to play it all the way through in one sitting and see one of the endings.

Platforming was mostly solid. I was grumbling about dodgy controls at first, but it didn't take me long to get used to them. Ceyda (the player character) starts off with being able to jump, crouch, slide (Mega Man style with down + jump) and crawl through short spaces. Throughout the game she'll learn how to grab ledges, wall jump, and sprint. The in-game tutorials were pretty good about introducing these mechanics as you needed them. There are no true pitfalls; feel free to make a leap of faith if you feel you need to for exploration.

There are some elements I don't often see in 2D platformers that gave this experience more flavor. Enemies are capable of friendly fire, and a lot of them seem to go berserk (especially in enclosed spaces) when they spot you, so there are often hilarious self-destructs and team kills. You can also hurt yourself with the sticky bombs that you'll acquire partyway into the game, so watch where you chuck those, especially since they do more damage to you than most enemy attacks do. Note that if you decide to go in guns blazing, Ceyda is an assassin, not a commando. Attack from a distance and from advantageous angles; she has no upper hand up close unless she's behind an unaware target. A lot of enemies can soak up quite a bit of damage if you're not insta-killing them via stealth. They also have a habit of clinging to you, since they seem to be aware of the fact that contact damage exists. Honestly, I don't think contact damage is a good mechanic for the human enemies in this game; I'd have preferred if it only existed on the robots/aliens that it makes sense for (like the alien bats, or the robot worms that can roll into a ball and ram into you).

One common thing I noticed in other reviews is people being confused about where to go in whatever mission, but I didn't run into this trouble myself. In order to not run into this problem, do two things: 1) Actually read what's being spoken in-game, as most of the information you get is useful in some way. 2) Explore everything that has a little arrow over it; the game is pretty good about not opening up places of interest until you can actually accomplish something there. Pretty similar to what games were like before the era of Wikis and objective markers.

Although the gameplay was what kept me playing, the initial hook was a trans woman protagonist (which are simply not a thing ever), and I wasn't disappointed in her. I found Ceyda pretty relatable on more levels than just being a trans woman. Ceyda's habit of shooting people in the middle of a conversation is something I often wish would happen in other games. Her sharp tongue, excellent problem solving skills, and no patience for bullshit while not being completely shut off to different ideas meant that I was never groaning at the stupidity of the meat puppet I was in charge of.

Apparently, there are people who have been offended by certain aspects of Aerannis' setting, themes, etc.. Right off the bat, let's get one fact straight: in this game's world, men aren't around anymore. All combatants are either human women, machines, or shapeshifting aliens. It doesn't make sense to play the "misogyny" card at the violence happening against the women in the game for this reason. You also can't kill civilians. It's not really anti-feminism, either; if feminism is supposed to be about ensuring that people all get basic human courtesy and equal opportunity regardless of gender, that isn't what's portrayed here.

The only real-world folks that really get no mercy here are TERFs. Note that "TERF" in this case is not the kind of person who would say that trans women and natal women are different, thus face different problems and not necessarily be able to see eye to eye all the time...but rather, the kind of person who would say that trans women are the same as men and use that as an excuse to look down on them as vermin. Just play Aerannis and look at how the (human) antagonists in the government are portrayed. People who conduct themselves as those characters do are the ones who I would use the word TERF in reference to. I think I've said enough about that, though. This is a game review, after all.

TL;DR:

Here's what I liked:
+ Fun mix of platforming, shooting and sneaking. Mixed enough to prevent any one of them from getting too stale.
+ Very little hand-holding, I had to actually figure the missions out for myself.
+ Excellent price to content ratio.
+ Great soundtrack (find it on Bandcamp and pay what you want for it).
+ Everything about Ceyda's character.
+ Speaking as someone who typically doesn't like boss fights, I liked the ones in this game. They all felt unique.
+ Death is pretty forgiving (note that I mean actual death, not necessarily mission failure in general).
+ Non-human enemies were fun to fight.
+ Getting to shoot some virtual TERFs. These ones had it coming, trust me. Play the damn game.

