Blingflug Studios AG’s Airheart Soars onto PC and Console

By: GeekyGamerGirl87

Developed by and published by Blindflug Studios AG, Airheart -Tales of the Broken Wings is a twin stick shooter that is available now on PC and PS4 and will be releasing on Xbox One on August 14, 2018. When I first saw Airheart – Tales of the Broken Wings, I was drawn into how beautiful the game was. It looked like something that I could really get into. However, there are somethings that could make the game a lot better. Before, I begin my review I would like to take the time to thank Blindflug Studios AG for providing me with a free copy of the Steam version of the game. It is because they were kind enough to provide me with the game, so that I can write this review.

You play as Amelia (very clever name on the developer’s part) who’s father many years ago crossed the desert to bring her to Spire, the city in the sky to give her a better life. This is also the last time Amelia see’s her father. To make a living for herself, Amelia works out of her hangar and does sky fishing which should be a relaxing and an easy-going job. However, due to the increase pirate attacks, sky fishers must now be able to defend themselves in the case that the police cannot answer their call. Ultimately, the sky fishers are all after one goal. They are all looking to catch the Sky whale, a creature in the highest layer that can guarantee them riches. It is the same sky whale that Amelia hopes to catch to carry on her father’s dream. Long story short, the storyline is basically a modernize Moby Dick. If you have not read Moby Dick, I challenge you to go read it because after hearing the storyline for Airheart it immediately made me think of Moby Dick.

You start the game off in Amelia’s workshop which allows for you to access three different locations. You can access The Hangar, The Workbench, and The Shop all from Amelia’s workshop. The Hangar takes you to your plane in which you can switch out parts before you go on your adventure. It is also in this screen that you will be able to launch your actual game. The Workbench allows for you to craft things. I do not know what these inventions are used for to be honestly truthful. As far as I could see is that you just build them, and it looks like you can sell them. It didn’t appear that you could add the inventions to your plane to improve your plane’s stats. I also felt that there should have been a tutorial for the workbench just to explain it a little more. From what I gather, you again build items using the scraps you gather during your adventure. At the bottom of the screen where it says “New Items” there are a series of circles above the items. Therefore ,when crafting you want to pay attention to how many circles there are. If you got the recipe part right the circle will become solid. If the part is wrong the circle will display a red x through it. Again, I am unsure if these are to be used on your plane, as when I went back to check it was just either other parts created for other recipes and you only had the option to sell them. Therefore, a tutorial for the workbench needs to be done. The last part that you can access again is The Shop; which allows you to buy weapons as well as upgrades for your plane including other planes themselves.

In terms of graphics, I thought the game was very pleasant on the eyes. The screen in which you are in Amelia’s workshop reminded me a bit of the art style from Tell Tale games or even Borderlands. The actual gameplay graphics where just beautiful. The music I enjoyed. It was relaxing in the beginning and as you progress through the layers the music does intensify, which indirectly lets you know how difficult the layer is going to be.

The game does offer a tutorial in which it helps you to get familiar with the controls. For the controls you can play both with gamepad and keyboard/mouse. As always, I did play with both controls and although the game says this game is best played with the gamepad. I found it a lot better with keyboard/mouse. For me I felt that the gamepad controls where a little stiff. Although later I did fix it by turning up the sensitivity.)However, one of the biggest things for me was  I did not care for the aim with gamepad. I also had a hard time using the harpoon due to the issue with the aiming. When  I played with the keyboard and mouse, it felt a little more natural. Although, the tutorial for using keyboard and mouse needed to be adjusted as well. It tells you that you use A key to fly. When in fact you would use W,A,S,D keys, to fly in the corresponding directions you are looking to move. The LMB (left mouse button) is used to shoot and the RMB (right mouse button) is used to shoot the harpoon. Being able to aim with the mouse was a lot better and more comfortable for me, and I will say that switching to keyboard/mouse made the game more enjoyable for me.

Another thing about the game that should have been added was a more understanding of what to attack. I know some may say well that should be self-explanatory. However, the game does tell you about how you may have to defend yourself from pirates. In the tutorial you attack drones. I think this would have been the perfect time to explain what was friendly and what was in fact an enemy. For example, there is a plane that flies around with you while in the tutorial it would have been nice if they would have added a blue circle to it and explain that anything with a blue circle is friendly although they will bump you, you don’t want to attack them. Then for the drones they could have added the red circle and explain that this is your enemy and you can attack them. I say this because during my gameplay a blue circle bumped me, and I mistakenly took it as an enemy and shot it down, which then had the air police come after me. There is also something else that could have been explained a lot better too. Like when you collect health boxes. It should have been explained that if the box is glowing red then you can collect it. Other wise if it is not glowing red do not touch it as it will count as a collision and cost you to lose some of your life. I found that out again through trial and error.

When ever you decided to return home from your adventure, you are thrown into a mini game. You must dodge the obstacles and make a good landing. The higher the layer you are at, the more difficult it will become. However, you also encounter this mini game if you run out of all your health, in which this time you will be doing a crash landing. Again, the further up the layers you are the harder it is. If during a crash landing you don’t land home, then you will render a game over. The game over is a permadeath. Therefore, you will lose everything you have gained and must start the game from the beginning. Which leads me into my next issue, and no it isn’t the permadeath. I like the permadeath personally, it’s when I started up my next game it shows that I own the weapons I bought from the previous game. However, this is not the case again when you perish you lose everything, so it is quite confusing that they still show as being owned.

One of the things that I found was interesting to regarding the platforms that the game is available on, is that it is not available on Nintendo Switch. I found it interesting because you do see a lot of indie games also being ported to the Switch as well. Maybe in the future the game could grace the Switch with it’s presence because I think that it would do very well on the Switch.

Overall, I thought that Airheart- Tales of Broken Wings was an okay game. I found the game to be very relaxing once I found controls that I liked and figured out parts of the game.  I just feel that if they fix some of the other issues that was with the game, this would be a great game. Hopefully as the game did just recently come out, the developers will be able to work some of those bugs and issues out with a patch or two.  If you would like to play Airheart – Tales of Broken Wings for yourself you can do so by purchase it on Steam, Humble Bundle for $14.99 USD and on PS4, XBONE, for $17.99 USD .