Airoheart

And so, while Airoheart takes some small steps to be its own thing, there’s nothing here that truly separates it from its inspirations. Is that such a bad thing? After all, A Link to the Past is over 30 years old now, but it’s still a beloved classic. Playing something so similar that it invokes that warm feeling of nostalgia is rather nice, in all honesty. Airoheart might not reinvent the wheel, but it doesn’t have to.

Airoheart is a passable game, but hardly one we would recommend you rush out to buy unless you simply cannot get enough of the 2D Zelda formula. It follows A Link to the Past's template so closely that it could never be classed as 'bad', but in a crowded market of homages, tributes, and variations on the theme, it does very little to stand out. We would suggest you pick this up only after you’ve played through A Link to the Past, the Link’s Awakening remake, and both the Blossom Tales games, and you still don’t feel you’ve gotten enough of that specific brand of top-down gameplay. Airoheart pr...

Airoheart attempts to recreate the magic of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in its own image, only to see itself let down by its painfully average storytelling and lack of direction in its dungeons.

The music is nice and it’s a lovely game to look at, but there’s not a whole lot pushing you forward. The controls also feel awkward and take considerable getting used to. Airheart is one of those games that isn’t bad, but is probably for fans of the genre only. It’s not the kind of thing you’ll enjoy if you need some sense of forward progress or don’t enjoy grinding materials to lose in esoteric crafting.