You must balance speed and poise with guile and patience. You’ll encounter obstacles and monsters that will kill you instantly. You must search each small stage looking for collectables and energy cells to extend your time. The gameplay revolves around a thirty-second countdown clock and a desperate dash for the finish line. Time is of the essence is a well-known phrase and it’s very apt for Aeon Drive’s main concept. Aeon Drive has an unusual but fun concept. Using a 2D side-scrolling perspective, this neon-infused game reeks of old-school charm with a futuristic twist. Aeon Drive mixes all these elements in its dark and doomed cyberpunk-inspired gameplay.ĭeveloped by 2Awesome Studio and published by 2Awesome Studio and CRITICAL REFLEX, this is a speedrun platform game. Alien technology, special abilities, and new unfounded worlds. Though the picture isn’t as rosy as I’d like, there are always positives. Robots take over, people live in slums, and usually, we’re all doomed, one way or another. The mechanics of movement driving the platforming and the lovely pixel graphics deserve praise, but the short shelf life of speedrunning left me wanting something more.Game developers have a bleak outlook on mankind’s future. Normally my competitive nature would compel me to work towards becoming first in as many levels as possible, but the lack of variety of level design left me feeling like I had played enough. An online leaderboard is included for each of the 100 levels as a means of motivation to replay as often as it takes to reduce your time. Completing all 100 levels only took a couple of hours, and based on the brief ending, I would hazard a guess that a true ending is gated behind finding all the collectibles found in each level.Ĭlearly, the main focus of Aeon Drive is to speed run through each level as quickly as possible. As someone who doesn’t focus on platform games all that often, the difficulty felt fair, maybe even slightly leaning towards being a bit easy. Mastery of this mechanic is necessary for progression since it’s used on every level and in succession. Jackelyne throws a ninja star-like projectile that sticks to walls and when triggered, allows her to teleport to its location. The most important mechanic however is teleportation. Jump height feels spot on, sliding and the single slash attack both feel smooth and well paced. The highlight of Aeon Drive is definitely the well designed platforming mechanics. The level design variety is a bit of a buzzkill Thankfully, the loading times on the Switch or near non-existent, each death means only a delay for a few seconds before you’re backing trying to avoid the spot that killed you. A single touch by an enemy or obstacle will kill Jackelyne, resulting in the ship’s AI turning back time to restart the level for another try. Multiple routes are available, and the time limit can be extended by collecting batteries along the way that when used, add time to the limit. The ultimate goal is to get from point A to point B without dying and within the time limit. Most of the levels look pretty much the same, consisting of platforms with a few enemies to avoid, some laser walls to teleport through, and a progressively higher difficulty of things to avoid the deeper you go. The banter between the two is well written, but the small amount of voice acting quickly becomes repetitive.Īeon Drive is divided into 10 different locations with 10 levels each that need to be successfully completed within a 30 second time limit. The ship comes with an AI that assists the hero and provides a second voice for some conversation between levels. A simple premise is presented at the start of the game explaining how the protagonist, Jackelyne, crashes her dimension hopping ship into the cyberpunk city of Neo Barcelona and has little time to collect the engine cores before they melt down and destroy the city. Aeon Drive doesn’t delve too deep into the lore, relying solely on its platforming mechanics through a forced speedrun scenario as its source of entertainment.
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