Sands of Aura

Right up front: Sands of Aura is a gem. It is a competent Souls-like with a gameplay loop that's reminiscent of Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I came into this with pretty tepid expectations but found myself eager to get back to it. What sets Sands of Aura apart from its crowded genre is that it has an actual narrative. Things happen throughout the world as you progress through the campaign, and these events impact the characters you have met through your journey. This adds an amount of weight to the story that your average Souls-like simply can't meet. You have an actual quest log with actual objectives that help keep you moving forward without the pitfall of accidentally progressing beyond a point of no return for other characters. Power-scaling in Sands is not the most unusual, but it's also not particularly satisfying. The game gives you have access to a number of upgrade paths, including talismans which reserve valuable slots that you slowly upgrade over the course of the entire game. This system is one of the worst because it arbitrarily caps your power which is never fun. The maximum number of slots is 10, and one of the most vital talismans consumes 4 of those slots. Arbitrarily limiting player power is not fun. Next, you have weapon and armor upgrades; weapon upgrades scale your damage while armor upgrades scale your health and defense. This is all very familiar. Where Sands differs, is that you don't ever find weapons. You forge them yourself, first choosing it's attack style, then you choose a weapon head, its pommel and lastly a codex, all of which changes various attributes about the weapon. This is a very cool system that does not get fleshed out as much as it deserves. Armor sets don't offer unique stats other than their respective set bonuses. But let's be real: Fashion Souls is a thing. Armor comes with rune slots, and upgrading your armor adds new slots. Runes provide most of the typical stat boosts: haste, health, armor, and specific damage boosts. These follow the same upgrade tiers. Lastly, you gain access to spellbooks which allow you to spend charges augmenting a single attack, dodge or block. These add a huge number of ways to dynamically change the way combat plays out for you. This is fun. So you'll sail across the sandsea from island to island. You'll kill beasties a variety of familiar beasties. You'll hunt the maps for secret sidepaths, and encounter the favorite cliché of the genre: treasure at the end of a long, precarious wooden beam. You'll grind in the way that only a Souls-like can get away with. You'll fight pretty-decent bosses. And you'll return to Leisis, over and over again. Strong recommend.

I jumped in not really knowing what to expect, boy was I in for a surprise I absolutely loved this game, the level design... art direction... quests... story... and world building were all superb imo It is a souls like so you have dodging, parrying, blocking, and some other unique combat mechanics mixed in there are a ton of set effects and weapon crafting & customization to combo and suit your playstyle ( I recommend crafting the diff weapon types early one to see how they feel ) You are extremely rewarded for exploring too, I thought I was thorough but missed sooo much NGL the first tutorial level ( where you start ) is really MEH, but once you get to the town it really opens up ( they should scrap or re-work that bit ) 100% recommend, give it a go if you like souls games / no rest for the wicked