Auryn Quest Demo

“The Neverending Story” is a fantasy novel written by Michael Ende and it envisions a world filled with many magical things, including princesses, dragons, werewolves, and the usual pure princesses that rule over the entire realm. Naturally, such a setting is a gold mine for video games and movies, especially in the case of adventure games, which rely heavily on the environments.

Auryn Quest is more of a platformer/exploration game than an actual adventure title, but it comes pretty close from a conceptual point of view. It is based on the previously mentioned book, which means that you get the chance to explore a fascinating realm, filled with all sorts of creatures, not to mention magical places and deadly traps lying at every step.

As such, you play the role of Atreyu, the young man who is called upon to save the realm of Fantasia from the great Nothing, which comes to swallow everything in its path. In order for the apocalypse to be avoided, you must help the princess regain her powers, by finding a powerful artifact. Along the way, many more dangers put your faith to the test, although nothing is more difficult than dealing with the actual gameplay mechanics.

While the idea is pretty interesting and engaging in the beginning, the actual gameplay makes everything else fade into the background. Hence, there are too many design flaws and mistakes that stop you from having fun, not to mention the butchered controls. In fact, you should know that the vertical mouse axis is inverted with no options screen to do something about it. Hence, the entire trip is a nightmare, especially since you must perform tricky jumps on a regular basis and pay attention to the environment.

There are other bugs breaking the immersion as well, most of which deny you the possibility to properly explore the levels. The level design is very sketchy too, because some routes appear to be accessible, but they are not and you end up dying for no reason. You cannot save the game and the checkpoints are sometimes too far apart, which can increase your stress levels considerably.

When it’s all said and done, Auryn Quest had a few good ideas and it can be quite fun to navigate the tricky levels sometimes. However, the gameplay makes sure that the fun doesn’t last for more than a few seconds, which is quite the shame.