Fans of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dark Souls Can’t Miss This Xbox RPG

When it comes to immersive RPGs, both Dark Souls and Baldur’s Gate 3 have incredibly detailed experiences that are hard for any other game to match. However, one of Xbox’s recent launches has a chance to do exactly that, combining challenging combat with crunchy character building that is akin to something you’d see from a tabletop game. With a mysterious world to explore as well, this title could easily become a fan-favorite in a short amount of time.

On paper, the idea of a game that takes inspiration from Baldur’s Gate 3 and Dark Souls makes complete sense due to how both titles approach character creation. Complex character builds from BG3 are tied largely to D&D rules, while Dark Souls uses its own array of stat interactions to inform where your strengths and weaknesses are. The best CRPG titles out there also adopt this formula, giving players tons of creative freedom in how their character acts.

Sands of Aura Combines Soulslike Combat With CRPG Character Building Mechanics

Sands of Aura is an open-world action-adventure title, but has mechanics that are closer to a dark fantasy RPG than what you’d normally expect. This game places you in a world where the sea has disappeared, leaving a strech of endless sands that connect a series of islands together. Exploration of this land is crucial to discovering a way to save it, with a non-linear story giving you plenty of freedom of choice concerning that singular goal.

The Dark Souls inspiration for Sands of Aura comes from how progress is only rewarded from skillful progression and mastery of the game’s systems. Unlike the Souls games, a lot of the information in Sands of Aura is presented to you in up-front ways, rather than through vague fragments of lore only gained by those who actively look into the hidden details. However, there are still moments of natural discovery, with zero minimaps or quest markers helping you navigate the sandseas.

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The combat loop of this game is very similar to Dark Souls in how it creates a flow between attacking, dodging, blocking, parrying, and using magical abilities to win battles. Learning the fundamentals opens the door for you to expand your playstyle, either through specific weapons and spells or from meaningful talismans or other gear that change up how your character fights. The variety of possible options in combat are paired with a strong fundamental core to battles that gives players a deep system to learn.

With its release on Xbox, Sands of Aura has made new tweaks to its combat to make it smoother than ever. New targeting systems allow players to rapidly move from target to target, approaching battles in direct ways given the space of certain areas. Reliable execution of skills make for a smoother experience, making it easier to maintain a “flow state” of combat that only gets better as you unlock more techniques throughout the game.

Deep Customization Combines With Crunchy Character Building For An Immersive Experience

The action RPG nature of Sands of Aura extends to its character customization, which bears a resemblance to Baldur’s Gate 3 in a number of ways. Much like a traditional CRPG, Sands of Aura allows for incredibly deep character builds that are vastly different from one another. The combination of certain skills can lead to truly broken strategies, with developer Chashu Entertainment encouraging players to “break” the game in several ways using creative ideas.

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This adds a personal layer to your character, whose battle style and strengths reflect your own preferences in Sands of Aura. With so many secret islands across the sandseas, there will be places for more unorthodox builds to shine due to how many unique landscapes you’ll visit. Recent changes have made character building even more fun, with reduced friction between choosing certain paths and experimenting a little. With tuned down bosses and enemies, you never need to feel like you have to choose the “best” character options available to succeed.

Tweaks to enemy difficulty have also made the game less punishing, giving players more room to try out new builds without fear of dying instantly. This makes Sands of Aura a game where you can do almost anything down to last, minute detail, without the added fear of grinding to reach a build’s potential. At nearly every stage of play, builds in this game can be exciting, offering unique routes for your character to express themselves across the various islands they explore.

With an emphasis on trial and error, character builds in this game are a call back to a classic era of RPGs, where there was more flexibility in customization. This is what makes Sands of Aura so special, with its inspirations of Dark Souls and Baldur’s Gate 3 crafting a great title for fans of multiple genres to try.

Will you be trying out Sands of Aura in the near future? Leave a comment below or join the conversation in the ComicBook Forum!