Here's what I didn't like:
- Human enemy AI can be annoying (although sometimes hilarious). They act more like Zerglings than people if they see you, and sometimes get stuck in a loop.
- There were some parts of the terrain that I couldn't tell were able to be grabbed or crawled through without trial and error. Sometimes things that looked like platforms weren't, and vice versa.
- There were a couple of stealth missions that could have used some extra checkpoints.
- Not really enough to do with all the nanomachines (currency). (If it turns out I'm an idiot and didn't explore enough, I'll revoke this nitpick.)
- Nameless NPCs could use some more dialogue, especially since the game has no voice acting.
- Controls took me some getting used to, especially the wall jump. Ceyda also has a lot of trouble going prone.
- Ceyda can't shoot while prone, which is a major pain.

Here's what I'm on the fence about:
+/- The graphics. I don't dislike them enough to complain about them, but I don't like them enough to sing their praises.
+/- Aerannis is short. The length is fine for the price, and I feel I got my moneys' worth, but I know a lot of people don't like short games (and I know I'd have wanted it to be longer, mainly because I enjoyed it).
+/- I have a lot of unanswered questions about the lore. This annoys me, but at the same time, it allows me to come up with my own ideas.

In conclusion, Aerannis deserves more love and more buyers. Give it a go. I was way too late for the Kickstarter, but if a sequel or spin-off ever happens, I'll definitely support it.

Aerannis is a fun action-platformer with stealth and some puzzle elements. It has wonderful art and music. The story is interesting, though maybe a little convoluted. I found some the dialog and concepts hilarious, like TERF Turf, though you might have to be transfeminine to appreciate some of it. A few of the missions were a bit difficult, requiring precise timing and coordination; there are save points along these missions, however, making trying again less frustrating. It took me about 8 hours to finish; there doesn't seem to be much replayability.

Overall, I enjoyed and would recommend this game with the caveat that it's an indie game and lacks the polish you might expect from a studio.

Aerannis is a 2D stealth shooter/platformer with some Metroidvania elements set in a dystopian future secretly ruled by shapeshifting demons. It has beautiful background art, an excellent, moody soundtrack, and great writing wherein it fairly successfully tackles modern political topics in a progressive way. Most notable is the fact that a large proponent of the game's women-only society subscribes to a trans-exclusionary radical feminism that actively oppresses Ceyda, Aerannis's trans protagonist.

The combat, stealth puzzles, and platforming are fun and engaging, while being just difficult to stump me in a few places. Controls are occasionally a little finnicky, but not so much so that I ever felt like putting the game down. If you're a fan of stealth, you will find Aerannis enjoyable.

I was mostly drawn to this game because of its trans protagonist and progressive politics. Reading some commentary around the game online, it seems some people are hesitant to believe Aerannis truly is progressive due to it being co-opted by some discriminatory groups (ie. Gamergate) because the game appears, on a surface level, to be anti-feminist. GG also bought its way into the game with a cameo thanks to a Kickstarter tier. Rest assured that their presence in the game isn't noticeable if you don't know what to look for, and the game's overall message ("transphobia is bad") is clear by the end. Either way, most of the politics fall away in the last hour or so in favour of the very satisfying Lovecraftian conspiracy based around the shapeshifters that have engineered the game's world into its current state. Aerannis is enjoyable on a variety of levels and I highly recommend it.

Aerannis is a very mixed bag. It clearly pulls deeply from GBA era sidescrollers, but fails to understand why those games were excellent. The game features good art and overall excellent music, but is plagued by an inconsistant, often nonsensical script and tone, extremely poor level design, and a sizeable pile of half baked mechanics. It has the seed of something interesting, but none of it adds up in to a particularly strong finish.

The game's mechanics have a lot of promise, but the stealth is legitimately bad and rarely engineered to create any interesting situations. Enemies are extremely dumb, and often kill each other with friendly fire. The player gets very poor feedback on most things, outside of "enemies alerted". Beyond that, the free roaming world is slow and often extrmely confusing, with no maps or guides. The player is often asked to visit locations via landmarks they haven't seen, with no reminder text about where they are going. Most missions are, in the opposite, extremely linear with no decision making -- generally rewarding a brute-force "kill everything" playstyle.

