For years, endless runner games have been a great way to pass the time, consistently presenting players with challenges, but lacking any real narrative to keep them invested in the games' universes. Previously, such runner-type games have been limited to mobile devices, but Aerial_Knight's Never Yield sets out to break these boundaries. The not-so-endless runner was featured during Nintendo's Indie World Showcase presentation last month, promising a slick new take on the runner genre.
Created and developed by Neil Jones, also known as Aerial_Knight, Never Yield is a 3D side-scroller where players perform acrobatic moves to stylishly avoid a variety of objects blocking their path. And while Aerial_Knight's Never Yield is cool to the core, it fails to present a more substantial and engaging gameplay experience, ultimately falling flat in the long run.
The game follows Wally, a mysterious young individual who finds himself on the run from enemies through a 90s-inspired futuristic Detroit after uncovering deep secrets capable of changing the city as he knows it. Presented only through brief cutscenes without any lines of spoken dialogue, Never Yield's story leaves a lot to be interpreted by players, which can understandably leave just as many doors closed as it can open, depending on what players can infer.
Aerial_Knight's Never Yield color-codes each of the 4 directional buttons on a controller or keyboard to a certain action, making for an incredibly simple pick-up-and-play control scheme. As players run from left-to-right, they can press "right" to dash through blue windows and past enemies chasing them, press "up" to jump over taller red obstacles and down to lower rooftops, press "down" to slide underneath purple enemies and low gaps, and press "left" to vault through yellow openings and over mid-height objects.
While inputting the wrong action for a particular object typically results in failure, it's worth mentioning that some objects can be avoided with more than one input. Additionally, some fairly early or late inputs may be passed off by the game as successful, and although both of these instances are forgiving, it does come off as rather purpose-defeating, especially when considering the game's overall lack of challenge.
When beginning the game or choosing to start a level, players can select from Normal Mode, Hard Mode, or Insane. While Normal Mode gives players both plenty of time to react thanks to a slowdown and a warning for what button to press, Hard Mode gives players a slightly shorter slowdown along with a warning, and Insane removes both the slowdown and warning altogether, adding even more obstacles for players to avoid. It's quite easy to get into the flow of avoiding obstacles, so players will likely graduate from Normal Mode or Hard Mode in just a couple of levels.
However, it sometimes feels like Insane should be the baseline difficulty setting in Aerial_Knight's Never Yield. While pulling off trick stunts to avoid obstacle after obstacle in succession can be satisfying, the game quickly becomes incredibly repetitive and somewhat mindless. Not only are new obstacles rarely introduced throughout the game, but after they are, they'll appear more and more frequently throughout the rest of the levels, quickly losing any novelty. Many of the environments are recycled on occasion as well, with no real feeling of progressing difficulty. At times, it seems as though a level in the beginning of the game could be swapped with one later on, and it would go largely unnoticed.
Of course, Aerial_Knight's Never Yield does make some much-needed efforts to switch things up from time to time, such as featuring a level that has players running vertically up a building, or one that occasionally mirrors their direction. Here is where Never Yield's gameplay is most enjoyable, as players are presented with new perspectives while attempting to maintain the same control scheme. It can be difficult not to want to press "right" to slide when running up a building, or press "back" to dash forward when the perspective is mirrored to right-to-left.
Aside from Never Yield's mysterious narrative, not much else is really pushing the player towards completion. The game does provide players with a timer that ticks throughout levels and their entire playthrough so that they can attempt to improve on each of their runs, but this ultimately comes with no sort of in-game reward or even bragging rights, as online leaderboards are noticeably absent from the game. Features such as power-ups, the ability to chain together combos, or even some sort of time attack mode would be welcome additions as well.
While rather lacking in substance, Aerial_Knight's Never Yield provides an incredibly stylish presentation. The low-poly art style fused with hints of a comic theme makes for a very unique feel not previously explored in the runner genre, while fitting Never Yield's overall gritty but funky vibe perfectly. However, while most of the game runs smoothly, animations in certain cutscenes can feel incredibly stiff, coupled with occasional dips in framerate. Some abrupt soundtrack changes between cutscenes and levels can also be jarring but certainly don't take away from the soundtrack as a whole.
Composed by Detroit artist Danime-Sama and accompanied by a wealth of different vocalists from track to track, Never Yield's soundtrack stands out among other 2021 titles. Pumping hip-hop beats met with cool jazz band sounds, rhythmic guitar, and some inspiring vocals can make it feel like Wally is running with purpose, really fitting the game's "never give up" motif. That said, any sort of sound design seems nearly absent, as the soundtrack almost completely drowns out all of Never Yield's sound effects.
Aerial_Knight's Never Yield presents a fresh take on the runner genre but is ultimately held back by repetitive gameplay that fails to present any real engaging challenge to players. The game boasts a unique style, equally intriguing narrative, and a head-bopping soundtrack, but ends up falling flat in terms of gameplay.
Aerial_Knight's Never Yield is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X. Game ZXC was provided a PC code for this review.
Game ZXC reviewed Aerial_Knight's Never Yield on the Neuron 4000D from Origin PC. Origin offers a variety of customizable PCs that can meet any gamers' needs. Read more about the Neuron here.
