Aether Gazer first Impressions preview - "Gaze into the grand Aether"

We truly thrive in an age where mankind’s collective imagination of a palpable future demarcated by the ambitious fusion of men with machines, echoed so triumphantly and paved the way for the manifestation of a torrent of schmaltzy, ogling sci-fi literary masterpieces exploring high-concept sci-fi theories. We are in the age of endless possibilities as we tinker with enhancing our frail bodies with cybernetic parts. We truly are architects of life, treading dangerously on the fine line of morality.

With all the flamboyant blabbering aside to ensure we are still staying on track of today's topic. Let's cut to the chase. As someone who's been observing the recent industry trend, there is a discernible surge in the popularity of cyber-esque games from Chinese developers (including Artery Gear Fusion, the brainchild of Tencent which we did a neat review on, as well as Honkai Star Rail, proud future star by the mad lads at Mihoyo) alongside the more established veteran in Honkai Impact and rising star Punishing Gray Raven. Yongshi, famed co-developer of Azur Lane and one of the more dominant forefathers that have been around since the dawn of Chinese waltz into gacha territory, joined the fray with its sci-fi entry: Aether Gazer.

After approximately a week of playthrough, we have plenty of questions. Will this game be something in the deluge of gacha? Or a nothing that eventually gets swept away into the vat of redundancy, living its life overshadowed by its peers with much more legacy? Speaking of which, parallels will be drawn frequently between games like Punishing Gray Raven and Honkai Impact 3. Most paramount of them all, will we figure out why this game is called "Aether Gazer"?

Visuals Galore - welcome to the future

Upon booting up the game after the 4GB download, the first interface that greeted my eyes is a name input system, something I sincerely appreciate no matter how trivial it is, as most games soft-lock you in a tutorial before naming your character. What followed was a cinematic cutscene. After settling on a generic name, adrenaline was pumping at the maximum throttle as the game plunged me into an ongoing mission to track down the “primitive corrupted extraterrestrials” known as Visbanes (they are getting more creative).

The tutorial covers enough ground for the combat mechanics - such as the Zero Time (that gets activated upon every successful evasion) and in this frozen time you get to mash attack buttons at mach speeds to deal as much damage as possible, uninterrupted.

Futuristic hub, the overall UI looks crisp.

After the handhold-y battle, I was released from the tutorial’s reins and enjoyed a few moments of liberty browsing through the menu. Here’s another plus point of the game, the UI is well designed, and oddly enough, it blends in both retro and futuristic design elements, along with a dash of minimalist magic.

• Best looking mobile games

 

The game's overall theme illuminates a vibrant and futuristic vibe despite the setting where the world is overrun by hellspawn, ghoulish Visbanes. Everything felt organized and neat and easy to navigate. All of this is further enhanced by the cityscape background. Though, it might have to do with my favoritism for UI aesthetics that is shared among its Chinese brethren. With the icing out of the way, onwards to the cake slices: characters

Of mecha, maidens and machos

Perhaps the most anticipated element for the game is the characters (modifiers in this universe). Surprisingly there’s a fair distribution between male and female “modifiers”, along with some androgynous options, one perfect thesis to this was Ryugiri.

Props once again to the character design! True to their legendary quote during their first anniversary Azur Lane staff interview. Rejoice as the character roster here fully caters to the tastes of us players and has us chanting "Glory to Yongshi". While I dig the design of modifiers such as Sakubo, none can top the absolute badassery of Croc Rage. The dude’s a lookerAshura, pretty picture perfect and accurate to its real-life lore depiction.

Each modifier is affiliated with a faction (known as a Gen-zone) sporting unique design motifs. For instance, Shinou's members mostly sport ninja or samurai-like characteristics (and are the best nourishment for thigh lovers), while Olympus mainly consists of members sharing Greek god names such as Hera or Poseidon. Let's not forget about character variety, which this game did wonders with its creative roster. The modifiers each sport a unique playstyle and please the eyes with appealing attack animations making the best out of their diverse access keys, ranging from traditional firearms to giant blades and electromagnetic bows.

The nitty-gritty of game design

Just like the dozens of gacha out there, this game rewards players with a sense of gratification by allowing them to upgrade their characters in various ways. It’s your standard RPG gacha affairs where the methods to strengthen your characters include leveling them up (with a level cap depending on your user level), their skill level, as well as their signature weapons called “Access keys”. Thank goodness characters come equipped with them without needing to gacha for them separately. Aether Codes can be unlocked to bring your characters some boost in stats, which design bears striking resemblance to Genshin's constellation system.

As someone who has played similar titles, such as Punishing Gray Raven and Honkai Impact 3, it is no surprise to declare that the upgrade system here is almost equivalent to the aforementioned games. In place of a “Stigmata” or “Memories”, we have sigils to further bolster your characters’ stats.

Deja Vu sigil system, I've seen and been here before.

Beyond that, this game contains all the “farming stages” you’ll typically find in games of the same genre. There are many stages with varying difficulties for you to farm for resources, be it a premium currency or upgrade materials. In addition, for now, this game has done the end-game component well enough as it features a boss fight replay (in the form of Past Grudges) with lucrative rewards (S rank characters to grind for) dangling like a carrot on a stick. Beyond that, to keep players like me engaged, there are also roguelike modes such as Causality surveys and Hazard Zone Clearing. To avoid erring on the side of repetitiveness, this game introduces the QoL feature of stacking your loot drops without needing to repeat one stage multiple times. Hopefully, there's an auto sweep function to further mitigate the redundant grind.

More variety of content to ensure absolute entertainment.

To pay homage to its older cousin Azur Lane, this game ported over the Meowfficer system in the form of M.E.O.W system. A bonus power-up system to your allies and satisfies the itch of a perfectionist seeking to maximize their team’s combat prowess.