The storytelling has a variety of problems, too -- specifically in that the game starts in media res to create mystery, but never really gives you a motivation for any aspect of the story, and it's so interested in being mysterious that every conversation is either a direct order or a long, confounding speech, until you finally encounter a boss who vomits exposition on you in a way that not only seems extremely out of place but is also extremely tedious. The plot revolves around a shadowy puppet master, but their plans are so inane that its laughable. Both endings to the game utilize a sudden reveal of major plot details in order to create surprise, but ultimately just undercut the rest of the storytelling.

The other plot details raise significant concerns. The game revolves are a feminist dystopia, but doesn't seem interested in exploring that idea outside of a cartoonish visage (contrasted by the dark apathy and angst of the protagonist); the main character is a trans woman who is oppressed by this society, but we're never really shown this outside of a single optional side mission. Its filled with all sorts of negative feminist stereotypes as well, with little justification. After playing through the whole game, it seemed that the designer was trying to create an interesting setting and explore some outside politics, but simply had an extremely poor grasp on what they were depicting.

In the end, Aerannis is a short, frustrating, buggy ride. It's not terrible; it's just not good.

The game is okay, but it does have some flaws. The controls are a bit sloppy, there is not really any upgrades to your standard weapon, the plot borders on the nonsensical at times, and a fair number of the stealth sections were a chore. Otherwise, it was short and fun. Way better than Mirror of Fate, if only because this game doesn't have fall damage. Pick it up on a sale if you are interested in it.

An eye opener, no matter what people say. Because all humans have the capability for bad, consciously or unconsciously, no matter their "noble" cause or agenda. The human element will always be present, along with the ugly side within it.

As for the actual game, it's a fun little metroidvania with stealth elements. Won't be entirely satisfying because of length and depth of game mechanics, but then again it's also quite cheap. Graphics are pretty, and the music is great.

2D platforming and shooting with stealth elements. I was sold on that description alone. And Aerannis almost works! It's a painful non recommendation.

I can't comment on the story because I didn't see it through the end. It's pretty confusing so far. I think it's trying to approach topics like prejudice and sexual identity.

Right! let's talk about the meat of the game. Action platforming is good. You got your shooting and jumping, a small variety of enemies to jump and shoot around. It's not too deep though, it gets boring after a while. It also introduces a human shield mechanic but it doesn't fit the action segments very well most of the times, as it's better to just shoot them directly. Except when you have to use human shields to open doors! that is pretty neat. It's like finding keys, but the keys shoot back.

I was looking forward the stealth mechanic but it's the most disappointing part of the game. It's hard to describe why it doesn't work because stealth is extremely delicate, and tiny details can make or break the experience. Considering they went for missions where you get insta-killed when they spot you, they should have been extra careful with it. The lack of visual cues to read the guard's patterns is one problem; They just turn around instantly. There is also no timer for the guard to go from unalerted to 'you're dead'. A chance for you to get back to your hiding spot and correct tiny mistakes, while the guard goes into suspicious mode or something. There's also the case of climbing stairs (door like stairs that teleport you to neighbor floors) that lead you straight to a guard. Guards also bug out sometimes, forcing you to get caught just to respawn.

Again, tiny details. That make the whole stealth experience is unfulfilling. It's made even worse when you get the run upgrade or, as I like to call it, the double-tap curse. When trying to move slow and carefully it's normal to tap the directional. With the double-tap curse you'll often find yourself doing quick runs in place. Not enough to actually run but enough to alert guards around you.

Then there are the bugs. I was actually willing to finish the game with the criticism above in mind already, but the game has the awful habit of bugging out during dialogues and there's no way around closing the game by force. All 3 times that happened to me made me lose a huge chunk of gameplay, as they are usually at the end of missions, before you had a chance to save. So, if you're already cursing at the game's imperfections, having to replay an entire mission because the game bugged out is a deal breaker for me.

