Version: Digital retail review code provided by the distributor
Independence & Ethics
Region Free is entirely reader-supported and maintains full editorial independence. For more on my scoring and standards, see the Review Guide.
I'm a big fan of Don't Nod's productions, and I will always be in line for whatever they make. Today, it's hard to find studios that produce consistently interesting mid-budget projects that try out new things, even when those attempts might not work.
Such it is with Aphelion, a sci-fi yarn about two astronauts who crash land on a planet where nothing is as it first seems. It's lovingly crafted, and there's a genuine passion behind the project, especially their partnership with the European Space Agency, but the listless gameplay and dull narrative consistently drag it down.
The story is often overtly familiar, with an emphasis on well-worn tropes about lost love, the enormity of time, and our place in the cosmos. There's no reason any of this can't be retold well, but Aphelion feels like it doesn't even want to try to break free of its constraints.
In the future, humankind is on the brink of extinction, as climate change has rendered Earth uninhabitable. Far off in space, two scientists travel towards a potential new home for our species, when disaster strikes and tears them apart. On the surface, the duo set off to find each other, only to discover the crash may have shifted their destinies more than they could have anticipated.
Aphelion embraces every cliche it encounters, which makes the story predictable to the point that it only highlights the repetitive gameplay. As such, this feeds back into a vicious cycle that emphasizes the limitations of the writing, which stumbles over the stilted acting, and on and on it goes.
None of it is outright bad, but it is notably worse than previous Don't Nod productions. As if, at some point, something vital got cut, and everything else got stretched over too much surface area to cover the holes. In its final form, the plot moves so slowly that every chapter feels twice its length, and I had little interest in exploring the dull lore through the dated scanning and logging mechanics.
Not all is lost, though. The soundtrack is superlative and easily a highlight well worth returning to over and over again. It has elements of Graeme Revell's music to The Crow, Michael Nyman's Gattaca, and Hans Zimmer's Interstellar, while still maintaining a distinct style of its own. That's not an easy feat, especially not in a familiar genre such as this. Even in the moments where Aphelion struggles, the fantastic music kept me hooked.
Voice acting, sadly, is more of a mixed bag. Aphelion's French actors feel uncomfortable with their English dialogue, which leaves a lot of the readings stilted and forced. At times, I got the distinct sense that much of this was written with entirely different actors in mind. Especially when one of the heroes keeps referring to themselves as "Mate" with a thick French twang.
In a sense, Aphelion could get away with such rough edges if it weren't so full of needless dialogue. The characters rarely interact with one another, but they're constantly talking. Even when they're not recording exposition-heavy voice logs, there's a running commentary that only detracts from the experience.
Early on, I found a stunning vista that made me pause to enjoy the moment. Instead of silence or soundtrack, Aphelion forced upon trite declarations about what the landscape looked like. It robbed the moment of its power, and it wasn't the only time it happened, either.
When the characters aren't quipping like they were in an Uncharted game, the gameplay itself feels like a relic of that decade-old franchise. If you remember the rope and pulley system from Uncharted 4, you're in luck, because that's the main mechanic Aphelion is built around.
Yes, there is some light puzzle solving and obligatory sneaking, but most of the game is spent in linear platforming sections that are about as fun as watching paint dry. Almost every jump has a mechanic for a "perfect grab", and if you miss the window, you go through a tedious secondary quicktime event, where you try to reach for the ledge with your free hand. Miss, and you plummet to your death, forcing a restart from the last checkpoint.
This happens over and over again, in one form or another. Ice requires slow movement; otherwise, it will crack. Slopes are always meant for sliding, and even the flimsiest gates are impassable because the limited level design needs to stretch out chapters beyond any reasonable length. At all times, you rely on your special rope and winch, which is at once both extremely limited or dramatically long and tough, depending on what the drama requires.
Controls are clumsy and unresponsive, at least on PC. The rope mechanic rarely engages when it should, and there's a weird necessity to pause movement between actions to shift from jumping to climbing to swinging. At times, I found the character just didn't grab onto a ledge or that the animation stuttered midway through the jump, so that it sent me to my doom.
These sections, of which there are many, are almost exclusively linear. There is never a question of where to go, but it's rarely engaging or fun. Even when Aphelion uses the same big set pieces over and over again, it can't capture the sense of adventure like Don't Nod's previous titles. And it certainly isn't even in the same ballpark as the games it tries to emulate, like Uncharted or Tomb Raider.
Accessibility options allow toggling the insta-death options off, including the mechanics for slipping and falling during climbing and balancing sections. But these are the major gameplay mechanics that Aphelion rests upon. Taking them out only serves to highlight how limited everything else is.
I hate to be down on Aphelion, I really do. I was very excited for another Don't Nod production, and sci-fi is one of my favorite genres in literature, film, and gaming. In theory, I am the perfect audience for this title. Yet I struggled to maintain any interest in the game during my review period.
It's not a bad product, and there are areas it showcases the quality we've come to expect from Don't Nod. The soundtrack is great, and there are occasionally moments where the art design, directing, and even performances work together to touch upon something magical. It's also not expensive, and it's on Game Pass, so it's an easy title to pick up and try without too much investment.
But it's such a frustrating experience because it feels so compromised. Like something was left out, trimmed, or lost midway through production. It has the heart and ambition, but it can't break through the gravitational pull and soar into the cosmos like it wants to.
Perhaps next time.
