In AER Memories of Old we follow young girl Auk on her pilgrimage through the Land of Gods. The old Evil which caused a great disaster to the land of her ancestors is slowly creeping back and shows its dark presence around the world. She has to visit old temples and seek help from long forgotten gods. Her journey will take her around the broken world which now consists of clusters or lonesome flying islands. There she will find memories of old and maybe a hope for the future.

Main aspect of the game is Auk's bird shapeshifting ability, with it we are free to explore the broken world and go everywhere we want. Just jump off the edge of the island (or simply into air) and change into a bird. And then… fly. I have heard that dreams about flying are the best (not sure I ever had any), but now I can understand it a little, because flying in AER feels so amazing! I have enjoyed simply soaring in the skies and watching my shadow running on the land below or diving headfirst into the clouds and piercing through them. It was a joy!
The controls were a little bit confusing at the beginning, but once you grow accustomed to them nothing stops you from exploring the vast skies. To land you have to change into human again and doing it at high speed can lead to missing the island utterly so you have to change into bird, circle the island and then go on the landing again, but with more islands you land on the better you get with it. You don't have to be afraid of dying when you fall off or fly beyond the threshold or you slam into the land, you are pretty much safe in doing anything. :)
When you are not high in the skies you can search the islands for ghostly remains of the past or notes of previous shapeshifters, both of which can shed some light on the events that happened a long time ago. When you have explored enough or just want to move forward in the story, you have to visit old temple ruins and solve puzzles to uncover their secrets. The puzzles are not hard, which isn't bad as it doesn't disturb the calm mood of the game.

The relaxing experience of flying around is intensified with a beautiful soundtrack which nicely corresponds to the game atmosphere. I found the simplistic graphics rather appealing, it's very colorful and every region offers different surroundings. Controls can be somewhat clumsy, but nothing serious. The game can be completed really quickly I suppose, but I really liked flying around and just exploring the islands. It was great fun.
The ending was a little abrupt though and no definite answer was given to us. There are hints through the game on what's gonna happen, but we will never know for sure. To say the truth I though there's gonna be some post credit scene about the world and its inhabitants, which would offer a closure to a great mysterious story, but sadly we are left in dark.

Silence is a sequel to The Whispered World, so it's very much advisable to play the first game before the second one as lot of The Whispered World's events and characters will get mentioned or even will make their appearance. But the true feeling of nostalgia will kick in once you hear the iconic main music track from the first game and see the beautiful background visuals. And of course, once you hatch Spot. <3

Silence is an adventure game where you get to play as three different characters - Noah, his little sister Renie (she is a real sweetheart) and Spot. Both Noah's and Renie's characters are greatly written and especially Noah undertakes a serious development through the story. As the game is focused on the storytelling and on heavy emotions the gameplay is sadly rather shallow. You have no inventory and the items you find get used mostly on the same screen. There are few (very few) traditional logical puzzles, attention is mostly focused on interaction with the surroundings. I got stuck once, but it was mostly of a bad game design as I wanted to perform an action, but before that I had to perform two other actions even though they were completely unnecessary for the result.

The highlights of the Silence are great main characters, beautiful soundtrack and gorgeous hand painted graphics. I was a little bit afraid of the 3D characters, but it worked nicely in the end. The story adapts the same theme as the first game, this time without its “wow effect”, but the idea is still very strong to carry another whole similar storyline. Weakest point are side characters whom we meet right at the beginning. Even though we can select in what way to interact with them and their characters develop somehow it all leads into a big nothingness. Their whole presence in the game is pretty much without any meaning and if they wouldn't be there it would have pretty much the same effect. It's rather sad, because in The Whispered World all important characters got their conclusion during the credits (it was a touching moment). Not this time though and all we can do is ask why they were even there.

To obtain all of the achievements you have to play it twice at least. Some of them are rather tricky so beware as you can't simply load it up. There is only an auto save, which is pretty much disappointing and sometimes leads to replaying a whole scene again as it saves only in certain moments - once you start doing some scene, you better not leave in the middle of it.

I have enjoyed the Silence even though it in some moments felt like a weaker sibling of The Whispered World. The nostalgic note plays well with me, I admit that.