Chasing Aurora (Wii U) Review

Chasing Aurora is best described as an aerial-action game, in which players take on the role of various birds and fly around gorgeous 2D mountainous landscapes. Most of the fun will be had in the game's multiplayer, which allows for up to five players to participate in various different game modes.

People may take one look at Chasing Aurora and disregard it due to its simplicity, but this game has a fair amount of content on offer, it's just a shame that only around a quarter of that content is playable in single player. The Challenge mode, which sees players flying through various checkpoints to get the best score, feels like it was tacked on after the main aspect of the game had been finished, the multiplayer. The score obtained in each of the Challenge levels is determined by how many checkpoints players fly through before the timer runs out. There are twenty levels to be played through in Challenge and at the end of each one you are rewarded with a star ranking, the best being three stars. Once these levels have been completed, the only incentive to replay them is to attain a three star rank on them. There are no online leader-boards and the only way to share scores is via the screenshot feature found in Miiverse.

As progress is made, the difficulty of levels increases, but the main gameplay element remains the same. This could get pretty boring for most players, since it just involves flying through checkpoints that are placed around the level in a circuit. This gets more frustrating in the snowy levels, when the checkpoints can barely be seen due to them also being white -- whether this is a bad design choice or an intentional obstacle remains unknown, but it does get quite annoying.

The meatier side of the package is contained within the game's local multiplayer modes. There are three in total; Hide & Seek, Freeze Tag, and Chase. Each of these can be played with up to five players, with four using Wii Remotes and one using the Wii U GamePad. This is where the game uses asymmetric gameplay, one of the key features of the console spoken about by Nintendo at E3 earlier in the year.

Hide & Seek is exactly what would be expected; the player with the GamePad is the one that "hides" and the players using a Wii Remote are the seekers, trying to catch the pesky bird. The player using the GamePad turns into a golden bird and must keep their distance from the others, as well as protecting a golden gem. If the golden bird is hit by environmental objects, it will drop the gem and other players will get the chance to pick it up to increase their current score. This game mode is definitely one of the more fun areas of the game, though even with two people each multiplayer mode can prove to be a little underwhelming. For the best results, playing each mode with four to five people is the way to get a lot of enjoyment from Chasing Aurora.

Freeze Tag is basically Hide & Seek, but this time the player using the GamePad controls an ice bird that freezes other birds it comes into contact with. Therefore, like Hide & Seek, except the GamePad and Wii Remote roles have been switched around. As with Hide & Seek, the player using the GamePad views their own bird on the screen, putting further emphasis on the term asymmetric gameplay. Freeze Tag usually ends quite quickly, because as soon as the Ice Bird "tags" another player's bird, that player will be out for the rest of the round.

The third and final game mode is Chase, which pits players against each other and gets rid of the asymmetric gameplay. Players will start off with their birds scattered around a golden gem and when the game begins, the first person to get the gem will have to fly away from the other players. The interesting part of this mode is that the screen scrolls along with the gem carrier, meaning that if other players can't catch up, they will find themselves out of the playing field. When this happens, a message will appear on the screen, telling the player to get back in the gameplay view. They will have a few seconds to get back into the game and if the timer runs out, they lose one of their three lives. However, if a player catches up with the gem carrier, they will be able to steal the gem from them by simply flying into it.

Whilst non-GamePad players can play with a Wii Remote on its side, they can also play with the Classic Controller Pro, and the Wii Remote and Nunchuck combination. The Wii U Pro Controller is not currently supported, but a comment posted on Miiverse by one of Broken Rules' developers strongly suggests that it will be available in the future.