Quick Look: Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan

Soundtrack set to marimba

Someone mentioned the combat reminded them of Dust: An Elysian Tail.

I think this game resembles that one in a couple of other ways. Both are clearly labors of love. Technical bits aside, each do the best they can do with what they have to fulfill their creators' narrative and design goals. Both also appear presumptuous, with each continuing about their narratives without fully ensuring players have enough reason to follow along. Austin mentioned a moment in this game that tried to hit some unearned emotional beats. Dust is lousy with moments like that, especially near the end.

This all came to mind when I got to the bit in the video where the elder explains her city's political system. She states that not only do their political parties need money to run but members of her party were leaving due to a lack of money.

How does that work? Why do their parties need money? Campaigning? Lobbying? How does campaigning work in this society? Hell, how would lobbying even work in this society with only one official to appeal to (the emperor)? If people are leaving her party due to its lack of funds and parties are made up of elders, then does that mean elders are dropping out of leadership roles altogether? And how favorably does an insular, mercantile society view money in politics, especially with elders being democratically elected?

That scene expects players to accept or assume a lot with little explanation, which is funny given how much and how often the game is willing to dish about its world.)

Yeah. It's cool that GiantBomb wants to highlight more obscure titles, but this looks really amateurish. They're both being really nice in the face of glaring faults and issues, and that's fine and all, but neither of them seems to think it's very good, other than having an interesting perspective.

The only diversity we should be interested in is diversity of ideas, not skin color.

OH MAN THAT'S SUCH A GOOD IDEA WHAT WITH THE LETTING YOU CHOOSE TO FIGHT ON THE WORLD MAP OH MAAAN

That sounds good but doesn`t really mean anything.

I think the argument is more that neither the witcher nor this game need changing in any way, just some people are a little salty about singling out a game and developer for what is a societal/ industry wide problem. The complication is that no game is inherently better or worse because of diversity yet we do have an overall problem with a lack of balance. So is it fair to criticize a specific team of people because they happen to fall on the wrong side of the scale (while making a game exclusively about their culture and or race)?

It is a bit random to bring it up in this QL and i don't agree with everything he says but there is more to the point of view than a crazy person whining about how white people should be in this game.

I was going to write something, but this pretty much sums up what I wanted to say in a much more intelligent way than I would have.

This probably should be discussed in a forum topic instead though.

@spacefish: @odinsmana:

You guys are pretty much spot on, thank you. I could have just said that, it would have been less comments and words.

I was also under the impression comments are like forum posts? Eh.

Don't worry mods, I will stop posting now.

Does this remind anybody of an Aladdin game from back in the day? I don't remember the game 100% but it reminds me of that.

I think African culture/mythology/etc is something you don't see a whole lot, so it's cool to see. Doesn't automatically make it GOOD necessarily, but it is interesting to see and can give even a mediocre game a bit of character. Even if it isn't great, I'm glad it exists and is what it is.

Some of the art kind of does yeah.

@phuturist:

I agree with you and thank you for expressing your opinion in a well spoken and civil manner.

Africanime

:P

This game looks pretty cool. I kinda wish they had more time to work on it because the combat seems to lack a certain punch, but it's conceptually really neat. I'll check it out.

Also, oofa doofa, these comments. I'm not really going to get into this too because I don't hate myself enough, but our art is a product of our (global) society, and when talking about political implications of our art, we need to acknowledge power dynamics.

Even ignoring global racial and cultural dynamics(And it's a pretty fucking big thing to ignore), large companies have a lot more cultural influence than tiny indie studios and should be more carefully scrutinized because of it.

@noelle808: Except CD Projeck just recently got big and got AAA numbers and historically Poland is, generally speaking, in the short end of the stick in cultural dynamics (also a big thing that is often ignored in this discussions).

And talking about "ärt" in globalization terms is not exactly ideal if you want more games like this being made as people would probably choose a generic, but compentent gameplay wise, big studio game over a small indie one rough in the edges (charming as it is).

Wait, I'm confused. This isn't space.

Yeah, you could have. And maybe phrased it in a less passive-aggressive and argumentative way. That usually helps.

Both The Witcher 2 and The Witcher 3 also had co-publishing deals with WB Games (in the US) and Bandai Namco (in Europe), so the point about a publisher being scared away by a lack of diversity is just totally incorrect. As further evidence of that point, see most other games from the past few decades.

