Aria's Story

This is my first review on rpgmaker, so please allow for any errors etc in advance.

I found Aria's Story to be an entertaining little romp. The whole thing will take you about two hours to complete, and features a variety of endings which implore replayability, but I only played it through to completion once and received a Normal ending.

All in all, I was won over by the interesting characters, the clever use of pacing and tone, and the clever but subtle changes that occur around you as you explore the library that serves as this games world. Aria herself is a plucky and spirited heroine, and the cast of characters she meets along the way all have their own personality and motives, and appear as fully fleshed out and original personalities.

As for the gameplay, Aria's story is about exploration and puzzle solving. There are some clever little puzzles to be found in the library, but none of them are unfair or specialist in any way, so you'll solve them all with a little persistence. However, there are also a variety of cunning (and sometimes unfair) traps which can kill Aria instantly. Thankfully, there are a plentiful supply of blue quills scattered around the map with which you can save your game, so losing a lot of progress should be an infrequent occurrence.

My suggestion is to play the game in one sitting, with headphones on and the lights off, and prepare to be brought in to a wonderful world of books, love, death and friendship.

Final rating 9/10