Game: Aeolis Tournament
Genre: 3D, Party, Action, Sports
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PC, PS4 and Xbox One)
Developer|Publisher: Beyond Fun Studio
Age Rating: EU 3+ | US Everyone
Price: UK £11.49 | EU € 12,49 | AUD $18.95 | USD $14.99| CAD $ n.a.
Release Date: 23rd July 2020
Review code provided with many thanks to Beyond Fun Studio
Party Pooper
I’ve been lucky enough to cover many party based video games on Switch. Something that has come to my attention is that developing a party based video game for a wide audience is quite a challenge. It’s hard to find the balance of keeping the controls simple for a variety of gamer types. At the end of the day the goal to me should be to keep it simple and make it a fun experience for everyone.
Unfortunately time and time again it doesn’t seem to work out that way. Many party based games might have their hearts in the right place but just don’t seem to catch an audience. Today we have Aeolis Tournament. An unusual title for sure but is this title looking to capture the hearts of the party genre? Will it succeed? Lets find out.
You can Play as a Shark
Aeolis Tournament is a family friendly title for up to 8 players. You can choose from a wide range of characters like a girl, boy… a shark…. You know, the usual things you find in party games. In all seriousness I quite liked the personality of all these characters and of course I warmed to the shark character because that’s my jam. The graphics are good, sort of cell shaded and the environments are not overly cluttered so you can mostly see where your character is located. I found having 8 players to be a bit cluttered. The magic number seemed to be 6. By naturally playing the game you gain points which you can use to unlock more cosmetic colours and accessories for your character of choice to wear.
The Air Cannon
The main gameplay feature is the character’s use of an air cannon across each mode. The game keeps the controls appropriately simple you move with the stick and hold down a button to charge the air cannon and release to blast. Before you start any game, it runs through a quick mini tutorial on how to play. While this may seem tedious to experienced gamers this is incredibly beneficial to casual gamers who may struggle to understand gaming controls. This short demo clearly shows the buttons to use while also showing a visual demonstration of how they work. It keeps things simple, which is ideal for the target audience.
There are six party games to play all of which I’ve briefly described;
The Perfect Storm – a free for all game where you need to blast other players off the map and be the last one standing.
Sportsball – basically football (or soccer if your American)
Explosive Dodgeball – Throw bombs at the opposing team and blast them off the map
Snow Ball Battle – literally fling snow balls at other players to score points
Marble Thief – Blast balls into your corresponding colour hole
Air Hockey – basically ice hockey (or football with an ice floor in James’ weird fantasy land)
You can play these modes individually or play tournament mode which will cycle through a random assortment of these levels as you attempt to collect points and come out on top at the end.
Bring on the Bots
Of course this game is ideally played with other people. But if like me you currently only have one other human player to enjoy the experience with you can add bots to the game. The bots have three difficulty settings and actually do a pretty decent job filling the void of a human being. Under current world circumstances getting 8 humans in one room may also be tricky. Fortunately the developers have allowed for online multiplayer, unfortunately while I was covering this title for review I was unable to find any online games to play so I can’t speak to the performance. What I can comfortably say is the performance offline is solid. I didn’t encounter any glitches or slow downs even when things got a bit hectic.
A Little Light
The main critique of Aeolis Tournament is that it lacks some depth to its content. All 6 modes feel quite solid but some could do with fleshing out a bit more than others. It’s a shame that each session only has a single map. It feels like some could benefit from different arena designs with the exception of the Football and Hockey maps. These two seem absolutely fine as they are. While the experience is fun this will probably only be a game I pull out to play with friends which will hopefully be sometime in the future. Other than that I only see myself and the bots.
Worth a Party
Of all the party games I have covered Aeolis does a lot of things right. Simple controls suitable for everyone and the game modes on offer are a lot of fun. It’s just a shame the content is a little light. But who knows maybe that will come later down the road.
What is present is a solid party game well worth playing with friends and family a like when you get the chance of course.
Final Verdict: I like it