Did not scratch the cyberpunk itch that I was hoping it would. Has a very slow ramp up to any sort of fun missions and doesn't really offer anything gameplay wise that I couldn't get from half a dozen other metroidvania-style games. The humour falls flat a lot of the time, not really offering anything memorable. I honestly can't tell if we're meant to take some lines as tongue in cheek, sardonic, or straight.

It *does* have an amazing neo-80's soundtrack and the controls are tight ( I would recommend rebinding shoot to a trigger if you're playing on a controller though ). Also has a nice, striking visual palette and clean visuals, although some of the NPCs look hastily done.

This is a very original, stylish and weird game. I don't want to spoil much here, you will no doubt be spoiled enough if you read the other reviews, but although this is technically a cyberpunk game, the characters and the world are pretty far from even the generic ideas of that style.

There are some annyoing parts with the gameplay, but it has good ideas as well. This is basically a platformer with added stealth elements. The controls arent' exactly perfect, though, and a couple of sequences feel almost impossible at first because of that. It's good to notice you can heal yourself from the menu, although I would advice saving that only for a couple of moments in the game since it's not free.

I would recommend this if you like stylish retro games and want to see some untypical characters and situations, but be prepared to handle some frustrating gameplay parts...

I might also add that I think the graphics in this game are a lot better than what they look like in the screenshots. The artist seems to be pretty bad at drawing faces, so the portraits are really ugly. The ingame graphics on the other hand look great.

Honestly, the controls feel loose, the plot is mostly nonsensical with one incredibly stupid ending and one ending that really doesn't leave a mark, the upgrade system is woefully underdeveloped, the currency system exists to buy one (and only one) item...

Aerannis is a game with high ambitions that really misses the mark. While it is mostly pretty to look at, this feels like it could have used a few more months in the oven. The music feels suitably cyberpunk and, if you look at what are supposed to be the core mechanics, the game employs an interesting setting (though this is not developed on nearly enough)

If you have a really soft spot for 2D stealth and have alredy played all the usual suspects, or are a huge fan of cyberpunk, you should check this game out. Otherwise, give it a pass.

And that ending that requires you to go right was REALLY stupid and completely out of nowhere.

I'm not sure I understand this game.

I got it for myself and a friend b/c I heard it was about a trans woman assassin fighting a TERF government (which, right on, obvs.), so I was in it mainly for the story/world. And those were essentially what I was expecting kind of but they just ended up being really thin. I would've liked the game to have spent more time characterizing and engaging w/ those issues, whereas as it is it seems less like a game made about trans women and more like we're being used as some sort of window-dressing for an unrelated story. Which I am not necessarily opposed to if it means more positive representation in games for people like me, but I'm just not sure how to feel about it. I definitely wasn't able to discern any concrete thematic message about gender or feminism or anything. Our place in the story isn't offensive or anything but it seemed like an afterthought in an overarching plot that could've taken place in any other dystopia. Which makes it an odd choice, then.

And what's confusing also is that there are quite a few elements in this game drawn from/common in trans women's culture (weird eldritch monsters and occult rituals, cyberpunk and cyborgs, Satan as a positive character, a joke about "tree slimes," and lots of bad puns), and it was these elements which were familiar to me that I liked the best and found the most interesting. I searched quite a bit to see if there were any trans women involved in the making of this game, and I couldn't seem to find a definite answer. I don't understand though why someone would want to make a game about this subject if they're not a member of that group, though. I read through a few developer interviews, but none of the answers there really made sense to me.

The gameplay is more consistently good, w/ the qualifier that it's really fucking hard. Incorporating some sort of difficulty settings would really make this game a lot more accessible to people like me who are bad at both stealth games and metroidvanias. As it is, it was impossible for me to get through without slowly killing everyone, and I had to retry several of the bosses many times before I could beat them. Maybe that is a positive quality for some people? But I would at least like to be able to choose how much I am going to be challenged by a game.