@phuturist:Two things before I get back to my Sunday evening:

First, your antagonism seems misguided. Maybe you should go back and re-read the actual things (here, here, and here) I wrote about The Witcher 3 before charging me with the defense of a perspective I never argued for. I explicitly stated that it was not about racial quotas, and even then when I wrote it, the comments included people who said that's what I was arguing for. Instead, I was arguing that we should apply critique holistically both to individual games and to games as a larger medium.

Which brings me to point two: Any attempt to identify generalized, ahistorical "rules" for "good media" fail to engage honestly and directly with the complexity and uneven nature of history and power. More than that, even, "If you don't like this in X, why do stand for it Y" forgets that games, movies, et al are more than their individual component parts, they are a network of those parts. I don't love the loot grind in The Division but I kinda dig it in Destiny, why? Because there are different games build around those similar mechanics.

There is no checkbox list of qualities that a work should hit, and no critic worth their salt has built such a list. More often than not, I see this desire for a generic ruleset as the beginning of a path that can lead to claims like "White people should be allowed to say nigga" and "Men have it harder than women these days." It's a path that illustrates a dramatic misunderstanding of what is at stake, since these sorts of acts (as with The Witcher 3 shipping without any PoC) aren't under any existential threat anyway. They're only being criticized.

They're the targets of someone saying "Hey, maybe we could do better than this," or "Hey, have you taken X into consideration?" At the most extreme, we get a critic saying "We should get rid of this via law or other means!" which is a position that I have historically opposed and which I think represents the most inelegant and boring form of critique there is. Again, I wrote about this a year ago, but maybe it didn't stick.

The long and short is that you're engaging with a strawman version of some stuff I wrote about The Witcher, and the rhetorical question of "if it's cool in X, why is it not cool in Y?" is a way to retreat from the careful work of criticism and towards the safety of ideological purity.

Oh, also, just as a heads up: Aurion totally has white folks in it. They're even in the game's trailer on Steam.

itt: Austin just dunked on you.

@john_wiswell: in other words

It wouldn't be the internet without someone blasting smug all over a straw-man they cobbled together from free time and frustration.

I wish I could get over the art style here but I'm not sure I can. I'm getting "A Valley Without Wind" vibes and it isn't a positive. I'm not sure that counts as a criticism because art is subjective and I feel shallow for being bothered by it but as I've grown older I've started to pay more attention to the aesthetic qualities of video games and this isn't for me. I think I prefer it to an 8-bit abstract artistic take as the art does look pretty solid in spots but I need more frames. The gameplay reminds me a bit of the old Super Nintendo Dragonball games with quite a bit more polish than those had and I fully support it.

Also, Austin, you are one extraordinarily eloquent motherfucker and your writing is always a pleasure to read. Get into a line of work where you're writing some serious fiction some day because I'd love to read it.

Hello I am the game designer of the game. Apologies for my English I usually speak French.

First a warm thanks to GB to show us and to the one playing in the video.

This is one of the rare review where someone understood our gameplay mechanism and the depht of variation available in combat.

And I will not enter in the hot debate of diversity etc, since Austin close it for me.

I jusy want to talk about the frameless effect.

Well we have made a game of 20h life time, with real time combat, the hero only has 70 skills available at least and all what is possible to have in a 2d combat (attack, charged attack, launch, dash, dashed attack, air combo, even a hammer hit in the air)

The game was made on a custom engine and we choose the hard road of hand drawn graphics.

And everything in a country with power outrage and a team without any cv, and we had 2 years to create this.

That's why we choose to sacrify the perfect animation to keep all the rest.

We focused more on the story. We build something where you can't predict the real stakes. I challenge everyone to be able to predict the end without beating the game (even Austin).

Not only because of the African "clothes" of the story but because we broke all the narrative rules of common J-RPG like. No prophecy, No Bad vs Good, No temple to explore in order, even the hero naivety is not the naruto simple mind style. Their inner growth will surprise you.

the part of the video is just the beginning, let's say if it was Ff7 then you are just watching Cloud and aeris trying to get back to barret in Midgar slumb.

Just go on steam and read reviews from other players who beat the game.

Even on the net, there are two kind of reviews those who beat the game, and those who misconclude where the game is going after 4h.

If Ff7 was judged on the 1st hours, imagine the waste.

Thanks for dropping in fenryo. I definitely feel you and your team has created something special here. Personally, I find it exciting to see a game world that draws its inspiration from a source I know very little about (ancient Africa/Africa in general.) I can name off tons of Greek gods and what they did, so when it comes to Greek or Norse based game worlds I feel much less enthused about learning the 'twist' on it, so to speak.

