Aureole: Wings of Hope Review

2D platforming games are a staple in my videogame library. Full of running and jumping action, these titles are a blast to play. Enter Aureole: Wings of Hope, a side-scrolling platformer, but instead of the usual running and jumping, we have a unique physics-based title where you assume the role of an aureole (essentially, a ring of light, like a halo). Has developer Team Stargazers delivered what is sure to be a high-speed platforming experience, or is it hard to control and frustrating to play?

Our story begins in Heaven, where we see a group of Angels in a meeting run by a priest declaring that they are putting an end to military service. With no wars around, why bother wasting their time on training? The Know-It-All Angel (that’s what the game calls them) is concerned about what will happen to their armour because it's so cool. The priest states that whoever is currently going through military training will serve out the rest of their required service time at the Celestial Attachium Mines.

A messenger interrupts the meeting with an important message: Demons have attacked the mine and destroyed everything in their path. Suddenly, the messenger is impaled by a spear; all that is left is his halo, and a portal opens with a Jacked Devil appearing. This devil is Lazel, the new Demon King, and we learn that the priest, Remus, and he know each other quite well. The priest serves as the representative to the Left Hand, and Lazel is trying to find the Right Hand but then has the realisation that he could just take over and seize power. To prove his might, he kills the military forces in Heaven with one swoop of his trident.

We join Ramila, one of the angels who has managed to avoid the attack and found herself falling off the Heaven Kingdom. When she crashes, she finds an aureole on the ground, which means that an Angel has passed. The soul inside this halo must be asleep, so she will have to perform the Synchrony Ritual to awaken it. This move requires you to sync your soul with the halo’s. The first thing you need to do when you start every stage is spin like a top and then throw the aureole with all your strength; after following these steps, you can sync the souls together.

I am playing using an Xbox controller. To aim where your aureole will go, hold the right trigger, then move the arrow where you want it to go with the left thumbstick, and let go of the right trigger. Syncing Ramila to the spirit in the halo was successful, and you meet Ryleth, the soul trapped in the halo (a.k.a. the messenger Angel who was killed by the trident). He knows you as the girl who always falls asleep during sermons. Demons have invaded Heaven, and the Demon King beat them up, causing the angels to fall together, meaning that Heaven is very weak and won't be coming to save them anytime soon. Problem is, if he doesn't ascend within a day, his soul will dissolve with the ether and be gone forever.

Since Ramila was training to be a messenger, she would know how to fly and could take them back. Unfortunately, she quit after a month and can only stay in the air for a short period of time before she collapses and throws up. So Ryleth teaches her about aureole linking. This is where you become the halo and can control it: you make it jump with RT and control the direction you are going with the left thumbstick. The goal is to get to the checkpoint statues and to the end of the stage. If you fall down a deep hole, the game rewinds, taking you back to the last statue that you reached, so that you can try over and over again until you successfully get to the end of the stage.

Ramila finds Remus’ book. She peeks inside and sees that it isn't just full of sermons — it’s actually full of drawings and can be used to transport you around. This atlas takes you to the Blossoming Forest, which was the one picture that was coloured in. You find a stone that has openings where you put faith fragments in to help give the Left Hand more power, as it is clearly weak from being under attack.

Each stage you play has your time recorded so you can rechallenge it to do better — or, if it’s really good, have it placed on the leaderboard. The first stage you challenge is Forest Glade. Once you get to the end, you see how long it took to complete the level, the number of times you died, your max speed (mine was 41.45 m/s), how many jumps you had, and how many ring blitzes. This is when you send your halo through the golden rings that are placed in the level. Successfully completing the stage will give you a faith fragment that is put into the large rock that will open up the next area.

During your run through the stage, there are obstacles that you need to watch out for; for example, red thorns will instantly kill you. Your halo has a small amount of energy that can be spent on jumping, which is only refilled if it touches the ground. So you will need to be strategic and make sure you are always refilling it, or your halo will just drop when you need a jump. If you can’t avoid the traps, back to the previous checkpoint you go so you can try again. There were a few difficult areas where I wished there were more of these save points, so I didn’t need to go as far back.

Each level is brightly coloured and somewhat simple-looking, but that makes sense since you are moving through the area so fast you wouldn't notice the detail anyway. The stages are all laid out differently, with sections being in the sky, on the ground, or even underground, so you never know where you will get to explore next. Plus, you get to encounter birds and squirrels as you travel through the levels, and you find sections with ropes that you can ride like rails to zip you through sections of the stage. The characters have a cute look to them and great expressions when something happens in the story. Plus, the two Angels have a good rapport and have funny interactions with each other.

The game has an upbeat and happy-sounding soundtrack that fits the visual style of Aureole: Wings of Hope very well. Considering these Angels have been kicked out of Heaven because a Demon King has decided to take over, they seem awfully happy! The voice acting is very well done. The characters don’t follow exactly what is being shown in the subtitles, which is fun and unexpected. The voice actors do a great job of capturing the different personalities of these Angels.

This title is a high-speed experience that is challenging and incredibly addictive to play. In the beginning, it may seem tricky to get the halo to go where you want, but after a few minutes of practice, it all clicks. Though I will warn you that it can get incredibly frustrating and hard at times, it was at these moments when I was so thankful for the God Mode option in the Accessibility menu. If it is used, your score will be excluded from the global rankings — but I didn’t care; I just wanted to get through that damn stage.

Aureole: Wings of Hope is a fun twist on the usual side-scrolling platformer game. It has fun characters and a whole new style of gameplay that has you speeding through stages as a halo. If you want a high-speed, challenging experience, this is a title you need to check out. Fortunately, the game does have accessibility options that you can change and enable for times when you get too frustrated and want to rage quit.