THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS, COMPLETE THE CAMPAIGN AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE CONTINUING TO THE IN-DEPTH REVIEW
Stereo Aereo is a special type of game in my eyes, a game that does a lot with so little. It's a rhythm based shooter game that turns into a true test of skill in its later stages. My short review is 8.5/10. The game has a few minor issues, but nothing that can't be fixed. My hope is that the team will go into the sequel strong in an attempt to fix the problems that keep this game from perfection.
GAMEPLAY - The gameplay, in my playing experience, was razor tight and I got no real problems from it, it was all my own mistakes. It's a type of gameplay that is certainly easy to learn and difficult to master, I found myself stumbling on certain levels due to the hiked difficulty curve, but pushed through with the perfect combination of muscle memory in order to remember what motions I need to do to avoid a certain barrier or enemy, and skill to help me anticipate the next move. I have seen people complain about the shooting being "delayed", but I think it works in the games favor to make the margin of error a little wider. Getting hits and rhythm combos in this game feels satisfying, while not taking the amount of dedication other rhythm games require, and I can praise it quite well for that.
VISUALS - Aesthetically, the game is beautiful. It captures a fond vibe of the 80's while injecting themes of space, resulting in a welcome Guardians of the Galaxy style of the world. all of the locations look fairly distinct and could fair nicely in a more realistic space movie, such as the junkyard and space prison levels. The art and graphic novel style of cutscenes and character animations is also an extremely well needed change from the traditional butt-ugly 3D models some of the other Unity centered games have. All of the characters are distinct and recognizable from silhouette alone, and it's a nice change of pace in terms of stylized graphics. As for the in-game graphics, they don't push the limits of PC as much as I feel it could, but at the same time, not much is needed in terms of visuals when the goal is to focus. The most of the flashy effects you'll get are the laser beams firing on the side of the screen, and it's a good way to indicate that you're on a streak.
STORY AND VOICE ACTING - I'll bunch these two together because it's rather a doozy. This game's biggest flaws, to me, were the story and the characters I had to listen to. It seems silly to criticize something of this nature, but it did suck me out from the immersion on occasion. In short, the story is overly convoluted with story elements coming and going as they so please (with the fourth member of the band being neglected and treated like a chore to rescue, and I STILL don't know his name) and the voice actors (with the exception of the girl) were either trying too hard or miss the mark on their deliveries miserably. I'm willing to excuse all of this, though. This is a smaller studio with a limited budget, and this is their first attempt (as far as I know) to write a story with voice acting like this. This is another problem easily fixed in the sequel, were one to come.
MUSIC - The music is amazing, period. It works in and out of the game, and works amazingly well given the aesthetics of the game. It's a soundtrack I'll be buying for sure.
CONTENT - There isn't much to speak of in terms of endgame content, you're able to replay the story with the other characters and boost the difficulty if you so please. The arcade mode is, sadly, individual story missions with customized ships and difficulty, and that's about it. I would've loved for the arcade mode to be an actual arcade mode, where you can loop the levels and play endlessly with a certain amount of lives. another thing that would have been amazing was a custom level builder, using song files on the heels of Audiosurf. Many things that will hopefully be seen in a sequel.
You may have noticed a pattern throughout this review. I keep on saying that the problems in this game can easily be rectified in a sequel, and I stand by those statements 100%. This is, in the end, a small studio running on Unity. They did amazing for their first outing with a new concept I've yet to see elsewhere, a story-driven rhythm-based shooter. If this formula is fleshed out over a sequel or two, it can be amazing. The game has issues, but it's nowhere near unplayable. The problems found here are nowhere near as egregious as if a triple A studio were to do it, and I'm confident that with a few tweaks, it can be the next big thing.
8.5/10.
