Review - Aura-Aura Climber (DSi)

Aura-Aura Climber was designed as a ‘pick up and play’ action arcade game - something that you'll always have available to play on your DSi or 3DS handheld - and it fills it's role beautifully. The aim of Aura-Aura Climber is to help a fallen star, Aura-Aura, climb back up into space by using the many grapple points dotted about the game. In the process of doing this you encounter a vast amount of obstacles such as electrified walls and deadly purple blobs that roam about the ten stages of the game.

These ten stages range from an incredibly simple and easy to follow tutorial stage to a very challenging last level that would take you quite a few attempts to finish successfully. There are also endless and marathon modes, which are very fun and, again, have a friendly difficulty curve! All of this highlights the wonderfully intuitive and satisfying control scheme.

Although the game has a relatively small amount of content, AAC makes good use of it; each mode uses the same basis for its gameplay, but manages to keep it fresh and exciting.

AAC is probably ‘the best pick up and play’ game I have played; it is easy to get into and easy to put down quickly. That’s not a bad thing however, especially when you’re being called down to have your tea – it’s very hard to motivate yourself to pause a game like Zelda! Also, when I’m on a car journey, I find it very difficult to concentrate on a Zelda game. AAC is challenging and fun, but also easy to play casually.

At a princely sum of £1.80 on the 3DS eShop, AAC is perhaps the game with the most value for money on the entire platform! Overall then, AAC will keep you entertained for a remarkable amount of time and has the fantastic ability to rework its content in simple, but effective ways. Yes it does all this, but the best part of Aura-Aura Climber is that it doesn’t empty your wallet of all those pretty pennies!