Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield Review

For years, endless runner games have been a great way to pass the time, constantly presenting challenges to players, but without any real narrative to keep them invested in the universes of game. Previously, these types of runner games were limited to mobile devices, but Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield sets out to break these boundaries. The endless runner was featured at Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase presentation last month, promising a great new take on the runner genre. Created and developed by Neil Jones, also known as Aerial_Knight, Never Yield is a 3D side-scroller where players perform acrobatic moves to stylishly avoid various objects in their path. And while Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield is cool at heart, it fails to present a more solid and engaging gameplay experience, which ultimately falls flat in the long run. The game follows Wally, a mysterious young individual who escapes from enemies through 90s-inspired futuristic Detroit after discovering deep secrets capable of changing the city as he knows it. Presented only through short cutscenes without any lines of spoken dialogue, the story of Never Yield leaves many interpretations by players, which can understandably leave as many doors closed as it can open. , depending on what the players can deduce. Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield color-codes each of the 4 directional buttons on a controller or keyboard to a specific action, making for an incredibly simple pick-up-and-play control scheme. As players run from left to right, they can press “right” to dash through blue windows and past enemies chasing them, press “up” to jump over higher red obstacles and down to lower ones. low roofs, press “down” to slide under purple enemies and low gaps, and press “left” to vault through yellow gaps and mid-height objects. While inputting the wrong action for a particular object usually results in failure, it is worth mentioning that some objects can be avoided with more than one input. Additionally, some relatively early or late inputs can be passed off by the game as successful, and while both of these instances are forgivable, it comes off as a bit of a letdown, especially when considering the general lack of game challenge. When starting the game or choosing to start a level, players can choose from Normal Mode, Hard Mode, or Insane. While Normal Mode gives players the same amount of time to react thanks to a slowdown and a warning for what button to press, Hard Mode gives players a slightly shorter slowdown along with a warning, and Insane removes both slow and warning, adding more obstacles for players to avoid. It’s very easy to get into the flow of avoiding obstacles, so players are likely to graduate from Normal Mode or Hard Mode within just a few levels. RELATED: Independent Games Festival Announces 2021 Awards Nominees However, it sometimes feels like Insane should be the baseline difficulty setting on Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield. While pulling off trick stunts to avoid obstacle after obstacle can be fun, the game quickly becomes repetitive and a bit mindless. Not only are new obstacles rarely introduced throughout the game, but after them, they appear more and more often throughout the rest of the levels, quickly losing anything new. Many of the environments are also recycled from time to time, with no real sense of difficulty progression. Sometimes, it seems that one level at the beginning of the game can be replaced by the next one, and this is hardly noticeable. Of course, Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield makes some much-needed efforts to change things up from time to time, such as featuring a level with players running vertically through a building, or one that occasionally reflect their direction. This is where Never Yield’s gameplay is most enjoyable, as players are presented with new perspectives while trying to maintain the same control scheme. It can be difficult not to press “right” to slide when running through a building, or press “back” to move forward when the perspective is mirrored right-left. Aside from the magical narrative of Never Yield, nothing else really drives the player towards completion. The game gives players a timer that ticks off levels and their entire playthrough so they can try to improve each of their runs, but it ultimately lacks any sort of in-game reward or even rights to bragging rights, as online leaderboards are conspicuously absent from the game. Features like power-ups, the ability to chain combos together, or even some sort of time attack mode are also welcome additions. Although somewhat lacking in substance, Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield gives an incredibly stylish performance. The low-poly art style combined with hints of a comic book theme makes for a very unique feel that hasn’t been explored before in the runner genre, while Never Yield fits the overall gritty but fun vibe . However, while most of the game runs smoothly, the animations in some cutscenes can feel incredibly stiff, along with the occasional drop in framerate. Some sudden soundtrack changes between cutscenes and levels can also be jarring but certainly don’t take away from the soundtrack altogether. Composed by Detroit artist Danime-Sama and accompanied by a wide variety of vocalists from track to track, Never Yield’s soundtrack stands out from the rest of 2021’s titles. The pumping hip-hop beats met by cool jazz band sounds, rhythmic guitars, and some inspiring vocals can make Wally feel like he’s running with a purpose, which really fits the game’s “never give up” motif. That said, any sort of sound design seems almost non-existent, as the soundtrack almost completely drowns out all of Never Yield’s sound effects. Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield presents a fresh take on the runner genre but is ultimately held back by repetitive gameplay that fails to present any truly engaging challenge to players. The game boasts a unique style, an equally intriguing narrative, and a head-bopping soundtrack, but ends up falling short in terms of gameplay. Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield is now available for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X. Today Technology was provided a PC code for this review. Today Technology reviewed Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield on Neuron 4000D from Origin PC. Origin offers a variety of customizable PCs that can meet any gamers’ needs. Read more about Neuron here. MORE: The Best Switch Indie Games For Sale On The Nintendo eShop