Sands of Aura
Sands of Aura is an open-world action adventure with a fantasy setting of a realm in its twilight--a world buried beneath a sea of sand. Sail across the sandseas to return life to a dying world in an unforgettable experience that is equal parts engaging story and unrelenting, souls-like combat.
Sands of Aura is a action rpg, souls-like and dungeon crawler game
developed by Chashu Entertainment
and published by indie.io.
Released on October 27th 2023 is available only on Windows
in 9 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian and Simplified Chinese.
It has received 695 reviews of which 536 were positive and 159 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.3 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 11.49€ on Steam and has a 50% discount.
The Steam community has classified Sands of Aura into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Sands of Aura through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 (64 bit)
- Processor: Intel i5-4440 / AMD FX-8370
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GTX 960 / AMD R9 285
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 22 GB available space
- Sound Card: DirectX 11 sound device
- Additional Notes: These requirements may change during early access period.
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Starting to think I just don't understand what gamers want anymore. This game is pretty amazing. The scope, world-building, level design and character customization are wild given a team so small that half of the minute long credits was special thanks and pets. It isn't without it's flaws, but I feel like people refuse to even consider that anything less than a 9/10 game is worth playing and could give you an immensely enjoyable time. Sands of Aura takes place in a huge open ocean of sand, dotted by the last survivors of humanity on isolated islands here and there. Something bad happened long ago to cause this, but you're just a fresh new Remnant Knight tasked with keeping the peace and such. Obviously this leads to world important events and much more. The story itself is decent, probably nothing people haven't seen before but it really sells itself on the world and the history of it which gives all the story beats weight because of how fleshed out and realized the world is. Honestly it's pretty fascinating stuff. You'll see enormous remnants of old that you literally get no explanation for and you'll wonder what in the actual heck the world was like before. I know I loved seeing these random places pop up. Combat is what most would consider a 3rd person high camera Soulslike, and I won't dismiss that comparison at all, as it has a couple trappings of the genre. But it also does it's own thing a lot of the time. There are no levels or anything, everything is based around your equipment. And every piece of equipment is customizable. Weapons have fighting styles, blade effects, pommel effects and codex effects which all can be discovered, interchanged and made up over the course of the game giving you a ton of variety in how you approach combat. I used a quick, stabbing build that dealt damage over time effects for 1v1 and bosses and a large sweeping polearm for exploring against multiple enemies that automatically cast spells. Armor comes in sets with effects for each 2 pieces you equip which are similarly widely varied and can completely change how you play. There is a ton of replayability due to the amount of options you have in how you want to approach the game. This is ignoring the spellblade abilities which can be activated for attacks, dodges and blocks separately with assigned elements that also do different things. The level design is extremely varied with a lot of exploration for many of the islands. Due to the limited size of the team, there aren't dozens of huge islands to explore but the ones that are there are hand-crafted and full of hidden paths, shortcuts, secrets and strikingly different visual designs. Personally, while some may balk at the character designs or think it's not a very good looking game, I quite enjoyed the style and refuse to hear anything negative about how gorgeously crafted the world is. Aesthetics are worlds more important than graphics. You move between islands in a sandship that reminded me a ton of Windwaker. There is an okay amount to find, but honestly the soothing surfing around while investigating far away things that catch your eye or realizing just how vast the distances are really added to the world to me. Did the giant wall that flanked the entire left side of the map have a gameplay effect or associated dungeon? No, but it sure was impressive to see and made you wonder about the world before. As said above, it's not without it's flaws. Combat can be a bit frustrating with unsure hitboxes, level layout not having clear indicators of what is a fall to a landable area and what will just kill you, long spaces between save points, etc. But I really did not care about most of it to the extent that it impacted my enjoyment. It's very obvious while playing that the devs had more planned but I guess sales weren't good enough to keep making content. Which is a real shame, because there are some areas I would've LOVED to explore or see expanded, storylines that do not have definitive endings I wanted to continue as well as seeing what islands would pop up in the underpopulated areas of the map. I thought this game was a blast. Enjoyed it beginning to end and am playing through the Hard Mode to try new builds and make choices to see how the story plays out differently. Can't recommend this game enough, quite a hidden gem.
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This game was incredibly unforgiving in the beginning. I almost asked for a refund but overtime you realize how much the weapon modification and character building are needed to advance through the game. There is an aspect to deck building your character that I really love. Before I'd by a new weapon modification or spell I would read through all the options and do a bit of math which actually made the game feel very rewarding and fun. Along with the deck building players will need to adapt to the games cruel enemy mechanics. There is no way to get better at this game other than learning how the enemies in game attack you. I found that at times dodging wasn't the move even with the iframes. There were times that sometimes I just needed to sprint attack enemies and sometimes I could only get a light hit or two off after countless rolls. The game has a beautiful and abstract scenery that just leaves you wanting to explore more. Can't recommend this game more to souls lite players.
