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This game was reviewed using Version 1.0.4. Your experience on other versions may vary.
Short Answer: An interesting open-world flight game, but one that feels almost unfinished. The core flight mechanics are fun, but the open world is barren; the puzzle sections are fairly easy but can feel too slow-paced; the story is full of gaps and doesn't deliver a satisfying ending; and although it has a great visual style and soundtrack, it's not enough to make up for everything else's shortcomings. It's not a bad game, but it's one that feels lacking in many ways.
Long Answer: In a world torn apart and reduced only to islands in the sky, where the old gods that once protected the land have long been lost and forgotten, you play as a girl named Auk who has been granted a power passed down the generations that allows her to shapeshift into a bird at will. You must use this power to explore the ruins of ancient civilization, attempt to uncover what happened to the gods of old, and restore peace to the last few remnants of humanity. It's a game that starts out with a strong first impression, but it's one that felt lacking in many ways by the time I had finished it.
Gameplay is pretty simple: there are no enemies, no combat, and you have to actively try to achieve some semblance of a "failure state". The focus is less on testing player skill and more on letting players immerse themselves in the world at their own pace, which can feel like both a positive and a negative at times. As the premise would suggest, the bulk of the game takes place in an "open-world" environment comprised of many small islands, and this side of the game is all built around that special power I mentioned earlier: flying. With just the push of a button, you can transform into a bird to freely fly between islands, then push it again to turn back into a human and actually explore them. Flying is definitely the most entertaining part of the game: you get to zip through the map at really high speeds, you have surprisingly good maneuverability, and it's very easy to recover from a mistake. The unfortunate downside is that once you get past the general thrill of this mechanic, there really isn't much to do in the big open map you're given. There's nowhere to go but these floating islands, most of which contain nothing and the rest of which contain almost nothing. The only points of interest other than those required to progress the plot are lingering spirits you can stand beside to be fed breadcrumbs of lore, landmarks you can stand beside to trigger achievements, and a few caves for optional puzzles and/or more achievements--and by "a few", I mean "enough to count on one hand". Secret-hunting aside, I could only recall one puzzle in the overworld that was actually built around this flight mechanic, and it was one of the simplest puzzles the game had to offer. Although flying on its own is fun for a while, I wish more was done to take advantage of the gameplay opportunities that kind of system can present.
The rest of the game keeps things more grounded--literally--as you explore inside caves and ancient ruins to try and find the artifacts you need to save the world. Each one contains puzzles often centered around platforming, and none of it is all that hard. The main challenge you'll run into is just trying to navigate them, as most use a non-linear layout than can be a bit confusing to figure out. These indoor puzzle segments are okay on their own, but when contrasted with the rapid pace of the outdoor flight sections, it feels almost annoyingly slow to traverse them. There doesn't seem to be an in-universe reason for why Auk's wings are suddenly clipped when going indoors; and if there is, then I must have missed the dialogue that explains it. It felt like a bit of a misstep on both ends: the open-world segments are fast and fun to navigate, but there's not much to really do in them; meanwhile all the real puzzles are contained in these indoor segments, but their slower pacing makes them feel out of place. Though I realize it's far easier said than done, it would have been nice to have puzzles balanced out between these two sections, with more puzzles in the overworld built around the flight mechanics.
It would be a disservice if I didn't at least briefly mention the solid artistic direction, boasting a nice low-poly art style alongside an equally pleasant atmospheric soundtrack. Neither one is too complex, but both have a certain beauty to them that can't be ignored. A couple songs in particular really stood out to me (e.g. Home, Sun and Moon), but most of my favorites would only play while I was flying; and since the gameplay loop consists of constantly stopping mid-flight to explore an island in my path, I often didn't get to hear them as much as I wanted to. The soundtrack is dirt-cheap, though, so I can't complain too much.
The last thing I want to touch on is the story--don't worry, I'm not going to spoil much here, I want to focus more on how the story is presented to the player. If you're just doing the bare minimum to progress--going from point A to point B to point C and so on--you're not going to be told much at all, and the few things you are told won't make a lot of sense. Understanding the story demands that you dig deeper: talk to the handful of NPCs you meet whenever you get the chance (as some have new dialogue as the story progresses), visit as many of those lingering spirits as you can find, and read every scroll/stone tablet you come across. Doing this will add some breadcrumbs of context to your actions, but it still won't explain everything--you're gonna have to leave some things to your own interpretation. This isn't always a bad thing in storytelling, but I feel like it was taken a bit too far in the finale (mild spoilers ahead). The final conversation you have hypes up this climactic encounter with the being responsible for the events of the story; but once you walk down the long corridor to their lair, the encounter is only shown through a cutscene, and then the game just sort of...ends? It's not explained what you even did to trigger the events that took place here, and you're not told what effect your actions will have on the world--maybe you gave humanity another chance, maybe you just doomed everyone, but you'll never know either way. The ending feels almost incomplete, and when combined with the many gaps in lore along the way, I walked away from the overall story with more questions than answers. Since developer Forgotten Key has closed its doors at the time of writing this, it's not likely that I'll find my answers any time soon.
It only took about 3 hours to beat the game and get every achievement, and I've been torn on it ever since I finished. I can't confidently say that I disliked playing AER Memories of Old, as I do think it's a decent game at its core; but when I look back at my time spent on it, I can't help but feel that some important pieces were missing from the whole experience. It's a hard sell at full price, but it gets heavily discounted frequently now, and it's certainly still worth a go if you want to play something more relaxed for a couple hours--just as long as you temper your expectations so that strong first impression doesn't leave you disappointed.
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