![]() ![]() Players have 30 seconds in each level to collect as many pick-up collectibles as they can and make it to the end of the level’s teleporter. A woman named Jack, a young space ranger from another dimension and her robo-sidekick Vera crash land in the city of Neo Barcelona with one goal, collect the drive cores she needs to repair the ship. ![]() Aeon Drive, developed by 2Awesome Studio and published by CRITICAL REFLEX has tried their hand in the genre and, although it offers the bare minimum of speed-run style action, it can fall short of a few things that make the genre so easy to pick up and play quickly.Īeon Drive starts off simple and straightforward. This genre of gaming has picked up drastically over the last few years and has developed into a popular eSport. That’s why many speed-run style games are popular such as Super Meat Boy, Celeste, Dead Cells and more. Speed-running a game offers many different challenges such as reaction time, puzzle solving and game manipulation that wasn’t originally offered in the first place.These types of challenges give a whole other sense of appreciation and accomplishment that many may fail to see. Remember, video games are meant to be enjoyed however the player sees fit. Many believe that speed-running has no business being a “thing” because the point of a video game is to enjoy what it has to offer by taking your time. This was particularly frustrating as this specific mechanic was never introduced in the tutorial but was absolutely necessary in order to complete the final levels of the game.The speed-run style genre is a beast that can sometimes be difficult to understand. While many of them are great, one variety of those puzzles presented a huge headache, which were switch puzzles that required VERA to remain on the switch for a door to open - teleporting back to her would just reset the player. While most stages had alternate paths to keep this from getting egregiously bad, one stage in the final level was impossible until, after playing with the controls, the realization hit that there is an input that can recall VERA rather than just teleport to her. In later stages, VERA is used in more interesting ways such as solving door and switch puzzles. However, using VERA for horizontal and diagonal movement feels great and, after a few successful teleports, will naturally put players into a really satisfying flow state. Throwing VERA is also just as frustrating as it is satisfying, as there are moments when Jack must throw VERA directly above her in order to get through a laser wall, but there isn't enough hangtime after teleporting to comfortably avoid falling back down on said wall. ![]() Jack moves well for the most part, but definitely has some hiccups here and there, such as inconsistent detection which makes wall-jumping a gamble at times. Her most important tool is VERA herself, as Jack can throw her to different places and teleport to her, destroy enemies, and bypass certain obstacles like laser walls. There are also small dimensional drives scattered across each level that will extend the time by 5 seconds for every four that are collected, which can often make the difference between success and failure. First and foremost, Jack is agile and has a sword which lets her quickly dispatch robotic enemies, which are more of an obstacle than they are a threat. In gameplay, each stage has a 30 second timer in which to complete it and Jack has plenty of tools to help her do just that. Related: Guardians of Hyelore Review: Good In Short Bursts To save the city, they need to retrieve all six, but they only have 30 seconds before they go critical luckily VERA can create a small time-pocket to extend that time. They get pulled into Earth's orbit and crash-land in the cyberpunk city of Neo Barcelona, which VERA quickly realizes is close to destruction thanks to a chain reaction being caused by unstable dimensional drives. Jack and her robot companion VERA escape their dimension in order to flee from a galactic war and arrive in "our" dimension. ![]() Aeon Drive's story is more of a framing device than it is an actual narrative. ![]()
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