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A recommendation but only just! This game wants to be Dark Souls I think, or recapture that magic, and it fails. It is not as well written, not as mysterious, and is sharply derivative in many places. It does not reward enough to offset its punishments. Combat is floatey and lacks punch. It relies on a lot gimmick bosses (particularly at the end) that have a schtick or two which one shots you till you figure it out. There simply aren't enough resources (without grinding anyway, and I hate undue grind) to fully build even one full suit of armour and weapon, let alone experiment or change tactics if you are stuck. There are quite a few instances of unfinished and cut content. It is quite hard to find your way around or even find what you want to look for (no minimap and the view is not zoomed out enough to properly navigate the labyrinthine environments). Shortcuts are not frequent enough or clearly signposted when you do find them. There are often not enough checkpoints which means to get back to where you died you either slowly chop your way back, or just run past everything - and if I can run past it why am I even bothering to do this properly? There is no PAUSE! I hate that. What happens if Real Life intervenes? You get splattered in game or annoy someone because you cannot stop to deal with it! I get that souls-likes often ditch pause but it is a terrible design. In many ways I finished it because I have trouble giving up on something. By the end a lot of the initial pleasure was simply gone. But... Nice art design (kind of Tim Burtonesque in places), big open world, good atmosphere, decent exploration, good music, and ok gameplay when it isn't being sadistic or clumsy... Despite my anger at a bunch of weaknesses and a general feeling of relief that is over now and I can go play something better, it is still fun, mostly, at least for two thirds of the game.
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TLDR : If you’re playing the Souls games mostly for combat, this might be not for you. But if you’re at least equally playing it for their level design and its exploration – I beg of you, give this one a try. I can nearly guarantee you are going to get your money’s worth out of it. Introduction This might just be the most underrated game I’ve come across in my 30 years of video gaming. I bought into this knowing about as much as - it has great level design, rewards exploration and is apparently not too popular. My first impressions were really good, so I kept wondering why it’s only sitting at mostly positive with not too many reviews overall. As I continued playing, I was waiting for the catch but it never came. Please do not get misled by some of the reviews, this is a high quality product. When I read critique like “unpolished”, “clunky controls” or “low content”, I have to genuinely ask these ppl which game they played, cause none of this is true, quite the opposite actually. I don’t write many reviews, but feel obliged if a game truly deserves it, which is definitely the case here. I’ll try to structure this in a way so you can find potential selling points or deal-breakers without going too much into detail. Just one more thing so we are on the same page – if I mention “souls-like” I am talking about FromSoftware’s Souls-series only, not some wild offshoot since the term itself is incredibly inflated nowadays. World/Level Design Sands of Aura’s strongest feature is its souls-like world/level design – intricate levels, immense verticality, with loopbacks, shortcuts and secrets all over the place, but seamlessly forged into a level’s main theme with lots of details, which makes it not just look good, but also very interesting to explore. Unfortunately, this very fact is barely mentioned in the game’s steam description. It is not trying to be a Souls game, but clearly inspired by the series. The Souls games are mainly known for their precise, tight combat and difficulty and while acknowledged, their ingenious world/level design always falls a bit flat when ppl talk about it. Very similar to Sands of Aura – while its combat is perfectly fine for someone like myself, it cannot hold up to the Souls series. However, its level design is by far the best I have ever seen besides that, partially even rivaling this very quality and creativity. I’m pretty sure one of the main reasons of Sands of Aura’s mediocre receptions is that ppl bought into this expecting souls-like combat and did not get that. Hence, I cannot put enough emphasis on the above paragraph – do not buy this if combat is your main thing. But as long as you enjoy exploring intricate levels and are not bothered by “just” decent/good’ish combat, there is basically a zero chance you will not have fun with this game. Camera and Combat Be aware that the camera while fully rotatable, is only tiltable a few degrees which results in a mostly isometric style bird’s eye view. I cannot tell you whether this is a technical limitation or design choice. But this of course influences the view (and feeling) for exploration, as well as combat. The game is difficult, if you die you will lose all currency (Glint here) and almost every enemy respawns. There is no lock-on, the direction of your attacks and dodges are merely dependant on your input direction. And your input matters, dodging (potentially blocking), positioning and waiting for your opening is required. There is trash mobs which you can hack’n slash, but many enemies are far more dangerous and hit very hard. The camera has pros and cons here – on the negative side it can make it hard to see enemies ahead and potentially run into an ambush, the game is never unfair though. On the plus side, the bird’s eye view gives you great awareness of the battlefield since you often fight multiple enemies at once. Do not get the wrong impression that this combat would be bad when I say it cannot hold up to the Souls series, keep in mind we are talking about one, if not the best combat in any video