On top of that, the most confusing aspect of the gameplay was that there was no map and while Elsa would give you directions to each location, they were usually vague and they wouldn't go into the mission log on the pause screen, so you would just have to try to remember them and then guess what they meant. I spent a lot of time wandering around looking for stuff in this game. I actually really enjoyed the relatively open-world-iness of it (the park especially was nice), but if you're going to make the player wander around like that then you need to give them some help figuring out where they're going.

Otherwise, it was pretty well put together. The music is pretty good and the jumping and dashing mechanics are fantastic. The pixel art graphics are decent enough and occasionally great (I really liked the main character's facial expression). But I guess I'm just not sure what to think about this one.

This review contains spoilers.
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I was browsing Facebook when I saw a friend put up a picture of the entrance to TERF turf, and somehow the game was purchased on my steam library twenty seconds later. It's magic, I tell you! Aerannis is a strange amalgam of extremely familiar elements. It reminds me of nothing so much as Hotline Miami (the frequent checkpoints in levels cause that comparison), and yet there are a lot of metroidvania elements as well.
The controls feel floaty, which can be frustrating. I had a few deaths to them - not too many, but a few. The frequent checkpoints help to mostly mitigate this.
The plot is very science-fictiony and ... underexplained [the other thing that harks back to Hotline: Miami for me]. I felt like there could have been a lot more to the story and world, and a lot more to the main character, who is very ... well, she's what you'd expect from a shooter protagonist outside of her gender. In this story, you're basically just doing the "talk to contact, go through world to do mission, come back to contact, do other mission" loop, and it's very ... apparent that this is happening. Even with the fun touches [e.g.: the first mission is "Figure out why people buy day 1 DLC"], it all seems oddly rote for a story set in a world where there are no men in apocalyptic surroundings. You're forced through a linear path, and that path feels ... incomplete, or at least it did to me.
There are multiple endings, but you can see both of them almost immediately at the end, which I thought was a nice touch. The endings themselves ... are a bit of a lucid dream, as the rest of the plot is. To be honest, I don't think the art style does the game any favors in this area (and goodness, the elevator sprites are almost seizure-inducing), but there could have been more done, just in general, to flesh out the world.

In the end, I would rate this a maybe, but there's just a yes or no option. Upon finishing the game (it took ~6, 7 hours?) ... I didn't love it. It feels serviceable. If you love the subject matter, you won't regret buying it (I don't regret buying it). But I ended the game wanting more from the game than what I got - a character that isn't content to just follow what their handler says forever, a story that's more fleshed-out ... I wasn't really able to connect with the main character in the story. The small throwaway bits are consistent and then the larger bits didn't ... feel that way, to the setting and the story, to me. I felt along for the ride, like my actions weren't doing anything in the story - like I was watching an oddly-paced 8-bit movie about the Illum(inati) and Gods, Devil May Cry-style. And the action isn't good enough to compensate.

Very fun game all around. As I spend more and more time with it, little details stick out, like details in the background and NPCs, and different paths to take in the environment where you can either deal with enemies head-on or sneak around them. The story is really good, and though the dialog is eye-roll worthy at times, the balance between the humor the various characters possess and the seriousness of the story (which is handled pretty well, all things considered) helps keep the player engaged. The difficulty is just hard enough to not make the game a breeze while also not being overly punishing for players, especially with the controls.

And speaking of them, this game isn't flawless. The controls are definitely weird, and can take some getting used to, especially if you play with a keyboard. There's definitely been a number of times where I've failed a section multiple times because I keep pressing the wrong button since I go for the key that feels more intuitive. Customizable controls would be a huge boon.* And sometimes the music choice and screen you're playing in don't match up well and feel weird to play.

I bought this for $8.50, though I'd gladly pay $15 for it. Even with its faults, the game has me hooked, and I definitely can't wait to see what the developer has in store for the future.

* EDIT: An update was added to allow customizable controls. This helps a lot, though the initial configuration of controls is still enough of an issue to note.