Sands Of Aura Preview (Steam Early Access)

by Jim Smale · October 21, 2021

Our Sands of Aura preview takes on this 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 sand seas 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 Preview Pros:

Decent graphics.
8.39GB download size.
Controller support.
Graphics – full screen, resolution, texture quality, post-processing quality, v-sync, shader quality, framerate, effects, shadows, and depth of field.
Can Invert axis and sensitivity sliders.
Rebind controls for both the keyboard and the controller buttons.
Four save slots.
Character creator – body type, face, skin color, hairstyle, hair color, beard style, and beard color.
Action RPG gameplay.
In-game cutscenes.
Can skip the cutscenes.
Good voice works in the cutscenes.
Tutorial tiles to interact with.
Full 3D camera control.
Multiple choice interactions.
Testament bells – used as a flask and have limited use to refill your health.
Spell blade – embue a spell gem into your sword to charge it up and unleash powerful new attacks for a limited time.
Upon death, you drop all your credits.
Areas are huge and let you explore and navigate at will.

Sands Of Aura Preview Cons:

Doesn’t use controller buttons and instead just describes them so things like left should, second face button, etc for rebinding.
No Steam achievements yet.
Text will have default tags showing.
Bad performance with a lot of screen tearing and occasional slowdown.
You can get hit and killed when reading the tutorial pop-ups.
Tutorials miss out on key questions like blocking, no sorry I mean they leave it way too late to tell you.
You cannot zoom the camera in only spin it around making it hard to see enemies.
The combat feels very loose and spammy.
You cannot change direction as you attack.
A lot of text.
Constant difficulty spikes.
Timing attacks and Parries are hard.

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