Available in early access since October 21, 2021, Sands of Aura is an action and adventure game developed by Chashu Entertainment and published by Freedom Games. The game takes place in a fairly dark medieval fantasy universe and includes the basics of a dungeon crawler, with exploration, combat, and looting.
The game is only available in English for now and is QWERTY by default. All commands can be modified, except those for movement. It is therefore better to play with the controller as long as it is not possible to reassign them.
The game menu is quite simple but still allows you to customize the essentials, in a rather mysterious atmosphere, between film noir and fantasy. The first step is the creation of the character, with different faces and different hairstyles, all gender neutral. It is not possible to direct the camera, nor to zoom, but the personalization is in any case only rather summary. Note that it is possible to create up to four different backups.
Character creation and customization (face, skin and hair only).
A first cinematic introduces the story: a cataclysm, caused by a malevolent god, has covered the world of Talamhel with an immense sea of sand. We play one of the last defenders of humanity, whose mission is to protect the kingdom and destroy evil. From the first level, we find ourselves at the entrance of a temple, which we will have to explore like a dungeon. The game is in objective view; the camera is centered on the character, and it is only possible to orient it around him. The artistic direction is one of the big strengths of the game: the work between shadows and lights offers superb visuals, and the different animations are fluid and distinct. We quickly arrive on a first chest and pick up some objects, which we find in our inventory as in any RPG:
Inventory and character characteristics.
As we move forward, we come across steles that can be inspected to bring up different help windows as a tutorial. They are relatively well placed and allow you to gradually become familiar with the mechanics of the game:
Each stele informs about a mechanic or an element of the gameplay.
The Resonance Bell is a checkpoint and place of restoration.
The handling is simple, and the gameplay does not reinvent anything but is pleasant and corresponds to the standards of the genre. In terms of movement, it is possible to sprint, dodge, and jump. A little further, we meet our first interlocutor, our Mentor, and a quick dialogue with the different answer choices teaches us our first objective: to make an offering to unlock the door of the temple. We also discover the first "bell of resonance" which, in addition to healing us, saves our progress and represents the reappearance point in the event of death. And as much to say that we will often come back to it because the fights are not easy; mechanically simple, but punishing. The difficulty is in fact close to a "Souls" where the slightest enemy is a threat and where each boss presents a real challenge. The first fight does not take long to occur and introduces new mechanics: the simple attack, raising the corruption gauge which then allows a special attack, a shield (fading very quickly and hard to time correctly for a perfect parry ), or the possibility of activating a magic gem previously set on the weapon which reinforces or modifies the actions described above by triggering different effects:
Ice gem to create a wall after dodging
Fire gem ignites nearby enemies.
The deaths will nevertheless be chained with, each time, the reappearance of all the enemies of the level. After a certain number of failures, it will not be uncommon to want to return to the place of our death by simply dodging the enemies on the way. After exploring the temple, collecting the various objects, and defeating (or not) all the enemies, we find the artifact necessary for the offering, which unlocks access to the room where the first boss is actually located. The mentor falls relatively quickly in combat, leaving us alone with the boss who has different attacks, including a ray that almost systematically one shots at us.
Cannot defeat a boss by just attacking.
We will have to use the whole range of actions at our disposal.
We will have to manage attacks, dodges, and shields well, without hesitating to use the three healing bells we have. Once defeated, we can replenish the temple with water and head towards the exit. We then discover the village and its many points of interest and NPCs who will give or complete quests, trade, reveal different information according to our choice of dialogues, or just expand the lore of the game.
Points of interest are not indicated
It is possible to interact with each NPC.
A forge present in the village allows you to customize the fighting style, by manufacturing different weapons according to blades and pommels, each combination having advantages and/or disadvantages. The crafting of level 1 weapons does not cost materials (unlike the improvement of weapons and armor), which makes it possible to test several possibilities from the start of the game. Later, a talent tree will grant us different bonuses, further increasing the customization possibilities.
Many weapons are available, each modifying the fighting style.
If we have been guided so far, the game then reveals its open world dimension by offering us the possibility of traveling as we see fit (admittedly not necessarily recommended from the start). In fact, we can even get a little lost, because the game intentionally does not give any indication as to where to go, in which zone are located which quests (main or side), etc. We will therefore have to take the boat to explore the sea of sands, and the possibilities will surely be numerous enough to reach our ultimate goal.
Each place has its own visual identity.
Sands of Aura is therefore a Souls-like, as much by its RPG aspect as by its difficulty (and its heroic fantasy universe), but with a die and retry mechanism that does not relegate the adventure to the background, thanks to a detailed lore and captivating art direction. Each place has its own visual and sound identity, and the soundtrack, entirely symphonic, is perfectly adapted to the different levels (disturbing with string instruments, epic with choirs, etc.). The game will therefore appeal to anyone who appreciates the theme and is looking for a challenge without being taken by the hand. Among the few flaws: the camera, oriented by default in the wrong direction when entering a place, or the effectiveness of certain weapons which perhaps requires a little balancing (attack speed/range/damage ratio). The game being in early access, many patches are coming (three patches have already been applied in a few days), even more significant changes by the final release, which is currently scheduled for 2023 on PC.
- Steam
- epic Games
- Official website of the game
