Aerial_Knight’s We Never Yield PC Review
Summary: An enjoyable game at its core that is riddled with bugs that suck that fun out of the experience, making it a difficult sell at the moment.
2.8
Buggy
Aerial_Knight’s We Never Yield is the sequel to the similarly titled and solo-developed, Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield. Published by Headup Games once again, We Never Yield sticks to the same template as the previous title.
For those unfamiliar with the previous game, the Never Yield series are essentially endless runners (albeit not endless in this case.) Games where the forward momentum is handled for the player and dealing with various obstacles is the order of the day.
As the player is propelled forward, pressing an appropriate face button on the controller handles what is thrown at them. The A button slides under obstacles, B attacks – breaking down walls and defeating enemies, Y jumps over hurdles and the X button, which is seldom used, is an activation button of sorts, filling in various roles as needed.
So, what has We Never Yield added to the formula to differentiate it from its predecessor? Co-op is the most obvious new addition. The entire game can now be tackled simultaneously by two players in couch co-op or online via Steam’s Remote Play Together feature.
Regardless of whether the game is played solo or with a friend, the second player’s character is always on screen running alongside you, and the single-player element of the game has been updated to take this into account.
Three modes of play exist for the story, solo, the aforementioned co-op, and a ‘chill’ mode. The former sees the player controller both characters simultaneously, with the face buttons controlling one character and the d-pad commanding the other. Chill mode sees the AI taking over the second character, leaving the player with only one to control.
This is where the first of We Never Yield’s many problems occur. Actually, it isn’t, but I’ll get to that shortly. At present, d-pad prompts for the game simply do not work. It could be because I’m not using an official Xbox controller, but rather the Thrustmaster ESWAP X2 Pro Controller I reviewed here on Impulse Gamer a while back.
I did, however, notice that other people have complained about the issue as well. The problem is that d-pad inputs only show as a white square, rather than a direction. This is only a problem in the tutorial as once it’s completed other methods of displaying the prompts are used, but it’s somewhat essential when teaching a new player how to play the game.
Bugs are even present before that point, the title screen currently doesn’t respond to any controller inputs whatsoever, along with a few other random screens throughout the game.
Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Hit detection, or the hitboxes themselves are occasionally a bit hit-and-miss. It’s not uncommon to (visually at least) completely clear a jump or slide, only for the game to declare it a failure, and therefore a death, regardless. At one point in the second episode, I had this consistently happen in the same place and only ceased after a full restart of the stage.
Graphics and objects around the stage would often flicker in and out of existence, lights, grass tufts, crates and rocks, and other miscellaneous scenery, would vanish as they went by. Sometimes they’d pop back in, sometimes not. Animations occasionally broke, the ‘up’ section of a jump looks like it’s missing frames somewhere and consequently looks choppy, and player models (especially the second character) frequently clip into the scenery.
Each of the 15 levels, set across five episodes ends very abruptly, with no musical sting or fanfare. A simple cut to a stats screen, followed by the next stage starting just as abruptly as the previous one ended. Credit where it is due, though, the music in most of these stages is great. Each stage takes three to five minutes depending on difficulty, meaning the entire game can be beaten in an hour or two depending on individual skill, with higher difficulties and challenge maps, adding some length and replayability.
Final Thoughts
What’s most frustrating is that almost none of these issues occur in the first game, or at least nowhere near as regularly. Neil Jones (the man behind the Aerial_Knight pseudonym) is very capable of making a good game, as demonstrated by his previous title, Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield. So, how the sequel, We Never Yield ended up so unpolished is a mystery.
If the litany of bugs can be patched then there’s a solid title here, even if it isn’t all too different from its predecessor. When everything clicks into place and the bugs behave themselves for five minutes, it’s easy to get into a flow that can be very enjoyable, especially on the higher difficulties where the challenge ramps up.
Unfortunately, though, this is the exception rather than the rule, and as such Aerial Knight’s We Never Yield is difficult to recommend at the moment.
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