Aureole – Wings of Hope Review (PS5)

Good thing we can’t get motion sickness in our halo form.

I honestly don’t usually play precision platformers. I think I’m just not that into having to retry a level over and over, especially since they do tend to lean towards being really hard. Plus, if there are medals or leaderboards in the mix, I tend to want to get the best score I can. Which most of the time requires you to be perfect or near perfect…which I can’t do. So, usually when I find out a game is a precision platformer I don’t pick it up since I know I’ll probably not enjoy it after a while. However, if a game is interesting enough I will pick it up anyway. In fact, I have a handful of precision platformers (both before and after I learned I’m ot that into them) that I enjoyed. I guess long story short is that I’m just highly selective on certain genres and precision platformers are one of them. It’s been a long while since I’ve played a precision platformer. Hey, if I’m going to risk suffering by being stuck on a level for hours might as well be the one that I’m most definitely interested in rather than one that I’m more meh on.

However, as you can guess, that recently changed. Aureole – Wings of Hope managed to recently catch my interest both with the gameplay and how the developers advertised it as being based on Sonic and Celeste (which are games that I did enjoy). After playing the demo a bit, I decided to pick it up and review it. So, how did it turn out?

Aureole – Wings of Hope starts as we get a peek into the Heaven Kingdom as an angel priest named Remus is holding a sermon for a group of angels. We soon learn that the gathered angels are, now were, cadets and Remus gathered them to make a special announcement. After years of slowly shortening the length of military training and years of no war (and thus peace), military service was finally cut altogether. After all, why continue training when there’s no war and the only threat was believed to have been long defeated? Though, that doesn’t mean that everyone gets to be released early to pursue whatever they want to. They are still required to wear their armor, as it’s tradition to pay respects to those that perished in the war before them, and they’ll be transferred to the mines to serve out the rest of their training time. Apparently it was by their goddess’, The Left Hand’s, command to bring up production. However, that isn’t the only special news happening today.

Remus’ sermon gets disrupted with a messenger relaying that demons have attacked one of their mines. Remus doesn’t take it seriously…until he hears that the demons not only appeared out of nowhere, but killed everyone. And he especially can’t wave it off when the messenger is killed and the new Demon King, a totally jacked demon, reveals himself. His goal is to bring back The Right Hand, their goddess who was said to have been killed in the war, and take back the surface. Which means killing the angels and The Left Hand. The Demon King easily subdues (and what you’ll later learn permanently kills) the two that were brave enough to attack him and then kills every angel in sight. Oh my gosh.

Well, almost everyone was killed. One of the main characters, Ramila, actually survives and she was actually asleep throughout the whole sermon. Including when the Demon King came in. She fell off of the isle due to the Demon King’s attack and she somehow didn’t suffer any injuries. The same can’t be said for our other protagonist, Ryleth. Ryleth was also knocked off of the isle, but he did sustain damage and he kind of…maybe…died. Well, technically he didn’t “die” die yet as he’s more in a limbo state. When angels die they revert to a halo, which are referred to as aureoles by characters and sometimes rings in the lore (which makes sense by the end), and they have 24 hours to go through an Ascension Ritual. If their halo is shattered or an Ascension Ritual isn’t performed on them in time, then they die for real. Anyway, back on track, Ryleth fills Ramila in on what happened and tells her about the time limit for his actual death. Unluckily, they were knocked down pretty far and Ryleth is saddled with the laziest angel around. Luckily, they do have a whole 24 hours, The Left Hand is helping them (granted, it’s also powering her up, but still), and Ramila does get talked into being proactive and not waiting until someone finds them.

