Review: Everdeep Aurora for Switch

Ah, PAX West 2023. Feels like a lifetime ago, honestly. Anyway, so, I stumbled into this game called Everdeep Aurora back then. The vibes? Immaculate. Imagine a game with… no combat? You just puzzle and explore around, no stress. I remember thinking, what a chill way to (not) spend time fighting bad guys. When the chance came to play it properly, I was all in.

So, Everdeep Aurora’s story. Simple yet touching? You’re a kitten. Named Shell. I chuckled at that. She’s hunting for her mom after some meteor thing goes down. Everyone’s gone underground, and you’ve got this drill for digging. Deeper and deeper you go, with a basic drill—kind of like when you’re trying to find your keys in a cluttered drawer.

Things get weirder underground. Loads of NPCs pop in and really, they’re all over the map. You’ve got a girl searching for a dog, a frog needing a family fix, a snake you’d probably avoid IRL, and two otters in a messy love saga. Helping them all gets you upgrades—like a better drill and crazy moves. Almost makes you wanna be nice more often, right?

Exploration-wise, gah, this game has you collecting all sorts of quirky items. Hats galore, random papers explaining the world’s backstory, and gems for juicing up your drill. The graphics scream Game Boy Color—which is oddly nostalgic. Mini-games show up too, like something straight out of a retro fever dream. And the endings? Multiple routes wherever you wander. Sometimes you end up somewhere unexpected, which was oddly satisfying.

But, hold up—before I lose myself rambling—it’s got its peeves. Finding your way? Super tricky without waypoints. I mean, you meet these cool characters and help them out, and that part rocks, no doubt. But you need a memory like a steel trap, because no quest log means you’re flying by the seat of your pants. And I swear, scrolling through on the Switch made the screen hiccup like it had the burps. Not a fix-or-fail kind of deal, yet still annoying.

Wrap it all up, though. Everdeep Aurora kinda left me split down the middle. The music? Total eargasm. Graphics, top-notch. Characters, deeper than I expected. Combat? Nonexistent, but that’s the charm, really. But then, boom, hit a wall due to missing guideposts and go-around pointers. So, you might love it or hate it depending on your lost-in-maze tolerance.

In short, if you’re chill with winging it, maybe getting a little lost along the way, this game’s worth a shot. Just don’t blame me if you end up shouting at your screen trying to find the otter with that darn letter for the post office.