AURA: Fate of the Ages

Aura is all about solving puzzles, and lots of them. Described as an adventure game, the adventure is actually very thin and only serves as a light glue to bind the puzzles together.

The story is this: You are Umang, star pupil of the Clan of the Keepers, the guardians of the mysterious rings that enable travel between parallel universes. Because Umang is so smart, he gets to travel to Ademika Valley in order to learn how to use these rings. However, upon arrival, he discovers that his teacher, Grifit, has disappeared with only a letter left for an explanation. Umang is directed to start-up the navigational map in order to prepare the journey ship for travel. While he is completing this task, unrest breaks out amongst the Clan and it's up to Umang to save the day...

Players are immediately presented with a number of mechanical puzzles at the beginning of the game. Not just one, not just two, no sirree, it's a plethora of puzzles to manipulate before Umang can even get started traveling. Fortunately, the first series of these puzzles are explained in the manual to help players get familiar with the type of thinking required for this game. And this is a good thing, as the diagram Umang finds in Grifit's letter, showing illustrations of some of these puzzles, isn't really much help for these particular ones.

Some of the puzzles are true humdingers to solve. Many are mechanical in nature, but others use inventory items and there are also a few music puzzles, as well. Depending on the person, this may daunt or entertain. I'm not so hot at the mechanical puzzles, but the musical ones I find easier to solve. The mechanical ones I find very difficult. Remember Lighthouse from Sierra? This game has similar types of puzzles, with its emphasis on machines. My husband solved the puzzles in Lighthouse much more easily than I did.

The environments are truly beautiful. The detail is very good, and players will enjoy looking at all the special touches, like the flames in the fireplace at the beginning of the game, the snow on the mountains, and the vivid colors of the jungle. When a puzzle is solved, there is an animation each time, which not only serves the purpose of letting the player know it was successful immediately, but helps to draw the player into the game. These cutscenes and others at different parts of the game are outstanding.

The sound effects are nicely done as well, and subtly immerse players into each locality by good use of ambient sound. The musical score is decent, but not as stirring as it could have been, given the solitary nature of the game, which cried out for orchestral music as an accompaniment.

Superficially, at first, this game appears to be a Myst-type clone. However, it is not. The only similarity, really, lies in the fact that both were played from a first-person viewpoint. While Myst was also essentially a solitary experience, the story was much stronger and more prevalent throughout the game. Aura is a puzzle game, with the story taking a back seat to the gameplay. The puzzles are well-designed, and while numerous, are spaced out evenly. They are mostly logical in nature, although sometimes just clicking around on objects seems to work better than trying to use the clues to figure them out.

I do need to note that I experienced several game crashes while running Aura, which would suddenly kick me back to the desktop, and require me to start over at a save point. This quickly became annoying, but not game-stopping as long as the game is saved often.

This is going to be one of those games that players either love or hate, depending on personal taste; there is no gray area. If you enjoy solving tricky mechanical puzzles and hate carrying around a loaded inventory bag, then this is the game for you. If you enjoy a great story and like getting to know the characters via interesting dialogue, then this is not the game for you. While there is some small interaction with a few characters, and players see Umang from time to time, there is no sense of familiarity with any of them. Umang is about as boring a person as I've ever seen in a game.