Aria's Story

Pocket Mirror is a game I was really hyped for. When it got released, I was super bummed out by how much I ended up hating it. It was a frustrating experience, with a story that went absolutely nowhere despite the potential.

But this isn't about the depressing disappointment that is Pocket Mirror, it's about the huge success that is Aria's Story - a game that I had low expectations for after being disappointed so much by another game I was hyped for, but ended up loving so, so much.



Originally, I watched an LP of the game, and I returned afterwards and played the game myself because I liked it so much and I felt the need to drop a review.

The game has a lot of positives, and very few negatives. The visuals immediately come off striking due to just how beautiful this game looks. Not only is it the art, it's also the graphics, lighting and the mapping. Every scene in the game was simply a joy to look at.

And to accompany the visuals was a beautiful soundtrack. The songs generally had a very quiet yet mystical feel to them. They also used one of my all time favorite stock songs, Moment (from H/MIX). Granted, they used the inferior ''music box'' version instead of the epic orchestral version, but I was still very happy to hear said song in this game.

The gameplay aspect was also quite good. The puzzles were mostly very unique and fun. Granted, there were a few that were a little generic, but they were not bad and I don't think it would be fair to break points just because the same puzzles happened to appear in some other games too.

It was also a very well polished game. The cutscenes played out very smoothly, and I don't remember running into a single bug. The collissions were perfectly fine (which is rare in these fully parallax mapped games) and I was not able to find any spelling or grammar errors.



The narrative of the game does start off a bit slow. I wasn't that interested in the game at first, but by the time I reached chapter 3, I was so hooked. The mystery aspect of the game really picked up at that point and I HAD TO see what was going to happen next. And I was definetly not disappointed. The ending was very emotional, and got me pretty close to tearing up (Didn't succeed, but getting me close to almost getting close to crying is still really really hard, so kudos!). The characters were brimming with personality and they were very likeable. Aria is basically the generic anime loli stuck in scary situation, and Lewin is basically the generic male companion to said loli, but what they lack in originality, they made up with their humour. The npcs in particular were all pretty great too, giving you all sorts of interesting dialogue. Also, since the main cast wasn't particularly large, everyone felt important and had a big role, which was nice too. No one was just some filler, everyone had a purpose.

There were a lot of things that made a lot more sense when playing through the game a second time. There's also a lot of hints given towards the ending early on into the game, which was really cool to see. There were a lot of moments that made me go ''OOOOH, SO THAT'S WHY!''

There are also a lot of references to other books, most of which put a smile on my face. It was a lot of fun finding yourself in a situation from a book which you've read, even if it's just something small (and probably will kill you).



The game wasn't really scary, but I did not go in expecting to be scared. I would still categorize it as more of a drama/mystery game than a horror game, but that does not mean you should not play this game if you're a horror fan - it's still an outstanding experience.

In conclusion, Aria's Story is basically a perfect game with only a few minor nitpicks that did not really hinder the experience. It's well worth playing for the visuals alone, but is accompanied by a great story and nice puzzles.
I give this masterpiece five bunnies out of five.