And thus starts the unlikely duo of Ramila and Ryleth as they work together to slowly make their way back to the Heaven Kingdom and get to know each other more as they talk between levels. It’s going to be a close one, but maybe, just maybe, they’ll be able to make it in time 

I liked the story here. It sets up the game well, sets up the stakes that the characters are under, and I really enjoyed the writing here. It does also bring in a hint of mystery on whether any other angels survived like Ramila and how the situation at Heaven Kingdom is. I was also a bit worried about the whole game taking place within 24 hours, as most of the time a short timespan isn’t believable due to too much happening, but it actually felt believable. The lore of this universe is also optional, but I did find it pretty interesting. There were just some terms that were a bit confusing at first, but that’s it. I also liked the writing style. I liked how lighthearted it was and it ended up being charming and surprisingly funny. Of course, humor is subjective, but the jokes were a hit with me and I found myself giggling multiple times. Don’t worry, it knows when to get serious and man will it take you off guard.

Most of the focus is put on the characters and it does a great job. Ramila and Ryleth bounced off of each other really well and were a great pairing. I really liked their banter and I liked learning more about them. It was also pretty interesting to see them change as you progress. It was interesting to see Ramila going from wanting to go back to sleep and being reluctant, to being proactive and cautious as she’s listening to her gut. Ryleth’s change was more subtle, but he goes from being serious and tense to becoming a bit more relaxed and opening up to Ramila. I enjoyed their banter and I not only wanted to see what was going to happen next, but see if they were going to make it in time to save Ryleth.

Also, I have to mention the nice little details in the beginning cutscene. I actually spotted Ramila right away; I literally pointed to her sleeping figure and was like “that’s me!” haha. I was curious to see if Ryleth was there and when I looked back he was. You can even see their models fall off of the isle rather than on it (and track their models to make sure it’s them). I found it to be a nice little detail that you may not notice 

Time to get into the gameplay. Aureole – WIngs of Hope has 40 levels, 30 of them being mandatory and 10 of them being optional, spread across six locations, or biomes as the game called them. Each biome is its own little hub area where the various teleporters that take you into the levels are scattered around. Not all of them are unlocked right out of the gate, but gradually unlock as you complete levels. Well as gradual as it can be for biomes with five mandatory levels. Sometimes you just have one level to work on and sometimes you’ll unlock two or more so you can pick which one to do first (or go back to it later). Alongside the levels, there are also the areas where the optional content is at and the stone right in the middle where the faith fragments are deposited (which also lets you see your progress until unlocking the next biome) and lets you travel between biomes. So yeah, you’ll be platforming to even get to the levels. What’s cool about this though is that you do get a sneak peek into one of the mechanics or elements that’s being introduced in that biome. 

Anyway, the level teleporters give you a good quick look on whether you did it yet and what medal you got (as the teleporter’s color will match the medal). Jumping into it will bring you to the full look where you’ll see a little preview of the level, the time targets, whether you got the faith fragment and collectible, and the personal and global leaderboards. Once you’re ready, and you’re at the level you want (or need) to do, you can start the level and get into the meat of the game.

The unique aspect of Aureole – Wings of Hope is that it’s not a traditional precision platformer. Instead of running and platforming as Ramila or Ryleth, you’ll be flying through levels as a halo (or aureole as the game calls it, but I think I’ll just stick with calling it a halo here).

Gameplay here goes with the classic “easy to learn, but hard to master” philosophy. A level starts with a good throw, which lore-wise helps Ramila sync up with Ryleth. You don’t have to worry about strength, Ramila has that covered in her spin throw, but you do choose which angle she’ll throw Ryleth at. Which is important not only because it’ll determine whether you have a good or bad start, but also because you can’t control it for the first couple seconds. Once Ramila syncs up with Ryleth though, signified by her headband form combining with his halo form making a bigger halo, you’ll be able to. Controlling the halo is simple and actually done with just two buttons and the thumb stick. There’s a jump, which will actually pause the halo in mid-air as you choose the angle and you can only jump twice before you have to touch the ground to reset it. There’s the Ring Blitz, which is basically a charged dash and has four different settings. You can do a quick tap for a quick dash or hold it down to charge it up until it’s fully charged to the highest speed. And lastly, you can slam down so you can get to the ground quicker and without having to be super precise with your aiming. However, if you hold it, it’ll stall in the air like a flipping coin and it’s easy to get in a bounce loop.  And that’s it for controlling the halo. It’s simple…until you bring in the level design.

