Ailuri was one of the demos in Steam’s Next Fest of October 2023 that caught my attention, mainly because of the graphics, but also because we’d be playing as a cute red panda.
I’m not typically a fan of any kind of platforming because I ultimately have no coordination and no chill when it comes to not being able to make it to an area on the first try, but this one didn’t seem too rough going in.
Pros:
- Adorable hand-drawn graphics
Cons:
- Combat isn’t great
Ailuri is a cute little hand-drawn game. It’s an action/platformer, about a red panda getting shunned by its parents and then has to go out in the world and fight monsters, because a panda has to go out in the world and learn how to survive somehow, right? Sometimes the parents just have to leave the young one behind.
Nah, but seriously, it’s a nice little platformer game with nice graphics, though the combat is a bit on the stale side. The monsters don’t pose too much of a threat as long as you either kill them quickly or take note of their fighting mechanics and don’t get hit multiple times. But then again, how’s the combat going to be intense when you’re just a cute little panda without many defense mechanisms to save your tail?
There are collectibles you can go and find throughout the game and there are a lot of save points too. A huge plus for me when it comes to platforming, because typically the saves are few and far between, and when you’ve gotten pretty far from the last one and you accidentally die to something stupid…it gets frustrating to say the least.
The game’s pretty generous with your health as well. I’m not entirely sure if the health stones are also the save points, but either way, the more health you have the less likely you are to die.
As well as finding some collectibles, there are areas where you can meet other wild animals. You can’t really interact with them too much when you find them, which is a shame, but maybe they’ll expand on that a little once the full release is available?
But aside from that, if you enjoy platformers and cute hand-drawn games with animals in it, you might want to give this one a try.
