Don’t Nod have been very unfortunate since they moved from Life is Strange. Vampyr and Banishers were both excellent narratives that felt interwoven with the mechanics, with choices impacting how you played and vice-versa. Jusant was my game of the year in 2023. Yet, despite releasing a string of well-made, well-written games, the developers have been hit with layoffs and financial insecurity.
When I first saw the trailers for Aphelion it filled me with a great deal of hope. It looked like a graphically-impressive film that hinted at how it might have a few of those crafty ‘themes’ in its back pocket.
Having now run the credits, I can confirm that I wasn’t wrong on either point. I just didn’t realise what was going to be missing.
Set in the future, with Earth dying, humanity has set its sights on a new planet it’s discovered called Persephone. The opening of the game focuses on two astronauts – Ariane and Thomas – who have been tasked with surveying the planet.
In the opening moments of Aphelion, the ship that the duo are on crashes and splits them up. With both of them unsure if the other is even alive, they set out on separate paths trying to investigate a mysterious source and, hopefully, reunite with each other.
The voice acting from the two leads is great, both lend real gravitas to their parts. Ariane starts off seeming aloof, distant, but you can hear the uncertainty in her voice. Thomas seems a little more playful (despite him being injured in the crash) but the actor does a good job of conveying the strain his character is under.
Matching the quality of the acting, Don’t Nod have done a fantastic job with the visuals, the icy backgrounds and crunching ice are highly detailed. Some of the areas that Ariane scales are truly stunning. The character models look great and support the expressive voice acting. It wasn’t like I was watching a film, but the design decisions make each of the characters feel more lifelike.
Sadly, not as much care has been put in to the gameplay. The leads have slightly different mechanics – Ariane does platforming and stealth, while Thomas does slowly walking and some puzzle solving – and they are both underwhelming.
For starters, the controls are sluggish and unresponsive for all activities; inputs are ignored or misinterpreted. This results in Aphelion having just a little too much friction to its levels. This is made worse by the fact that the game constantly hand holds the player, with no real things to explore. This could just as easily have been a more traditional TellTale style title, where the player just picks dialogue options, and it would have felt more engaging. Worse, with the controls being under-baked, my playthrough was littered with lots of little bugs: prompts not appearing when they were supposed to, things getting stuck in places they shouldn’t.
It is criminal that whenever people weren’t talking, or a cutscene wasn’t playing, I was alternately bored or frustrated.
The final straw is the end sequence which combines unresponsive controls with time-pressured platforming and lots of little bugs. It dragged the already just ‘okay’ experience down into miserable.
Conclusion
Aphelion has a heartfelt story that is well-acted and paced. It falls apart with unfinished gameplay and too many bugs to ignore.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
