Aether & Iron Review Summary

Despite excellent voice acting, stunning art, and engaging tactical combat, frequent crashes, meaningless choices, and poor optimization hold it back.

Excellent voice acting quality: Reviewers consistently praise the full voice acting, noting it is well-done, immersive, and matches the characters. Many highlight the high quality across all characters, including NPCs, with over 200 voiced roles.

Stunning art style: The art and visual design are frequently described as stunning, beautiful, and top-tier, with particular praise for the Art Deco aesthetics and noir atmosphere. The art style is a major highlight for many players.

Engaging tactical combat: Overall combat is described as fun, interesting, and tactically engaging, with a unique turn-based system that stands out. Some mention it is simple but enjoyable.

Great characters and cast: Characters are well-written, memorable, and relatable, with a charismatic protagonist in Gia. The diverse cast is praised for being unique and believable.

Strong story and worldbuilding: The story is enjoyable and engaging, with excellent worldbuilding that enriches the setting. Reviewers highlight the well-crafted narrative and lore.

Choices lack real impact: Player choices have little to no impact on the plot or ending, often leading to the same results regardless of decisions. This reduces the sense of agency and replayability.

Bugs and minor annoyances: Players report encountering a variety of bugs, including minor annoyances and occasional issues requiring reloading saves. These problems detract from the overall experience but are mostly minor in nature.

Poor Chinese localization: Chinese localization is criticized for having mistranslations, grammatical errors, missing subtitles in cutscenes, and text that appears machine-translated. This severely impacts non-English players' understanding of the story.

Poor optimization and performance: The game suffers from poor optimization, including heavy lag, long load times, UI stutters, and constant stuttering. These performance issues hamper the overall gameplay experience.

Repetitive combat encounters: Battles become repetitive after a dozen or so encounters, with limited variety in combat scenarios. This repetition diminishes engagement over the course of the game.

Turn-based car combat system: The game features a unique turn-based tactical combat system where vehicles fight on highways. Players appreciate the car chase mechanics and strategic positioning but note it is a secondary component.

Primarily a visual novel: Players consistently describe the game as a visual novel with combat elements rather than a traditional RPG. The narrative and dialogue are the main focus, with turn-based car combat being a secondary feature.

Narrative and choice-driven gameplay: The game is heavily story-driven with meaningful player choices that affect outcomes. Players enjoy the branching narrative and roleplaying opportunities.

Dice-roll skill check system: Skill checks are resolved using dice rolls with modifiers, similar to tabletop RPGs. This adds tension and variety to conversations and actions.

Lightweight turn-based tactics: The combat is described as lightweight and not as deep as full tactical games. It serves as a complement to the visual novel style rather than a complex system.

Frequent crashes and freezes: Multiple users report frequent crashes and freezes during gameplay, particularly on the main menu and when loading saves. This is the most common issue, suggesting a significant stability problem.

Poor overall optimization: Players consistently describe the game as poorly optimized, citing general stuttering, lag, and frame drops. This issue affects a wide range of hardware, from low-end PCs to gaming laptops.

Long and sluggish loading times: Loading times are reported as excessively long, especially from the main menu and when switching scenes. Some players note that loading times increase over time, making the problem worse.

Lag and frame drops over time: Players report that the game becomes increasingly laggy as they progress, with frame drops becoming more common in later stages or transitions. This suggests a memory leak or cumulative performance issue.

Stuttering during gameplay: Many users experience frequent stuttering during general gameplay, even on systems with high frame rates. This constant stuttering disrupts the flow of the game.

Strong story-driven appeal: Players highly recommend this game for its narrative focus, strong dialogues, and atmospheric presentation. It is especially praised for text-heavy stories and attention to detail.

Great turn-based combat: The game is recommended for fans of turn-based combat combined with narrative choice RPGs. Players enjoy the strategic gameplay alongside the story.

Try the demo first: A common suggestion is to play the demo before buying, as the game may not appeal to everyone. The demo helps players decide if the style suits them.

Game-breaking bugs present: Some players report critical bugs that make the game unplayable, leading to negative recommendations. They advise waiting for fixes before purchasing.

Wait for patches and sales: Due to bugs and pricing, many suggest waiting for updates or a sale before buying. This reflects caution about the current state of the game.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $20.00.

Game completion: 36.0h.

Story completion: 30.0h.

Players generally find the early game challenging due to tricky combat and poor tutorials, but enjoyment improves significantly once mechanics are understood or upon reaching the second island.

Friction: combat too risky early; tutorials insufficient; atmosphere weak at start; car combat tricky at first; poor coding/initial bugs; progression system awkward.

Unlock drivers: learning combat mechanics; understanding talent system; experiencing the second island; multiple attempts to grasp mechanics.

Narrative-Driven Story Buff: Reads dialogue carefully, makes roleplaying decisions, and appreciates atmospheric setting; combat is secondary. Motivation: Engaging story, well-written characters, and meaningful choices. Stance: buy.

Turn-Based Combat Skeptic: Tries to engage with combat optimization but is disappointed; may lower difficulty or focus on story to compensate. Motivation: Strategic challenge and rewarding combat systems. Stance: sale.

CRPG Purist: Analyzes narrative branches and roleplaying opportunities; disengaged when linearity and shallow choices are evident. Motivation: Seeking deep narrative, literary quality, and consequential choices akin to Disco Elysium. Stance: no buy.

Performance is generally poor across most hardware ranges, with stuttering, lag, and crashes reported, though the 8-11GB VRAM cohort indicates only minor issues.

Windows <8GB VRAM: negative. Multiple reports of stuttering, lag, crashes, and save corruption, with poor optimization noted even in recommended reviews.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: negative. Reviews mention menu stutters and frame drops, advising to wait for optimization.

Windows 16GB+ VRAM: negative. Players experience lag and poor optimization, though they still recommend the game overall.

Steam Deck: The game suffers from severe performance degradation over time, frequent crashes, save corruption, black screen scenarios, incomplete localization, and problematic cloud save behavior. While the narrative and presentation receive praise, technical issues dominate the user experience, particularly on Steam Deck.

Game length varies widely: Playthrough times reported range from 18 to 37 hours, with most averaging around 25-30 hours. Some players found it short while others considered it long.

Compared to Disco Elysium: Players often compare the game to Disco Elysium, noting that while it shares some narrative depth, it is more character-focused and less theme-focused. Some feel the marketing overemphasized this similarity.

Demo available with carryover: A free demo is available that includes the first few hours of gameplay, and progress can be carried over to the full version. This allows players to try before buying.

Patches fixed some issues: The game has received multiple patches post-release, addressing crashes and save problems. However, some save-related bugs may still occur.

Aetherpunk New York setting: The game is set in an alternate history 1930s New York with aether and iron technology, featuring floating islands and art deco style. This unique setting is a major appeal.