Ahro (Switch) Review

Available on Switch and Steam by Nakana.io and Oeh Interactive, Ahro is a 2D side-scrolling adventure with a message. Containing a similar level of emotion found in Journey of the Broken Circle, Lydia, and Infini, other Nakana releases, Ahro is bigger than the sum of its parts.

The simple Microsoft Paint-like visual style and barely-there soundtrack enhances the experience, keeping the message at the forefront. You see, Ahro suffers from horrible anxiety breakdowns and is searching for a legendary miracle cure. This means the player is constantly competing against a countdown timer, one that can be momentarily delayed by picking up circles (herbs?)  along the way. Once the meter nears the empty point, bad things start to happen.

While the message focuses on drug use, the gameplay is essentially an adventure game with the goal of collecting things to gain access to the next stage. Ahro simply walks left and right, collects circles to stave off the darkness, and eventually will encounter platforms in which he transforms into a flying triangle. During these flying segments, more of those circles can be collected but it ultimately acts as transportation to the next platform, allowing access to previously unreachable areas.

Without any combat, leveling up, and even platforming, the entire experience is all about slowly walking from one area to the next until all collectables are found. Unfortunately, this becomes a lesson is tedium because finding the collectable shards is often more cumbersome than it needs to be. The player can only save when save cubes are found too, usually only a couple in each level.

Perhaps this can better be explained through my experience. Since the simple gameplay is so unique, the first stage essentially acts as a trial-and-error tutorial. Once you figure out what the game wants you to do, completing stage two is more of the same. Things changed when I hit stage three though. After wandering back and forth for a couple hours, I couldn’t find any more collectables, having my sanity meter deplete numerous times not due to my fault as there just are not enough circles to collect. Honestly, I stopped caring because I simply didn’t want to slowly walk out of my way to collect more then aimlessly wander in hopes of finding where I needed to go.

Then I rage quit and deleted the game from my SD card because I couldn’t figure out where to go or how to do it. Two hours of making no progress is already way beyond my limit. There is a map, which is helpful, but it doesn’t indicate what/how/where you should be going. There is a point in level three where you are supposed to fly the triangle to another platform, but the game doesn’t give you enough time to reach that pillar, essentially soft locking the game. After trial-and-erroring this for way longer than I care to admit, my personal sanity meter depleted further than the green moo moo wearing main character; I was also ready to start taking drugs of my own.

It sort of breaks my heart because the experimental gameplay is unique, emotional, and rather interesting with its wordless narrative. However, there is no denying the frustrating unbalance. Going out of your way to constantly collect circles, because you simply don’t know where to go, gets annoying quickly especially when the flying segments demand an unnecessary level of perfection.  Slowly walking from one side of the stage to the other, hoping to find the correct path leading to the item, is boring when there is nothing to do too getting from Point A to Point B. Ahro’s messaging is powerfully presented but only if the player has the tenacity to shuffle through the tedium.

Also Play: Mythic Ocean

Better Than: scanning a QR code at a restaurant to view the menu

Don’t Forget About: Cosmic Top Secret

By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com

X/Twitter: @ZackGaz

Please consider supporting me on Patreon or BuyMeACoffee.