The Book of Aaru Review

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Fast Facts

Introduction

The Book of Aaru is an isometric action rogue-like that pulls from the likes of Diablo and Hades. With an interesting setting and a lot of mechanics on offer, it sets the table nicely but failed to hold my interest as much as I would have liked. 

Gameplay

The moment-to-moment gameplay for The Book of Aaru is pretty well-trodden ground. The isometric perspective set me up for some familiar action sequences, and it does a good job of offering a variety of different ranged and physical attacks, parry and dodge systems, attack modifiers, combos and more. The further you go, the more you widen your selection of weapons and can experiment with different sorts of play styles. There’s even some environmental traps and dangers you can use to your advantage or fall victim to depending on how well you plan your approach.

As much as it felt like there was a fair amount on offer, a lot of the gameplay moment-to-moment felt rather frustrating. The parry never quite landed the way I expected it to and felt inconsistent, launching projectiles got a little bit boring and I just didn’t find myself engaged. It sort of sits right between Diablo and Hades but does nothing quite as well. Having a variety of different options, positioning yourself appropriately, and attacking accordingly definitely feels like a traditional isometric action RPG, and on paper all the parts are here but it just never came together to create a fun experience for me. 

Skills trees, crafting, and more.

There are a whole bunch of skill trees, currencies and crafting-type menus to work with in The Book of Aaru. It just felt a little bit over the top to me. If you enjoy delving in, experimenting, exploring branches, and if you’re willing to put the time in then you may well find this rewarding. For me it got a little bit frustrating. There are all these different resources, currencies, and other systems and weapon options that it just got a bit too much for me. Particularly considering most of my time I would just dodge behind the enemy, get some distance, and help projectiles anyway. I never felt like I found a way-to-play that I enjoyed and half of what I was changing and upgrading felt redundant.

If you enjoy asymmetric RPG’s and you like the idea of playing one that seems to have a fair amount of experimentation, then there could be something here for you. Unfortunately, when there’s so much competition out there I’m not sure if The Book of Aaru is the best place to get that fix.

World and Narrative

A big part of what made The Book of Aaru interesting to to me was the world that it was building. We work our way through ancient Egyptian tombs and the game combines that within an interesting sort of sci-fi pop in places that does give it a different energy. I think the core concept is definitely the strongest area of the game overall. In my time with the game however, it never built to something substantial and exciting which was a little frustrating. 

I think I would’ve really appreciated just a little more in terms of character and narrative. The world seems interesting, but I never felt like it was doing anything other than offering me aesthetic and cosmetic visuals. I feel like there was a lot more room to explore characters and culture and what that world had going on, but unfortunately that isn’t a thread that was ever pulled.

Art and Visuals

When it gets down to the visuals and the art style it’s another area where, despite what I said when talking about the world of The Book of Aaru, it felt like it pulled up just a little short. As much as it’s clear that we’re in a sort of Egyptian world, there isn’t really anything to make it pop visually when on a run. There’s room for these strange mechanical or sci-fi elements, particularly around things like the traps, to really give a start, contrast, and offer something really exciting visually, but a lot of what I’m saying just kind of feels like it’s off the shelf a little bit. Conceptually, it’s really interesting in execution…it’s bizarre and bland.

Sound and Music

There are some pretty interesting audio choices. It can feel a little bit overwhelming when combat is ramping up, but that’s to be expected; a lot is happening all at one time. The quiet moments are where I found the music did excel; it was light and did a great job of setting the tone of the game. The Book of Aaru often feels like it lacks a sense of clarity but that is definitely not something that can be said of the music and audio design.

Technical Performance

I think technical performance is one of the areas that I struggled with the most. I played The Book of Aaru on a Lenovo Legion Go S, running Windows, and was really disappointed with the overall performance. The game was so often stuttering, and I felt like I was losing frames so often that my instinct was that perhaps my hardware was the issue. This being the case, I played around with Hades II, Cyberpunk 2077, and Spider-Man Miles Morales. Unfortunately for this title I can get far more demanding games than The Book of Aaru running silky smooth at upwards of 60 frames per second. Perhaps it’s some kind of compatibility issue with gaming handhelds, but either way it was disappointing.

After that, there were bizarre issues like animations not triggering and frames dropping through the floor. Something as simple as a door opening up in the world would cause the game to stutter and feel like it was ready to crash. There was a point pretty early on where I got to the end of a tutorial section and instead of walking out of the level, my character just sort of stood around for a second and then glided off in a T-pose. As always with review copies of games, I’m conscious that I might have been looking at an unfinished product? The Book of Aaru was released on Steam on May 27. I’ve had a fair few updates since then, and these issues have been consistent throughout my playtime.

Conclusion and Verdict

The Book of Aaru is a game that had a fair amount on paper to pull me in. I love a good rogue-like, I’ve poured endless hours into games like Hades and Diablo. The general rule is that the words, “ Indie” and “ isometric,” are enough alone to grab me. Add a relatively original Egyptian world and theme to the mix and I went in hoping that I had a little bit of a hidden gem on my hands. Unfortunately, convoluted skill trees, perk systems, and crafting options, coupled with largely uninteresting gameplay and frustrating technical issues, made for a less than enjoyable time.

Rapid Reviews Rating

2 out of 5

2

The Book of Aaru is available now on Steam