An Aisling

A very cute concept with beautifully haunting art, but unfortunately I can't recommend this game. Played a little more than an hour but most of that was relaunching the game over and over again because it kept crashing on me. Finally got to a point where the game would just launch into a crash over and over again and I couldn't progress even if I was willing to put up with the neigh constant crashes. Happy to revisit the game again when it's been fixed but at the time of writing I can't even get through the plot, which is the main selling point of this game, so I can't advise anyone else to do the same.

For the first two and a half hours, An Aisling is a fantastic game which I think is right up there with Night in the Woods. And then it just ends in a very abrupt way. I tried to replay the ending to check if I missed some possible actions or story bits during the ending sequence, but the only available option was to start a new game. There are many missable interactions and side quests, so 2.5 hours is the playtime without doing most of the optional content. The game has obvious similarities to NitW, from the general gameplay style down to details like doing a bit of parkour to find NPCs hanging out on rooftops. There are great stylized graphics, an eerie setting of something unknown creeping into the quiet life of a small community, trippy visions, and goofy minigames to play when hanging out with friends. Oh, and animal suits instead of anthropomorphic animals. So bizarre and funny moments are guaranteed, and many of them are done perfectly. The game has a couple of nice puzzles of the kind action-adventures can be so good at, where we have to follow vague directions or figure out how we're supposed to interact with things. There's also a fun hint system. I didn't quite like…

Ok, so it is a platformer-lite adventure game with mini games. The problem is that the game can't really decide what it wants to be. Pair it with the terrible controls and lack of help on what you should push, and it gets annoying really fast.

A lot of positives about this game, so I'll give it my recommendation. Loved the graphics and the quirkiness.

It's disappointing because I can tell there is so much soul put into this project, but I cannot play it as I consistently encounter crashes that I'm unable to work around. I see that the developer is making minor bug fixes here and there, but it appears there is something deeper to the issues. From what little I've been able to play, the art, music, and writing is unique, fun and interesting. But I cannot recommend the game in its current state.

A good fun time. Does it's narrative and aesthetic pretty well. I really liked the music.