Ario Review – Uninspired Action Platforming

From first-time dev Vata Games comes Ario, a 2.5D action platformer. Published by Artax. Wait, where have I heard of this name before?

Ah, they also published… PopSlinger!? Oh boy, here we go again.

This Has To Stop

In this game, you play as the titular Ario and must venture through 12 tedious levels in order to save your mother and beat the evil wizard at the end of the game. At first glance, Ario seems to take some inspiration from Prince of Persia, but unfortunately, the game is fundamentally awful.

You have a jump, a slide, a punch, a stomp (which I believe is used twice), and a bow which can fire either regular arrows or bomb arrows. This is a decent starting kit. And, as I’m sure you noticed in looking at that screenshot, you seemingly have a lot of space to fill on that HUD.

I believe that space might’ve been reserved for upgrades and hidden items. Still, the HUD stays the same for the entire game because this game has nothing to find, nothing to collect, nothing to upgrade, and very little to do aside from running right and then occasionally running left again.

You don’t even have to engage in combat outside of one or two forced sections. It’s far easier and safer to leap over everyone’s heads until you hit the next checkpoint. The checkpoints are often incredibly generous, so you almost never lose more than 20 seconds of playtime in the case of power loss or if you forget to save.

Quicker than a Trip to the Movies

Ario took me an hour to beat. I beat it in one sitting, and the only way I could stomach that was by having my friend play it with me. He knows enough about game design and animation that he can answer any nagging questions I may have such as: “when you jump on an enemies head and you seem to bounce off, is that an amination that’s being played or is that a glitch?” We’re pretty sure it’s a glitch.

Each level is littered with superfluous platforms and pointless hallways that it seems that initially there may have been something to collect, but whatever that was was just never put in. Either that or the devs just don’t understand level structure.

The Several Errors and Lack of Care

Unfortunately, Ario has a slew of technical issues. For one, the trophies are a joke. There are around ten or eleven, and they are also all gold. On top of that, about halfway through the game, I died and somehow skipped a checkpoint. Due to this, for the rest of the game, I never got another trophy.

The cutscenes are just storyboard still with often poor voice overs. There are a few spelling mistakes littered throughout and, during the final cutscene, there was no sound at all.

There’s also…no BGM from what I can tell. While there are some sequences with basic ambient, diegetic sounds, there’s nothing that I can safely define as “game music”. Whether this was a deliberate choice, a glitch, or just a plain odd oversight, remains a mystery.

Oh, also, the final boss of the game also has no sound effects AT ALL. There was nothing but silence and the stifled laughter of two men going insane for myself and my friend to enjoy during the penultimate showdown.

The ‘Bosses’…If You Can Even Call Them That

This game has no bosses for the first half. In the second half, there are only two bosses. I honestly question as to why there are so few of these bosses, and even with the little there is, they’re legitimately awful.

For example, in the first boss, you fight a colossal lava golem. All you have to do to beat him is to trick him into hitting three slabs and then shoot him with the crossbow. That is it. This wouldn’t even be worth mentioning if it wasn’t for the fact that, for some reason, this boss kills you in one hit. And there are no checkpoints. I sacrificed almost ten minutes of my life for this boss.

The final boss is also ungodly difficult. He has a shield, so that means you can’t attack him, and you can’t jump over him. You have to shoot an arrow at a big yellow machine on the ceiling, then you have to push him under a vat of lava, and then you have to shoot that so that it harms him.

OK, that sounds simple. But the highest you can shoot your arrows is about 45 degrees. So you can’t shoot directly up. Also, the boss has a random chance of doing a lunge move which pushes you into the corner of the arena. If he ever does this move, it’s an instant game over.

You can’t shoot high enough to hit the container of lava which he’s under, there’s not enough time to push him under another vat that you actually can shoot, and you also can’t jump over him. You HAVE to restart. Oh yeah, and this fight also has no checkpoints. Yet another 10 minutes of my life lost.

Ario Is Not Worth the Price of Admission

Ario is unfortunately a game that I simply cannot recommend, not even on sale. Its several technical issues, lack of progression, and the broken trophy system made this one hour of gameplay one of the worst ever.

Perhaps the only saving grace is that the key art is nice and because the controls aren’t as broken as everything else, but that’s hardly a redeeming quality for a game, even if it costs just $12.49 on the PSN Store.