Aya and the Cubes of Light
Price: 1000 Wii Points
These days, a Wiiware game that costs 1000 Wii Points (or AU$10) or more come with certain expectations. We’ve had some fantastic games that have come under this price point, including the innovative Bit.Trip series, Defend Your Castle and the cute Chick Chick BOOM game. Aya and the Cubes of Light is an interesting take on the platforming genre, where your environment is essentially a cube suspended in space. The game makes use of gravity while you navigate the cube to get to your destination, which is a unique feature.
The character you play as is Aya, the daughter of the Cube Corporation who needs to restore energy to the Cubes on each stage. There are three constellations that you will visit, each with 10 cubes to restore. While you essentially play on a 2D playing field, it’s part of a 3D cube with pathways across each sides. Your character will turn and walk across ceilings and vertical walls based on gravity. This is pretty neat, but it leads to tough gameplay, as the wrong jump or move will send you flying off the cube to your doom. You’ll find yourself backtracking through different sides and figuring out the exact path you need to take to solve the puzzle.
There are also enemies that you’ll come across, so you’ll either need to do a Mario jump on them when they are idle or navigate around them. This adds an extra dimension to the game, making it even tougher to navigate the stages.
Unfortunately, there are some issues with the controls in Aya and the Cubes of Light. To jump, you need to flick the Wii Remote up, which can get tiring really quickly based on the precision jumping you need to do, and amount of times you need to use this. Also, instead of pushing a button to activate the cube that you come across, you’ll need to shake the Wii remote around. This is a strange choice to make use of the Wii Remote, but unnecessary with the overall look and feel of the game. The Cube Corporation logo also flashes up more often than necessary (and by this I mean at every single menu and loading screen).
The Final Verdict
Aya and the Cubes of Light is ambitious with its use of gravity and a 3D playing field, but also extremely difficult. If you like the reward that comes with figuring out a Rubik’s Cube or a difficult puzzle, it is for you, otherwise there are better puzzle platformers better out there.
By Jeann Wong
We say: GOOD BUY