Welcome to the world of Lumenox where Dawn, Day, Dusk, Night rule in perfect balance. Well, it was a balanced land until Night decided it wanted complete control over all the living. Dawn foresaw the tragedy that would befall the land and hid a special champion away from suspecting eyes. Aaru, the half bear and half bird warrior, is the champion you will control to travel to the Night realm and defeat the oppressor at Dawn’s great command. If the concept of a half bear and half bird warrior hasn’t incited you to wanting to play Aaru’s Awakening, there is more incentive coming your way.
Hand-drawn games are slowly being found within indie titles and the developers at Lumenox Games have great artistic talent. The scenery looks as if it comes from a book of fairy tales. With the sharp jagged edges of the bramble and cliffs, to the sharp curves and unforgiving landscape, Aaru’s Awakening brings the darkness of a fairy story to gamers. You are able to partake in an age old tale of a hero fighting against an evil entity that threatens the existence of all that is good. But Aaru posses something a little different than your usual video game/ story book hero, Aaru can teleport!
Aaru has only two abilities aside from walking: the ability to charge and to teleport. Charging head-on into a loose wall or enemy will do considerable damage. However the teleporting is a large problem. Shooting an orb of light to the area you want Aaru to be in and then clicking on the orb will teleport Dawn’s champion to that spot. It seems like a neat feature for a platforming game, and something to make this game stand out on Steam. The idea of teleportation is definitely there, and it’s something to tempt players into purchase the game. The problem with this mechanic is that it takes quite a bit of mastery. Even after playing for the first couple of hours, I still had a difficult time teleporting Aaru to the platform I wanted. Much of the time Aaru would go to every spot BUT the one place he needed to be in order to progress.
The visual beauty of Aaru’s Awakening has the potential to make this game memorable. I cannot recall seeing such beautiful hand-drawn graphics in a platformer before, and it’s enough to keep me wanting to continue. The muted colors set the solemn mood for the player, and visually lets them recognize the dire need of a hero for Lumenox. Even though the story is rather simple, it seems to be spoken through the art. All of the feeling and emotion comes from the paintings themselves.
Unfortunately though the graphics are wonderful, they cannot overshadow the fact that controlling Aaru’s teleporting is practically too challenging. After a good few hours of gameplay time goes by and you still cannot seem to master Aaru’s teleporting power, it’s clear that the game’s controls are in need of improvement. Aaru’s Awakening offers a treat for the eyes, at least for those brave enough to master the controls.