The levels here start out pretty easy and do a good job with gradually increasing the difficulty. Not counting the optional levels, there were only two levels that felt like a difficult spike and then just the last biome being a big ‘ole difficulty mountain to overcome. The environment not only plays a part, but there are also corrupted brambles, the various elements that push your halo in various ways, and other miscellaneous elements that you’ll need to interact with. Like aspergillums that propels you forward until they hit a wall (or another element), biblically accurate angels that have an orbit ring that you’ll travel until you jump out (and man I hope you have a jump left cause you’re not leaving if you don’t), fires that resets your jump counter and basic rings that throw you a little bit in the direction they’re facing. The various elements are slowly introduced to you, with the big changes coming in with the new biome (and while some are biome specific, some do carry over). Oh, and there are checkpoint statues! You do need to hit them to activate them, but it gives you a nice respawn point.

Oh, and you can only sustain one hit. It’s not as bad as you’d think, as levels are quick, but there are spots towards and at the end where you’ll need to do a long (well long for this game) challenging section with no checkpoint in the middle.

Each level ends with a faith fragment for you to grab and you have to at least get a bronze medal to officially get it. Yep, you are timed with how fast you complete levels and you can see your current time and how far you’re in the level in the corners of the screen. The timer decorations will even change to reflect which medal you’ll get if you complete the level right then if you forgot or missed the required minimum times for each medal.

Remember how I said there are 10 optional levels? Well, this is where I get to talk about that as I get into collectibles and other optional side content. Each level, aside from a few exceptions, will have a collectible item hidden in the level. They’re either well hidden (either behind a fake wall or up high) or just a bit away from the main path. When you grab it, it’ll reveal what it is along with some lore that’s related to it. If you collect all five collectibles from the five mandatory levels, you can use them to unlock an optional level. Each mandatory level will also have something related to the puzzle that’s in that biome (whether it’s a piece of the puzzle or a hint for it). These are also well hidden and I honestly didn’t find any until the second biome when I was curious at a suspicious notch in the environment, retried the level to investigate, and revealed to be a puzzle piece. Some levels do have gossip butterflies which lead you to either a collectible or puzzle piece if it’s especially well hidden (though, you do need to actually keep up with them). You should really write these down (if it’s a hint or a piece of the puzzle text) and then you can go and solve it once you find all of them between the five mandatory levels. Which will also unlock an optional level. All but the last biome has two optional levels and from the ones I unlocked so far, it seems like the puzzle optional levels are built around making it as challenging as possible using the available mechanics; while the collectible option levels are built around making the most creative level as possible (which can be hard as well). The collectible optional levels can be pretty cool and honestly one of my favorite levels is one of the optional collectible levels.

Each biome hub also has a minigame area as well. Each biome has their own unique minigame and they do match with the aesthetics of the biome (like stopping the snowmen from getting too tall in the snowy peak or dodging spikey chestnuts in the plateau). You don’t need to interact with the minigame unless you want to 100% this game, but it was a bit amusing, challenging, and a nice break from the levels. The only one I didn’t like was the first biome’s basketball one since I just didn’t like the physics of the halo hitting the beach ball (and of course whenever I had it in the air in a good position I was out of jumps).

Oh, and some biomes have some cute intractable aspects in their levels. Like how in the first biome, there are flower patches which will bloom if you go over them with the halo.

Aside from that, you can aim to get gold medals in all the levels and even go a bit further by trying to get on the global leaderboard. Getting gold medals is not easy and it gets harder and harder between biomes, so it’s a good challenge if you’re up for it. I have to say it was interesting figuring out the optimal move for certain spots and what elements of the level you can skip to get through it faster. I definitely suggest doing this separately from hunting for the collectibles and puzzle hints since even if you know where they are it will hurt your time. And maybe also wait until after you finish the main game since this does have a focus on the story so you don’t get burnt out before getting to the brutal levels that the last biome has.