Love seeing media and stories made in places I'm not familiar with - gives me a chance to learn things I may not have otherwise. Oh, and congratulations on finishing this game and getting it published!

Congratulations on making this, it looks really fun and interesting. Doing some rudimentary game design work myself I can only imagine how difficult this task was, and you guys finished it with a small budget, tough working conditions, and put out something really unique and cool.

Congratulations on releasing your game, fenryo and company! I hope you can do more!

@missashley: you're not wrong about Dust, but I adored Dust so much. The environments were so good and that combat was so satisfying...ughhhh I hope there's a sequel.

Don't worry, I don't think anybody here wants your game to be different in that regard. And I'm sorry for using your game as an occasion to rekindle a discussion this website had with Austin about Witcher 3. Your work does not deserve this mess, I apologize.

I sincerely wish you good luck with your game and studio!

@austin_walker: Austin I don't feel dunked on but I don't want to ruin the comment section on this game further. I wrote a (not too long, don't worry) reply, can I write it to you somewhere else? I'd honestly hate to use this space again, but I also really need to address some of what you said or claimed.

Edit: I of course understand that you have actual work to do, which is not getting into forum wars, but I feel misrepresented by your reply. Let me please have at least one more answer in, doesn't need to be public either.

Oh, cool. This game finally came out. I remember it being in development for years.

I'm kind of disappointed that they didn't go with JRPG style turn based combat. I know a lot of people dislike that style, but that was the style I thought (hoped?) they were going with. This combat looks more like... Dust: An Elysian Tail mixed with Jade Empire. Which is fine, but not something that particularly makes me want to play this game.

Still, I'm glad this finally came out. I was worried it would turn into vaporware. Maybe I'll add it to the bottom of my backlog. Which means I should get around to it sometime around 2024.

@fenryo: Thanks for dropping in!

I really dig the art in this and the combat looks okay (okay, because I wish it was faster) too.

Might pick this up.

This looks pretty sweet. I think I'm going to pick this one up.

@oursin_360:

@phuturist:

I would like to point out that the reasons why I believe the Witcher games should be criticised for their lack of diversity is because of a few pointers outlined below.

Aurion does not deserve the same criticism simply because, as has been said before by a few other commentors, there is not much outlet for non-Western, non-white (especially black or African) game developers. Enter a store and 99.9% of the main characters in games will be default white males in worlds full of more white people. There needs to be games like this in order to allow more people to see themselves and their cultures represented in the gaming industry.

a) Zerrikania and Zanguebar. Witcher lore points out that the majority of the countries in The Northern Kingdoms trade extensively with the countries to the east of the Korath Desert (Zerrikania and Hakland) and Zanguebar across the seas in the "Far South". I assume that people who live in or close-by to deserts are most likely brown/black. I also assume that countries which zebras, hyenas and elephants inhabit are most likely dark-skinned. It doesn't make sense that there are no traders WHATSOEVER from these majority dark-skinned countries residing in the Northern Kingdoms when the white people in this game are trading with them.

Source: "Zerrikania is not visited in the game, but it is acknowledged as the home for the formulae of bombs, and famous for its alchemists." http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Zerrikanian_Alchemy

Source: http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Zanguebar.

Source: http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Across_the_seas

b) Mythology. I don't think that it is fair or right to be using aspects of certain cultures and claiming they are ALL POLISH OR SLAVIC MYTHOLOGY.

- Djinn are taken from Arabic and Islamic mythology. (Look at the name??)

Why is okay to take this creature from another culture's mythology but then not include PEOPLE from this culture in the game?

c) HISTORY. For those of you claiming that Polish history is 100% white which is why the game is reflected as such.

- Poland was invaded several times by the Mongols in the early 1200s.

- The Lipka Tatars (ethnically Turkic)eventually settled and integrated within Polish society after subjugation from the Mongols.

- Polish - Ottoman War: Moors actively served as part of the Ottoman Empire - are you telling me that no Moors would have entered Poland as part of the Ottoman Empire's army?

d) The mage Azar Javed. For those who may feel inclined to dig up this character -I'm sorry but including one person of colour in a videogame (one out of three) does not make it diverse.

There is evidence of non-white presence in medieval Poland. The only reason that the game was all white is because the game developers ignorantly chose not to include diversity which not only disregards a small percentage of their modern population, but a small chunk of their history.