Robotic critter squad, delighted to be of service.

The plot thickens…

…or not, this aspect is bland compared to everything else this game has to offer, it tried playing it safe with the tried and tested formulaic plotline of girls enhanced with cybernetics duking it out with an ancient race of monsters called Visbanes (credit where credit is due, it’s a creative way of naming them), with you, the Administrator, at the helm issuing commands to your eponymous team and being an overseer.

While storytelling has not been a strong suit of gacha games, let’s just say the story in Aether Gazer is serviceable. In the first arc (the first 5 chapters that were unlocked), there are just too many cliches in its storytelling, featuring comically written, one-dimensional characters. As someone with a chaotic morality, I can get behind the villains in this game as some of the secondary villains such as Ethan are enigmatic and goofy but competent. 

One praiseworthy aspect is the storytelling device they opted for. I appreciate deeply is the usage of 3D models of characters talking instead of just using JPEGs commonplace in gachas adopting the regular old visual novel style. The efforts made by the developers are discernible as they also went above and beyond to include voice acting for the characters, something missing in many old and modern gachas. 

Oh yeah! Fully animated 3D characters!

For further plus points, they snuck in some engaging, yet contemporary, topics, such as during the opening of the game, we are immediately tossed into one of the most contemporary issues far and wide discussed among intellectuals in the real world - brewing concerns regarding the displacement of the labor force by Artificial Intelligence. The central theme also revolves around rogue AI that tickles my soft spot as a fan of movies featuring rogue AI such as Space Odyssey 2001. P.S: It would have been impressive if they didn't drop a dissapointing reveal that beneath the veneer of lines of codes lies a Visbane. In addition, you, as the admin, have involvement and contribution to the storyline instead of just being invisible. The narrative can present some really engaging scenes that pull your heartstrings when it goes all out, such as.

Pulling the trigger, for some reason this standout scene is a tearjerker for me.

The bread-and-butter - gameplay

Let me preface by saying this, if there is any genre of gameplay that takes a lot of effort and care to craft, it will be a 3D hack-and-slash. In an industry flooded with turn-based and idle-style gameplay, gacha featuring dynamic gameplay of 3D hack and slash is exceptionally rare.

With a medal garlanded to Yongshi for attempting, let’s see if the effort paid off. The gameplay manages to differentiate itself from its contemporary peers such as Honkai, the wildly popular Genshin, and Punishing Gray Raven. It strikes a balance in all aspects, it offers moderately fast-paced combat and most importantly, there’s a sense of gratification when you slam those blades and make clinks and clanks as you crunch the numbers. The game also features similar mechanics to those of Honkai or PGR, such as Zero Time, which is essentially a Matrix with additional gimmicks.

The team system is unlike its peers, where you switch between modifiers to connect their attacks. In the world of Gaea battlefield, you simply tap on their miniature portrait to activate their ultimate skills specifically. On the plus side, your co-members will fight alongside your main character, although the AI and programming could use some more configuration to spice things up.

However, this is also a double-edged sword after a few days. 90 percent of the battle happens when all members are present on the field. This invariably created a situation where you can “auto” play the game. You can just stay idle and rooted on the spot as a slavedriver and have your teammates do all the fighting for you. Only the remaining 10% requires you to use a predefined character where I can feel the heat of the battle as my greasy thumbs prance around the screen. It’s one feature that I love to exploit and defeats the purpose of the immersive 3D hack-and-slash fun this game touts. Of course, one way to circumvent this is to only bring one modifier to the battlefield every time.

The boss fight that got everyone's getting goosebumps...except the boss fight plays itself, definitely threw an anticlimatic wench to the 3D hack and slash this game is so prideful of.

With all that out of the way, one distinctive feature is how the Ultimate skill for each character plays out. If two characters are in the same party and have a team ultimate skill chain, they will both perform the ultimate attack simultaneously in a team-up fashion, accompanied with a flashy animation which you cannot skip.

Ryugiri, the aforementioned androgynous character, performing a "team-up" with the irresistibly charming Croc Rage

A name too big to game

Onwards to the most anticipated section. The gacha system - a risk too enormous - mounted on the shoulders of Yongshi who made its name and got catapulted into the spotlight thanks to the well-designed and altruistic gacha system in Azur Lane. Sadly to say, altruism does not translate fully into this game. With the rates being a measly 1.6% for the appearance of an S rank every single pull (Guaranteed 2.40% if it's a 10x pull) which...isn't the worst the industry has seen. Though, the rates are subject to change and are not finalized as this is just a Closed Beta Test. 

While the character pool is shallow compared to the gigantic cast of characters in Azur Lane, these shards are still essential for Transcendence and are key to unlocking new potential in your Modifiers and a hefty bulk of them is needed to do so. However, this game still retains the F2P-friendliness aspect, for now.

Final Verdict

While I still find the naming choice of "Aether Gazer" odd considering the main overarching antagonist came from a dimension with a nether landscape totally opposite and misrepresenting all the pleasantry represented by the word Aether. To round up this first impressions review appropriately, One thing for certain, this game looks and plays like a patchwork of borrowed elements from its contemporary peers. It still has a charm of its own and will be one of the stronger performers with a lasting impression. While the story hopefully gets better development and their characters are more fleshed out. Surely, this game does not breathe fresh air into the genre, but it did bring innovations to the table, such as the aforementioned skill chain system.

If anything, this game can also be summed up with one single term "linearity". The stage design and progression are linear and straightforward; there are stages to grind resources on, the storyline does not take players aboard a merry-go-round and is not littered with gobbledygook. While some may find it disappointing, I for one am a simple man. Of course, it is in everyone's best interest to see this game thrive and for certain, depending on its enduring popularity on the CN side of the globe, can say this game will get better and is a keeper.