My Very First Review: Aura Aura Climber
Back in 2011, I started my first real foray into pop culture journalism with WiiUAndMii, a fan website dedicated to all things Nintendo (although the website would later be rebranded to Tanuki Bridge once we expanded our focus). The webmaster was a friend of mine from our PokémonWorld.co.uk days, and I served the website as Editor.
For the first post on my website's blog, I think that there's nothing more fitting than my very first review, published on WiiUAndMii all the way back on 29th July 2011. Going back and reading this old review was a fun exercise, as it made me realise just how much I've matured as a writer in the twelve years since (wow, I really am old).
Although the original website it was written for no longer exists, and its subject is now lost media following the closure of the Nintendo 3DS eShop, here is my review of the Nintendo DSiWare game Aura Aura Climber:
Aura-Aura Climber is a little DSiWare title developed by Nintendo that was released last year. It is an Arcade Action game starring Aura-Aura, a fallen star (before anyone tries to be smart saying Aura-Aura looks like the sun, the sun is a star). Aura-Aura, being a fallen star, is trying to get back into the sky. You may be asking 'Well, just how does Aura-Aura plan to get back into the sky? the answer is simple - slinging it's single arm around weird green pegs so it can climb higher and higher, using power-ups such as boosts and arm extensions along the way. Does that make perfect sense? No. Do I care? No.
Aura-Aura Climber is an incredibly simple game to learn - just press A, use the D-Pad (or Circle Pad for 3DS users) to aim in the direction you want to shoot, and press A to hook onto a peg. However, while doing so, you have to avoid certain obstacles such as purple pegs and electricity. The game itself is incredibly simple, but that doesn't mean it isn't fantastic.
There are 2 possible game modes - Endless, where you have to climb as high as you can before either 1) You die or 2) Time runs out (you can grab little orbs to increase your time), and Score Attack, where you have to grab orbs to increase your score before either dying or choosing to finish the course. As you rank highly on Score Attack, new levels become available (whereas with Endless, you enter a different styled zone after every 1000m). My personal favourite is Endless, as going down to get some of the score orbs in Score Attack can be a bit tiresome when the game is called Aura-Aura Climber.
I also want to make this clear - Aura-Aura Climber is a casual game, so it's not the kind of game you'd expect little 15 year old kids to get together, drink cheap alcopops illegally, smoke questionable substances (that is most likely normal grass in a bag) and pretend they're grown-ups by playing Call of Duty to play. It's the kind of game you'll want to play if you have about five minutes to kill...say, when you're waiting backstage to receive your nobel prize, waiting to be knighted by the Queen or waiting for a bus. What makes this a great casual game is the casual price; I can't remember how much it is on a DSi, as I brought in on my 3DS - for £1.80. That's right, Aura-Aura Climber is cheaper than all Virtual Console games (even *shudders* Tennis) and all DSiWare I've seen on the eShop shop window (and considering how much we like to rage about the prices of other eShop stuff, this is pretty great). This means that for the money, you can't do much better than Aura-Aura Climber, especially as I find it very hard to put down sometimes; it has "One more time" syndrome...where "One more time" turns into "600 times, a lack of sleep and a grumbling, neglected tummy".
Now, you're probably getting bored of me praising the game like it's the best thing since sliced bread (what did people think was so great before sliced bread? More on that at 9!), so let's focus on where the game could be improved:
Graphically, like almost all DSiWare titles, it's still in the Gameboy Advance era. The majority of the items and hooks in this game are different coloured circles with slight differences (including Aura-Aura itself). There could have been a bit more originallity there, like maybe some triangles or squares, or they could be rebels and have a chiliagon.
The gameplay is pretty simple, just pressing A and up/left/right over and over again; this makes it the first game to make my thumb hurt after playing it for a while. Oh wait, we can also press 'X' to boost. That's about it control-wise though, and aside from scrolling up/down the sky on the title menu, the touch screen isn't used at all (not even for the menu!). Come on Nintendo, you make this revolutionary device with a touch screen, and you don't even use it? They could have moved the action to the bottom screen and had us leap for the other hooks using the touch screen rather than the A button (at least the button way makes it easier to play on the move though).
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