I loved the gameplay here. It felt so good playing Aureole – Wings of Hope and it ended up being more fun than I thought it would be. I had to stop myself from aiming for gold medals so I could progress and promised myself I’d go gold medal hunting once I completed the main game. It does a good job with being simple, while bringing in the complexity with the level design. As you can guess, the game also felt really good to play. I played the whole game on controller and it felt great, but after seeing gameplay of it with a mouse I can see why some may prefer using a mouse as it did seem to give you a bit more precision. I did feel the physics of the halo were consistent, with a few hiccups here and there, and it was so interesting figuring out when you need to intervene, when you need to relax and let gravity carry it out, and when it’s best to dash and which dash you should use. The beginning throw can be a bit annoying in some levels and it just feels like a tiny difference in the angle makes too big of a trajectory difference, but man is it satisfying when you hit that sweet spot. There were also a couple things that I really enjoyed with the level design. Like how there does seem to be a good to amazing range to the pathing here and it does a good job in accommodating whichever path you fall on (as long as it’s not bad of course). I did also like how it had you learn about the various level elements in the field. Even the ones that appear in the hubs can have a surprise once you encounter them in a level. These elements are really easy to figure out, especially since you have a limited amount of buttons you’re working with, and I really appreciate how you only get a tutorial for the basic controls.

There are of course times when it can be annoying trying to get through a level or just annoying parts of a level, but that’s to be expected. The only moments that annoyed me was when I was put into a slam and bounce loop rather than the slam and dash I was intending; and during the vertical dashes when I didn’t go the way I was intending (which I feel most of the time it was just me being used to not having to aim these dashes when horizontal).

Also, it does sound a bit weird hearing that there are so few levels, but it works really well here. You can tell that a lot went into each level and by the end I was pretty satisfied. Each biome felt well rounded and dense, all wrapped up in a handful of quick levels.

Aureole – Wings of Hope negatives only really consist of aspects that some may not like, get annoying on a rare occasion, or just something that you wished was a thing. Like, it’s pretty cool that each biome has a hub, but there are times where it can be a bit annoying trying to find the next level you have to do or that one level you want to go to. I wished you could look at your collectibles collection so you can read the lore again without having to find them again in the level they appear in. I did also wish that you could look at a list or archive of the levels along with your stats (time, the medal you got for it, and if you got the collectible) just so it’s easier to see all that you did and it’s all in one place. Lastly, there will probably be an aspect of the game that you don’t like (like personally I didn’t really like the mines).

Performance on the PS5 is smooth. As far as I could tell or feel, there were no stuttering or drops even during the times I was going super fast, had a lot of elements on screen, or both. Everything also stayed clear. The only problem I had was that the game did crash on me twice, once when I was idling and another when I was either getting out of or retrying a level from the level complete screen. There were also a few times when the music cut out for a bit and times when a sound effect (maybe the saw sound effect?) carried over.

To tie up everything in a bow, the visuals and sound here were great. Some may not like the art style of the characters, but they are pretty charming and I do like the designs of the ones we see. I did also like how each biome had its own theme and I found the levels to be pretty. Especially the backgrounds. It was also easy to tell where you are and spot the various hazards and elements, which is arguably more important than anything. The music was good as well, with the hub tracks being calm and serene while the level tracks having a lot of energy to them getting you pumped and in the mind space of soaring through the air ♪ at the speed of sound ♪. There are bits of voice acting here that were good (and kinda cute). Lastly, the sound effects were just so good and were just the cherry on top. So many sounds were just so satisfying to the ear for me.

Verdict

As someone that doesn’t usually play precision platformers, I really enjoyed Aureole – Wings of Hope. There were of course annoyances and difficulty spikes, but it does so many things right. The writing was great, the game was pretty and charming, the banter between Ramila and Ryleth were great, and they expected this unique, clever, spin on the genre really well and made it so fun to play. I’m so glad I took the chance and picked up this game as it was just so satisfying to play, even if I didn’t do the best, and it’s really easy to go into that “just one more go” loop.

I for sure recommend checking out Aureole – Wings of Hope. I found the pricing to be really fair for the content here and it does seem like the demo will be staying so you can check it out if you’re not sure about it.