@paddyboyle92: Nice info, i can see where your coming from. I say give them a chance to do better next time, i don't feel anything was malicious about the witcher 3 or purposefully exclusionary like many other tripple A games. (We cant' have so and so as in the game cause it won't sell etc). They seemed to take the criticism seriously from what i read.

@phuturist: There are plenty african, Asian, middle easterners and their descendants living in western society and who are interested in games and working in games. Nothing will ever actually be perfect, but we should strive to make it better rather than leaving it the same.

I dont feel thats how it works. Thats like saying because there was so much racism towards blacks a while back(Slavery, segregation, etc), then them being racist to whites is forgivable since there was enough black hate to even it out.

Thanks for showing more of this, Austin. Drew's quick look during UPF piqued my interest.

This is very similar to the Smash Sisters article posted just the other day. So many people wondering why a minority gets to have their own game but an all white or all male version is decried and wrong. It's because white male representation has been the norm for...forever.

Take your discomfort and wonder how it feels to be a minority and living in a world that often ignores or overlooks you because of your race, or gender, or sexuality.

@dirtyplatinum: No, that`s not the same at all. This is you creating a strawman. The argument that person is making is that since the status quo is white characters, creating a game with mostly black characters isn`t a big deal since there`s tons and tons of games with mostly or all white characters (and to be sure, like Austin showed in the comments, this game does have white characters). Try to argue against that point all you like, but rest assured that that argument is not at all like saying that it`s okay for a minority to be racist against a majority. It`s not even in the same ballpark.

That kind of false false equivalence frustrates me about this kind of discussion. People refusing to discuss the actual subject at hand.

@paddyboyle92: Okay, I don't want to wade too deeply into this Wticher 3 crapfest again, but (b) is silly. Jinn don't need brown-skinned folk to be around to exist in some place in the world. Or, you know, "exist."

If you can show where the developers ever claimed that jinn conceptually originated in Polish or Slavic mythology, please point it out, because that'd be fucked. Otherwise, you haven't shown why it wouldn't be fair or right for one mythological creature to exist at all outside of representations of the culture from which it was named. I mean, The Witcher 3 also has creatures named griffins. Would you consider that to be problematic too?

I don't know what sorts of rules for creation you'd like stories to live by, but disallowing real-world mythological elements to be taken and/or altered sounds needlessly uptight. Requiring there to be cultural emissaries accompanying every instance of a foreign real-world mythological element (whether direct, inspired by, or altered) is downright absurd.

Anyways, this game seems alright. I remember its Kickstarter, and I'm glad to see they finished it. However, the animations are rough, and the style of the art a bit plain, even if the designs are different and interesting. Writing's a bit preachy, but the combat looks cool.

Holy crap I'm so tired of politics in gaming these days. No developer/publisher, regardless of size, is under any obligation to have diversity on either side of the spectrum. If they were, all we would end up with would be a gelatinous mass of "boring"

Things I want to know about a game: Genre. How it runs. Are the mechanics fun/enjoyable? Setting. Story(if needed). Will it allow me to escape my daily grind, so I can unwind?

That being said, this game looks interesting but I'm not really feeling the floaty jump, or anime style. I'll be curious to see if this gets put up on the Steam Summer Sale.

@amyggen: I dont remember even talking about this game, so the fact that there is white people is moot. If anything I was simply entertaining the gentlemen I commented to in assuming it was a black only cast. I was simply expressing that if it is "lacking in diversity" for a game to have a cast consisting of only white people, then the same should be said about a game with a black only cast. I dont see how the latter gets a pass since there are tons featuring the former.

I admit maybe mine was a bad example, but it showed in a crude and extreme manner that special treatment like that only furthers controversy.

@bathala: Yep you're correct. Not sure why I thought Brad would bring a game like this to UPF? It really doesn't seem to be his style.

There is a huge hypocrisy in the intolerance of intolerance.

When the minority becomes the majority they have to remember what it was like on the other side.

When you only have one view point that believes in diversity that's still not diverse.

I'd actually love to see Austin have a guest contributer who he massively disagrees with regarding diversity. That would really show him being diverse.

@dirtyplatinum: I don`t think anything gets a `pass`. It`s just that a lot of people are tired of the status quo with a huge majority of white male characters in pretty much all of entertainment. So when there`s something else that gets applauded. That`s something you see in movies too, to give one example. You can of course argue that that`s not diverse either, but when the imbalance on a whole is so extreme a lot of us are just happy to see something different. There are of course a lot of people who disagree with this as seen in this comment section and literally every time it`s brought up on the internet, so here we are.