game. Sands of Aura’s combat works, is perfectly passable and I had quite a bit of fun with it even though this is not my main thing. The restricted camera can be a deal-breaker for ppl, which I can understand. It did bother me at first as well, but I got used to it eventually not feeling restricted by it too much in the long run. To be honest I even enjoyed having a great look over the battlefield. Occasionally there’s situations where I wished I had a fully free camera, but the game is designed with this limitation in mind regarding level design and enemy/arena placements – there is some incredibly cool vantage points which you probably could miss with a free camera. In the end it comes down to how much it bothers you personally, the 2-hour refund window should suffice to test this. Controls I’m a PC Gamer, as long as Keyboard/Mouse is functioning this is my preferred method of controlling. There’s complaints about the controls being sluggish and clunky which I just do not agree with. I started with K/M where this is maybe somewhat true. Out of curiosity I tried a controller after the first hour or so and that felt a bit better, at this point I even found the controls to be quite precise. And mind you, I was playing on an ancient and half-broken PS3-Controller using Steam’s built-in Controller support. I’d say if this setup can run it fine, everything should be able to. Of course, opinions differ but again this is something you can test well enough within the refund window. The Rest While being souls inspired, this game has an actual story. I do not like to rate a story’s quality, since this is too subjective generally, but I can tell you that the story is well presented. Every line (besides some narrative parts within conversations) are fully voiced, well voiced that is - something you cannot expect from an indie game. I did not pay too much attention to it in the beginning, which I regretted later on, because I could not quite follow some of the side characters story lines. That’s my own fault obviously. The game looks great overall, some of the spell effects in particular. You “charge” up your next attack/dodge/block with spells, which causes a visual effect I sometimes triggered just because it looked good. There is no character levels, you progress through Weapon/Gear/Spell upgrades, Talisman Slots and Runes for Armor. The latter you’ll find, Weapons you can individually craft from the beginning (and change anytime later), which is quite unique. Armor Sets as well as your weapon parts (4x total) or the talismans have some effect, there’s also “until death”-permanent potion effects on top, which combined define your build. Overall, you should have a lot of options if you’re the experimenter type, I stuck to what I liked in the beginning and adjusted accordingly. The game also has a NG+/Hard Mode. Replayability is surely there – since I play these games mostly for their exploration it just does not work me, since that exploration part falls too flat the second time around. It’s the same for all of the Souls games though. Conclusion It genuinely hurts my gaming soul that this game does not seem to get the recognition it deserves . Not just the rating overall, mostly the raw quantity, which I guess is always somewhat of an indicator on how well it sold. One can tell that this is made with love, there is creativity and detail not just in its great world/level design which partially even rivals the Souls series. I want this to be more successful, for the simple (quite selfish) reason the developers make enough profit to have the resources of creating another great game like that. If there’s something I’d ask of you – give it a fair try. I did and I got rewarded.
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This game...don't understand some of the hate or mixed reviews. Best Dungeon design and world building I have ever seen....for a small studio or even ever.....all of the dungeon designs after the tutorial (being made to be relatively standard fair and introductory) are exceptional. Played through in almost one sitting an unmarked dungeon the colossus of Radiance(the other major dungeons have not disappointed either)...wow ...just wow... I did it for the armor piece at the end.... but didn't expect to enjoy the whole experience so much it was a blast. Sure it was was more challenging in every way than I expected with multiple parts to the quest enemies that one shot me before I upgraded a bit (was holding out to upgrade the armor I was aiming for) but it was never drudgery. Loved it from start to finish great well thought out design and gameplay experience. If you want to whine about how this game isn't perfect you will find plenty of reasons, incidentally that's how being critical works, but if you enjoy difficulty, immersive worlds, story-telling, thoughtful dialogue, excellent writing, superb and unique dungeon design and decent combat and customization give this a whirl....but here's the rub you gotta "work" for it - its a game though its not really work. Instant wins aint fun but smashing a boss that gave you trouble a couple hours prior, yeah that's pretty damn satisfying all the while enjoying the experience. Also this is made by a small team and its almost criminal what they could achieve considering the smaller resources vs what the bigger studios *cough* beTHESda *cough* are doing.... admittedly, people are upset over the soulslike combat tag, a bit of a harsh comparison but the devs did include that in their own description maybe think soulsISH...rather than souls-like and that may temper your expectations. *may edit or overhaul this review as I get more time with the game.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 20 November 2024 08:13 |
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| Steam price | 23 December 2024 12:27 |
| Steam reviews | 21 December 2024 23:56 |
Online players
4
Developer
Chashu Entertainment
Publisher
indie.io
Release
27 Oct 2023
Platforms
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