Ario (XSX) Review – Video Game News and Reviews

Ario is a 2.5D action-adventure with occasional bits of tower defense mechanics. Unfortunately, a lack of polish and some really head-scratching design choices make this game unplayable.

The plot makes no sense when you play as a boy searching for his mother while being attacked by strange masked enemies. Usually the story gets pushed to the side because it might not make much sense from a gameplay perspective, but here it's quite the opposite. There's a lot of emphasis on the plot, as the story is told through several beautifully drawn cutscenes, but players are left with no idea exactly who these bad guys are or why they all look the same. You're never told what you're going to do or why. Did it happen in your particular village? Another funny thing about him is that the player encounters an old man who is locked in a cell and gives him a crossbow. How does a frail old man hide a huge crossbow in an empty room? Didn't the guards easily see this huge and deadly weapon being stored there?

To make matters worse, characters speak gibberish during cutscenes. However, subtitles are turned off by default. At first I thought there was something wrong with the game, but then I realized that this important option was disabled for some reason. So if you want to play this game, make sure to turn on subtitles first.

Gameplay is basically classic prince of persia-ish, but fast, loose, and buggy. While it feels cool to move at such high speeds, it becomes boring and imprecise when faced with detailed platforming challenges. Several times I got stuck in some part of the environment and had to restart. Once, I actually got stuck on an enemy's head and the game softlocked. It's a shame that the parkour system has such a good foundation, but falls apart because it's so loose and random.

Combat is the same as traversal. Players are given several abilities to defeat enemies, such as flying head stomps and dodge rolls, but they end up relying too much on the crossbow system. Aiming is controlled with an analog stick, but it never feels right or snappy. At times, the game plunges into tower defense-like scenarios where the player must control arrows from a large crossbow and snipe each enemy that appears in the distance. Unfortunately, the lack of an option to invert the camera controls makes these sections almost unplayable. Nailing moving targets from such a long range can be fun, but it gets a little silly when it takes multiple arrows to drop a single soldier.

Although it may lack control and plot, the scenery is the highlight. Each area conveys a different atmosphere, from vast plains and forests to heavily guarded fortresses. My complaint is a double-edged sword, as the 2.5D perspective can make each area seem much more interactive than it really is. I wanted to explore elements in the background, rather than being tied to a simple left-right movement. In some cases, there are even false paths that appear to move into the background, making them appear explorable when they are not. The soundtrack isn't even a soundtrack. It's just ambient noise that loops, fooling the player into thinking they're hearing something much louder than it appears.

Ario It feels like an early beta or late alpha of the game, with the core in place but falling apart when you run it. It's too buggy to recommend, the controls are too loose to be fully enjoyed, it lacks the value of simple presentation, and it doesn't respect the player's time. Also, the name is Ario This may not have been the best choice, as a Google search only yields results for Nintendo's most popular series.

Not As Good As: The latest Prince of Persia titles

Better Than: Return to the original Prince of Persia with ultra-high difficulty and short timers

Not to be confused with: Ayo the Clown

Author: Zachary Gasiorowski, myGamer.com Editor-in-Chief

twitter: @ZackGaz

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