Airheart – Tales of broken Wings
Title: Airheart – Tales of
Developer: Blindflug Studios
Publisher: Blindflug Studios
Website: http://airheartgame.com/
Genre: Action, Adventure, Simulation
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Audience: 7+
Release Date: 31/01/19
Price: £11.99 – Rapid Reviews UK was very kindly provided with a review code for this title.
What the Developers say
Airheart is a dieselpunk airplane action rogue like game, where every colorful level is built on top of the previous one, all the way up to the stratosphere. Welcome to Granaria, a flying city in the clouds. Meet Amelia – a young pilot and fisherwoman wishing to reach the abundant worlds edge.
Introduction
Step into a world where fish fly in the sky and pirates plunder planes. This is Airheart, a story about Amelia and her quest to capture the legendary Skywhale at the top of the stratosphere. Skyfishing is the main industry in Granaria, but with Pirates plundering the local skyfishers your skill as a pilot will be put to the test.
Looks and Sounds
Airheart is a very colourful twin-stick shooter that looks visually stunning. I loved how when you flew higher up the stratosphere you can still see the floating islands from the lower level giving the game so much depth. The graphics and models on the game look so nice, and the small details like vapour trails flowing off the tips of the wings are nicely added, it’s almost a shame that you are kept in a bird’s eye view of the action. When pausing the game, however, you can enter a Photo mode where you can zoom around your plane and take action shot or admire the floating islands around you.
The game’s soundtrack feels nicely composed with a pleasant mix of a different variety of music styles to keep the game interesting with every two layers you ascend. The sound fx of engines and gunfire don’t feel out of place. Even the voice acting from Kira Buckland is very well performed for the occasional cutscene.
Gameplay and Replayability
What I enjoyed about the action is that there are many fun and exciting ways to take out enemies, from harpooning planes and dragging them into floating islands, stripping airships of all their guns and armour to quickly attack them, to even tethering yourself to islands with the harpoon to take out the stationary towers. But this game is a whole lot more than just a Twin-stick Shooter. The catching and harpooning of fish to create your income is fun and can divert from the constant dogfights that occur and picking up scrap from downed planes for crafting, which brings us into the next portion of this game.
On returning to your hanger, which itself is a small mini-game of nosediving down to Granaria while dodging floating islands from each layer, you get the option to craft items from all the debris you picked up from your journey. Crafting feels very random; you are given hints as to what you can create and whether the items you’ve chosen were correct, but it still feels hit and miss.
You can also buy different customisable parts for your plane, but this is not just for aesthetic looks, these can help with tracking fish or other planes, to a secondary weapon and even give your craft special abilities.
This game has two modes to play as you start, the Normal Mode in which you can lose your loot in a crash landing or Hard Mode with Permadeath on crashing your aircraft.Perhaps the only downside is that when you start a new journey through the sky, you have to start right down at the very bottom again and work your way back up the layers.
The Switch version includes a new Party Mode game where up to 4 players can control a Zeppelin. This co-op mode can be a tad frustrating as each player must select and deselect a part of the Zeppelin to control, from guns to the harpoon and rudder. It’s a nice addition, but only a small part.
Conclusion
This game requires some dedication and grinding to battle your way through the layers, and each time you leave your hanger, you are right down at the very bottom working your way back up. The light and colourful graphics make this Twin-stick Shooter easy to pick up and helps the game not feel dull. I love the mix between the reality of oil and gears and a fantasy realm of floating islands in the sky.
Crafting, however, felt like a part of the game that can be frustrating to figure out what piece of scrap you need, but craft upgrading is a necessity for continuing your adventure in the sky, Luckily, you can buy new plane parts. Overall, I feel this is a game that you can keep coming back for more. The colour is uplifting and bright which makes this a very different action game of this genre, with nice additional touches to the game.
Rapid Reviews UK Rating
You can purchase Airheart – Tales of broken Wings on the Nintendo eShop at the following link, https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Airheart-Tales-of-broken-Wings-1497384.html
